tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post1689550190767313374..comments2024-03-29T06:03:45.545-07:00Comments on One Cʘsmos: Is the World a Symballa' Coonfusion?Gagdad Bobhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comBlogger28125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-81620503096204886412007-10-11T20:26:00.000-07:002007-10-11T20:26:00.000-07:00It should also go without saying that Christianity...It should also go without saying that Christianity only gradually Christianized Western man.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-3512321585787850062007-10-11T19:59:00.000-07:002007-10-11T19:59:00.000-07:00Crypt, you are missing the implicit-explicit relat...Crypt, you are missing the implicit-explicit relationship between the law and Christianity. <BR/><BR/>Hint - it comes to fulfill the law.<BR/><BR/>That is to say, in a society where no man blasphemes the Lord on his own accord, freedom of speech is easy. <BR/><BR/>In a society where no man lifts his hand in deceitful violence against his neighbor, his worst worry is the government coming to take what belongs to him. <BR/><BR/>Etc. You have to start from a Christian/ized standpoint to arrive at the Constitution.Ephrem Antony Grayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00032465992619034619noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-34948138218838105052007-10-11T14:16:00.000-07:002007-10-11T14:16:00.000-07:00Interesting, Susannah -- I hadn't really originall...Interesting, Susannah -- I hadn't really originally thought of this as a discussion of where US law came from. Are you sure it comes from a "Christian understanding" (only put in quotes because I'm not sure exactly what you mean by it).<BR/><BR/>After all, if we go through the law, what aspect of Christianity accounts for the second amendment? When Christianity abhors blasphemy, why do we have a first amendment? Common law says if an intruder comes into your home, you can shoot to kill in self-defense -- this doesn't seem like a particularly Christian notion to me.<BR/><BR/>For most of Christianity's history, it hasn't had a problem with lack of democracy, so I don't know that we can consider democracy part of the core of Christian values. Trial by a jury of peers is a relatively new phenomenon, as well. Is there a set of values you can identify as specifically Christian?<BR/><BR/>Yes, I agree judicial activism is a shameful misappropriation of power. <BR/><BR/>I find your statement about secular progressivism not being a sufficient defense to Islamists very interesting. You could well be right, at least as far as progressives go ("secular" is a bit broader, though I'll grant you there's a fair degree of overlap).CrypticLifehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05313033952671292402noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-11713292817122805482007-10-11T13:49:00.000-07:002007-10-11T13:49:00.000-07:00"First is the discovery of heliocentrism, which di..."First is the discovery of heliocentrism, which displaced the earth from the center to the periphery of the solar system..."<BR/><BR/>Just remember that for the left the center of the universe has always been the self.Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00769555221887144911noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-2225829438059468472007-10-10T21:16:00.000-07:002007-10-10T21:16:00.000-07:00Unconscious, big bang, and genome,Oh my!Unconsciou...Unconscious, big bang, and genome,<BR/>Oh my!<BR/>Unconscious, big bang, and genome,<BR/>Oh my!<BR/>Lions, Tigers and Bears...<BR/><BR/>There's no place like om, there's no place like om...<BR/><BR/>wv: rkbozu (none of them on this bus!)NoMohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01100042056270224683noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-25732309363116452652007-10-10T18:52:00.000-07:002007-10-10T18:52:00.000-07:00I have heard it taught that the nihilism of Buddhi...I have heard it taught that the nihilism of Buddhism was a preferable refuge for the miserables trapped in a hopeless, endless caste system. (But I'm not an historian.)<BR/><BR/>Cryptic...<BR/><BR/>The origins of the U.S. are most certainly founded in a Christian understanding of law. English common law, as exposited in Blackstone's Commentaries, was the major influence on the legal minds that played a part in our founding. Representative republics that have sprung up in our wake indirectly owe their societal stability to that influence.<BR/><BR/>You will not get an accurate view if you make comparisons based on present-day (so-called) religiosity/non-religiosity and look backward from there, as our current form of religiosity is very different from that which influenced our founding, *and* because our society unquestionably is far more secularized now (ACLU & Hollywood anyone?) than our founders would ever have envisioned it could be. Christian faith no longer has the influence on our society it once did, in other words. Lots of people claim it; few live it. And it's been banned from our public life. Children are educated in thoroughly humanistic schools now.<BR/><BR/>(I don't know about all European democracies, but it's a pretty good guess they have grown increasingly non-religious since their founding. With the current influx of Muslim influence, that will not be the case much longer, and my guess is that homicide rates will not be at their current rates in a few years. :( Honor killings, and other retributory murders are on the rise already. Secular "progressivism" cannot possibly offer a sufficient defense for civil society.)<BR/><BR/>Our legal guardians now no longer interpret, but instead rewrite, the original principles underlying our representative republic. Some even look to "international law" for precedent, instead of our own Constitution. So, what other result could you expect, straying so far from what is right and fitting?Susannahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16381272662339466736noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-11802730668194380202007-10-10T17:50:00.000-07:002007-10-10T17:50:00.000-07:00Yikes! Better reread yesterday's post to make sur...Yikes! Better reread yesterday's post to make sure there's nothing too wacky or too "inside," coonologically speaking.Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-7086673945387802412007-10-10T17:48:00.000-07:002007-10-10T17:48:00.000-07:00Yes, I don't mean to rag on Wallace, since I reall...Yes, I don't mean to rag on Wallace, since I really enjoyed his first book (not so much the second), and this one is good as well. It's just that he seems to have internalized all the usual secular leftist myths about Christianity and about the West in general. <BR/><BR/>These people are so naive about why Western civilization in general, and America in particular, are so great. It's because of our distinct and historically rare and unusual values. And to the extent that Buddhist countries become decent places for their own citizens to live, it will be because they have imported these values. <BR/><BR/>Also, it seems kind of silly to trash 14th century Christianity and judge it by today's standards. I mean, where were the really great places to live in 1400? I know next to nothing about 14th century Asia, but I'm guessing it wasn't exactly paradise for the average Joe, and that there was just as much stupidity in the name of Buddhism as there ever was in the guise of Christianity.Gagdad Bobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14249005793605006679noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-41695141570806193532007-10-10T17:44:00.000-07:002007-10-10T17:44:00.000-07:00Tuesday's post, the one with the photo of Hillary ...Tuesday's post, the one with the photo of Hillary in her pointy hat, has got top billing at PJM!walthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01388218390016612051noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-8768094676786482192007-10-10T17:05:00.000-07:002007-10-10T17:05:00.000-07:00Bob, you wrote about,"...the problem I'm having so...Bob, you wrote about,<BR/>"...the problem I'm having so far with Wallace" ... and "...he's really got a bug up his asana...." I have a lot of respect for Wallace, but he, like Jack Kornfeld, found their Western unconscious wouldn't let them be comfortable living in Asia or India, yet they feel the Eastern teachings are superior. I suspect both are never entirely "home" - just my guess.<BR/><BR/>And this:<BR/>"There is this shopworn cliché among western intellectuals that mankind has undergone three modern "traumas," or assaults to our dignity, from which we've never recovered..." Uh, well, if your aim is at all vertical, then "get used to it!" is good advice. How can I "die before I die" without trauma, and having my dignity assaulted? Ahhh, yes, as you wrote: "...a Raccoon is in love with all forms of truth." That's the way we like it!<BR/><BR/>And later:<BR/>As Aurobindo remarked in a letter, "My own life and yoga have always been ... both this-worldly and other-worldly .... I could make no sharp divorce or irreconcilable opposition between what I have called the two ends of existence and all that lies between them..." This reminded me of a passage from last Sunday, where you described "...one of the central philosophical ideas to emerge from quantum theory is that of complementarity. That is, we can never affirm one thing about the cosmos without "para-doxically" affirming its complementary opposite..."<BR/><BR/>Again and again, the need to "balance," even when it comes to the visible and invisible.walthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01388218390016612051noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-51935925832133404392007-10-10T15:32:00.000-07:002007-10-10T15:32:00.000-07:00"New York's iconic Empire State Building is to be ..."New York's iconic Empire State Building is to be lit up green from Friday in honor of the Muslim holiday of Eid....."<BR/><BR/>OMG!!! NO F@$!*&# WAY!!!Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-54218089035002296822007-10-10T15:30:00.000-07:002007-10-10T15:30:00.000-07:00Thanks Walt!From the article Walt linked,"The purp...Thanks Walt!<BR/><BR/>From the article Walt linked,<BR/><BR/>"The purpose of art and philosophy is to show us truths about human nature, about the nature of the world and our place in it. Philosophy names these truths explicitly, in literal terms; literature dramatizes these truths in concrete terms, revealing its insights through the actions and statements of the characters created by the novelist. A philosophical novel, like Atlas Shrugged, is supposed to do both of these things."<BR/><BR/>Ayn Rand's Objectivism gives your head a cleansing philosophical acid washing, and stands you up on the sturdy ground of reality, with Man as worthy of living in it, and America as worthy and deserving of defending for it; the natural result of the philosophical rarity of seeing reality and Truth as an objective, complete, integrated and unfractured Whole.<BR/><BR/>True it's atheistic, but only incidentally so, not rabidly. They find no physicical evidence for religion, and so give no further consideration to anything but the here and now. <BR/><BR/>But from that place where Reality and Truth exists, you're in a prime position to begin looking spiritually inwards at Truth, and for me anyways, I couldn't help noticing that inner door...Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-50291817792038607072007-10-10T13:53:00.001-07:002007-10-10T13:53:00.001-07:00They have shrunk in New York. Jawdropper of the D...They have <I>shrunk</I> in New York. <BR/><BR/><A HREF="http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5grbRs7mCniNY7uGb1NT-yXGpiDdQ" REL="nofollow">Jawdropper</A> of the Day, h/t LGF:<BR/>"New York's iconic Empire State Building is to be lit up green from Friday in honor of the Muslim holiday of Eid.....<BR/><BR/>Given my own personal experience of arriving in Allepo, Syria at dusk on Eid in 2004 , and briefly having to navigate streets littered with trash and teenage boys, yelling obscenities at me, who was wearing a full length coat w/ hood AND accompanied by a male companion, all I can say is God Help America.Mizz Ehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02325435271880036807noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-24853965155563676292007-10-10T13:53:00.000-07:002007-10-10T13:53:00.000-07:00hehe. The closest thing to a free market that ever...hehe. <BR/><BR/>The closest thing to a free market that ever happened there was apathy. And that was in China after the fall (more or less) of its empire. Ideas are important and in fact, shape the way we see the world and what questions we are able to ask (which is the basis of science - a method to get answers for our questions. But we have to HAVE those questions first.)<BR/><BR/>If nothing else, the lives of the saints should inspire us to create and maintain the fairest and best nation we can - because their sacrifices were born not out of just piety but out of the cruelty and brutality of the place in which they found themselves.<BR/><BR/>Many died because they chose to resist the power; because they would not back down from their faith. We live in a time and place - for now - wherein our faith and our freedom to pursue it - exists. It is for this reason and it alone we have not seen great martyrs here. And this is a good thing, perhaps, or at least speaks well of this nation. The communists created a certain number of martyrs as have the Islamic states. <BR/><BR/>By this I mean - saints who were killed for their faith.Ephrem Antony Grayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00032465992619034619noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-14297052052880999942007-10-10T12:47:00.000-07:002007-10-10T12:47:00.000-07:00The question is not who's testy but whose are shru...The question is not who's testy but whose are shrunken.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-44787398584197700552007-10-10T12:40:00.000-07:002007-10-10T12:40:00.000-07:00"shrinkage in the being of the testy folks who swi..."shrinkage in the being of the testy folks who swim in them."<BR/><BR/>With such clever rejoinders as "doofus" and "bovine", it's pretty clear who's testy.CrypticLifehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05313033952671292402noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-59461053681384210062007-10-10T11:44:00.000-07:002007-10-10T11:44:00.000-07:00For Van, in his spare time: The Historic Significa...For Van, in his spare time: <A HREF="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/10/the_historic_significance_of_a.html" REL="nofollow">The Historic Significance of Atlas Shrugged</A>.walthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01388218390016612051noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-50411274506711219282007-10-10T11:29:00.000-07:002007-10-10T11:29:00.000-07:00CL, that is the dopiest study I've read in a long ...CL, that is the dopiest study I've read in a long time. There are more methodological flaws in it than I could possibly take the time to explain to you. But at least it demonstrates how there is no relationship between intelligence and wisdom.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-4335675549458977922007-10-10T11:23:00.000-07:002007-10-10T11:23:00.000-07:00Japan has been Christianized, doofus, in that Chri...Japan has been Christianized, doofus, in that Christians intervened in their history and imposed things like liberty, democracy, and free markets, which have never spontaneously arisen in Buddhist countries.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-84967329263955338112007-10-10T11:20:00.000-07:002007-10-10T11:20:00.000-07:00Ah, skepticism, the exaltation of the lower mind's...Ah, skepticism, the exaltation of the lower mind's bovine ability to doubt anything except doubt. A philosophy of stupidity, since its content is zero.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-88976487421900640722007-10-10T11:14:00.000-07:002007-10-10T11:14:00.000-07:00No, they were using the fact that what they knew d...No, they were using the fact that what they knew didn't entirely explain what they saw to justify belief in deities. If you assert that genes cannot explain our "humanness", then fall back on the explanation that our humanness must be caused by a deity, you're using exactly the same argument of ancients who didn't understand the sun.<BR/><BR/>Japan hasn't been Christianized. It's secular, but the primary religions there are Buddhism and Shintoism. Also, I'd point out that Imperial Japan wasn't a democracy, which may be a better indicator of whether a nation is a pleasant place to live than whether it's Christian-dominated.<BR/><BR/>Yes, the US is the most religious democracy. Of the democracies, there are arguments that the US is not the best place to live, which is what the link indicates. Comparing lifestyle in the US to lifestyle in third-world countries is a sham argument.<BR/><BR/>Thanks for the correction, Van.CrypticLifehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05313033952671292402noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-68314656793704100552007-10-10T10:59:00.002-07:002007-10-10T10:59:00.002-07:00CL, that's just stupid. I can assure you that no o...CL, that's just stupid. I can assure you that no one used big bang cosmology, the genome, or the unconscious mind to justify a belief in deities "thousands of years ago." <BR/><BR/>And would you have preferred to live in imperial Japan prior to their having been Christianized after the A-bomb? <BR/><BR/>And the US is the most religious democracy in the world, so I don't understand your point.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-26410581310073492942007-10-10T10:59:00.000-07:002007-10-10T10:59:00.000-07:00It's here, for what it's worth.It's here, for <A HREF="http://www.skeptic.com/the_magazine/featured_articles/v12n03_are_religious_societies_healthier.html" REL="nofollow">what</A> it's worth.Van Harveyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08470413719262297062noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-15850991797894142192007-10-10T10:41:00.000-07:002007-10-10T10:41:00.000-07:00http://www.skeptic.com/the_magazine/featured_artic...http://www.skeptic.com/the_magazine/featured_articles/v12n03_are_religious_societies_healthier.html<BR/><BR/>Sorry about the truncated link.CrypticLifehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05313033952671292402noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8580258.post-78302132095874566952007-10-10T10:39:00.000-07:002007-10-10T10:39:00.000-07:00"We could just as easily make up a narrative stati..."We could just as easily make up a narrative stating that these scientific developments were catastrophic to atheists, since they proved that the universe was created, that genes cannot account for the sudden emergence of our inexplicable humanness, and that the ego's narrow reason is ridiculously insufficient to give an account of reality. "<BR/><BR/>Perhaps not coincidentally, that's exactly the narrative that's been used for thousands of years to justify belief in the existence of deities. It still suffers the same logical flaws, which I'm sure you're aware of and unconcerned with since the existence of a deity is obvious to you.<BR/><BR/>I like the value system that has emerged in the West just fine, for the most part, but I'm not sure about the fairness of your criticism. Sure, I'd rather live in the US than Burma, but I'd also rather live in Japan than Kenya. I can't think of an Islamic country I'd prefer to live in.<BR/><BR/>You might try comparing religious to nonreligious democracies. Of course, that might not lead to the conclusion you desire.<BR/><BR/>http://www.skeptic.com/the_magazine/featured_articles/v12n03_are_religious_societies_healthier.htmlCrypticLifehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05313033952671292402noreply@blogger.com