The Dangers of Religious Hypnosis and Indoctrination: The genocidal faiths of Christianity & Islam.

reply to post by IAMIAM


Dear friend, YOU keep talking about the laws that don't apply anymore. I am speaking about God's character as described in the OT. Do you see the dilema? If you don't, you don't need to reply.

Be well!

I am not a Christian, I am a follower of Christ. There is a difference, but even if that label offends you then I can part with that too and simply say I AM.

reply to post by IAMIAM


Could you explain the difference?

Originally posted by AllIsOne
Could you explain the difference?

Well I am an initiated Palero for one. This is a Priest of the Afro-Caribbean tradition of Palomayombe.
Two, I do not look at Christ as a deity to be worshipped. I see him as my Brother.
Three, I follow Christ's teachings, not because he is THE God, but because his teachings are true.

These are enough differences for now.

With Love,

Your Brother

Originally posted by AllIsOne
reply to post by IAMIAM

 

Dear friend, YOU keep talking about the laws that don't apply anymore. I am speaking about God's character as described in the OT. Do you see the dilema? If you don't, you don't need to reply.

Be well!

I understand you now my friend.

God is within you, he speaks through you.

The Prophets in the Old Testament were speaking how God came through them. The problem here is when ever someone speaks for God, they always put their own bias on his words. In the case of the Old Testament, it was a bias that favored the Jews.

On the other side of the pacific, there were Native Americans at the same time who were speaking to the Great Spirit on behalf of their tribe. Same spirit, different tribal twist.

Christ spoke to God without any tribal bias. He spoke God's word to Jew and Gentile alike. If native Americans were present, they would have been included as well.

This is another reason why the Jews rejected what he had to say. His testimony did not favor THEM exclusively.

Does that make sense?

With Love,

Your Brother

reply to post by IAMIAM


Semantics, the killer of true communication ... Now I do understand. My definition, through the tinted glasses of Catholicism, of Christ is very different from yours. Thanks for being patient

Originally posted by Equinox99
reply to post by Lucifer777

 

Okay can you provide me with a modern day implementation of the barbarism which the Bible speaks of? Keep in mind that backward countries will have backward laws. Places like Pakistan are stuck about 400-500 years behind the rest of the world. You keep talking about how the Bible asks you to kill and hurt people and etc. can you provide me with evidence for people following those laws to the teeth?

Actually I have never suggested that Biblical fanatics actually follow the Biblical Laws; on the contrary there are probably as many different interpretations of what Biblical fanaticism is as there are Biblical fanatics.

Generally a "Christian" is "always," without any exception in human history that I am aware of, a person who rejects the teachings of Jesus and Moses and whose beliefs are simply based on a selective "quote mining" and "cherry picking" of the Biblical texts.

For example a Christian might come across the passage where the Biblical Law demands execution for homo-erotic behaviour and use that to justify their homophobia, but when they come across the passage which demands execution for working on the Sabbath (Friday sunset till Saturday sunset) they will conveniently ignore that.

"Carry neither gold, nor silver, nor brass in your purses, neither two robes, neither shoes, nor yet a staff."
Mt 10’

The religionist is really an anti-philosopher, not in the sense that they do not have a philosophy, but in the sense that they reject the philosophical method and thus can generally hold two contradictory beliefs at the same time.
For example it is common for a Christian to take the view that the teachings of Jesus are eternal unchanging perfect truths which shall last until the end of time and which are as relevant today as they were 2000 years ago; but this is only until they come accross a passage which they do not agree with, and in that case they usually argue that his teachings were only relevant to the people whom he was addressing 2000 years aog.

Originally posted by Equinox99
reply to post by Lucifer777

 

Okay can you provide me with a modern day implementation of the barbarism which the Bible speaks of.

Sometimes a "picture paints a 1000 words."

Lux

reply to post by Lucifer777


Why exactly is it just islam and christianity?

Let me guess, your jewish right?

reply to post by Lucifer777


"but in the sense that they reject the philosophical method and thus can generally hold two contradictory beliefs at the same time. "

If reality is infinite, then there must be duality and paradox. Since infinity equals everything and its opposite.
I think if we were truely able to understand reality, we would have to be able to deal with or comprehend contradictions.

reply to post by VonDoomen


they'd only be contradictions with what we currently know, that always happens as we improve science, and "supernatural" becomes natural.

Infinity is a possibility, i don't think it's implies duality. A God implies duality> God vs Satan, Hell vs Heaven, "Sin" vs "virtue"

It's an attempt to polarize morality, some people cave in because of such false fear and false hope, i say it's deception of the spirit, of the human mind.

I can't prove reality is inifinity, but i'd sooner trust that concept than some magical entity. Besides, a creator/source ends up running into an infinite regress, and mathematical concepts such as the mandelbrot set or the fibonnacci sequence imply infinity, and theres similar contructs in nature itself.

I'd say if you going to make an unfalsifiable hypothesis, infinity at least has been formed by mathetmatical logic, potentially using empirical evidence like a the maths of flower petals etc.

reply to post by awake_and_aware


how would infinite not imply duality? Im extremely confused

you do know that negative numbers would be a part of infinity, and negative numbers are the opposite of positive numbers.

Originally posted by Lucifer777

Actually I have never suggested that Biblical fanatics actually follow the Biblical Laws; on the contrary there are probably as many different interpretations of what Biblical fanaticism is as there are Biblical fanatics.

So than how does that many Christianity a genocidal faith? If no one follows the laws than how is any part of Christianity genocidal?

Generally a "Christian" is "always," without any exception in human history that I am aware of, a person who rejects the teachings of Jesus and Moses and whose beliefs are simply based on a selective "quote mining" and "cherry picking" of the Biblical texts.

No you are mistaken. A Christian is a person who follows the teachings of Jesus as well as the laws given to Moses. Jesus once said that he did not come to eradicate the past laws but to fulfill. Jesus also said the two most important laws is to love your God with all your heart and Love your neighbour. That is what a Christian should be. A Christian is a person that SHOULD be loving to their neighbour and someone who loves God. You can quote mine from anything it doesn't mean it is wrong.

For example a Christian might come across the passage where the Biblical Law demands execution for homo-erotic behaviour and use that to justify their homophobia, but when they come across the passage which demands execution for working on the Sabbath (Friday sunset till Saturday sunset) they will conveniently ignore that.

Is there a problem with that? That doesn't make any Christian genocidal...does it?

The religionist is really an anti-philosopher, not in the sense that they do not have a philosophy, but in the sense that they reject the philosophical method and thus can generally hold two contradictory beliefs at the same time.

That is not true at all. Many religion writers were philosophers. Much of the Bible is based on the philosophy of many people through different times. Is it the word of God? Maybe not fully but it has some of God's words in there. God's words are hidden in plain site for everyone to see but not many choose to see it.

And for the record everyone has contradictory thoughts and beliefs every now and than not just people who reject philosophy.

For example it is common for a Christian to take the view that the teachings of Jesus are eternal unchanging perfect truths which shall last until the end of time and which are as relevant today as they were 2000 years ago; but this is only until they come accross a passage which they do not agree with, and in that case they usually argue that his teachings were only relevant to the people whom he was addressing 2000 years aog.

The same thing goes with people who follow the constitution. Some things they may choose to follow and others they choose not to. Same thing with pagans, they choose to follow some things and not others. This is not new you are describing common human traits not genocidal doctrines like your titles states. If someone reads a book by Hitler does not make them a nazi. Not everyone follow the laws of the road, in example, speeding. It doesn't mean that they have genocidal beliefs and that their beliefs will condone genocide.

No one wants genocide unless you disguise it as a world war than everyone partakes in the killing unless your very rich.

Originally posted by awake_and_aware

I can't prove reality is inifinity, but i'd sooner trust that concept than some magical entity. Besides, a creator/source ends up running into an infinite regress, and mathematical concepts such as the mandelbrot set or the fibonnacci sequence imply infinity, and theres similar contructs in nature itself.

I'd say if you going to make an unfalsifiable hypothesis, infinity at least has been formed by mathetmatical logic, potentially using empirical evidence like a the maths of flower petals etc.

If we examine the question of "What came first, consciousness or matter?" it becomes clear that this question cannot be answered by pure reason, since either answer leads to infinite causal regression. I do accept the commonly stated argument by Richard Dawkins that advanced conscousness tends to arise only after billions of years of evolution, and further that due to the complexity of the universe which gives the impression of being "designed," if we try to solve this by imagining an even more complex being (i.e., a god) who created the universe, that it actually makes the problem even "more" complex, and of course leads to the question of who created this god, and who created her great great (ad infinitum) grandmother.

Unfortunately materialism does not solve the problem of infinite causal regression. If we say that at a certain point in time that the universe did not exist, and then that at a later point in time it did exist; this is also a position which leads to infinite causal regression. We can ask the question of where matter came from, and let us say that there was some form of "pre-matter" which was caused by pre-pre-matter, this just goes on and on, just like the question of what existed before the beginning of time and before that, and before that?

Of course we can consider a mathematical model and place a circle within a square within a circle and so forth and a computer will keep downsizing the size of the square and a circle infintely, but in the real world there must be some kind of "smallest particle." The question of what is root cause of matter has no absolute scientific answer as yet and it is also a question which leads to infinite causal regression, and yet we do know that matter exists. We can say that a molecule is just a collection of atoms and that the atom is just a number of smaller components such as quarks, leptons and gauge bosons and so forth, but there is now some duscussion about "sub-leptons (the components of a lepton)" so we have to ask what the "sub--sub-sub atomic particle is made of and what the sub-sub-sub-sub atomic particle is made of; this cannot be an infinite series and must end somewhere, but even atheists such as Carl Sagan take the view that the basis of matter may not even be in this dimension which we perceive with our 5 senses, and may really be "non-material" though this should not be confused with the religious term "spiritual;" but this then leads to the question of where this non material comes from and so forth and so forth.

Personally I have come to the conclusion that these kind of metaphysical questions cannot be answered and it is as simple as that. If we have to construct a human morality (a subjective definition of good and evil), it is far better to utilise human reason and intuition, and the atheistic and humanist philosophers have the moral high ground in this field, since as soon as the theologian claims that there is some kind of transcendental morality, this essentially opens the gates of hell and makes way for all manner of laws and speculative ramblings regarding what this morality is, and such utterances no longer have to conform to human reason and intuition and there is simply no way to verify them, and of course with the religions of the book (The Bible, Koran and the Vedas) we end up with a definition of alleged "absolute morality" which is simply based on the lunatic ramblings and laws of ancient religious fanatics; laws which would have genocidal implications for humankind.

Lux

This universe is shot through with mystery. The very fact of its being, and of our own, is a mystery absolute, and the only miracle worthy of the name. The consciousness that animates us is itself central to this mystery and ground for any experience we may wish to call “spiritual.” No myth needs to be embraced for us to commune with the profundity of our circumstance. No personal God need be worshipped for us to live in awe at the beauty and immensity of creation. No tribal fictions need be rehearsed for us to realize, one fine day, that we do, in fact, love our neighbors, that our happiness is inextricable from their own, and that our interdependence demands that people everywhere be given the opportunity to flourish. The days of our religious identities are clearly numbered. Whether the days of civilization itself are numbered would seem to depend, rather to much, on how soon we realize this."
— Sam Harris (The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason)

Originally posted by Equinox99

Actually I have never suggested that Biblical fanatics actually follow the Biblical Laws; on the contrary there are probably as many different interpretations of what Biblical fanaticism is as there are Biblical fanatics.

So than how does that many Christianity a genocidal faith? If no one follows the laws than how is any part of Christianity genocidal?


The history of Christianity is quite well documented from the acceptance of Christianity at the end of the 4th century as the Roman state religion to the present day; if Christianity were a solution which could lead to the economic and psychological salvation of humankind, the Christians have had 16 centuries to make their case, and all that they seem to have created is hell on earth. If you dispute that Christanity has been a genocidal faith, then you are clearly in denial of the historical evidence.

Of course, what tends to happen is that Christians will tend to argue that all the Christians of human history were "false" Christians who did not impliment the teachngs of Jesus, but if one reads the Gospels and understands what the teachings of Jesus and the religion of Jesus (Mosaic Judaism) actually entail, if such teachings had actually been followed the history of Christianity would have been far more savage and genocidal and every Christian would be a homeless, penniless, wandering proponent of fake healings, fake miracles, excorcism and a strict adherence to the primitive Mosaic Law. Of course we can "quote mine" the Biblical texts for certain philosophical truthisms which even a humanist or an atheist would consider reasonable, but this does not define Biblical faith nor the primitive Biblical god.



Lux

Incompatible religious doctrines have balkanized our world into separate moral communities, and these divisions have become a continuous source of bloodshed. Indeed, religion is as much a living spring of violence today as it has been at any time in the past. The recent conflicts in Palestine (Jews vs. Muslims), the Balkans (Orthodox Serbians vs. Catholic Croatians; Orthodox Serbians vs. Bosnian and Albanian Muslims), Northern Ireland (Protestants vs. Catholics), Kashmir (Muslims vs. Hindus), Sudan (Muslims vs. Christians and animists), Nigeria (Muslims vs. Christians), Ethiopia and Eritrea (Muslims vs. Christians), Sri Lanka (Sinhalese Buddhists vs. Tamil Hindus), Indonesia (Muslims vs. Timorese Christians), Iran and Iraq (Shiite vs. Sunni Muslims), and the Caucasus (Orthodox Russians vs. Chechen Muslims; Muslim Azerbaijanis vs. Catholic and Orthodox Armenians) are merely a few cases in point. These are places where religion has been the explicit cause of literally millions of deaths in recent decades.

Why is religion such a potent source of violence? There is no other sphere of discourse in which human beings so fully articulate their differences from one another, or cast these differences in terms of everlasting rewards and punishments. Religion is the one endeavor in which us–them thinking achieves a transcendent significance. If you really believe that calling God by the right name can spell the difference between eternal happiness and eternal suffering, then it becomes quite reasonable to treat heretics and unbelievers rather badly. The stakes of our religious differences are immeasurably higher than those born of mere tribalism, racism, or politics."
— Sam Harris

Originally posted by Equinox99

Does it say the King of Kings will return and destroy the sinners? Yes it does. Does this mean that I can kill others and destroy people of another faith? No it doesn't. It doesn't say anywhere in the Bible to take up the swords against your neighbour who is a Muslim, a Buddhist, or a Hindu. It doesn't say Jesus needs any help so why are we expected to pick up the sword and fight?

Well actually the global Messianic dictator described in the Bible (i.e., the "Second Coming of Christ") has an army which wages war on humankind and which eventually defeats the mythical Antichrist, who is also portrayed as a global dictator. Assisting this Messianic dictator are the 7 angels, the 144,000 and the army of 200 million who are described as riding on rather strange horse like beasts which emanate fire and smoke (see Revelation ch.9) and who kill a third of the population of humankind.

Further the Bible is full of incitations to kill non believers. See www.evilbible.com...
Further the history of Christianity is full of examples of genocide, war, tyranny, slavery and the vile behaviour, all of which can be justified by the Bible.

I understand your beef with the Koran because it does say violent things about people from other beliefs, however, the Bible says to love thy neighbour and Love thy God as the golden rules. The old testament was made for the Jews but you should still follow the 10 commandments, that is common sense if you believe in a deity that is.

The Koran and the Bible are no different in this respect; both contain the "Golden Rule," as do many other religions and philosophies (see en.wikipedia.org... ), and both the Koran and the Bible are legal systems which demand execution for numerous matters, and the waging of war against non believers.

Religionists, unlike philosophers, can comfortably hold two contradictory beliefs at the same time, since religion is the enemy of human reason. For example a religionist might claim that the teachings of Jesus are the perfect and unchanging words of their god and are as relevant today as they were 2000 years ago, but this is only until some of the unpopular teachings of Jesus are cited, such as his fundamentalist adherence to the Mosaic Law (the 613 Laws of Moses) and his chastisement of anyone who would teach anyone to break any of such laws (which the Christians commonly do), and in that case, the Christian reverts to the position that such teachings are invalid today and that they were only valid 2000 years ago.

With regards to "loving God," this is also clearly problematic since we are referring to a particular definition of an ancient tribal deity; the Judaic tribal deity is, as Richard Dawkins states "arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully."

What I think occurs in the mind of the believer is a religious form of "Stockholm Syndrome" where a victim can come to experience affection for kindnapper, a torturer, a slavemaster or a tyrant. Clearly the tribal deity of the Bible is a sadistic and malevolent deity which despises human nature; unfortunately when one displays admiration for such qualities, this can have a very real and dangerous psychological effect where the victim of religious hypnosis and indoctrination takes on such malevolent qualities themselves.

We could probably describe Adolph Hitler in the same way that Dawkins describes the Biblical deity, and thus I consider it no more appropriate to show respect to a person who would claim to love Adolph Hitler than towards a person who claims to "love" the primitve and savage tribal deity of the ancient Israelites; certainly the admirers of Hitler in the 1930's may be considered to be the victims of mass political hypnosis, indoctrination and propaganda, and similarly with the admirers of the psychopathic deity of the Bible, however the Biblical fanatics who appear on the Internet to run the gauntlet of criticism do not have the excuse of being merely ignorant "victims;" they are to a great extent the perpetrators of the memetic virus of religion who are all too well aware of the arguments of those who would condemn them and their savage definition of a deity.

With regards to your admiration for the 10 commandments; I would argue that for those who really understand the 10 primary Laws and the sentencing guidlines associated with them, only a primitive, savage and psychopathic person would revere such laws. Since I have written on this subject prior, I will merely requote my response from another thread on this subject.

Originally posted by Lucifer777

There are anyway traditionally 613 laws (commandments) in Mosaic Law including numerous incitements to genocide, infanticide, gang rape etc. Like Sharia Law, Judiasm is not just a religion, it is a system of Law which was allegedly imposed on an ancient tribal society.

Just as in modern law, there are laws, and there are also sentencing guidelines.

ONE: 'You shall have no other gods before Me.'

TWO: 'You shall not make for yourself a carved image--any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.'

THREE: 'You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.'

FOUR: 'Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.'

FIVE: 'Honor your father and your mother.'

Bear in mind that the sentencing guidlines for all of the above involve mandatory executions. Further the deity of the ancient Israelites was not a monotheistic deity; it was simply the primitive and savage tribal deity of the ancient Israelites; it was one of many deities in that region; the montheistic Christians and Judaists have simply taken the definitions of that deity and imposed it onto later monotheistic beliefs.

If the above laws were to be imposed on humankind, the consequences would be genocidal. People would be executed for blasphemy, for the worship of competing tribal deities, for the sculpting and carving of artwork depicting living things, and for failing to observe the Sabbath (Friday sunset till Saturday sunset).

SIX: 'You shall not murder.'

Essentially a law against unlawful killing, however "lawful" killing under the 613 Laws of Moses would result in the deaths of probably well over 99% of the adult population of the world.

SEVEN: 'You shall not commit adultery.'

This is probably one of the most misunderstood commandments. Both the Islamic and Judaic faiths are derived from polygamous societies where slavery (including sex slavery) was quite normal. There is nothing in the Bible which promotes the modern Christian practice of monogamy. Essentially in the primitive tribal society which the Mosaic Laws have come from, a man could have as many women as he could purchase; "adultery" was an executable offence which has to do with the laws of a slave master and his sex slaves.

Since paedophilia was socially acceptable, a man could have sex with a child he had purchased; it was only adultery if some other person came along and had sex with a child whom he had not purchased as his private property

Further when "young virgin females" were captured during military campaigns, they could be spared from genocide and taken as sex slaves.

EIGHT: 'You shall not steal.'

Essentially this really should be "Thou shall not steal from another member of your tribe" as it was quite acceptible to commit genocide on the surrounding tribes and steal their possessions, daughters, etc.

NINE: 'You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.'

A standard ethical law in all societies which is essentially "do not lie;" we really don't need religious fanatics to tell us about this.

TEN: 'You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's.'

To "covet" is to desire to possess them; it was quite acceptable to purchase one's neighbour's possessions, so it may not literally mean "covet;" it may rather refer to "stealing." .

For the remainder of the 613 laws, see "Summa Contra Judaism (Summary Against Judaism)"
on: www.davidicke.com...

Lucifer

"The idea, therefore, that religious faith is somehow a sacred human convention—distinguished, as it is, both by the extravagance of its claims and by the paucity of its evidence—is really too great a monstrosity to be appreciated in all its glory. Religious faith represents so uncompromising a misuse of the power of our minds that it forms a kind of perverse, cultural singularity—a vanishing point beyond which rational discourse proves impossible."
— Sam Harris (The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason)

Unfortunately I don't really expect intelligent disucussion of such matters; many of these threads just end up as an excuse for various forms of incessant religious ramblings and sermonising; it is simply not possible to have a rational discussion with the enemies of human reason. The moment one accepts even a single irrational religious belief, one's soul becomes hell bound, damnation is assured and human reason becomes the greatest enemy.

Originally posted by VonDoomen
reply to post by Lucifer777

 

Why exactly is it just islam and christianity?

Well Christianity and Islam are the world's two largest religions and they are both genocidal faiths where texts can be used to justify holy war. The world's third largest religion (Hinduism) also has war gods and is a rather malevolent religion which justifies slavery, racism, human sacrifice cultism and religious war; I would not wish to "exclusively" target Islam and Christianity however these are the two most dangerous religions in my judgement and their adherents have control over nations, armies and nuclear weapons.

Let me guess, your jewish right?

Judaism is not a major world religion; the Jewish population of the world is probably around 12 million and the vast majority are not religious; there are probably more Jewish Communists, Socialists, Anarchists, atheists or New Agers than there are religious Jews, and even the religious Jews are often held in contempt by the secular Jews and considered to be fanatics. A Jewish person is really just an ethnic identity which identifies a person whose ancestors were Judaic religionists.

Lux

reply to post by Equinox99

For example a Christian might come across the passage where the Biblical Law demands execution for homo-erotic behaviour and use that to justify their homophobia, but when they come across the passage which demands execution for working on the Sabbath (Friday sunset till Saturday sunset) they will conveniently ignore that.

Is there a problem with that? That doesn't make any Christian genocidal...does it?

No, just makes him a bigot ...

reply to post by Lucifer777

so we have to ask what the "sub--sub-sub atomic particle is made of and what the sub-sub-sub-sub atomic particle is made of; this cannot be an infinite series and must end somewhere,

Why not infinite sub-structure? I don't know any mathematical model that would prohibit infinity ...
Are quantum states really defined by matter or probability?

Originally posted by AllIsOne
reply to post by Lucifer777

 

so we have to ask what the "sub--sub-sub atomic particle is made of and what the sub-sub-sub-sub atomic particle is made of; this cannot be an infinite series and must end somewhere,

Why not infinite sub-structure? I don't know any mathematical model that would prohibit infinity ...
Are quantum states really defined by matter or probability?

With such questions we are often just "chasing our tails." Obviously a "mathematical model" need not conform to reality. In a mathematical model we could just propose an endless series of causes for the atom, and propose the existence of a "sub-sub-sub-sub (ad infinitum) atomic particle" but reality may well not be like that. We simply cannot speak with any certainty about what the basis of matter is, but theoretically I think that the theory expressed by scientists such as Carl Sagan may be the most sensible, that the origin of matter may well not even be in this dimension and that it may lie "outside" our dimension and may be forever innacessible to us.

An accurate explanation of the quantum word is simply not possible at the moment; it is simply beyond the limits of scientific knowledge and it is one of the great mysteries.

I am quite attracted to the idea of the Holographic Universe (see www.crystalinks.com... ); it is currently the cosmology which makes most sense to me, however it is problematic since instead of portraying a cosmos of "matter" it is more about a cosmos of "information." In this view human consciousness is much like a computer program, a bit like the virtual world of "Second Life," where we only perceive matter because we are programmed to do so; by "problematic" I mean that if we are programs then it implies that their is a "Grand Programmer" rather than a "Grand Physicist" and it still leads to the question of who programmed the programmer and to an infinite series of causes.

Ultimately if the universe "is" a Hologram which we perceive with our minds, it may well not be an "open source" program which we can interfere with and amend, but rather more like a "locked" program like Microsoft Windows; in this view, if anyone ever did crack the program, the universe as we know it could cease to exist.

Frankly there are so many problems in the world that could be eradicated by technological and scientific revolution and by progressive political solutions such as socialism, that I don't think it to be useful to spend too much time on questions of cosmology and metaphysics, since such questions always lead to speculations and theories.

The "What the Beep" videos (see www.youtube.com... ) are probably the best introduction to quantum theory, however as Richard Feyman pointed out: "I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics."

There is no quantum world. There is only an abstract physical description. Niels Bohr

Useful as it is under everyday circumstances to say that the world exists “out there” independent of us, that view can no longer be upheld. John Wheeler

Originally posted by AllIsOne
reply to post by Equinox99

 

For example a Christian might come across the passage where the Biblical Law demands execution for homo-erotic behaviour and use that to justify their homophobia, but when they come across the passage which demands execution for working on the Sabbath (Friday sunset till Saturday sunset) they will conveniently ignore that.

Is there a problem with that? That doesn't make any Christian genocidal...does it?

No, just makes him a bigot ...

Yes precisely. Bisexuality can be found throughout almost the entirety of the higher animal kingdom. If there is a god of nature (i.e., Mother Nature) it is clear that She has programmed animals and human beings in this way. Even in the rather sexually repressed Christian culture of 1940's America, Alfred Kinsey's studies showed that 46% of adult males in the US admitted to same sex attraction at certain times in their life.

It is clear to me that human beings are a bisexual species who are addicted to erotic pleasure, and that this can take the form of erotic interaction with members of the opposite sex or the same sex. If there is a Grand Designer or Grand Programmer, then she obviously programmed us this way. Homophobia is simply rooted in a hatred of the natural world, a hatred of human eroticism, and a hatred of the god of nature, and unfortunately it is justfied by the primitive ramblings of a tribe of Bronze Age savages who executed men (not women) for homoerotic behaviour.

Lux

Lucifer777,

I was wondering if you might be able to answer the points I raised in a previous reply to you, situated here.

Thank you.

Originally posted by Extant Taxon
Lucifer777,

I was wondering if you might be able to answer the points I raised in a previous reply to you, situated here.

Thank you.

My apologies. I was not ignoring you; your post just got lost amidst the cacophony of religious rambling and sermonising and I did not notice it.

Originally posted by Extant Taxon

Originally posted by Lucifer777
 
Religious Archons "are" a very dangerous form of authority; submission to religious Archons can often have murderous and genocidal consequences. Unfortunately the victim of religious mind control can be made to carry out the most evil forms of behaviour, while thinking that they are doing "good" and are saving the world; just as it was for the children of the Hitler youth, religious fanatics are often so hypnotised, indoctrinated and submissive to authority that they actually think that they are "saints."

Unfortunately the two largest religions in the world (Christianity and Islam) are both militant, apocalyptic and their adherents have control over nations, armies and nuclear weapons.

I can agree, in part, with the argument you present in this thread concerning organised religion based on the Abrahamic faiths. I would caution that such a broad and inflexible leveling critique, the premise of which is the totalising fundamentalist irrational Judaeo-Christian worldview and it's toxic memetic discharge into the global semiosphere is a tad fundamentalist in itself, and opposed to the true objective, rational discussion of the subject.
True, you point to some degree of irony in your presentation, but the battle mode you indulge in, taking no prisoners, still leaves little room for manoeuvre in debate. It's a tad too Manichaean for me, in the more political sense.

Philosophy in the Socratean sense is not ultimately about choosing a political and moral philosophy; it is more of a very simple "method" of analysing all ideas and subjecting them to critcism and debate, much like many of us do on the Internet.

"A philosopher who is not taking part in discussions is like a boxer who never goes into the ring." Wittgenstein.

By "Manichean" I assume that you refer to the kind of spiritualist black and white, good and evil type thinking, however I am not a Manichean or a transcendentalst; on the contrary I am a Nietzschean; I simply know of no higher authority than human reason and intuition.

I do see that the "holy war" aspect of the clash of civilizations is present as you say, more being sold as such, the absolute clash of theocracies, but to my mind it's not religious at the core, it's really corporate, and I don't know for sure that the "voice of God" rhetoric George W. Bush used to such effect is anything he truly believes in. Bonesmen seem, after all, to be such masterful, cynical meme manipulators. Cold economics and geo-politics have to factor in for me as the prime motivator.

Yes I was looking at your Internet site. I noticed the following quote by Quigley

The powers of financial capitalism had another far reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements, arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. The apex of the system was the Bank for International Settlements in Basle, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the worlds' central banks which were themselves private corporations. The growth of financial capitalism made possible a centralization of world economic control and use of this power for the direct benefit of financiers and the indirect injury of all other economic groups.

Communists and Anarchists tend to dispute all the bizzare conspiratainment theories such as that reptiles or Satanists or Luciferians rule the world, etc. These theories serve as a distraction, and many of the proponents of these theories are religious fanatics such as Alex Jones and Henry Makow, whose politics are anti-socialist and hardly progressive; in fact Henry Makow would be more at home in the Thrid Reich, though I do think that the Alex Jones analysis of a forthcoming US military dictatorship and his "Prison Planet" thesis has it's merits; there is no doubt that there has been a long history of US black military operations.

"Don't get involved in partial problems, but always take flight to where there is a free view over the whole single great problem, even if this view is still not a clear one." Ludwig Wittgenstein

The world is ruled by the "International Dictatorship of Capitalism" and this is a very real economic dictatorship. The central objection raised by Christian and Islamic conspiracy theorists is not that the dictatorship of Capitalism is Capitalist (since the Christians and Muslims are also Capitalists) but that they don't share their Islamic or Christian faith, and as far as most of the political left are concerned, religion is anyway just a memetic virus and part of the problem of humankind, not a solution.

Religion is of course one of the great enemies of human progress, and as Marx held "the criticism of religion is the premise of all criticism." If we wish to change the world it will have to be a triumph of human will, and yet in the US, 75% of the population are Christian and 40% of them believe that Jesus will come back to save them; this kind of fatalistic thinking interferes with human will and human progress; many of these people are more concerned with what will happen to them in the afterlife than with creating socialist paradise on earth (in fact "socialism" is often equated with Satanism by the US Christians), and thus it is quite appropriate to refer to them as sheep, many of whom are entirely patriotic and nationalistic who weep at the "Star Spangled Banner" and "God Bless America," and for whom the post world war two history of US war, imperialism, narco-terrorism, state terrorism, assassinations and military coups is part of their national pride. Religion is very much part of the mind virus which creates this way of thinking; it is a slippery slope from accepting the irrational beliefs of religious Archons to being submissive to political Archons.

Quigley did believe that the world was ruled by secret societies, however there are of course many cabals of Capitalists who seek to dominate the economies of their nations; the Triads are a major force in the economy of Hong Kong, for example, just as the Freemasons are a major force in the British economy and in international banking, however what is important to recognise is that the world is rule by Capitaists, and the existence of the Masons as a powerful gang of organised Capitalists is coincidental; if the Masons did not exist, some other gang of organised Capitalists would exist in their place; it is not primarliy a Masonic problem but a Capitalist problem.

Originally posted by Lucifer777

B: Philosophy.

Understanding philosophical method seems to me to be essential in combatting religious hypnosis and indoctrination.

If a philosopher attempts to hold two contradictory positions, then this is usually pointed out to them by other philosophers as being ridiculous. The difference between the philosopher and the religious fanatic is that the philosopher can appeal only to the highest authority of human intuition and "pure reason." Philosophy essentially teaches us how to "think" for ourselves and how to construct arguments. There is simply no room for philosophy in the world's major religons, since the victims of these religions must simply abandon reason and rely on the ramblings of primitive religious fanatics.

The main problem here is that some major figures of the assembled Judaeo-Christian creeds have advanced philosophy to a great degree. Such as:

Augustine of Hippo.

Ibn Khaldun, the great Islamic polymath, bequeathed the modern philosopher of history his toolkit, especially in the macrohistorical form; and in the social sciences.

Thomas Aquinas - his thought resonates in philosophy down to the present day. See the work of Umberto Eco (an ex-faithist) on this, I have read quite a bit of his work and the legacy of Aquinas features heavily.

William of Ockham - Okcham's razor. Enough said about a legacy there.

In terms of occult thought, many of the most prominent of the "underground stream" identified as followers of Christm however irregular they were in practice (as compared to the tyrannical straightjacket of orthodoxy) and however they applied their readings of scripture (hermeneustics and such).

John Dee, the great seeker of ultimate knowledge heavily identifed as a Christian, though unorthodox, and his endeavours fuel much the Western Esoteric Tradition to this very day.

Marsilio Ficino - the one who probably was most responsible for the rebirth of the hermetic way in the Renaissance was also a follower of that "religious schizophrenic" you mention.

I've only mentioned the thinkers I'm more familiar with, off-hand, but the enitre tradition of philosophy stems from the fundament of theology, or is at least intertwined with it, if the primacy of one over the other truly can't be ascertained in the distant past, before the advent of the written word.

There is no question that in past history many scientists and philosophers were affected by the memetic virus of religion, however it is my view that religion is antithetical to the philosophical method. Minds such as Aquinas and Augustine were certainly very educated and understood philosophical method, but I would argue that they were transcendentalists who proposed numerous irrational ideas, in what "seemed" to an uneducated mind to be the language of a philosopher, but they were not philosophers but theologians.

I can see what I think is your main thrust here, that bowing to the false authority of organised religion is antithetical to intellectual emancipation; but I see a danger that your absolutistism is perhaps at odds with the remembrance of the origins of the intellectual mind and it's rich history. With truly impartial investigation.
Of course I see that philosophy should be a progression, an evolution of mind, of ideas, and that such primitive crutches as worship of any capricious diety, or dieties, and the offering of money to such a thing's representatives on earth (both being borne of the minds of grasping humans), should be jettisoned.

I know of no other reliable method than the absolutism (as you refer to it) of human reason and intution.

Originally posted by Lucifer777

Linguistics 101

Language is a lie. Words are weapons and the tools of mass hypnosis.

I see this as a fallacy myself. It's the kind of thinking endemic within the conspiracy community.

Instead, I would say that words are neutral tools, whose proper use can facilitate the most wonderful meetings of minds, true and open communication to achieve understanding between peoples, to communicate truth, beauty, the spectacle of the unfettered imagination, revelation, exposures of abuses of power by the establishment; that kind of thing.

Language is only as much a lie as the intention is to use it.

The phrase "Language is a lie. Words are weapons and the tools of mass hypnosis." is just a mantra to make people think about "doublespeak" and the "definitions" of language rather than the words themselves; wars are generally always fought in the name of "peace;" the peace that follows victory and conquest, etc. The statement is not meant to be "absolute;" obviously language is a meaningful way to communicate.

Originally posted by Lucifer777

However....I think that there are memetic reasons as to why most people in nations where Christianity is the main religion would be shocked by such genocidal quotations from the Koran, and yet they are less shocked by similar genocidal quotations in the Bible; I think it is simply because the Biblical faith is accepted and "established," and the "model" of an ideal human being is a 2000 year old fake healer, fake miracle worker and religious schitzophrenic (nb., it has been estimated that 25% of all schitzophrenics are suffering from "religious" schizopherenia; i.e., they hear voices from god, etc.), the Jesus of the Gospels.

In this context as well as the broader scope, could I ask you what your view and understanding of schizophrenia is exactly?

The symptoms of schizophrenia are clearly defined (see for example: en.wikipedia.org...). Many people exhibit some of the "symptoms" of schizophrenia but true schizophrenia affects only about 0.3 to 0.5 of the human population, and around a quarter of them are suffering from a "religious" form of schizophrenia (hearing voices from gods or demons, for example). Schizophrenia has been shown to be neurologicial; it is a malfunctioning of the brain and cannot merely be "cured" by psychoanalysis.

The problem seems to be that common religious models of "human perfection," such as Jesus and Mohammad are actually models of a classic religious schizophrenic. It is simply dangerous to have such models. It is my impression that probably the vast majority of humankind are suffering from some form of religious psychosis, and by psychosis I do not refer to an incurable neurological condition; on the contrary; most people are simply the victims of religious hypnosis and indoctrination; they attempt to "emulate" the religious schizophrenic and they may show some of the "symptoms" of the religious schizophrenic whom they are attempting to emulate; praying to an imaginary being for example or having the same irrational beleifs as their schizophrenic model.

Anyway, intriguing thread, well worth the entertainment value alone seeing opposing creeds bash each other. I used to do a lot of this kind of thing myself, zoning in on the Masons and other fraternal types, the militant dialectic can be quite cathartic.

Well many of these threads just get hijacked and become "religious rambles;" it is simply not possible to have a rational debate with a person suffering from religious psychosis since reason is the ultmate enemy of their faith; I merely attempt to respond to the religious fanatics for the sake of others who might be taken in by them.

Regards

Lux

The Antichrist (Extracts)
Friedrich Nietzsche

The Declaration of War against Christendom

"We should not deck out and embellish Christianity: it has waged a war to the death against this higher type of man, it has put all the deepest instincts of this type under its ban, it has developed its concept of evil, of the Evil One himself, out of these instincts--the strong man as the typical reprobate, the "outcast among men." Christianity has taken the part of all the weak, the low, the botched; it has made an ideal out of antagonism to all the self-preservative instincts of sound life; it has corrupted even the faculties of those natures that are intellectually most vigorous, by representing the highest intellectual values as sinful, as misleading, as full of temptation. The most lamentable example: the corruption of Pascal, who believed that his intellect had been destroyed by original sin, whereas it was actually destroyed by Christianity!--

It is necessary to say just whom we regard as our antagonists: theologians and all who have any theological blood in their veins--this is our whole philosophy. . . . One must have faced that menace at close hand, better still, one must have had experience of it directly and almost succumbed to it, to realize that it is not to be taken lightly. This poisoning goes a great deal further than most people think:

So long as the priest, that professional denier, calumniator and poisoner of life, is accepted as a higher variety of man, there can be no answer to the question, What is truth? Truth has already been stood on its head when the obvious attorney of mere emptiness is mistaken for its representative.
.
Upon this theological instinct I make war:

I find the tracks of it everywhere. Whoever has theological blood in his veins is shifty and dishonourable in all things. The pathetic thing that grows out of this condition is called faith: in other words, closing one's eyes upon one's self once for all, to avoid suffering the sight of incurable falsehood. People erect a concept of morality, of virtue, of holiness upon this false view of all things; they ground good conscience upon faulty vision; they argue that no other sort of vision has value any more, once they have made theirs sacrosanct with the names of "God," "salvation" and "eternity."

I unearth this theological instinct in all directions: it is the most widespread and the most subterranean form of falsehood to be found on earth. Whatever a theologian regards as true must be false: there you have almost a criterion of truth. His profound instinct of self-preservation stands against truth ever coming into honour in any way, or even getting stated.

Wherever the influence of theologians is felt there is a transvaluation of values, and the concepts "true" and "false" are forced to change places: what ever is most damaging to life is there called "true," and whatever exalts it, intensifies it, approves it, justifies it and makes it triumphant is there called "false."... When theologians, working through the "consciences" of princes (or of peoples--), stretch out their hands for power, there is never any doubt as to the fundamental issue: the will to make an end, the nihilistic will exerts that power...

..God becomes the formula for every slander upon the "here and now," and for every lie about the "beyond"! In him nothingness is deified, and the will to nothingness is made holy! . . .

Christianity also stands in opposition to all intellectual well-being,--sick reasoning is the only sort that it can use as Christian reasoning; it takes the side of everything that is idiotic; it pronounces a curse upon "intellect," upon the superbia of the healthy intellect. Since sickness is inherent in Christianity, it follows that the typically Christian state of "faith" must be a form of sickness too, .... "Faith" means the will to avoid knowing what is true. ...... The impulse to lie--it is by this that I recognize every foreordained theologian.--

..
..--With this I come to a conclusion and pronounce my judgment. I condemn Christianity; I bring against the Christian church the most terrible of all the accusations that an accuser has ever had in his mouth. It is, to me, the greatest of all imaginable corruptions; it seeks to work the ultimate corruption, the worst possible corruption. The Christian church has left nothing untouched by its depravity; it has turned every value into worthlessness, and every truth into a lie, and every integrity into baseness of soul. Let any one dare to speak to me of its "humanitarian" blessings! Its deepest necessities range it against any effort to abolish distress; it lives by distress; it creates distress to make itself immortal. . . . . . a will to lie at any price, ,,,,Parasitism as the only practice of the church; with its anaemic and "holy" ideals, sucking all the blood, all the love, all the hope out of life; the beyond as the will to deny all reality; the cross as the distinguishing mark of the most subterranean conspiracy ever heard of,--against health, beauty, well-being, intellect, kindness of soul--against life itself. . . .

This eternal accusation against Christianity I shall write upon all walls, wherever walls are to be found--I have letters that even the blind will be able to see. . . . I call Christianity the one great curse, the one great intrinsic depravity, the one great instinct of revenge, for which no means are venomous enough, or secret, subterranean and small enough,--I call it the one immortal blemish upon the human race. . . .

.

Originally posted by Lucifer777

Originally posted by Extant Taxon
Lucifer777,

I was wondering if you might be able to answer the points I raised in a previous reply to you, situated here.

Thank you.

My apologies. I was not ignoring you; your post just got lost amidst the cacophony of religious rambling and sermonising and I did not notice it.

Yes, I thought it may have lost its way in the textual cacophony. Thanks for taking the time to reply.

Originally posted by Lucifer777
Philosophy in the Socratean sense is not ultimately about choosing a political and moral philosophy; it is more of a very simple "method" of analysing all ideas and subjecting them to analysis, critcism and debate, much like many of us do on the Internet.

By "Manichean" I assume that you refer to the kind of spiritualist black and white, good and evil type thinking, however I am not a Manichean or a transcendentalst; on the contrary I am a Nietzschean; I simply know of no higher authority than human reason and intuition and intuition. .

Well, there is much more to philosophy than the purely Platonic (Socratic) mode, and well enough for the discussion of morals, ethics, or politics. Socratic thought, as presented by Plato (who really knows exactly what Socrates thought, Plato left the majority of his legacy) was intensely concerned with the political, with the polis, everything in the end revolved around a political duty.
But yes, of course, I'm all for holding ideas up the light and holding them accountable, via the dialectic method.
One place to start would be top define terms. So when I refer to Mancichaean in the political sense I'm referring to a stark black and white Straussian sense of a strict ethical duality, that brooks no mediation. In the end I see that your strict dialectic is very much in this vein.

As for Nietzsche, he is someone I have intended to read for some time. Shall have to get onto it in the near future.

Originally posted by Lucifer777

Yes I was looking at your Internet site. I noticed the following quote by Quigley

The powers of financial capitalism had another far reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements, arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. The apex of the system was the Bank for International Settlements in Basle, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the worlds' central banks which were themselves private corporations. The growth of financial capitalism made possible a centralization of world economic control and use of this power for the direct benefit of financiers and the indirect injury of all other economic groups.

Communists and Anarchists tend to dispute all the bizzare conspiratainment theories such as that reptiles or Satanists or Luciferians rule the world, etc. These theories serve as a distraction and many of the proponents of these theories are religious fanatics such as Alex Jones and Henry Makow whose politics are anti-socialist and hardly progressive; in fact Henry Makow would be more at home in the Thrid Reich, though I do think that the Alex Jones analysis of a forthcoming US military dictatorship and his "Prison Planet" thesis has it's merits; there is no doubt that there has been a long history of US black military operations.

The world is ruled by the "International Dictatorship of Capitalism" and this is a very real economic dictatorship.

I'm not sure which internet site you went to but it certainly wasn't mine. I don't have one. The Quigley quote you included is interesting, as regards the Bank for International Settlements in Zurich. Often presented as evidence by conspiracists as evidence of "the Group's" ownership of the financial system the following accompanying piece of text is omitted:

"To rectify this problem to some degree the Bank for International Settlements was created in 1929 but never functioned as its founders hoped."

p. 340 of Quigley's "Tragedy and Hope" (hard copy edition).

This aside, I can agree with you. The rapacious capitalist meme, in it's current form as controlled by multinational conglomerates, will result in a global fascist corporate superstate (in the sense as defined by Mussolini) if left unchecked. We're not quite there yet though, there are still countries (rogue states) that are not dominated by the primary nationalist gangs, though not for want of trying.
I do wonder just how much the ostensibly astounding revolutionary wildfires in North Africa are really organic and grassroots in nature. Even if they are the fields (especially Libya) will be ripe for the pickings if Gaddafi is ousted.

Originally posted by Lucifer777
The central objection raised by Christian and Islamic conspiracy theorists is not that the dictatorship of Capitalism is Capitalist (since the Christians and Muslims are also Capitalists) but that they don't share their Islamic or Christian faith, and as far as most of the political left are concerned, religion is anyway just a memetic virus and part of the problem of humankind, not a solution.

However, religion is of course one of the great enemies of human progress, and as Marx held "the criticism of religion is the premise of all criticism." If we wish to change the world it will have to be a triumph of human will, and yet in the US, 75% of the population are Christian and 40% of them believe that Jesus will come back to save them; this kind of fatalistic thinking interferes with human will and human progress; many of these people are more concerned with what will happen to them in the afterlife than with creating socialist paradise on earth (in fact "socialism" is often equated with Satanism by the US Christians), and thus it is quite appropriate to refer to them as sheep, many of whom are entirely patriotic and nationalistic who weep at the "Star Spangled Banner" and "God Bless America," and for whom the post world war two history of US war, imperialism, narco-terrorism, state terrorism, assassinations and military coups is part of their national pride. Religion is very much part of the mind virus which creates this way of thinking; it is a slippery slope from accepting the irrational beliefs of religious Archons to being submissive to political Archons.

I tend to think of religious fundamentalism and its attendant atrocities as rather effect than cause. Humankind will fight over just about anything, and an absolute belief is one of the best excuses.
I think that the Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are rather the symptoms of the primary disorder of militant patriarchy.
We need to revisit, as a global people, the idea of the alchemical marriage, of the union of male and female in true equality to render society as a functioning whole.
I'm not a fan of this militant radical feminism that is a reaction to the male dominance of the world stage either. I don't think that the answer is to give leadership over to a gynaecocracy. One sex's ascendency over the other is an imbalance that is unsustainable.

Originally posted by Lucifer777
Quigley did believe that the world was ruled by secret societies, however there are of course many cabals of Capitalist gangs who seek to dominate the economies of their nations; the Triads are a major force in the economy of Hong Kong, for example, just as the Freemasons are a major force in the British economy and in international banking, however what is important to recognise is that the world is rule by Capitaists, and the existence of the Masons as a powerful gang of organised Capitalists is coincidental; if the Masons did not exist, some other gang of organised Capitalists would exist in their place; it is not primarliy a Masonic problem but a Capitalist problem.

It's more accurate to say that he believed.

He didn't see the Rhodes Group as active after 1950 I believe. But then this is a moot point. His analysis, that we know of, ended around 1960.
I think that secret societies, as with religion, are merely symptomatic. The origins of the symptoms lie in a greater sociocultural context I think. But their effect on the system that birthed them is still measurable and important.

Originally posted by Lucifer777

There is no question that in past history many scientists and philosophers were affected by the memetic virus of religion, however it is my view that religion is antithetical to philosophical method. Minds such as Aquinas and Augustine were certainly very educated and understood philosophical method but I would argue that they were transcendentalists who proposed numerous irrational ideas, in what "seemed" to an uneducated mind to be the language of a philosopher, but they were not philosophers but theologians.

My point was that really the origins of philosophy can be traced to organised religion. I think it's essential to note where the quest for ultimate answers emanated from, and the thinkers who helped to evolve the modern schools of philosophy.Yes, the previously mentioned thinkers had their thought coloured by the demands of their faith (and also would have had to be seen to be conforming to that faith, even if they had concepts other to dogma; the Catholic Church was all dominating in the sociocultural sphere), but the search for truth began with the transcendent ideal. And this should be acknowledged.

Of course, it's beyond time to move beyond the conception of a capricious invisible bully in the sky in relation to philosophy.
I for sure would not censor anyone's desire to believe as they see fit to though.

Originally posted by Lucifer777
I know of no other reliable method than the absolutism (as you refer to it) of human reason and intution.

When I refer to absolutism I mean that there is no other interpretation of data or presentation of said data than the one you present. Of course you of have to settle on a conclusion, but perhaps acknowledge that there are shades of gray (and bursts of colour) possible in your black and white diagram.

Originally posted by Lucifer777

The phrase "Language is a lie. Words are weapons and the tools of mass hypnosis." is just a mantra to make people think about "doublespeak" and the "definitions" of language rather than the words themselves; wars are generally always fought in the name of "peace;" the peace that follows victory and conquest, etc. The statement is not meant to be "absolute;" obviously language is a meaningful way to communicate.

Fair enough.

Originally posted by Lucifer777

The symptoms of schizophrenia are clearly defined (see for example: en.wikipedia.org...). Many people exhibit some of the "symptoms" of schizophrenia but true schizophrenia affects only about 0.3 to 0.5 of the human population, and around a quarter of them are suffering from a "religious" form of schizophrenia (hearing voices from gods or demons, for example). Schizophrenia has been shown to be neurologicial; it is a malfunctioning of the brain and cannot merely be "cured" by psychoanalysis.

The diagnosis and prognosis is far from settled.

The Wiki article you point to even acknowledges that neurobiology "has not isolated a single organic cause." The various causative factors in what the medical establishment title a "disorder" are also not final. There is much still to be discovered on the subject. Having acquaintances in the field of psychopathology I can say that the science, such as it is, is all up for grabs. Not a single psychologist or psychiatrist I know of will commit to a foundational theory on the subject.

To consider:

The Insanity Virus.

Redefining "Mental Illness."

The main thing I would like to get at is the pejorative bias implicit in your categorising of schizophrenic in relation to a religious psychosis. There are various avenues of approach to the dilemma of what is called schizophrenia, not least being the medical establishment's slant on "mental illness" as a disorder.
There has been much made of the link between schizophrenia, altered states of consciousness, and shamanism.

Embracing the Fragmented Self - Shamanic Explorations of the Sacred in Schizophrenia.

The schizophrenic's reason and senses, like those of the shaman during initiation, are assaulted by concrete revelations of the heights and depths of the vast Otherworlds of the collective unconscious. Simultaneously, the schizophrenic is forced to slot into the sometimes petty humdrum and routine of daily existence. The invasion of the ego by archetypal forces transforms the individual profoundly and irreversibly; no-one who has endured such a crisis can confine the expanded horizons of their consciousness to the claustrophobically "safe" and tame boundaries of cultural norms. Yet instead of encouraging and bolstering the development of such transcendental levels of awareness, mainstream psychiatry seeks - out of fear of the unknown, the unconscious, the numinous, the irrational and the abnormal - to stifle it under the euphemistic and patronising guise of "treatment".

The Jungian approach to this is possibly far more fruitful and less of a stigmatic designation, which I think is the sense in which you apply it, literally.
Those who are hyper-sensitive to the experiential world can be in a sense heavily influenced by the dominant cultural paradigms of the day and express themselves via this form.
Of course, they could also be expressing themselves via this paradigm for the benefit of the people they communicate with. The similarities between the teachings of the man called Christ and Buddhism have been noted for some time...

Schizophrenia and mental illness is often a conventional box for biases and projections.

Originally posted by Lucifer777
Well many of these threads just get hijacked and become "religious rambles;" it is simply not possible to have a rational debate with a person suffering from religious psychosis since reason is the ultmate enemy of their faith; I merely attempt to respond to the religious fanatics for the sake of others who might be taken in by them.

Yes, but you do so dress for battle yourself, don't you?

Originally posted by Lucifer777
Regards

Lux

Regards to you also. An enjoyable conversation thus far.



.

Originally posted by Extant Taxon

Originally posted by Lucifer777
Philosophy in the Socratean sense is not ultimately about choosing a political and moral philosophy; it is more of a very simple "method" of analysing all ideas and subjecting them to analysis, critcism and debate, much like many of us do on the Internet.

By "Manichean" I assume that you refer to the kind of spiritualist black and white, good and evil type thinking, however I am not a Manichean or a transcendentalst; on the contrary I am a Nietzschean; I simply know of no higher authority than human reason and intuition and intuition. .

Well, there is much more to philosophy than the purely Platonic (Socratic) mode, and well enough for the discussion of morals, ethics, or politics. Socratic thought, as presented by Plato (who really knows exactly what Socrates thought, Plato left the majority of his legacy) was intensely concerned with the political, with the polis, everything in the end revolved around a political duty.

"Dialectics is the science of arguing well" Augustine

I am not at all suggesting that philosophy is "only" about a "method," but that it is "essentially" about a "method," and it is a very simple method that can be easily taught, learned and shown by example, and from that subsctructure, the various branches of philosophy develop.

For example, I tend to adhere to a political philosphy (Anarchism) and to a moral philosophy (Thelema) and to the general groundrules of the philosophy of science, with regards to what is "objective knowledge (i.e., epistemology)," but I have arrived as such positions through the process of a lifetime of study and dialectics (debate / argument) and I can defend all such positions with arguments based upon human reason and intuition alone and without having to rely on a transcendent deity or transcendent morality; I do also amend my positions from time to time, so I am not suggesting that my conclusons are infallible, merely that my "method" is an orthodox philosophical method and I know of no other effective method.

But yes, of course, I'm all for holding ideas up the light and holding them accountable, via the dialectic method.
One place to start would be top define terms. So when I refer to Mancichaean in the political sense I'm referring to a stark black and white Straussian sense of a strict ethical duality, that brooks no mediation. In the end I see that your strict dialectic is very much in this vein.

The dialectical process of human development is a "process;" the person who starts with a statement that there are certain objective transcendental truths simply opens the floodgates of hell and lays the foundation for all sorts of fantastical utterences, and thus do we have the history of religion and religious morality, much of which is simply a restriction on human nature and human desire.

Since we are human beings, it is necessary to do some groundwork on human psychology and attempt to discover "human nature;" thus I would make certain "absolute" claims, but they would only be based on human nature, and whatever opposes human nature I would say was unnatural and even "godly." An example would be male and female genital mutilation (curcumcision) which I would say was unnatural and therefore "godly" and therefore malevolent, and I could make a rather long list of such matters, such as the practice of executing people for adultery, for homosexuality, for working on the Sabbath or for the victimless crime of blasphemy, since such matters are clearly "godly" and thus unnatural, inhumane and malevolent and are blasphemies against human nature.

As for Nietzshe, he is someone I have intended to read for some time. Shall have to get onto it in the near future.

He seems to me to be the apotheosis ("the elevation to the rank of a god; the penultimate, preeminent") of the Enlightenment philosophers. He also had the admirable habit of speaking in the language of the proletariat rather than the in the language of the Kantian forerunners of Focaultian postmodernist mumbo jumbo which Dawkins and others are so scathing of (see Dawkin's essay "Postmodernism Disrobed" www.physics.nyu.edu...), and thus can be easily understood by the masses.

A good place to begin with Nietzche is with "The Antichrist (www.fns.org.uk...)." Philosophy in my judgement does not begin until the death of god, for a human being cannot think properly if there is some transcendentalist babbling in his ear about "revealed" divine laws against humankind. It is not without good reason that Neitzche suggested that human history should rebegin it's dating system with the publication of the Antichrist, rather than with the alleged birth of the fictional religious fanatic, Jesus. Since philosophy essentially did not begin properly until Neitzsche, in my judgement; what came before was just the preparation by individuals whose minds were mostly clouded by the memetic virus of religion and the transcendentalist ramblings of religionists.

.... The rapacious capitalist meme, in it's current form as controlled by multinational conglomerates, will result in a global fascist corporate superstate (in the sense as defined by Mussolini). We're not quite there yet though, there are still countries (rogue states) that are not dominated by the primary nationalist gangs, though now for want of trying.

Well the Capitalist elites obviously wish for a world which is under their control, but it will not be without widespread resistance; I think they would prefer martial law, since in Europe, probably most of the population are socialists, including much of the academia, intelligensia and the proletariat, and the elites are unlikely to get their way unless they can impose some form of tyranny.

I tend to adhere to Marx's view that societies will progress from slave societies to Capitalist societies to socialism to communism. Currently in Europe we have a combination of Capitalism and socialism, but I believe that the future will eventually evolve into socialism and communism, though probably not without numerous wars and revolutions and certainly one can expect the economic and military elites to seek to impose dictatorships which favour them, but there is usualy always eventually a dialectical reaction and resistance, and the harsher the experience becomes for the masses, the more potent become the conditions for revolution.

I do wonder just how much the ostensibly astounding revolutionary wildfires in North Africa are really organic and grassroots in nature. Even if they are the fields (especially Libya) will be ripe for the pickings if Gaddafi is ousted.

In nations where the vast majority of people are Muslims, if Republican forms of government appear in the place of the current tyrannies, they are likely to be Islamic Republics rather than modern liberal secular democracies; this could even be regressive rather than progressive; it is one thing to have brutal 21st century dictators, and it is quite another to seek to impose the primitive laws of a 7th century dictator, slave trader and militant religious fanatic, particularly in Egypt which has the biggest army in the region and US military technology including F-16's. I could well forsee Israel anonymously nuking Egypt and beginning a global apocalyptic war.

I tend to think of religious fundamentalism and its attendant atrocities as rather effect than cause. Humankind will fight over just about anything, and an absolute belief is one of the best excuses.

You will find that, for example, among the European middle classes, they do not behave like football hooligans. Nietzche's "Ubermensche" is perhaps the simplest model of an ideal human being, and a replacement for the older models which were simply models of archetypal religious schizophrenics. Nietzsche's "superior man (and woman)" is already a model widely accepted by modern humanists, scientists, psychologists, psychiatrists, atheists and much of the secular middle classes and academia; it is simply a model that can be defined as a modern, educated, rational, scientific, ethical, free thinking, sacreligious human being, and it is as simple as this. Unfortunately whatever political philosophy one adheres to, one simply cannot have an ideal society without ideal people and the Nietzchean ideal will take time to arrive and will require a process of education.

Plato was so opposed to democracy was because he feared that "mob rule" would be worse far than tyranny and oligarchy, especially when you have a "mob" of largely uneducated savages. Any modern society would have to be a technocracy and a society governed by educated people; no political system could be ideal if ruled by a bunch of football hooligans or by Islamic mullahs, whether elected or not.

The Israeli Communist system (the Kibbutzim) worked so well and created a crime free economic heaven for it's residents, but it was many decades in the making, and those born to socialism became adjusted to it as children; if one attempted that with the dross of the football hooligan culture in Europe it would simply be a nightmare and probably descend into gang warfare and the worst kind of anarchy; the conditions for a truly socialist revolution are thus yet to be created.

I think that the Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are rather the symptoms of the primary disorder of militant patriarchy.

Unfortunately the further one goes back in the history of religon, usually the more primitive and savage one finds religious cultures to be, many of which were blood sacrifice religions, not so far removed from the religion of the Aztecs; human progress in my judgement really requires the eradication of the curse religion. For humankind to stll be revering human sacrifice cultists like Abraham and relatively savage religious fanatics like Moses, Jesus and Mohammad indicates that we still have a long way to go until humankind is liberated from the savagery and barbarism of the past.

We need to revisit, as a global people, the idea of the alchemical marriage, of the union of male and female in true equality to render society as a functioning whole.

Yes, of course. Although I come across as anti-metaphysical it is partly because I have had a lifelong interest in all matters esoteric, and I can see that you have similar interests from the threads you have posted. I have really been immersed in the Neopagan counterculture and I suppose that it has been Crowley who has been the central influence and central "role model." It is merely that I don't consider such a model to be useful for the masses, since he is also a model which displays characteristics of delusion, religious shizophrenia and transcendentalism; his evangelical anti-Christianity was admirable and I do believe that Thelemic philosophy will be the central moral philosophy of the future world, but it is absolutely no different to Nietzchean moral philosophy, and replacing one form of transcendentalism (i.e. Christianity) with another form of transcendentalism (Crowleyianty) seems to me not to be a universal solution, though clearly Crowley is a far better role model for the New Aeon than the primitive promoter of an ancient Bronze Age religion, the fake healer and fake miracle worker, Jesus.

In terms of a natural theology (i.e., a non transcendental Deistic theology derived purely from human reason and human nature), the idea of the divine incarnation which can be derived from Crowley's Kabbalistic philosophy is that ultimately the divine image is essentially the sexual union of the liberated (from the "sins of restriction") human male and female and that this is the incarnation of the immanent hermaphroditic creator; however the idea of a "monogamous" alchemical marriage seems to me to be a blasphemy against human nature since we are not monogamous beings by nature, but certainly the union of two lovers appears to be life's ultimate sacred experience, though of course this is heresy to the Christians.

I'm not a fan of this militant radical feminism that is a reaction to the male dominance of the world stage either. I don't think that the answer is to give leadership over to a gynaecocracy. One sex's ascendency over the other is an imbalance that is unsustainable.

Having travelled quite widely throughout the Islamic world where women are little more than slaves, I am most certainly a radical feminist, as is my current witch of a Scarlet woman; but radical feminism need not be about the supremacy of maternalism over paternalism; on the contrary; it is merely about the right's of women, the vast majority of whom are just slaves in paternalistic societies.

He didn't see the Rhodes Group as active after 1950 I believe. But then this is a moot point. His analysis, that we know of, ended around 1960.
I think that secret societies, as with religion, are merely symptomatic. The origins of the symptoms lie in a greater sociocultural context I think. But their effect on the system that birthed them is still measurable and important.

It seems to me that "regular" Masons tend to be conservative Capitalists and very much part of the establishment and that they are not at all a progressive influence; they are a rather antiquated society which operate like a Capitalist gang; certainly Masons as a cabal are financially powerful and they have placed themselves in that situation though banking and commerce.

Those who are esoterically enclined in the modern world tend to be drawn towards the New Age movement, the "irregular" Masonic societies such as the O.T.O, the Neopagan and Neowiccan movements, Luciferianism and philosophical Satanism etc., this may be today's counterculture but it is likely to become a prevailing culture in the future which will become a major source of resistance to the current "old monied" establishment of the Masons and other Capitalist gangs of esotericists.

My point was that really the origins of philosophy can be traced to organised religion.
I think it's essential to note where the quest for ultimate answers emanated from, and the thinkers who helped to evolve the modern schools of philosophy.Yes, the previously mentioned thinkers had their thought coloured by the demands of their faith (and also would have had to be seen to be conforming to that faith, even if they had concepts other to dogma; the Catholic Church was all dominating in the sociocultural sphere), but the search for truth began with the transcendent ideal. And this should be acknowledged.

One of my old theology professors defined philosophy as the attempt to derive truth through human reason and intuition alone, and theology as revealed truth through "revelation." Of course theology is not a real subject, since the subject of the study, "theos" does not lend Herself to empircal observation, so one can just make up anything one likes about Her and it cannot be verified or falsified; that is the problem with theology and really it is just the study of the numerous ramblings of transcendentalists who were the enemies of human reason and human nature. If human beings began to think "rationally" and philosophically it was in "spite" of religion, not because of it; faith is the ultimate enemy of reason and vice versa.

Of course, it's beyond time to move beyond the conception of a capricious invisible bully in the sky in relation to philosophy.
I for sure would not censor anyone's desire to believe as they see fit to though.

If there is a Creator, I suspect that the history of religion and theology is simply an insult to Her intelligence and I suspect that She would rather we think for ourselves. Crowley's "There is no god but man (and woman)" is a better maxim to follow, since there are only really our fellow human beings to worship, and this is a central tenet of Luciferianism; that we are the gods and that we should accept no higher authority.

Originally posted by Lucifer777
I know of no other reliable method than the absolutism (as you refer to it) of human reason and intution.

When I refer to absolutism I mean that there is no other interpretation of data or presentation of said data than the one you present. Of course you of have to settle on a conclusion, but perhaps acknowledge that there are shades of gray (and bursts of colour) possible in your black and white diagram.

An arrogant person is a person who always claims to be right about everything, even if shown by human reason to be errant in some way; I am not suggesting that I am right about everything; on the contrary, I often amend my views on various matters through the course of study and debate; it is merely that the philosophical method is a better method of attempting to derive human ethics, political philosophy, and to ask the question "What is truth?" for as soon as one submits to a trascendental method of arriving at the truth, this opens the gates of hell for all manner of daemons to fly through, and this has been the history of religion.

The Wiki article you point to even acknowledges that neurobiology "has not isolated a single organic cause." The various causative factors in what the medical establishment title a "disorder" are also not final. There is much still to be discovered on the subject. Having acquaintances in the field of psychopathology I can say that the science, such as it is, is all up for grabs. Not a single psychologist or psychiatrist I know of will commit to a foundational theory on the subject.

Yes OK. However differences have been observed between the brain scans of schizophrenics and non schizophrenics but as to why this is, well I am not a neurologist and am limited to studying their findings; however I do believe that persons' suffering from the symptoms of religious based schizophrenia were probably the founders or models for many of the world's religions and that this has created a world where religious psychosis is considered to be "normal."

The main thing I would like to get at is the pejorative bias implicit in your categorising of schizophrenic in relation to a religious psychosis. There are various avenues of approach to the dilemma of what is called schizophrenia, not least being the medical establishment's slant on "mental illness" as a disorder.
There has been much made of the link between schizophrenia, altered states of consciousness, and shamanism.

Embracing the Fragmented Self - Shamanic Explorations of the Sacred in Schizophrenia.

The schizophrenic's reason and senses, like those of the shaman during initiation, are assaulted by concrete revelations of the heights and depths of the vast Otherworlds of the collective unconscious. Simultaneously, the schizophrenic is forced to slot into the sometimes petty humdrum and routine of daily existence. The invasion of the ego by archetypal forces transforms the individual profoundly and irreversibly; no-one who has endured such a crisis can confine the expanded horizons of their consciousness to the claustrophobically "safe" and tame boundaries of cultural norms. Yet instead of encouraging and bolstering the development of such transcendental levels of awareness, mainstream psychiatry seeks - out of fear of the unknown, the unconscious, the numinous, the irrational and the abnormal - to stifle it under the euphemistic and patronising guise of "treatment".

The Jungian approach to psychological dissimulation is possibly far more fruitful and less of a stigmatic designation, which I think is the sense in which you apply it, literally.
Those who are hyper-sensitive to the experiential world can be in a sense heavily influenced by the dominant cultural paradigms of the day and express themselves via this form.
Of course, they could also be expressing themselves via this paradigm for the benefit of the people they communicate with. The similarities between the teachings of the man called Christ and Buddhism have been noted for some time...

I should point out that I am quite familiar with the varieties of religious experience from a personal point of view and that I have had many rather "mind blowing experiences;" however unfortunately speaking about what caused such experiences appears to be against the forum rules of ATS, so I have been told. Certainly because the body of every human being naturally produces nature's most powerful psychoactive, '___', it is certainly "natural" for some people to have visionary dreams, waking dreams and even audio and video hallucinations, even without the use of shamanic psychoactives. It is quite possible that religious schizophrenics and people who report shamanic experiences simply have bodies which overproduce '___'; however I have come to consider such experiences as unreliable despite a lifetime of experimentation along the lines of Crowley's methods; in fact Crowley's methods of jolting oneself into the transcendental realm through a combination of Abramelin magick (necromancy essentially), sex magick and his various other methods (which I have been forbidden to speak of on ATS) can be described a form of self induced schizophrenia; I don't wish to appear negative about this method; on the contrary; it is very effective, but one is also playing with fire and the result is almost always what would be commonly perceived as a total loss of sanity, and the whatever "spiritual" type experiences one goes through appear to be totally subjective.

Therefore I tend to ground myself with human reason and human intuition. That there are other dimensions of reality, gods, goddesses etc., is not a knowledge which I believe to be any use to humankind, since it can just lead back to the delusions of "revelations," religion and the lost cause of transcendental morality which has been a curse on humankind for Aeons.

I think that Crowley will continue to be the Neopagan, New Aeon model for future esotericists who are drawn to the world of shamanic experiences. Despite being somewhat of a transcendentalist himself, fortunately his Thelemic philosphy can also be understood by pure reason and human intuition and utterly prohibits religious morality; thus will the Final Law hopefully prohibit future "revelations" by transcendentalists which will re-enslave human nature. For those of a more humanist and strictly philosophical nature we have modern models such as Nietzche, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, etc.

Yes, but you do so dress for battle yourself, don't you?

I have to live up to my HGA (Holy Guardian Angel) invocation. Lucifer long ago seemed to me to be a more appropriate angelic invocation than Aiwass (High preist of Horus) and I have never really like priests and prefer to be the enemy of god than his ally anyway.

. An enjoyable conversation thus far.

Philosophy and intelligent esotericism junkies tend to be discussion forum addicts, but you have to look for them amidst the myriads of religious fanatics and their incessant ramblings.

Regards

Lux