I promise you

Posted by Guessedworker on Sunday, 08 April 2007 10:19.

From the Wikipedia page on Plato’s Republic, commenting upon the inappropriateness of the title as given in English:-

An ancient Greek politeia was considered to be a way of life; so in actuality a proper translation would be ‘how we live as people’

How we live ... we.  In ways we all understand, the whole of the 20th Century was a working out of the question of how we may live, justly, as people of the modern era.  The answer to which postmodernity, ably assisted by certain interested parties, seems to have brought us is that our children’s generation and all the generations that follow them shall never take up arms against their neighbour nor threaten the Jewish destiny nor enslave the backward African. 

For these, the worst sins in the world, our children shall be of a people no more.  They shall be consigned to racial anonymity.  One among many, they shall be atomised individuals laying claim no more to the lands of their fathers.  Their lives shall be lighted no more by the ancient, natural virtues of dignity and honour, which all European peoples have held dear, but by a petty tolerance, fairness and false decency.  Mindless work shall fill the daylight hours and dedicated consumerism shall follow.  Drinking, drug-taking, gambling, football shall dull their senses, analgaesia in consolation for the loss of everything.

There are grounds for supposing that our so wise and generous elites and kindly business leaders have got this about right.  As far back as the first half of the sixteenth century Sir Thomas More had concluded that if man does not believe in God or an afterlife he would not logically acknowledge any authority or principles outside himself.  Why, then, if this same man can be made to disbelieve in his place among his ancestral people, would he owe fellow members of that people any duty of care?

In other words, there is no answer in postmodernity to Plato’s question.  The question has ceased to be relevant.  Our new world is perfectly bereft of the moral foundation for compassion, because that basis is and always was genetic, and morality was but a late addition.

So here we are, “evil racists” working our way towards the thought that precisely because we are particularist, because we discriminate and prefer, compassion is our credo.  Without the ties of blood there is no motivation, and no practical basis, for translating it into fact “on the ground”.  The well-educated, middle-class universalists we are so used to hearing mouth their high-flown humanitarian sentiments are simple frauds.  They produce nothing.

Long ago, in my first non-manual job when I was, I guess, about 20, I came across an article in Campaign, a weekly advertising trade journal that used to cross my desk.  It was an interview of some pretty smooth advertising exec who, in his spare time, was a backroom Conservative Party activist (Campaign was owned by Michael Heseltine’s Haymarket Press).  This guy said something I did not immediately understand, but which I have never forgotten.  Conservative ethics, he said, including the free market, were not at all divorced from social concern.  On the contrary, they were the most natural and practical means of raising the poor, whilst the then dominant classical Marxist theory of class-warfare would pauperize them.

To what extent he was sincere I do not know.  This was only a year or two after the Selsdon Park Conference, and new thinking was coursing through the Party.  The radical free market programme that emerged from the Selsdon conference was quickly dropped by then-leader Edward Heath when he became Prime Minister in 1970.  But it informed Margaret Thatcher’s successful bid for the Party leadership in 1975.

By the time Maggie got into Downing Street, four years later, defeating the rampant unions and pumping enterprise into a flatulent, failing economy was everything.  “Practical means of raising the poor” were of distinctly marginal interest, to put it mildly.  Indeed, the decades of wedge-driving by the left had so riven the social fabric, Thatcher’s Children utterly disdained and turned their backs on the working man, and vice versa.  Maggie’s bowdlerization of the Prayer of St.Francis which she uttered on the steps of No.10 ...

“Where there is discord, may we bring harmony.  Where there is error, may we bring truth.  Where there is doubt, may we bring faith.  And where there is despair, may we bring hope.”

... needed reinforcement with a few miracles.  As it was, what it got was a dose of monetarism.

Insomuch as the choice at the beginning was between industrial anarchy and economic survival I supported the Thatcherites.  But it was clear throughout that they understood nothing beyond economism.  They were utterly naive and cowardly before the greater dangers, which were cultural and demographic, that the English faced.  When I look back, it is with some sense of embarrassment that I voted for them at each general election.  But such are the choices given us.  Today, I would not vote for the Conservative Party, and probably will not vote at all.  If I lived in a constituency where a BNP candidate was standing I would vote for him.

Now, yesterday while I was scouting enemy lines I found the red baron of the blogospheric skies close on my tail.  He directed a burst of fire at me, to whit the claim that the sole product of Conservatism was “orgiastic moneygetting on a global scale, instigated, theorized, financed, abetted, purveyed, and finally, covered up, by Jews.”

This, I think, we can take as code for Thatcher’s neoliberalism, also known on the left as greed.  Probably, it will do no good to point out to Wintermute that individualism + intelligence, both evolved European capacities, contain the possibilities for all the excesses of which he complains.  Men will strive, and intelligent men whose ethic excludes social solidarity will strive most successfully in the way of greed, entirely uncaring as to their own effects.  It is not Conservatism, even of the conventional Party kind, that unfailingly produces this.  It is disconnectedness amongst the people.  Conservativism in the non-Party, philosophical sense which I have tried to impart would entrench and strengthen connectedness - were, of course, it ever to be put into practise again.

Because it is Easter Sunday I will demonstrate with the aid of a little music.  It is from folk-rock group Show of Hands, the same two refreshingly mature gentlemen who entertained MR readers with a pro-English ditty in mid-February.

Here’s singer Steve Knightley on his and Phil Beer’s musical ethos:-

What we do in Show of Hands is we play narrative and melodic music on a variety of accoustic instruments, with a lot of drive and a lot of attack to try and spread this idea that there is English music to a larger audience, and that’s really our philosophy.

Knightley and Beer have an undisguised love for the working people of the English countryside.  Interestingly from our perspective, those people have seen their jobs disappear,  their traditions decay, their villages die, their homes taken over by uncaring outsiders.  They have been betrayed by modernity, in fact by just about everybody.  They are a good figure for what is happening all across this old country, and further afield than that.

The first song sets this sad situation in the familar idiom of protest.  Every word is true.  The second, with its sepia wistfulness contrasted by a principled refusal to let go, is more interesting because it is a love song, and a song of compassion for the dispossessed.  Its noble message is one not of crap liberal tolerance and decency, but of forebearance of suffering.  It could only be written and really appreciated by one who retains some not inconsequential connectedness to the rural poor.

There may not be much utility today in making promises one cannot keep.  But love like this, and faith in one’s kind, is a fine thing, and by my lights it is a Conservative thing.  I only wish there was more of it.

Enjoy your Easter Sunday.

Tags: Conservatism



Comments:


1

Posted by john on Sun, 08 Apr 2007 13:03 | #

“The well-educated, middle-class universalists we are so used to hearing mouth their high-flown humanitarian sentiments are simple frauds.  They produce nothing.”
This brings to mind the DVD I bought from Amren of Jared Taylor debating multiculturalism. The guy he debates with is an example of the above, a truly awful example of how far a man can become bebased.


2

Posted by W.LindsayWheeler on Sun, 08 Apr 2007 16:56 | #

“Genetics” as the base of “compassion”?

Who and what scientific evidence said this?  How can something that is material and chemical, which genes are just chemicals, produce something that is metaphysical?

There is something glaringly wrong here.  As Socrates would ask is this the same in every situation that “Comapassion” is called for?

If I have compassion on a dog—Is it genetic?  If I see a sick and abused horse in someone’s pasture, and I show compassion on it—-is it genetic?  I mean the statement of the thesis of the article is non-sensical. First how does “chemicals” that produce physical affects produce compassion that is a metaphysical action?  Does one have to be genetically the same to have compassion on a dog or a horse?

When I was in Boy Scout camp, we used to have snake feeds.  Put a mouse in the rattler cage and watch him eat.  Well, one week, we put a mouse in and he bounced around bit the snakes and nobody touched him.  The Scout in charge, gave the mouse its liberty.  Is that compassion?

How much compassion did Romans have with their own kind when they threw their compatriots in the gladiator ring?

There is major inconsistencies here.


3

Posted by Guessedworker on Sun, 08 Apr 2007 17:06 | #

For whom are you willing to fight, WMW?  I know for whom I am willing to fight.  Just so with my compassion, which is another desire to protect from harm.


4

Posted by W.LindsayWheeler on Sun, 08 Apr 2007 17:07 | #

The Greek word, “politiea” has many meanings.  Wikipedia is following marxist meanings and to take what Wikipedia says and use it as a basis for an article….well, is not very smart.

The most recent Oxford Classical Dictionary has come out and said, that The Roman translation of Plato’s “politiea” is misleading. 

The Marxisation of Classical Antiquity is now complete and thorough.  One can’t trust modern Academic sources anymore!!!

The Greek word for “politiea” is “society” a multilayered society.  Aristotle laid out the Greek viewpoint that a people all alike are NOT a Poleos; not a state; not a society.  The Greeks used the word “politiea” for the Family as well, a family being composed of different individuals.  Politiea also means “way of life”, cusoms, and it means “mixed government”.  Politiea is a “human organism”.  The total package.  Plato’s Republic is thatl It is a multi-layered society of guardians, soldiers, and workers.  It is based on the Indo-European Trifunctionality concept and the concept of Righteousness, (dikaios) that each class keeps seperate and distinct.

Wikipedia is a Marxist run website! Their NPOV guidelines are Jewish inspired.


5

Posted by W.LindsayWheeler on Sun, 08 Apr 2007 17:13 | #

Guessed worker, I am a Greek, I view both the physical and metaphysical worlds.  You are a materialist and base everything on “genetics”;  Greeks are different—-Our philosophy is based on the Soul.  Compassion comes from the Soul which is metaphysical. 

All I am pointing out is that you are making logical mistakes.  Compassion is an act of Soul—-not genetics. 

Here is another inconsistency, “We say there is no God” but then you talk of Compassion?  Well, please give me the Scientific Research that says “Compassion” exists?  I don’t see “compassion” it is not physical, it can’t be seen and touched—-soo it doesn’t exist.

For a Scientific site, your argument about Compassion is NOT scientific!!!  You’re scientist right?  What Science covers “Compassion”? What science studies Compassion?


6

Posted by W.LindsayWheeler on Sun, 08 Apr 2007 17:19 | #

Paramenides laid the foundation of Western Thought—the Principle of Non-contradiction. 

What Wikipedia is, is that it is based on Jewish thought patterns.  Jewish thought patterns do not have this “Principle of non-contradiction”.  What Wikipedia does is that their guideline of Neutral Point of View, is that it breaks Paramenides principle of Non Contradiciton.  Many of Wikipedia articles break this “principle of non-contradition” because of NPOV, Contradictions are forced into every article! 

Wikipedia is Jewish Thought.  It is NOT Western.  That is why I am at Wikinfo which has SPOV—Subjective Point of view.  NPOV is typical Jewish thought.  It is found throughout the Talmud. 

That is why Christianity is a violent Religion.  Christianity is an Indo-European Religion!  Since Christianity is a religion of Truth—-it is based on Paramenides principle of Non-contradiction.  Indo-European Character MAKES Christianity a violent religion as it is supposed to be—-The finding and holding of Truth.


7

Posted by Guessedworker on Sun, 08 Apr 2007 17:57 | #

Answer my question.


8

Posted by Proofreader on Sun, 08 Apr 2007 18:47 | #

“I promise you” lyrics, Show of Hands:


I promise you warm nights
I promise you long days
I promise you summer twilight
I promise you soft waves

But first we must bear
The winter

I promise you blue skies
I promise you the rolling moors
I promise you barefoot sunrise
I promise you open doors

But first we must bear
The winter

The rain and the gates
And the frost and the hail
The hard biting nails
Of winter

I promise you light returning
I promise you hope reborn
I promise you gentle mornings
I promise you new dawn

But first we must bear
The winter


9

Posted by James Bowery on Sun, 08 Apr 2007 19:10 | #

GW: An even more succinct and incisive question:

For what are you willing to kill?


10

Posted by Melba Peachtoast on Sun, 08 Apr 2007 19:19 | #

If you asked ME for what would *I* kill I’d have to say”

“James darling, what have you got?”


11

Posted by James Bowery on Sun, 08 Apr 2007 19:22 | #

As for the relationship of science to compassion—compassion without understanding is vitated by error.


12

Posted by James Bowery on Sun, 08 Apr 2007 19:24 | #

vitated -> vitiated


13

Posted by James Bowery on Sun, 08 Apr 2007 19:29 | #

there’s no guarantee they won’t start Marxizing the discussion pages too

The biases show up in the discussion pages via a variety of routes—how the discussion pages are organized—when they are “archived”—how they are “archived” etc.

I don’t know how long it will take for people to understand why I supported the use of Wikipedia as a text compression benchmark corpus but it is exceedingly important.  Once compressed to its Kolmogorov complexity, any corpus yields its biases in the form of a model predicting the text.  I don’t know how to make the point clearer or more succinct.  This is an epistemological breakthrough of the first magnitude.


14

Posted by W.LindsayWheeler on Sun, 08 Apr 2007 19:29 | #

<i>For whom are you willing to fight, WMW?  I know for whom I am willing to fight.  Just so with my compassion, which is another desire to protect from harm.</i >

Guessed Worker; The Oxford English Dictionary defines “Compassion” thus: compassion
noun [MASS NOUN] sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others:

You say Compassion is a desire to protect from harm.  Well, that is NOT the definition of compassion Sir.  Now please define for me what the heck you are talking about because it has NO direct link to COMPASSION.  Maybe you want another word—-but it ain’t compassion.

Before I answer the question, maybe the question should make sense; maybe the Interlocatur should define what he means; maybe the words should fit the concepts that he seeks to convey.

Science is about Precision.  Science is about “The Love of Accuracy”.  The first principle is the Principle of Indentity.  Compassion means nothing about killing anything.  So, let’s go back to the drawing board you who seek to tell other people what to do.


15

Posted by James Bowery on Sun, 08 Apr 2007 19:51 | #

Compassion means nothing about killing anything.

Any concept of compassion that does not include the time killing is appropriate is the conception of a woman, child or coward.


16

Posted by Guessedworker on Sun, 08 Apr 2007 19:54 | #

In what way is “sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others” not an outcrop of protectiveness?

I don’t think you have a clue about how the functions of self-sacrifice, altruism, compassion etc arose.  I will tell you.  They were selected, my friend.  They were proved conducive to fitness.

Put away Aristotle and Plato, and read Darwin.


17

Posted by James Bowery on Sun, 08 Apr 2007 19:54 | #

(With all due respect to Melba Peachtoast—some women are exceptional and indeed more of our women are exceptional than the women of most peoples which makes our people vulnerable to the malign encouragement of feminism.)


18

Posted by W.LindsayWheeler on Sun, 08 Apr 2007 20:27 | #

Darwin is not the basis of Western Culture or Western Civilization.  Western Culture existed way before Darwin!  You’re telling me that Western Culture and Western Civilization started with “Darwin”?

When the Greeks were asked if they wanted gladiator games, an old man stood up and said to the audience, “Before we vote, let’s go and tear down the Altar to Mercy and then have the vote”. 

Well, no one took him up on the offer and so NO vote was ever taken.

This has nothing to do with Darwin!


19

Posted by W.LindsayWheeler on Sun, 08 Apr 2007 20:30 | #

The Founder of Ethics is Socrates—-Who the heck is Darwin?

Can you GW find some quote in Darwin that refers to Compassion? 

Compassion has to do with E-T-H-I-C-S.  Philosophy and religion deal with ethics—-not evolution!  Even Elephants have compassion on their own sick. Even Buffalo defend the herd, but I don’t think Elephants or Buffalo have a concept of compassion nor practice cross species compassion that humans do.


20

Posted by Guessedworker on Sun, 08 Apr 2007 21:21 | #

All function in Mr Socrates’ mind was also selected.  He didn’t know it, of course.

I am beginning to wonder whether Greek culture is so important to you because you are not genetically very Greek at all, and you feel disadvantaged in any discussion in which genetic distinctiveness and ethnic genetic interest are paramount.

So let us be clear.  The defence of Europe’s children is a genetic defence.  If one day they are heavily deracinated by, say, Roma or Turks, then my ethnic genetic interests are not nearly so strongly invested in them.  Inevitably, that holds implications for my attitudes and responses towards them.  Responses such as compassion, which you take to have arrived in the mind of Man from outer space, will be weakened.

I made the point in my post that morality - or ethics, if you prefer - “was but a late addition”.  Thus, we agree that ethics has its place.  The question is: why is that place so important to you that the entire thrust of genetic science must be denied?


21

Posted by W.LindsayWheeler on Sun, 08 Apr 2007 21:36 | #

Because GW you are mixing things together.  The Foundation of human character is Soul, not genetics.  The Soul is passed from Patriarch to his children.  It is Soul that is utmost importance.

But what is the proper word you seek for is Johann Herder’s term, “Belonging” not compassion.  Genetics don’t “feel”, Soul does. IT is the Soul that is the basis of the Human being.


22

Posted by W.LindsayWheeler on Sun, 08 Apr 2007 21:43 | #

The Sphere of Genetics is in the PHYSICAL SPHERE.  Compassion is in the METAPHYSICAL SPHERE.  There is a big difference!  Genetics deal with the formation of biological material physical bodies.  Compassion, love, justice, belonging, are metaphysical. 

Do you understand “META”  it is a Greek word meaning “beyond”.  Meta—-physical—-beyond the physical. 

You are usurping the boundaries of science and taking a physical science; i.e. genetics, and elevating it into a Theology or a Philosophy.  Philosophy and Theology is what answers and discusses things of the Metaphysical realm. 

Do not mix the physical with the metaphysical.


23

Posted by Guessedworker on Sun, 08 Apr 2007 23:44 | #

What you are describing is a religious faith ... your religious faith.  Faith, too, is selected.

Look, if you really want to discuss the boundaries between phenomena and noumena, and between the illusory and the real, between absence and presence, between mechanicity and consciousness, all these I can discuss with you, and many others things besides.  But none of this has more than the most tangential relationship to “a site for the discussion of issues affecting Western societies”.

I do commend you, if you are open-minded and willing to examine a flawless construction of ethics on a thoroughly Darwinian foundation, to purchase Frank Salter’s On Genetic Interests.  At the very least you might then be better prepared to encounter posts such as the one above, and you might be less inclined to rely upon the “certainties” you now do.


24

Posted by Al Ross on Mon, 09 Apr 2007 00:12 | #

Where exactly does W Lindsay Wheeler imagine the human ‘soul’ to be situated and if, as I suspect, it is so important to Christians, why doesnt that word appear in their bible.


25

Posted by Al Ross on Mon, 09 Apr 2007 00:29 | #

I meant, of course, to type ‘immortal’ before soul.


26

Posted by Daniel J on Mon, 09 Apr 2007 03:30 | #

Once again chicken or the egg…  sort of….

Look, one must either start with the presumption there is a God given soul (and in wheeler’s world, blacks apparently have worse ones) and we have something ethereal -that may or may not show up in the genome- that informs and presents us with ‘moral choices’, or one can assume their is only the material caught in an inescapable and biologically determined reality.

Perhaps God endowed us with the ability to moralize (and it may or may not show up ‘genetically’).

Perhaps, nature ‘selected’ (and I mean in the most random way because evolution dictates only the “appearance of order” and the “appearance of choosing”) compassion as a means of securing reproduction and replication.

Most importantly, like GW said, it is tangential.


27

Posted by The putrid stench of gnxp on Mon, 09 Apr 2007 15:58 | #

“Guessed worker, I am a Greek…”

Are you?  Can you inform us if whether all four of your grandparents are of Greek ancestry?  This is no minor point, since GW writes: “I am beginning to wonder whether Greek culture is so important to you because you are not genetically very Greek at all, and you feel disadvantaged in any discussion in which genetic distinctiveness and ethnic genetic interest are paramount. “

Given the “controversy” of “Retew’s” ancestry, can Mr. Wheeler provide us with the necessary ancestral information?

“When the Greeks were asked if they wanted gladiator games, an old man stood up and said to the audience, “Before we vote, let’s go and tear down the Altar to Mercy and then have the vote”.  ...Well, no one took him up on the offer and so NO vote was ever taken”

which means what, exactly?  The old man’s thoughts came from his brain, a physical structure.  A people’s culture comes from the people themselves, their thoughts and desires, which comes from the human brain.

In a similar situation in, say, sub-Saharan Africa, the “old man” would have been impaled on a spear and eaten.  What’s the difference?  Some mysterious “culture” which descends from the heavens - of the differences between the European and African mentality, which originates in inherited (genetic) differences between these peoples with respect to their mental and emotional faculties?

Sure, enough, under pressure some Africans can mimic European morality (but, have you seen an American inner city?), but left to their own devices, in the absence of compelling pressure to behave civilized, their true nature emerges.

This is a physical phenomenon.


28

Posted by Guessedworker on Mon, 09 Apr 2007 21:53 | #

That’s an interesting observation, Alex.

I don’t think Knightley and Beer would claim to be a master of his craft like Knopfler.  But the lyricism of their treatments certainly approaches the best of his work ... say, Telegraph Road.  But the crux of the matter, since we are discussing kinship and the feeling thereof, is that K and B relate far more directly to their subject, as one would expect - they not being the sons of a Hungarian escapee from etc, etc ...

Here are the spiritually arms-length lyrics to Brothers In Arms:-

These mist covered mountains
Are a home now for me
But my home is the lowlands
And always will be
Some day you’ll return to
Your valleys and your farms
And you’ll no longer burn
To be brothers in arm

Through these fields of destruction
Baptism of fire
I’ve watched all your suffering
As the battles raged higher
And though they did hurt me so bad
In the fear and alarm
You did not desert me
My brothers in arms

There’s so many different worlds
So many different suns
And we have just one world
But we live in different ones

Now the sun’s gone to hell
And the moon’s riding high
Let me bid you farewell
Every man has to die
But it’s written in the starlight
And every line on your palm
We’re fools to make war
On our brothers in arms


29

Posted by W.LindsayWheeler on Mon, 09 Apr 2007 22:35 | #

Boy, for a scientific site, language is such a muddled mess here.  We can’t “Define and divide”.

Faith is Faith which is a part of Religion.

Metaphysics is NOT Faith or a religion but a science as recognized by the Pagan Greeks.

Now, I quote from Jacques Maritain, French Catholic Philosopher, who says, “Philosophy is a Science”.  The Queen of Sciences—-above the physical sciences.  Philosophy is a metaphysical science. 

Chemistry, biology, genetics, physics, geometry, etc are physical sciences.  What studies Soul, Ethics, religion, morality, political science falls under Metaphysics.

As to the Soul, Plato defines it as “Anything with self-movement”.  Plants, animals and human beings all have Soul.  Anything that is life has soul and anything that has Soul has life.  Soul is the Life force.

Plato and others like him saw that all life is made up of dead material.  Something ANIMATES dead material.  That something is Soul.  Where we get the world “animal” from.

What do you call “common sense”?  I can’t touch “common sense”, I can’t see “common sense”.  But in your secularist knowledge do you disregard “common sense”?  Does Common Sense exist for you people?  Is “Common Sense” faith?  NO.  But your lumping of Metaphysics into Faith is the same as lumping Common sense into Faith as well! 

Common sense is unscientific knowledge of everday life.  It exists.

Life is Metaphysical and physical.  The physical world which is DEAD MATTER can’t produce life on its own Mr. Igorevich.

Indeed Al; The fact that there is no evidence whatsoever that the “metaphysical” exists at all apart from the physical doesn’t even occur to L.  No physical, no “metaphysical.”

Posted by Svyatoslav Igorevich on Monday, April 9, 2007 at 02:02 AM | #

God existed before the physical World.  So the Metaphysical World is superior and anterior to the physical world.  And Life comes from the Metaphysical and animates dead matter and has life. 

There is a big philosophical principle here for you Mr. Igorevich, LIKE PRODUCES LIKE.  Dead matter can NOT produce Living matter!!  The existence of life proves the existence of God.


30

Posted by W.LindsayWheeler on Mon, 09 Apr 2007 22:38 | #

Aristotle proved that the Metaphyiscal existed before the physical in his proof of the Prime Mover.  There is a Prime Mover.  The Metaphysical existed before the Physical.  We know of the Metaphysical as Humans through the Physical but the irregardless of whether humans exist or not, the Metaphysical exists way before and is not dependent upon humans to acknowledge its extence.


31

Posted by W.LindsayWheeler on Mon, 09 Apr 2007 22:41 | #

There is NOT a single biology book anywhere that can define or does define what Life is….NONE.  They will describe the characteristics of life but not life because the schema of biology is physical science NOT philosophy.  Only Philosophy defines what Life is——NOT biology.  Only a Philosopher defines what Life is.

And Plato defined it 2000 years before Darwin.


32

Posted by Fred Scrooby on Mon, 09 Apr 2007 23:33 | #

“There is NOT a single biology book anywhere that can define or does define what Life is….NONE.”  (—Lindsay)

Lindsay is of course perfectly correct here but I would say it differently:  What they can’t do is explain consciousness, awareness.  Everything is dead but that; everything is dead without that.  They can explain all or most of the dead stuff (the stuff apart from that) but not that, the only live thing.  No one knows what a thought or feeling is or where perception or awareness are located.  To say they’re located in the brain because they stop when it’s damaged is to say perception of music is located in your radio because it stops when that breaks.  Sir Francis Crick (of Watson & Crick fame) devoted a lot of time to this problem, incidentally, when he was working at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California.  How far he got with it, I don’t know.  Does anyone here know?  What he used to point out was it served no purpose to explain vision by comparing the occipital cortex to a TV screen with images on it if you couldn’t say who was watching TV.


33

Posted by W.LindsayWheeler on Tue, 10 Apr 2007 00:46 | #

Plants don’t have “consciousness” or “awareness” yet they are Alive.  Plants have souls.  They take in nutrients, convert it into living tissue, expel waste.  They reproduce. Even if there were NO humans, plants filling up this world, would still have souls.  Just because we can observe and reason, reality is not based on Humans.  Humans are NOT a-priori.  Humans don’t define reality; humans discover reality.

Plants have a Soul.  Plant souls have only the vegetative powers.  The vegetative powers is what is stated in the previous paragraph.

Animal souls have the vegetative powers plus one more—-Movement.

Human souls have the vegetative powers, the animal power, plus one more, the power of reasoning, abstraction.

Even bacteria have souls.  Anything that has self-movement has soul.


34

Posted by W.LindsayWheeler on Tue, 10 Apr 2007 01:27 | #

But to answer the OP, the correct language is Patriotism; for the Fatherland.  Next, is “DUTY”.  A Man has Duty.  And a Man’s Duty is to protect his country, his people, his laws.  Duty is the responsiblity of Man to take care of his Own.  A Man’s duty begins by marrying his own kind.  A Man’s Duty is to Protect and Defend his Family, His Race, His Culture, His god.  A Man’s Duty is uphold the unwritten and written laws of his culture.

As in the Boy Scout Oath:

“On my honor, I will do my best, to do my Duty to God and my Country…”

That is it in a nutshell.


35

Posted by Fred Scrooby on Tue, 10 Apr 2007 02:06 | #

One of the last century’s pioneering giants in working out the physiology of the neuronal action potential and the synapse, Sir John Eccles, also made original contributions to the mind problem, as discussed here and here.


36

Posted by Rnl on Tue, 10 Apr 2007 07:10 | #

W.LindsayWheeler wrote:

Do you understand “META” it is a Greek word meaning “beyond”. Meta—-physical—- beyond the physical.

For interest’s sake, Aristotle’s _Metaphysics_ came after his _Physics_ in the catalog of the ancient edition of his works. That’s how the former acquired its title, with _meta_ meaning not “beyond” but simply “after in sequence.” The _Metaphysics_ was “the stuff that comes after the _Physics_” (ta meta ta phusika).

What studies Soul, Ethics, religion, morality, political science falls under Metaphysics.

No, it doesn’t. Metaphysics, as a modern discipline, is the study of being and substance, which happened to be among the subjects discussed in Aristotle’s text. It is the study of the nature of reality, not the study of religious ideas that somehow exist apart from physical reality.

By “metaphysical” Lindsay probably means “transcending physical reality,” which is fine if he is speaking loosely, but wrong if he is invoking Aristotle or metaphysics as a philosophical discipline.


37

Posted by The putrid stench of gnxp on Tue, 10 Apr 2007 13:51 | #

Threads like this do nothing else than to reinforce my belief that religion is a curse on mankind.

Perhaps Mr. Wheeler - who is unable to define for us his “Greek ancestry” - would do well to open up some science texts to understand how “dead matter” can lead to “life.”

“Even bacteria have souls”

Really?

“God existed before the physical World.”

Prove there is a God.

“A Man has Duty”

Why?


38

Posted by The putrid stench of gnxp on Tue, 10 Apr 2007 14:41 | #

“Don’t stray from your expertise, “Putrid Stench.”

Gee, Fred, thanks for that advice.  Let me concentrate than on my “expertise” on ethnicity and ethnic interests and ask Mr. Wheeler to answer Guessedworker’s overt charge that Wheeler’s uncertain “Greek” ancestry may be influencing his perception of biological considerations.


39

Posted by The putrid stench of gnxp on Tue, 10 Apr 2007 14:55 | #

“Lindsay, are you really Greek as you claim?”

That is biologically Greek, not “culturally.”

A Negro who reads Plato is not “Greek.”

And no, a person who is of 1/4 Greek ancestry (or some similar fraction) cannot claim to be “Greek” based on their “self-identification.”

By that logic, maybe Jesse Jackson is English?


40

Posted by W.LindsayWheeler on Tue, 10 Apr 2007 19:00 | #

My Natural Father is 100% Cretan.  My mom is German French Irish.  All Indo-European.

But I am the only one to state my racial background, what about all of you?

@RNL, I was speaking Loosely.  Strictly speaking, Metaphysics is about being, essence, nature, act, potentiality.  Ethics, Justice, Compassion, political science are all Meta-physical since these objects are not physical and hence can NOT be studied by Chemistry, Mathematics, Geometry, Biology, Physics, the natural physical sciences.


41

Posted by The putrid stench of gnxp on Tue, 10 Apr 2007 19:42 | #

“My Natural Father is 100% Cretan.  My mom is German French Irish”

Therefore, you are not Greek.

“All Indo-European. “

How does “Indo-European” differ from plain old “European?”

“But I am the only one to state my racial background, what about all of you?”

We are questioning you because you claimed to be something that you are not, which Guessedworker suspected - leading to his question.  That’s the point.  It’s not that we are “picking” on you.  It is simply that Guessedworked “guessed” that your hostility toward genetic materialism may be due to your self-identification not matching your actual ethnic ancestry. 

“Ethics, Justice, Compassion, political science are all Meta-physical since these objects are not physical and hence can NOT be studied by Chemistry, Mathematics, Geometry, Biology, Physics, the natural physical sciences.”

Wrong.  The products of human thought are products of the human brain, a physical object that is influenced by all the physical laws, including that of heredity.


42

Posted by The putrid stench of gnxp on Tue, 10 Apr 2007 19:55 | #

And then we have this:
http://www.msnusers.com/TheDoricphilosopher/thelyceum.msnw?action=get_message&mview=0&ID_Message=9&LastModified=4675607602550441557

Isn’t Wheeler’s ancestry relevant given what is written in that link?  Is it cognitive dissonance that causes the rejection of materialism?  Does one reject one’s own ancestry?

Our genetic interests are based on the physical realities of our genomes, what “the Bible” says or how “the Bible” divides peoples is completely irrelevant. 

“The Bible” is a book written by men, from the minds of men, to advance the particular political and social agendas of that time.

By the way, “race” is not about “color” and only a simpleton makes that strawman argument.

Religion is useful only insofar as it provides structure to weak minds to make their way in the world and contribute to group fitness.  Elites should not need this crutch, and “christinsanity” has outlived its usefulness for the European peoples.


43

Posted by The putrid stench of gnxp on Tue, 10 Apr 2007 20:02 | #

Wheeler writes:

“At the Tower of Babel, God seperated man by language.  This is important.  God did not seperate by physical characteristics but by language!  The taxonomy of the races of men follow the taxonomy of language.  This is the Biblical premise.  God created this paradigm and the Bible refers to people either by their patriarch or by their language or their place but never by the color of one’s skin!”

Er…the problem here is that “the Tower of Babel” is a fairy tale, like Cinderella, and I’m not interested in establishing policy decisions on fairy tales and semitic stories.

“With the conflating of all sorts of different races into a color scheme leads to misrepresentations and delibrate lying.  What one sees now, is that a lot of Jews, who are a semitic race, claiming to be “White” or to be participating in “White Nationalism”. 

It’s these same semitic Jews who wrote the Bible that Wheeler bases his “history” on.  Of course, basing identity on actual ancestry, and not perceptions of “white” solves the “problem” identified here.

“Another problem is that by promoting a “White Race”, this concept leds to the miscegnation of the various tribes/nations/ethncities/races that make up a large body of interrelated people. For instance, the now miscegenation between the Anglo-Saxons (The English) and the Gauls (the French) or with the Germanic Tribes with the French so forth and so on….Miscegenation destroys racial identity, destroys what God has created.”

Wheeler himself is a product of this racially-destroying anti-God “miscegenation.”  If he is to be consistent, he would:
a) openly denounce his parents for their ungodly miscegenation
b) pledge himself to childlessness so as not to pass on his ungodly, miscegenated ancestry.


44

Posted by The putrid stench of gnxp on Tue, 10 Apr 2007 20:08 | #

“Miscegenation destroys racial identity, destroys what God has created”

But, before he tells us that God has separated people not by the “physical characteristics” but by their language.

So, which is it?  Is “God” concerned with a “racial identity” that can be “destroyed” by miscegenation - a physical character - or is “God” concerned with the “soul” and the “language?”

Or does Wheeler believe that “miscegenation” destroys the soul - a soul he claims that even bacteria have?


45

Posted by The putrid stench of gnxp on Tue, 10 Apr 2007 20:11 | #

A further problem:

the ethnic groups that exist today are not exactly the same as that which existed at the time of “the tower of babel.”

Many of today’s ethnic groups are the “miscegenated” results of intermingling of various pre-existing tribes - and therefore do NOT represent the original peoples created by - as we are told - “God.”

Therefore, aren’t all of today’s ethnic groups ungodly and spiritually illegitimate by this measure???


46

Posted by W.LindsayWheeler on Tue, 10 Apr 2007 22:49 | #

Hey, gnxp, you are putrid stench.

Why don’t you answer the question—What is your racial background?


47

Posted by The putrid stench of gnxp on Tue, 10 Apr 2007 23:55 | #

“Hey, gnxp, you are putrid stench.”

I note you are unable to articulate a riposte to the evidence of your illogical “arguments.”

“Why don’t you answer the question—What is your racial background?”

My Natural Father is 100% Cretan.  My mom is German French Irish.  Gotta problem wit’‘dat?

Now, go read “the Bible” and attempt to preach to us next the lessons of “noah’s ark.”

“As in the Boy Scout Oath”

Most of us have progressed mentally from the boy scouts age…


48

Posted by The putrid stench of gnxp on Tue, 10 Apr 2007 23:57 | #

“My Natural Father…”

Now tell us the ethnicity of your unnatural father.


49

Posted by The putrid stench of gnxp on Wed, 11 Apr 2007 00:19 | #

“My answer to this is the particular signature slogan highlit in red below..”

where do you draw the line as “too many?”

In any case, we can state that the Guessedworker hypothesis is bolstered by the evidence.

Now, _that’s_ the issue Fred, where commentators and policy makers are influenced by their person racial experiences.  Obama, for example.


50

Posted by W.LindsayWheeler on Wed, 11 Apr 2007 19:08 | #

Putrid Stench, you cant counteract my arguments and so you launch into personal ad hominem attacks against myself and then attack my religion.  I did not personally attack the OP Yet, I am attacked personally.  I notice a double standard.

I answered your question about my heritage.  And then Putrid Stench then dismisses that and then attacks my adoptive parents.  I have NO control who my parents are but my loyalty is to Truth. 

Putrid Stench has not answered my question about his racial makeup.  Answer the question Putrid Stench.

Another thing about Atheists—is that they are soo full of hate.  The obnoxiousness of Putrid Stench, his moniker, and his hate filled attacks against belief, religion bespeaks of what Atheism turns out—monsters and barbarians. 

Putrid Stench is a perfect moniker for Atheists. Answer the Question.


51

Posted by The putrid stench of religion on Wed, 11 Apr 2007 19:52 | #

“Putrid Stench has not answered my question about his racial makeup.  Answer the question Putrid Stench. “

Once again:

Q: “Why don’t you answer the question—What is your racial background?”

A: My Natural Father is 100% Cretan.  My mom is German French Irish.

Please stop mocking and rejecting my Cretan-German-French-Irish heritage.  You are not the only person on Earth with such a background.

“Putrid Stench, you cant counteract my arguments and so you launch into personal ad hominem attacks against myself and then attack my religion”

Dear Mr. Wheeler, the question with respect to your heritage first came from Guessedworker, who postulated that your rejection of genetic materialism may come from your own discomfort about your own mixed ancestry.  He wrote:

“I am beginning to wonder whether Greek culture is so important to you because you are not genetically very Greek at all, and you feel disadvantaged in any discussion in which genetic distinctiveness and ethnic genetic interest are paramount.”

Since you completely ignored this question from GW, I repeated it:

“Let me concentrate than on my “expertise” on ethnicity and ethnic interests and ask Mr. Wheeler to answer Guessedworker’s overt charge that Wheeler’s uncertain “Greek” ancestry may be influencing his perception of biological considerations.”

which was seconded by Fred Scrooby thus:

“OK, fair enough, Putrid.  Lindsay, are you really Greek as you claim?  Your answer to that question may have bearing on how your comments here get interpreted by others.”

And, by the way, the whole issue was brought up in the first place by your own comment:

“Guessed worker, I am a Greek, I view both the physical and metaphysical worlds.  You are a materialist and base everything on “genetics”; Greeks are different—-Our philosophy is based on the Soul.  Compassion comes from the Soul which is metaphysical.”

In other words, far from you being “picked on” about this topic, you yourself brought up the question of your ancestry in order to distinguish yourself from GW, who, justifiably, wanted a follow up. 

As far as “attacking your religion”, if “your religion” is what motivates you to make ludicrous comments, then it is fair game.

This is how you - full of Christian, Christly Love - refer to atheists:

“Another thing about Atheists—is that they are soo full of hate.  The obnoxiousness of Putrid Stench, his moniker, and his hate filled attacks against belief, religion bespeaks of what Atheism turns out—monsters and barbarians.”

Hello, Torquemada.

“And then Putrid Stench then dismisses that and then attacks my adoptive parents.”

Quote?

“I have NO control who my parents are but my loyalty is to Truth.”

The question is whether or not you will denounce your biological parents for doing something which you have rather strongly critiqued on your website.


52

Posted by The putrid stench of religion on Wed, 11 Apr 2007 20:07 | #

“Plants don’t have “consciousness” or “awareness” yet they are Alive.  Plants have souls.  They take in nutrients, convert it into living tissue, expel waste.  They reproduce.”

In other words, basic physical processes that can be explained by any junior biology student is indicative of a soul?  Expelling waste is evidence of a soul?  So, if someone drinks lots of metamucil and takes a really big “dump”, are they being particularly “soulful?”  I really don’t get it at all.

“Plants have a Soul.  Plant souls have only the vegetative powers.  The vegetative powers is what is stated in the previous paragraph.”

Vegetative powers?

“Animal souls have the vegetative powers plus one more—-Movement…Even bacteria have souls.  Anything that has self-movement has soul.”

So, animals can move, which sets them apart from plants.  But, then he writes: “Anything that has self-movement has soul.”  So, is that implying that “self-movement” is a prerequisite for having a soul (soul as locomotion; question, does a robot have a soul?)?

But, he says that plants, which do not move - having only the “vegetative powers” - also have souls.

Thus, a contradiction.


53

Posted by The putrid stench of religion on Wed, 11 Apr 2007 20:17 | #

“If I have compassion on a dog—Is it genetic?  If I see a sick and abused horse in someone’s pasture, and I show compassion on it—-is it genetic?  I mean the statement of the thesis of the article is non-sensical. First how does “chemicals” that produce physical affects produce compassion that is a metaphysical action?”

Compassion - and the view of it - are produced by the human brain.  Different peoples behave differently based on that brain.  Since you like telling stories: I remember seeing white college students feeding the local squirrels.  Compassion?  Probably.  So, the squirrels became tame enough to run up to humans looking for food.  The black students would kick at the squirrels, trying to inflict harm.  Different races, different brains, different hormone levels, different behaviors.

“Does one have to be genetically the same to have compassion on a dog or a horse”

Completely irrelevant?  Who said that?  There is a difference between rational interests and actual behavior and a difference between interests and compassion.


54

Posted by W.LindsayWheeler on Wed, 11 Apr 2007 23:58 | #

Putrid Answer the Question.


55

Posted by Fred Scrooby on Thu, 12 Apr 2007 00:37 | #

“Lindsay, are you really Greek as you claim?  Your answer to that question may have bearing on how your comments here get interpreted by others.”  (—me to Lindsay)

“Putrid Answer the Question.”  (—Lindsay)

OK, Lindsay answered.  In fairness, it’s my turn (regulars here know my ancestry, but Lindsay doesn’t):

My ancestry (all at the grandparent level): 

My race heritage:  German, Russian, Viennese Hebrew, Russian Hebrew.  (Dunno why I put “Hebrew” instead of Jewish:  it’s to do with when you look up those grandparents’ old records at the Ellis Island web-site that’s what they put in the ships’ manifests as their “nationality,” not “Jewish,” not “Austrian,” and so on, and to my ear at least, “Hebrew” seems to encompass the idea of race as well as religion.  “Hebrew” as a common appellation for “Jew” has died out apparently because at one point early in the last century it was seen as a pejorative against Jews.  It certainly doesn’t have that connotation nowadays. 

My religion heritage:  Catholic (Germany), Russian Orthodox (Galicia, which may have been a province of the Austrian empire at the time or may have been in Russia, I don’t know), Jewish (Vienna, originally from “Laneut,” wherever that was, and Russian, I don’t know where exactly in Russia).

My own religion:  the one I identify with is Catholic though I wasn’t really raised that way, am not confirmed, and don’t know much about the Catholic religion — certainly not as much as I should. 

My race/ethnoculture:  white Amerikwan (but underneath that superficial layer, the race/ethnoculture I strongly, fundamentally identify with is German).

Lindsay, btw, your ancestry somewhat resembles that of Cat Stevens, who is the offspring of a Greek father and Swedish mother.


56

Posted by The putrid stench of religion on Thu, 12 Apr 2007 15:47 | #

I can understand, and sympathize with, Mr. Wheeler’s embarrassment and frustration here.  After all, being exposed as ignorant and illogical, with a religion-addled brain full of semitic superstition and Levantine fairy tales, his only riposte is to write: “Putrid Answer the Question.”

Very well.  My father is a Nigerian of the Ibo tribe, whose family died in the Biafran war, and who was able to come to the USA due to the provisions of the 1965 immigration reform.  My mother is of Irish-Bengali heritage, the daughter of am Irish missionary to Bangladesh and a native Bengali woman; originally moving to Ireland, they were able to come to America as a result of Ted Kennedy’s “diversity lottery” provisions for people from Ireland.  I identify with the Irish part of my heritage and thus am interested in the work of “Majority Rights.”  Surely, Mr. Wheeler, you recognize the sentiment that “I cannot choose my parents, but I speak for the truth.”  Indeed.

However, I reject your fanciful religious tirades denouncing those of mixed ancestry as being “ungodly.”  How about answering some questions:

-  Why did you lie and tell us you were “Greek”, while you are actually a hybrid of four ethnic groups, one being “Cretan?”

-  Why did you refuse to answer Guessedworker’s question about your ancestry?

-  What are “vegetative powers” and do they have anything at all to do with the comic book character, “Plant-Man?”

-  Do you believe that your lack of logic and grounding in fact has anything at all to do with your “religion?”

-  If mixing the current ethnic groups is “ungodly”, what about the fact that many current ethnic groups are the product of what you would call “miscegenation?”  Is the entire human race an affront to “god’s plan?”

-  If “God” wanted to separate humanity by “language” through the “tower of babel”, then why did he leave humans the faculty of learning other languages?  If humans are to be separated by language, because that is what “God” intended at “babel”, what do we make of the fact that many of those ancient languages are dead, and many peoples today speak languages that have evolved since then?

-  If the differences in human languages are the work of “God” to separate us, why can linguistic experts trace the “evolution” of languages over the millennia, and trace how they developed, and how many of them are closely related to root languages, all of these developments having a perfectly materialistic explanation?

-  If “expelling wastes” is a part of having a soul, is a constipated person lacking in said soulfulness?

Answer the Questions.


57

Posted by The putrid stench of religion on Thu, 12 Apr 2007 15:54 | #

correction: “an Irish missionary”

Svigor wrote: “Metaphysical, dead can’t beget living, bla bla bla.  What a bunch of semantic pigswallow….Humans are animals.  Try and wrap your head around that, and the fact that your God (and the rest of your tripe) is meaningless to anyone but you.”

Excellent.

But I see a problem.  There must be a lot of red state religious yahoos who believe as Wheeler does, and maybe some blue state catholic yahoos who have never heard of “vatican II” as well.  Not to mention the orthodox Cretans (spelled with an “a”, certainly never with an “i”).

So, there are large numbers of whites whose “gray matter” (such as it is) is full of this nonsense.  Do we try and “play the game” and humor them, debate them, or try and convince them that religion should be a private affair and that the crisis supersedes all of that?

What do we do when someone says that ‘Jaysus’ says that ‘race does not exist and we must help the unfortunate.’

Do we try and explain that ‘Jaysus’ really didn’t mean that, or do we try and delegitimize the entire New Testament from start to finish.


58

Posted by The putrid stench of religion on Thu, 12 Apr 2007 15:58 | #

“vegetative powers?”:
http://www.marveldirectory.com/individuals/p/plantman.htm

absolute must reading; Nietzsche:
http://www.fns.org.uk/ac.htm


59

Posted by The putrid stench of religion on Thu, 12 Apr 2007 16:46 | #

A theory of atheism, submitted for your approval.

In Christianity, as one moves up the religious hierarchy, actual belief declines, and the incidence of atheism, or at least profoundly skeptical agnosticism, increases.

For example, take Catholicism (please).  One cannot doubt that your typical fat ignorant old hag, sitting in church fumbling with her rosary beads, believes all.

What about the priests, the bishops, the cardinals?  What about the Pope?  I suspect that many (most?) Popes in recent history (and perhaps much further back in time) have been - in their secret heart of hearts if not more open to their trusted confidants - perfect atheists.  Some of these were educated men, and all had access to all the records, all the historical evidence.  Is it possible that any of these men ever really believed? 

They, most probably, justified the deception on utilitarian grounds.  Human behavior can be controlled through belief and faith and, after all, these fairy tales provide hope and comfort to humanity, each of us presented with the unavoidable specter of eventual death.  So, if the clergy must bear the burden of knowledge to administer to the masses, and ensure some semblance of morality and social stability and “social justice”, so be it.

Sort of like “The Grand Inquisitor” from “The Brothers Karamazov”, but without any belief in the existence of God whatsoever.

An even better portrayal: “St. Emmanuel, the Good Martyr.”


60

Posted by a well groomed beard on Thu, 12 Apr 2007 17:26 | #

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:WHEELER#Bio:

(Since the author demands credit for his “work”, I note that all in quotation marks are his brilliance.  Comments follow each excerpt.)

“I am a Doric Kretan”

No, that was your father.

“I consider myself both protestant, catholic, and orthodox”

Can any elementary school children out there tell us what is wrong with that phrase?

“Former U.S. Marine participated in the Embassy Rescue Raid in 1980 aboard USS CORAL SEA”

If you are talking about Iran, no “raid” took place, the helicopters crashed and burned in the desert.  How were they handled on board, one wonders?

“Worked as a Shabbas goy for two and a half years”

I’m sure we’d all like to hear more about that.

“I thank God I don’t have a college degree and spent very little time in the classroom”

Really?  We’re shocked.

“The whole Bible is the Word of God and is a book of Truth. Truth is Absolute. Truth is everything.”

The last two sentences contradict the first.

“As a monarchist, he teaches that Nazism, Fascism and the like are all leftist in character”

It’s “leftist”, so it must be bad.

“As a Greek…”

Are Greeks half German-Irish-French?

“What is a college degree worth? Toilet paper.”

A college degree is worth the bible?  Then again, if “expelling wastes” contributes to a soul, then one does see the connection…


61

Posted by psognxp on Thu, 12 Apr 2007 17:41 | #

“I believe you have gone one step too far in characterizing all Protestants and Catholics as filled with gray matter”

Ok, then.  They have no gray matter.  That’s probably more accurate.

I’m assuming you know what “gray matter” means?


62

Posted by psognxp on Thu, 12 Apr 2007 17:46 | #

The “raid”:

http://www.helis.com/featured/eagle_claw.php


63

Posted by psognxp on Thu, 12 Apr 2007 19:27 | #

Daniel, you seem to be a reasonable fellow, quite different from another commentator here, so I’ll ask you this:

do you think that the top hierarchy of the Roman Catholic church “believes” in the Bible in the manner of Mr. Wheeler?

If I grant you that yes, EGI is independent of the origins of life and the universe, can you also grant the possibility that organized religion was invented (and NOT just Christianity) to achieve certain social and political goals?

And, perhaps, for the masses, it has some usefulness.  But, as MR is supposed to be aimed at a higher level, isn’t it a waste of time to listen to those who believe that all the stories of the bible are literally true.  Shoot, even the nuns these days in “sunday school” will tell the kids that these stories are meant to be allegories…..

“You can see my picture on the ‘member-list’ “

Where is that?  Personally, I don’t see the ‘percentage’ in these sorts of free give-aways, bit to each his own.

“I still stand by the assertion that no speculation about the origins of the universe are provable”

True.  Note that my definition of “atheism” is consistent with the possibility of some sort of “intelligence” behind reality - who knows?  Maybe there is, maybe there is not.  But who can stand the smug dogma of those who _know_ and that THE BIBLE is the TRUTH. 

Wasn’t it Pilate who asked, “what is truth?”  Probably the best line in the bible.


64

Posted by antignxp on Thu, 12 Apr 2007 21:20 | #

Daniel, OK, and thanks for some intelligent conversation here.

I don’t see EGI as being atheistic…it just is, as a fact of existence.

I acknowledge also DS Wilson’s view that fitness, not rationality, is the “gold standard” and that religion, regardless of the facts, can be of utility, if it serves fitness objectives.

My points essentially are:
1) the utility of religion as always been either for the masses, or a method of the elites to control the masses.  The elites should not be actually believing any of it themselves
2) Christianity has reached a point I think of being anti-fitness.  If some think it can be reformed, they should lead the way.  Those who are atheists and who think that Christianity is “exhausted” should not be expected to participate.  If Christianity still has potential, its advocates should demonstrate this.
3) I would advocate ditching the whole thing - but that’s me.

As far as the thread goes and the “TRUTH”...I’m tired of the silliness, so if others want to continue, that’s their agenda.


65

Posted by psognxp on Thu, 12 Apr 2007 23:45 | #

Well, Frank is an interesting case.  My experience is that the Rambo types are best ignored, unless of course they seem to be agent provacateurs bent on causing trouble, in which case they need to be dismissed from the discussion.

As far as this particular thread goes, it seems the hyper-religious types are more of a tragedy than a farce.  How many of them are out there, and what size obstacle will that cause for spreading a white racial consciousness?

Worse still, how can the enemies of white racial survival manipulate naive religious belief to reinforce maladaptive behaviors?


66

Posted by Fred Scrooby on Fri, 13 Apr 2007 00:25 | #

I don’t like getting into debates on Christianity vs atheism.  I’ll just say the form of Christianity that refuses to make explicit the right of communities and nations to reasonable, humane racial self-preservation is a Christian heresy.  The form that explicitly acknowledges that right is true Christianity while the other is false Christianity.  How many Christian heresies have there been?  Lots.  This is the latest.  It will cause a split, some Christians going one way, the rest another.


67

Posted by Fred Scrooby on Fri, 13 Apr 2007 00:28 | #

No need to throw the baby out with the bath water.


68

Posted by Steve Edwards on Fri, 13 Apr 2007 08:00 | #

Fred is correct. I’ll add further that the form of Christianity that not only creates new categories of “sin” that didn’t previously exist (“racism”) but also holds the preservation of distinct nations (deemed “racist”) on a purely defensive basis to be a sin of a higher order than the commission of mass-murder (for instance, NATO’s criminal shooting war against Serbia), violations of the Geneva Convention, the Genocide Convention, the Nuremberg prohibition on the “Crime of Aggression”, (take your pick over the last five years - this is like shooting fish in a barrel), is perhaps THE ULTIMATE HERESY in the entire history of Christianity. It reeks of such criminal mendacity, indeed complicity, that no punishment, no sanction on the clergy’s multiplying abominations, could possibly give meaning to the word “justice”.

How do I know that the clergy are objective supporters of these abominable state-crimes? Because rather than demanding the immediate apprehension and prosecution of the guilty parties, they urge their flock to vote them back into office, while threatening virtual excommunication against any lay church members who oppose the New World Order’s approved candidates, and who dare to hold the defensive preservation of their ethny and culture as a more urgent priority than, say, travelling thousands of miles across the world to murder two-bit recalcitrants who pose no threat to them. That’s how.


69

Posted by Steve Edwards on Fri, 13 Apr 2007 08:12 | #

In sum, when the Nuremberg tribunals are reconstituted as Nuremberg Mark II (and I have little doubt that this will happen one day, in the same location - it might even be sooner than we think!), I will be writing a letter to the office of the chief prosecutor demanding indictments against not only every public official, politician, academic, CEO, etc that has actively violated the above-mentioned Conventions (the beauty of Nuremberg Mark II is that we don’t actually have to make any real adjustments to the existing body of international law - none at all! - it’s all there, just waiting to be enforced), but also the clergy, who provided spiritual cover for the system and its crimes.



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Manc commented in entry 'Trump will 'arm Ukraine to the teeth' if Putin won't negotiate ceasefire' on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 17:30. (View)

Thorn commented in entry 'Trump will 'arm Ukraine to the teeth' if Putin won't negotiate ceasefire' on Sat, 16 Nov 2024 11:14. (View)

Thorn commented in entry 'Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke Badenoch wins Tory leadership election' on Tue, 12 Nov 2024 00:04. (View)

Thorn commented in entry 'Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke Badenoch wins Tory leadership election' on Mon, 11 Nov 2024 23:12. (View)

Manc commented in entry 'Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke Badenoch wins Tory leadership election' on Mon, 11 Nov 2024 19:02. (View)

James Bowery commented in entry 'Nationalism's ownership of the Levellers' legacy' on Sun, 10 Nov 2024 15:11. (View)

Thorn commented in entry 'Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke Badenoch wins Tory leadership election' on Fri, 08 Nov 2024 23:26. (View)

Manc commented in entry 'Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke Badenoch wins Tory leadership election' on Wed, 06 Nov 2024 18:13. (View)

Thorn commented in entry 'Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke Badenoch wins Tory leadership election' on Mon, 04 Nov 2024 23:48. (View)

Thorn commented in entry 'Dutch farmers go where only Canadian truckers did not fear to tread' on Sat, 02 Nov 2024 12:19. (View)

Al Ross commented in entry 'Dutch farmers go where only Canadian truckers did not fear to tread' on Sat, 02 Nov 2024 04:15. (View)

Al Ross commented in entry 'Dutch farmers go where only Canadian truckers did not fear to tread' on Sat, 02 Nov 2024 03:57. (View)

Al Ross commented in entry 'Dutch farmers go where only Canadian truckers did not fear to tread' on Sat, 02 Nov 2024 03:40. (View)

Thorn commented in entry 'Dutch farmers go where only Canadian truckers did not fear to tread' on Fri, 01 Nov 2024 23:03. (View)

Manc commented in entry 'The legacy of Southport' on Tue, 29 Oct 2024 17:21. (View)

Thorn commented in entry 'Dutch farmers go where only Canadian truckers did not fear to tread' on Mon, 28 Oct 2024 23:14. (View)

Thorn commented in entry 'Dutch farmers go where only Canadian truckers did not fear to tread' on Fri, 25 Oct 2024 22:28. (View)

Thorn commented in entry 'Dutch farmers go where only Canadian truckers did not fear to tread' on Fri, 25 Oct 2024 22:27. (View)

Thorn commented in entry 'Dutch farmers go where only Canadian truckers did not fear to tread' on Thu, 24 Oct 2024 23:32. (View)

Thorn commented in entry 'Dutch farmers go where only Canadian truckers did not fear to tread' on Wed, 23 Oct 2024 16:37. (View)

James Bowery commented in entry 'Dutch farmers go where only Canadian truckers did not fear to tread' on Wed, 23 Oct 2024 14:54. (View)

Thorn commented in entry 'Dutch farmers go where only Canadian truckers did not fear to tread' on Sun, 20 Oct 2024 23:23. (View)

Manc commented in entry 'Dutch farmers go where only Canadian truckers did not fear to tread' on Fri, 18 Oct 2024 17:12. (View)

Thorn commented in entry 'What can the Ukrainian ammo storage hits achieve?' on Wed, 16 Oct 2024 00:51. (View)

Thorn commented in entry 'What can the Ukrainian ammo storage hits achieve?' on Wed, 16 Oct 2024 00:44. (View)

Thorn commented in entry 'What can the Ukrainian ammo storage hits achieve?' on Mon, 14 Oct 2024 11:19. (View)

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