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Previous comments... You are currently on page 4.
A lion tamer can get in a cage with three lions and not be eaten. How? The platforms the lions are forced to stand on are just barely large enough for them to stay on them. Their attention is constantly focused on the need to maintain their balance, rather than on eating the lion tamer.
This is related to the last part of your comment; if you keep the populace busy with the struggle to eat and keep a roof over their heads, they don't have attention to spare for politics. You can accomplish the same thing with bread and circuses, just not as effectively.
I hope the lesson is learned? Insult, degrade and offend me... and I'll return in kind.
Faith is the principle of hope for a better future - nothing more. There is nothing irrational about it, it merely uses future-based assumptions in order to form its hypotheses. What is I think the part that many "object" to (pun intended) is the method of validation for the hypotheses, which is also often future-based. That is the part that many label irrational.
One more thought: belief is the precursor to knowledge. One can not gain knowledge without the belief that there is something to gain one does not already possess! ;)
The organism is nicknamed "Synthia". I think that we are well along to creating live out of non-living elements.
Jan
And it's the "ugliest" post I have ever read in this website.
We've gone from Christianity is "based on" Plato's metaphysics to Christianity is "aligned with" Plato's metaphysics to Christianity "falls into the same group" as Plato's metaphysics.
And to substantiate that, you link to an article that concludes " This leaves New Testament theology as a system independent of Greek influence", which negates your point, but that's just semantics. Does that about cover it?
That changed with the Reformation and competition in thought. Martin Luther and others looked at the Bible and compared the writings to the policies of the Catholic church and found numerous doctrines and practices that could not be reconciled. As such, new sects of Christianity broke from the Catholics or were formed anew with different doctrines, practices, etc. Now there are literally hundreds of Christian sects.
So you see, reason and competition does have a place even in religion ;)
Wow. Talk about spewing insults...
The author's conclusion regarding unique ideas of Christianity are Ethical not metaphysical.
---> Therefore, it is apparent that Platonism, Stoicism, and the Philonic logos are not responsible for creating Christian antiquity. It must be the case that Christianity possesses a unique view of the world dissimilar to Greek rivals.
---> In the beginning of this paper I note three areas of possible influences on Christian antiquity. By examining Plato, Stoicism, and Philo, we see that early Greek philosophy postulated a world view predominantly dualistic, imminent to a final conflagration, and intimated with the concept of logos. Many have speculated as to the similarities between these notions and New Testament teachings. But upon closer inspection it seems that any similarity is quickly diminished in favor of leaving the Christian scriptures with a unique idea of their own.
---> This leaves New Testament theology as a system independent of Greek influence and as an ideology demanding a world view unprecedented in history.
Almost all religious points of view have the same basic metaphysics, which was best described by Plato. Logical categories here-not historical debate.
http://godisimaginary.com/i39.htm
There are those out there who use Rand's teachings and pervert her philosophy of Objectivism for their own purposes... and it's been less than half a century. Should we, then, stereotype all Objectivists, paint them not just with the same brush as these usurpers, but as the ONLY brush? Should we maintain that their version of Objectivism is the true version, because they use it to empower themselves over others?
You guys point at Torquemada, and ignore Thomas More:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9rjGTOA2...
William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!
Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!
Who let himself be beheaded rather than compromise his belief in God.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060665/quot...
Kepler: "I am in *earnest* about faith; I do not play with it". One of history's greatest scientists, because he wanted to read the mind of God.
The history of the world is full of good, decent men and women, most having passed unremarked, who were good decent men and women *because* of their Christian faith. Because that faith guided them, not controlled them.
Christianity teaches one to "Resist Temptation". Would Rand not agree? Temptation is an emotional response. How does one resist temptation? With reason, of course. One "thinks it through" and considers the consequences of "surrendering" to temptation.
Christianity teaches you to love your neighbor *as* yourself, to do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Rand, through her characters, preaches that you should love yourself... and respect the rights of others. This is the dangerous part that objectivists leave out; without the respect for the rights of others, an Objectivist becomes just another hedonistic looter.
Christianity preaches that God loves you, and will forgive your sins if you truly regret them. What sins? Let's begin with the 10 Commandments: Don't take what is another's, don't chase after another man's wife, don't tell lies, don't worship false idols (because through them you will find your way back into bondage), don't take God's name in vain (in other words, don't put yourself in the position of playing God), work your ass off six days a week, but rest on the seventh, and last but not least.... don't envy what another man has.
Let's see... honesty, productivity, trading value for value...
The advantage of Christianity over Objectivism, it seems to me, is that not only can it be embraced through reason, but through emotion, as well. And emotion, like it or not, has a stronger, more lasting hold on a person than simple reason.
Then maybe "John Galt a libertarian modeled off of Abraham"?
Or maybe, "John Galt, a libertarian modeled off of Joseph Smith"?
Oh, I have a better one... "John Galt, a libertarian modeled off of L. Ron Hubbard?"
Yeah, that'd be the most accurate comparison.
(I'd say he was an asshole modeled after Michael Valentine Smith, but I think Rand wrote Atlas Shrugged before Heinlein wrote "Stranger in a Strange Land".)
Edit to add:
Hm... listening to Max Headroom last night, I was reminded of an old saying.... "Success has a hundred fathers; failure is an orphan." I guess that's why so many authors and idealists trying to push their philosophy draw from Jesus, and not those others...
You're wrong, I'm afraid. Jesus "was" an asshole, too.
http://i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/orig...
b) Jesus and the New Testament ought to be understood as fulfilling what was promised under the Old Testament, which precedes Plato by a good 2000 years. The concept of a perfect spiritual reality existing in parallel and apart from the physical reality, undetectable by the senses, may be recognized by us as Platonic, but that's hardly where it actually originated. The Greek influence over culture during the writing of the New Testament was huge. The authors of the NT wrote about Christian concepts in Greek terms because that's where people's heads were at, not because they were BASING Christianity on Plato.
What on earth are you talking about?
Monty Python managed to work a bit of it into "The Life Of Brian", but there's a lot of potential.
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