West has betrayed the ideals of Christianity

[AzariLoveIran]

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“Our Orthodox civilization may not be that large, but today it has a key role in the world as it knows how to find a way to a better life for the whole world and especially Europe,”

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Bearing this in mind, the Eastern Christian civilization should not follow in the steps of either the “weak-willed West” or the “intellectually weak East, ” he says.

“We do not need to be led… we have to reunite mind and will, traditions and innovations, faith and living, the spiritual and the secular. Our duty is to change the world in ten years, and we are able to do so,”
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funny

Thought Islam wanted to conquer Europe

but

in a sense

some interesting point in that

Western secularism has no place for morality .. it based solely on cost/benefit views

For west, killing millions of ME people, would be OK only if price of gas would drop to 50 cents a gallon @ the pump .. no problemo

that is what happens when one loses beacon of morality and ethics

said B4, that enlightenment was highjacked by Ahriman .. now he rules in the west


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[Endovelico]

.Western secularism has no place for morality .. it based solely on cost/benefit views.

Western secularism may not have place for morality - which is good - but it has a place for ethics. A non-religious society may be very ethic. Ours isn't...yet...but may very well become so without any need for religion or morality. As to the cost/benefit view, it's a characteristic of capitalism, not of western secularism...

[YMix]

Countries of the “Russian world” are capable of changing the globe within ten years, believes top cleric of the Russian Orthodox Church Vsevolod Chaplin.

Mmm, how?

[Enki]

.


“Our Orthodox civilization may not be that large, but today it has a key role in the world as it knows how to find a way to a better life for the whole world and especially Europe,”

.
Bearing this in mind, the Eastern Christian civilization should not follow in the steps of either the “weak-willed West” or the “intellectually weak East, ” he says.

“We do not need to be led… we have to reunite mind and will, traditions and innovations, faith and living, the spiritual and the secular. Our duty is to change the world in ten years, and we are able to do so,”
.

funny

Thought Islam wanted to conquer Europe

but

in a sense

some interesting point in that

Western secularism has no place for morality .. it based solely on cost/benefit views

For west, killing millions of ME people, would be OK only if price of gas would drop to 50 cents a gallon @ the pump .. no problemo

that is what happens when one loses beacon of morality and ethics

said B4, that enlightenment was highjacked by Ahriman .. now he rules in the west


.

The notion that secular people have no place for morality is complete and utter bullshit. People have this idea that you have to take the myth along with the morals, you don't.

Societies that called themselves Christian have been some of the most morally depraved societies in the history of man. The greatest excesses of history have come from crusading Christians.

[Typhoon]

Countries of the “Russian world” are capable of changing the globe within ten years, believes top cleric of the Russian Orthodox Church Vsevolod Chaplin.

Mmm, how?

No, thank you.

Not thrilled to see that the Russian version of messianic manifest destiny is still alive and well.

A modest proposal. Russia first demonstrate that it can successfully manage what it already has, the largest land mass on the planet, before attempting, yet again, to manage the affairs of others.

[Marcus]

The notion that secular people have no place for morality is complete and utter bullshit. People have this idea that you have to take the myth along with the morals, you don't. . .

Ummmmmmmmm . . yes, you do. Most assuredly secular folks are as alive to the necessity of morals and ethics as are the religious. Trouble is, secular ethics aren't transcendent, only materialistic, immediate, and pragmatic. There is no guarantee of permanence, nothing that gives life meaning on any sort of permanent basis.

And this is where Goldman nails it:

Modernity tells us that each of us is alone in the universe to wrest what meaning we may from our brief span of sentience. That is a hopeless task; if we must invent our own meaning, then by implications, the meanings that our ancestors invented will be just as meaningless to us as our meanings will be to our descendants, if any. The notion that we must find the meaning of life for ourselves ultimately negates itself, . . Any sense of meaning that applies only to us, but not to our ancestors or our descendants, will putrefy along with our flesh. That is why we cannot invent meaning for ourselves: we can only receive it from tradition and pass it on. Call this the existential paradox.

If we detect no meaning in the lives of our ancestors, to be sure, we are unlikely to bother to bring children into the world who will only come to despise us the way we despise our own parents. Demographers across the ideological spectrum, including secular liberals like Eric Kaufmann and Kevin Phillips, agree that people of faith tend to have children while the non-religious tend not to have children.

In the long term, secular modernity will liquidate itself through infertility. (emphasis added)

— http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Eco ... 5Dj02.html

Examining current population trends, Kaufmann concludes that the future of the human race most prob- ably lies with groups, now on the cultural margins, that are still faithful to God’s command, “Be fruitful and multiply.” He points to the Old Order Anabap- tists (e.g., the Amish and the Hutterites), American Mormons, Ultra-Orthodox or Haredi Jews, Salafi Is- lamists, Laestadian Lutherans (found in the Finnish, Swedish, and Canadian northwoods), and “Quiverfull” Protestants as the future of the human race. (Some an- ecdotal evidence suggests that he could have added in “Latin Mass” Catholics as well.) With fertility rates of between four and nine children born per woman, and in the general context of tumbling global fertility, these groups are already expanding their size relative to the earth’s population. If compounded over another four generations, the transformation would be staggering.

Kaufmann does skillfully deconstruct the modern myth that secular liberalism is on the march and will dominate the future. Instead, he argues, “We have em- barked on a particularly turbulent phase of history in which the frailty of secular liberalism will grow ever more apparent.” Liberalism, like fascism and communism, is another victim of the “ideological exhaustion” of the age, no longer able to inspire self-sacrificing behavior. Meanwhile, the liberal values of pluralism and tolerance suck the life out of “moderate” religion, while allowing fundamentalist subcultures to grow. As he nicely sum- marizes: “Secularism, like DDT, wiped out much of its opposition but also gave rise to new, resistant strains of religion.”

His closing words are stunning:

• It will be a century or more before the world com- pletes its demographic transition. There is still too much smoke in the air for us to pick out the peaks and the valleys of the emerging social order. This much seems certain: without [a new secular] ideology to inspire social cohesion, fundamental- ism cannot be stopped. The religious shall inherit the earth.

—from a review of Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth: Demography and Politics in the Twenty-First Century in the current issue of Touchstone Magazine

[noddy]

Countries of the “Russian world” are capable of changing the globe within ten years, believes top cleric of the Russian Orthodox Church Vsevolod Chaplin.

Mmm, how?

No, thank you.

Not thrilled to see that the Russian version of messianic manifest destiny is still alive and well.

A modest proposal. Russia first demonstrate that it can successfully manage what it already has, the largest land mass on the planet, before attempting, yet again, to manage the affairs of others.

i have no idea why this article is somehow relevant.

every week, every religious leader in every western country says a variation on this - "without my special sauce western civilisation is doomed and we will spread the word and save everyone".

then the non trivial aspect of getting em to agree on which ingredients go into that sauce kicks in, and life continues on.

[YMix]

Pretty much. I was wondering about the particulars though.

[Ibrahim]

Countries of the “Russian world” are capable of changing the globe within ten years, believes top cleric of the Russian Orthodox Church Vsevolod Chaplin.

Mmm, how?

Well, Russian is one of the countries that could unilaterally nuke the entire world. I guess would qualify as "global change." But other than that I don't think Orthodoxy has much dynamism left in it.

[Ibrahim]

The notion that secular people have no place for morality is complete and utter bullshit. People have this idea that you have to take the myth along with the morals, you don't. . .

Ummmmmmmmm . . yes, you do. Most assuredly secular folks are as alive to the necessity of morals and ethics as are the religious. Trouble is, secular ethics aren't transcendent, only materialistic, immediate, and pragmatic. There is no guarantee of permanence, nothing that gives life meaning on any sort of permanent basis.

You've been debunked on this point on numerous occasions. You don't appear to have any knowledge of existentialist philosophy, nor account for it when repeating this claim.

[Marcus]

The notion that secular people have no place for morality is complete and utter bullshit. People have this idea that you have to take the myth along with the morals, you don't. . .

Ummmmmmmmm . . yes, you do. Most assuredly secular folks are as alive to the necessity of morals and ethics as are the religious. Trouble is, secular ethics aren't transcendent, only materialistic, immediate, and pragmatic. There is no guarantee of permanence, nothing that gives life meaning on any sort of permanent basis.

You've been debunked on this point on numerous occasions. You don't appear to have any knowledge of existentialist philosophy, nor account for it when repeating this claim.

You've been debunked on this point on numerous occasions.

[Ibrahim]

The notion that secular people have no place for morality is complete and utter bullshit. People have this idea that you have to take the myth along with the morals, you don't. . .

Ummmmmmmmm . . yes, you do. Most assuredly secular folks are as alive to the necessity of morals and ethics as are the religious. Trouble is, secular ethics aren't transcendent, only materialistic, immediate, and pragmatic. There is no guarantee of permanence, nothing that gives life meaning on any sort of permanent basis.

You've been debunked on this point on numerous occasions. You don't appear to have any knowledge of existentialist philosophy, nor account for it when repeating this claim.

You've been debunked on this point on numerous occasions.

Actually you never even tried to defend this position of yours. It was the first instance of the "Alaska Tactic."

[Hoosiernorm]

The notion that secular people have no place for morality is complete and utter bullshit. People have this idea that you have to take the myth along with the morals, you don't. . .

Ummmmmmmmm . . yes, you do. Most assuredly secular folks are as alive to the necessity of morals and ethics as are the religious. Trouble is, secular ethics aren't transcendent, only materialistic, immediate, and pragmatic. There is no guarantee of permanence, nothing that gives life meaning on any sort of permanent basis.

You've been debunked on this point on numerous occasions. You don't appear to have any knowledge of existentialist philosophy, nor account for it when repeating this claim.

I sometimes wonder if Genesis 22 would have provided inner dialogue it would have prevented the possibility of existentialism. Sorry for the post, it just reoccurred to me when I saw what you guys were talking about.

[Marcus]

The notion that secular people have no place for morality is complete and utter bullshit. People have this idea that you have to take the myth along with the morals, you don't. . .

Ummmmmmmmm . . yes, you do. Most assuredly secular folks are as alive to the necessity of morals and ethics as are the religious. Trouble is, secular ethics aren't transcendent, only materialistic, immediate, and pragmatic. There is no guarantee of permanence, nothing that gives life meaning on any sort of permanent basis.

You've been debunked on this point on numerous occasions. You don't appear to have any knowledge of existentialist philosophy, nor account for it when repeating this claim.

You've been debunked on this point on numerous occasions.

Actually you never even tried to defend this position of yours. It was the first instance of the "Alaska Tactic."

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=747

[Taboo]

Countries of the “Russian world” are capable of changing the globe within ten years, believes top cleric of the Russian Orthodox Church Vsevolod Chaplin.

Mmm, how?

From my empirical observations of men here in Russia, by drinking themselves to an early grave. Presumably the large numbers of Turkmen, Azeri, and Uzbek immigrants to Russia will repopulate the deserted lands and become husbands to the surviving Russian women.

[YMix]

From my empirical observations of men here in Russia, by drinking themselves to an early grave. Presumably the large numbers of Turkmen, Azeri, and Uzbek immigrants to Russia will repopulate the deserted lands and become husbands to the surviving Russian women.

So they do have a plan.

[Ibrahim]

The notion that secular people have no place for morality is complete and utter bullshit. People have this idea that you have to take the myth along with the morals, you don't. . .

Ummmmmmmmm . . yes, you do. Most assuredly secular folks are as alive to the necessity of morals and ethics as are the religious. Trouble is, secular ethics aren't transcendent, only materialistic, immediate, and pragmatic. There is no guarantee of permanence, nothing that gives life meaning on any sort of permanent basis.

You've been debunked on this point on numerous occasions. You don't appear to have any knowledge of existentialist philosophy, nor account for it when repeating this claim.

I sometimes wonder if Genesis 22 would have provided inner dialogue it would have prevented the possibility of existentialism. Sorry for the post, it just reoccurred to me when I saw what you guys were talking about.

Existentialism is a product of free will, and allows for the formation of all sorts of ethics and ideals absent either gods or an afterlife. I don't think there is anything added to any specific religion that could prevent it or invalidate it. Anyway I only mention it to quickly disprove another point that is itself a digression.

[Ibrahim]

From my empirical observations of men here in Russia, by drinking themselves to an early grave. Presumably the large numbers of Turkmen, Azeri, and Uzbek immigrants to Russia will repopulate the deserted lands and become husbands to the surviving Russian women.

So they do have a plan.

Demographics, extinction, "women" being seized by foreigners. This makes me all sentimental for SpengFor.

[Taboo]

The notion that secular people have no place for morality is complete and utter bullshit. People have this idea that you have to take the myth along with the morals, you don't. . .

Ummmmmmmmm . . yes, you do.

Oh my, there we go again.

Most assuredly secular folks are as alive to the necessity of morals and ethics as are the religious.

I am alive to the necessity of two ill-defined terms?

Trouble is, secular ethics aren't transcendent, only materialistic, immediate, and pragmatic.

I should believe that because you say it? Universal human rights? Enlightenment values? Immediate and pragmatic?

There is no guarantee of permanence, nothing that gives life meaning on any sort of permanent basis.

I was unaware of the fact the Christianity provides a GUARANTEE of permanence. If offers a promisory note that mysterious miraculous things will happen after you die. All the meaning provided hinges upon your acceptance of this unproven and doubtable claim. So, sorry, no guarantee.

And this is where Goldman nails it:

Goldman nails it? Where, where, I am eager to see?

Modernity tells us that each of us is alone in the universe to wrest what meaning we may from our brief span of sentience.

Yes, because atheists have no family, no lovers and no friends...

That is a hopeless task;

Yes, for a strawman.

if we must invent our own meaning, then by implications, the meanings that our ancestors invented will be just as meaningless to us as our meanings will be to our descendants, if any.

Well, yes. As you like to quote ad nauseam:
New occasions teach new duties;
Time makes ancient good uncouth;
They must onward still and upward
Who would keep abreast of truth”.

The notion that we must find the meaning of life for ourselves ultimately negates itself, . .

Says who?

Any sense of meaning that applies only to us, but not to our ancestors or our descendants, will putrefy along with our flesh.

Spengler should be reminded that the Judaism as practiced in 2000AD is only vaguely related to the Judaism of 600BC, and even with the Judaism of 1600AD. Most gods ever invented have died. Spengler seems to have discovered the transience of nation/tribes. Perhaps someone should clue him in on the eventual transience and transformation of religions, too.

That is why we cannot invent meaning for ourselves: we can only receive it from tradition and pass it on. Call this the existential paradox.

Which is why atheists should not be afraid to say they are post-Christians. We received our traditions from Christianity, and modified them to adapt this weak framework to the harsh demands of modern postindustrial society. It's no accident that the most materially advanced regions of the world are the most secular.

If we detect no meaning in the lives of our ancestors, to be sure, we are unlikely to bother to bring children into the world who will only come to despise us the way we despise our own parents. Demographers across the ideological spectrum, including secular liberals like Eric Kaufmann and Kevin Phillips, agree that people of faith tend to have children while the non-religious tend not to have children.

An outright lie. People of faith tend to have MORE children, non-religious people FEWER, not 0. Atheistic Finlanders and Icelanders, with less than 2% foreigners, are above replacement. As are Frenchwomen and Norwegian and Swedish women. True, Quiverful, Hasids and Charismatics in Uganda have a bunch of kids. But between Kampala, Uganda and Tampere, Finland I know where I'd rather be.

For the first time in human history, there are entire countries where a majority of the people, without coercion, live free of the superstitions and legendary beliefs of their ancestors, and their lives are good, as are the lives of their children. I can see why Goldman is terrified.

In the long term, secular modernity will liquidate itself through infertility. (emphasis added)

Maybe, maybe not.

Examining current population trends, Kaufmann concludes that the future of the human race most prob- ably lies with groups, now on the cultural margins, that are still faithful to God’s command, “Be fruitful and multiply.”

No he doesn't. He argues that as the groups grow, they will join the mainstream and lose their edge, just like all other religious sects did in the history of mankind.

This much seems certain: without [a new secular] ideology to inspire social cohesion, fundamental- ism cannot be stopped. The religious shall inherit the earth.

[/quote]
As the good Colonel likes to say, prediction is hard, especially about the future.

[Taboo]

From my empirical observations of men here in Russia, by drinking themselves to an early grave. Presumably the large numbers of Turkmen, Azeri, and Uzbek immigrants to Russia will repopulate the deserted lands and become husbands to the surviving Russian women.

So they do have a plan.

Demographics, extinction, "women" being seized by foreigners. This makes me all sentimental for SpengFor.

It's called IRONY. You should really read up on it.

[Enki]

Marcus reminds me of Loki in the Avengers, saying that human beings crave subjugation. They crave to be on their knees. The dizzying openness of freedom is too much for us to bear.

So instead of making up our own meaning of life, it's better if we accept the meaning of life that someone else made up in the past.

You say, "I find meaning without that.", and his response is, "No you don't."

[Miss_Faucie_Fishtits]

Well..... to nuance the situation, David recognises that individuals can create their own meanings in life. Just that the stale date might prove to be a problem........

Which is why atheists should not be afraid to say they are post-Christians. We received our traditions from Christianity, and modified them to adapt this weak framework to the harsh demands of modern postindustrial society. It's no accident that the most materially advanced regions of the world are the most secular.

This man is too strong, I will not fight him.......'>.......

[Marcus]

Marcus reminds me of Loki in the Avengers, saying that human beings crave subjugation. They crave to be on their knees. The dizzying openness of freedom is too much for us to bear.

So instead of making up our own meaning of life, it's better if we accept the meaning of life that someone else made up in the past.

You say, "I find meaning without that.", and his response is, "No you don't."

Ah, Tinker, since you're making it personal (again), you haven't a clue as to my meaning (again) . . when will you stop trying and just ask? . . .

Actually, what I'm saying, and I'm not the first, is this: "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you."

You say "I make up my own meaning"? I say, "No, you don't."

[Taboo]

Well..... to nuance the situation, David recognises that individuals can create their own meanings in life. Just that the stale date might prove to be a problem........

Well, I'm not in the business of telling my grand-grand-grand-grand-grand-children how to live their lives. I will make sure to emphasize this, just before I tell them how much lazier and less polite they are compared to my generation.

Well, as soon as I manage to decrypt their quantum-entanglement telepathic communication interfaces.

Which is why atheists should not be afraid to say they are post-Christians. We received our traditions from Christianity, and modified them to adapt this weak framework to the harsh demands of modern postindustrial society. It's no accident that the most materially advanced regions of the world are the most secular.

This man is too strong, I will not fight him.......'>.......

Adjectives, baby. Love them.

[AzariLoveIran]

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It's no accident that the most materially advanced regions of the world are the most secular.

.

probably true

but

also true

material advancement best under fascism

Adolf a good sample

Look, Taboo

Secularism was only necessary because of exaggeration, corruption and and and of religious authorities

otherwise

society needs beacon of morality and ethics

notion laws can do the job misleading

as laws are derived from moral and ethics

western laws are in reality Christians laws

West is a Christian civilization, though a misunderstood and taken advantage of one


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