Vatas' quote

[GenghisKhan44]

There are many things I want to address, but most of those take time and energy which I cannot spare right now. However, I can spare some for this:

Ah. Then the socialist state, rather ironically, sweeps in and makes a business proposal with its constituents: you vote for us, and we will give you everything. Free healthcare. Free education. Free for everyone, even people from the world over. Never mind we can't afford it. We will find a way through your obvious goodwill proved by your bitching about rich, white, cisgendered men.

This is a bit (more than a bit) of a pessimistic and nihilistic way of looking at it... Also, other than some slogans thrown around about education, nobody is saying "free anything" unless you're a part of that extremely poor portion of the population that needs a hand up--better education, better health care, etc. (I'll note that "free college" has been a frequent catch phrase around Sander's campaigns for US President in '16 and now for '20.) That reminds more of what I'd hear free market conservatives chirp in the early 80s, or at least the mocking of politics revolving around it. To quote Dylan (sarcastically): "the times they are a changin'"

I guess you have not followed coverage of the Democratic debates. I believe my take to be entirely sane and based on the evidence, at least in the United States. I follow Steven Crowder (a conservative) and Tim Pool (a liberal). Of the two, I think Crowder the less critical, perhaps because he is not being made politically homeless. Moderate Democrats like Tim are very critical of the extremes the DNC's several candidates are talking up to try to win over Progressives. I feel sorry that diplomatic men like himself have been abandoned by the DNC in favour of the angry and the sanctimonious - the kind who throw milkshakes filled with quick-drying cement or who insist that freedom of speech should be suppressed if it hurts your feelings.

Thirty years ago the Christian right could be described in those words. Now their children and grandchildren, quite opposed to religion, are the fanatics. I am not a nihilist or a pessimist about this; I find it funnily ironic and I believe most people won't buy Progressivism (especially sexual progressivism) as a political movement, just as they didn't buy the "Moral Majority" in the 80s. Most Americans don't care about God beyond the fire insurance, and most people don't date trannies and don't want to. That means shubla is right; culture is the war that needs to be fought. The left is using tools that didn't work 30 years ago. It's funny to me.

[mvgulik]

(just some other available knowledge ... in no particular order)

Confirmation bias
Social cycle theory
Trias politica
Basic income
Trilemma's

Trilemma example:


... “Mankind invented the atomic bomb, but no mouse would ever construct a mousetrap.” ...

[sMartins]

"Marx called this condition “alienation”, and coherent with the conditions

of his time, he circumscribed alienation to the capitalistic manner of produc-
tion. But both capitalism (the cause of alienation) and communism (which

Marx planned as a remedy for alienation) are figures still inscribed in human-
ism, or rather still in that horizon of meaning, typical of the pre-technological

age, where man is foreseen as subject and technique as instrument. But, in the
technical age, which begins when the universe of means has no finality in view,
(not even profit), the relationship is overturned, in the sense that man is no
longer a subject which capitalistic production alienates and makes a thing, but
is a product of the technological alienation which establishes itself as subject
and man as its predicate.
It follows that the theoretical instrumentation made available by Marx, who
was even among the first to foresee the scenarios of the technical age which he
called the “civilization of machines’, is no longer entirely suitable for reading

the time of technique, not because capitalism historically won over commu-
nism, but because Marx still moves in a humanistic horizon, with reference to

the pre-technological man, where, as Hegel’s lesson states, the servant has in
his lord his antagonist, and the lord in his servant, while, in the technical age,
there are no longer either servants or lords, but only the requirements of that
rigid rationality to which both servants and lords must be subordinated".

Now who in his right mind would like to support lazy people ... or dissidents, or extremists, or terrorists, or Fake news reporters for that matter

Lazy people = people that have the will to do nothing, try yourself doing nothing, then tell me if you can.
Terrorist = people that think the real "terrorist" are on the other side and find no solutions if not death and destruction to stop that same death and destruction operated by the other side.
..... and so on ..... just labels .... if your labels would be true then my labels must be true also = I want to burn witches.

[GenghisKhan44]

please delete this dupe

[GenghisKhan44]

(just some other available knowledge ... in no particular order)

Confirmation bias
Social cycle theory
Trias politica
Basic income
Trilemma's

Trilemma example:


... “Mankind invented the atomic bomb, but no mouse would ever construct a mousetrap.” ...

I see you and I raise you:

Confirmation bias
It applies to everyone, and bringing it up among thoughtful people is really only a sign you do not trust their opinons. Fine. Can you at least be open?
Original Sin
This is why we do stupid things that create the condition we are in now, or, if the theological language is too much for you,
Step 1 of the Twelve Steps
"We admitted we were powerless over our addiction - that our lives had become unmanageable." I really think this applies to life in general, not only anyone who has an addiction. Life is an addiction, after a fashion, and it is hard for most of us to manage.
Catholic Social Teaching
A UBI is too simple a solution to a complex problem - that of economic welfare. I do happen to believe in a living wage, at least for those who work for wages to live and not for pocket money. Some people don't work to live; some do not work to receive money. Though this is rare in the United States, it is not so with the whole world. Also, a living wage is not the same in Nebraska as it is in California; not the same in Los Angeles as in Bakersfield. National level policies fail to meet the criterion of subsidiarity - the most local problems ought to have the most local solutions (another reason I oppose revolutionaries and communism).

Examples of Societal Collapse and Its Effects
Civilizations can go through cycles. They can also collapse entirely. This is why the pursuit of virtue is important; the destruction of societal institutions is not at all desirable in and of itself. I might look forward to it only for my children; maybe they will re-Christianise the West, as happened in the wake of the Middle Ages. Chaos eventually produces order, as long as humans have anything to do with it.

And finally:
Not All Republics Are Anti-Monarchical Or Autocratic.

[sMartins]

I might look forward to it only for my children; maybe they will re-Christianise the West, as happened in the wake of the Middle Ages. Chaos eventually produces order, as long as humans have anything to do with it

I feel you and I know about your fears and that's exactly why I'll be harsh with you.
What you wrote above is not possible, we need to stop now using Christianity categories of thought …. such as "hope".
We need to truly accept into ourselves that the future is not only positive but can also be negative and worse than the past.
That's what we need to do at first.

Christianity is what produced all of this. It was a revolutionary and at the same time diabolical idea that brought us over the top of the world, we won the battle of civilizations, we dominate the world, but like everything that is worthed it has also its own dark side.
The future is not a promise/assurance anymore.

C. is 2000 years old, try to fight a tank with a sword than tell me how it goes …. the world has changed.

[Jalpha]

Original Sin

I am going to stop at this one. I will explain why at the end of my point.

Problem of Evil

God is not omipotent. This is because God gave us free will. So, unable to control us God was no longer in control of everything. He sacrificed his omnipotence to provide us with free will.

What followed was a bunch of self blame and just plain sooking because challenges were placed before us as a result. Sin is a misnomer. It was the will of God that we express our free will which God gave to us.

I will not speak further about christianity if I can avoid it because christianity is literally a death cult followed by self hating persecutionists who want the world destroyed. Christianity - just say no.

[GenghisKhan44]

I might look forward to it only for my children; maybe they will re-Christianise the West, as happened in the wake of the Middle Ages. Chaos eventually produces order, as long as humans have anything to do with it

I feel you and I know about your fears and that's exactly why I'll be harsh with you.
What you wrote above is not possible, we need to stop now using Christianity categories of thought …. such as "hope".

Define what you mean when you say "hope". The "hope" I have has nothing to do with the material order; the material order is something I have to work at to make good. If I don't work, if not enough people work, yes, social order can wither, just as it has before. We rose when Rome fell.

But Christianity's hope is not heaven on Earth. Eutopia is impossible, but getting as close to it as we can is the assignment of every person. Impossible though it is, what we do to make it happen is what is important.
The hope for Catholics and Orthodox - I cannot speak for Protestants - is that when civilization or even the human species eventually dies, we will see Who put us into this Game, why He did, and that somehow it was worth it. We Catholics call this the Beatific Vision.

C. is 2000 years old, try to fight a tank with a sword than tell me how it goes …. the world has changed.

Change is not always progressive. Or rather, progress can sometimes be in a negative way. Progress in cancer eventually kills a person.
The Enlightenment has bloomed into a cancer that threatens the human's ability to discern truth. The old bogeyman of sophism has been resurrected. In short, people have lost the ability to think critically. They started with "I think, therefore I am", and are coming to end with "I am not, and therefore cannot think." Everyone thinks they are a ball of chemicals, a partisan who chooses sides. How can you discern truth if you reduce people, including yourself, to that?

I believe in truth.

[GenghisKhan44]

christianity is literally a death cult followed by self hating persecutionists who want the world destroyed. Christianity - just say no.

When you say Christianity, I presume you must only be familiar with Protestantized or Americanized Christianity. Americans tend to be puritanical when they are also Christians - and when they become fanatical about anything, such as communism, LGBT rights, or environmentalism - but this is ahistorical.

The Catholicism I know "On many occasions... has had to defend the goodness of creation, including that of the physical world." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #299.)

God is not omipotent. This is because God gave us free will.

Lemme see if i follow your logic: God is not omnipotent because He also gave trees the ability to grow, rocks the ability to sit still, gravity the ability to pull rocks, air and gasses to affect the world around them including by making tornadoes and hurricanes...

Is that what you are seriously suggesting? Because human free will is simply a part of the natural law as a whole. Let us define some things, by the way:

[*]Existence/Being - to have a presence, particularly in the Present. Past things no longer properly exist, and future things do not yet properly exist.
[*]God - the essence of Being. The state of existence in an eternal Present, which is only proper to God and is His defining trait. Why He/His? Because It/Its is obtuse, He/His goes back even to the pagan Greeks, and I'm not politically correct.
[*]Natural law - simply the patterns by which everything in nature is guided. It has a logical pattern that can be grasped. It was created by God.
[*]Free will - the ability of a creature of act out of sources other than impulse, namely reason and will. It is part of natural law. Free will, being part of the natural law, is not immutable or absolute. It is often muted by impulse.

I am not asking you why you think God punishes people for sin, or how He does so, or any of your other gripes aside from this one: how is God's granting the power of right reason and of will that can defy impulses different from him granting a tree the power of growing roots or a bird from eating worms? And how does any of these nullify the power of God?

[GenghisKhan44]

Nihilism is sprouting from the corpse of this godless society. What can anyone do about it.

It is a difficult question, and one that I struggle with personally. "The old gods are dead."

To those who have no interest in seeing them alive and powerful.
Sure. Pretend you're guided by your own misanthropy and delusion, or conversely charity and goodwill. Nothing has any influence on you. You are an independent agent responsive and responsible to absolutely no personal powers at all.

Just because I believe in God Almighty does not mean I disbelieve in Zeus or Thor. They are as real to me as the God Who made them. They may be evil, and I may actively ingnore them, but I would never deny they are real for that reason alone.

So what is the answer we are given? "Find your own meaning." And what if I find no meaning in anything? So I do what I can to enjoy myself while working a job. For a lot of people, the answer is to have kids. But it seems to me that that is merely forcing the answer upon yourself. You created a new life, and now you are responsible for raising that life. But that life will grow up and someday face the exact same questions that you faced. Someday they will grow old and die just like you did before them. I suppose the only lasting legacy would be in the situation where some future generation achieves true biological immortality. Then at least through your participation in civilization, you helped humanity eventually arrive at that point. But that is little comfort for anyone alive right now.

The world, I understand, will probably die anyway, either in the Big Crunch or in heat death. It might not, depending on which model is true. But in any case vacillating about the future is useless. Many Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants waste ink, time, and hot air on it, especially in the topic of how many will be saved. It is irritatingly futile.

We only have the present. Only the present can even have any meaningfulness to us. Good exists in the present; a good life is lived in the present, not in memories of the past nor fantasies of the future. Do what is good today, to the people you see here and now. Good is obvious; you do it to yourself. There are points you get wrong sometimes; we all do. Our reason is not perfect, especially when it comes to sex. But everyone knows "you shall love your neighbor as yourself" is a truth, therefore a law, therefore a purpose to your life.

The God I believe in does not see the world either as a memory or as a fantasy. He sees it all as it if is this very moment. It is beyond me what that looks like. But I live in the moment, when I am not impulsively vacillating over decisions.