Coincube, you have no idea what you're talking about. Things like Feminism and Communism didn't just randomly arise, they were crafted as weapons by the Jews in order to destabilize and destroy nations: "6. Political freedom is an idea but not a fact. This idea one must know how to apply whenever it appears necessary with this bait of an idea to attract the masses of the people to one's party for the purpose of crushing another who is in authority. This task is rendered easier if the opponent has himself been infected with the idea of freedom, SO-CALLED LIBERALISM, and, for the sake of an idea, is willing to yield some of his power. It is precisely here that the triumph of our theory appears; the slackened reins of government are immediately, by the law of life, caught up and gathered together by a new hand, because the blind might of the nation cannot for one single day exist without guidance, and the new authority merely fits into the place of the old already weakened by liberalism."
"14. In any State in which there is a bad organization of authority, an impersonality of laws and of the rulers who have lost their personality amid the flood of rights ever multiplying out of liberalism, I find a new right - to attack by the right of the strong, and to scatter to the winds all existing forces of order and regulation, to reconstruct all institutions and to become the sovereign lord of those who have left to us the rights of their power by laying them down voluntarily in their liberalism."
Communism was certainly created by a former Jew. Karl Marx was a grandson of two Orthodox rabbis and an atheist. There is no disputing that Communism was a tool used to destroy nations. The Ashkenazi Jews have the highest IQ of any group and as I argued previously are probably predisposed to embrace Leftism if they abandon their religious roots. I also agree with your claim that Leftism synonymous today with liberalism undermines the nation state. There is always a struggle in human history over who gets to be chief oppressor. However, by and large this is a sideshow. Leftism and globalism are consuming nation states today in much the same manner that nationalism consumed independent cities and duchies in times past. The true battle is not over who gets to be chief parasite but in how we can eliminate parasitism and replace it with freedom. Your argument that Leftism does not take us to freedom but to oppression is not an argument against freedom but an argument against Leftism. Religion and ProgressThe greatest obstacle to human progress is not a technological hurdle but the evil inherent in ourselves. Humans have knowledge of good and evil and with this knowledge we often choose evil. Collectivism exists because it employs aggregated force to limit evil especially the forms of evil linked to physical violence. Collectivism is expensive and inefficient but these inefficiencies are less than the cost of unrestrained individualism. Collectivism aggregates capital for the common good and we are far from outgrowing our need for this. 1. Prehistory required the aggregation of human capital in the form of young warriors willing to fight to protect the tribe. 2. The Agricultural Age required physical capital in the form of land ownership and a State to protect the land. 3. The Industrial Age required the aggregation of monetary capital to fund large fixed capital investments and factories. A farmer in the agricultural age could achieve some protection from theft and violence by arming himself. He could protect himself against a small hostile groups by forming defensive pacts with neighboring farmers. To defend against large scale organized violence, however, requires an army and thus a state. In 1651 Thomas Hobbes argued for the merits of centralized monarchy. He believed that only absolute monarchy was capable of suppressing the evils of an unrestrained humanity. He described in graphic wording the consequences of a world without monarchy a condition he called the state of nature. In such condition, there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving, and removing, such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. - Thomas Hobbes Leviathan
There may well have been a time in human history when the absolute monarchy of Hobbes was the best available government but Hobbes was writing at the end of that era. England had been transformed from a nation almost completely conquered by the Odin worshiping Great Heathen Army of 865 to a country that protected the legal rights of nobles in the Magna Carta of 1215 to a devoutly Christian nation that formalized the rights of judicial review for common citizens in the 1679 Habeas Corpus act. Hobbes had failed to appreciate the growth of moral capital that allowed for superior forms of government with increased freedom. Our forefathers understood that it is morality and virtue that allows for freedom a lesson many today have forgotten. "Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters." - Benjamin Franklin
“Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks, no form of government, can render us secure. To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea. If there be sufficient virtue and intelligence in the community, it will be exercised in the selection of these men; so that we do not depend upon their virtue, or put confidence in our rulers, but in the people who are to choose them.” - James Madison
“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.” - George Washington
In human interactions we often face a choice between cooperation (reaching a mutually beneficial exchange) and defection (advancement of ourselves to the detriment of our fellow man). The nation state, police, and laws suppress physical violence but do nothing to maintain the morality and virtue that sustain freedom. Collectivism limits some avenues of defection while opening entire new possibilities. New opportunities for defection arise along the entire economic spectrum. Everything from special interest lobbying, to disability scammers, and on a larger scale our entire fiat monetary system are essentially forms of defection allowing the few to profit at the expense of the many. Nation state collectivism has allowed for the creation of great civilizations and yet is entirely unsustainable in its current form. "our Western civilization is on its way to perishing. It has many commendable qualities, most of which it has borrowed from the Christian ethic, but it lacks the element of moral wisdom that would give it permanence. Future historians will record that we of the twentieth century had intelligence enough to create a great civilization but not the moral wisdom to preserve it." - A.W. Tozer The perishing of Western civilization, however, does not mean fragmentation and collapse. Indeed in this instance the opposite appears to be true and collapse looks set to drive us via economic fundamentals and debt into a single world government paradigm for reasons discussed at length elsewhere. The evolution of the social contract is a progressive climb to higher potential energy systems with increased degrees of freedom. The state of nature begat tribalism. Tribalism grew into despotism. Despotism advanced into monarchy. Monarchies were replaced by republics. It is likely that in the near future republics will be consumed by world government, and perhaps someday world government will evolve into decentralized government. Each iteration has a common theme for each advance increases the number of individuals able to engage in cooperative activity while lowering the number of individuals able to defect. Each iteration increases the sustainable degrees of freedom the system can support. Moral capital is the foundation that allows this progress to occur. For this reason ethical monotheism is the single greatest contributor to human progress from any source since human culture emerged from the stone ages. "Nature is amoral. Nature knows nothing of good and evil. In nature there is one rule—survival of the fittest. There is no right, only might. If a creature is weak, kill it. Only human beings could have moral rules such as, "If it is weak, protect it." Only human beings can feel themselves ethically obligated to strangers.
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Nature allows you to act naturally, i.e., do only what you want you to do, without moral restraints; God does not. Nature lets you act naturally - and it is as natural to kill, rape, and enslave as it is to love.
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One of the vital elements in the ethical monotheist revolution was its repudiation of nature as god. The evolution of civilization and morality have depended in large part on desanctifying nature.
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Civilizations that equated gods with nature—a characteristic of all primitive societies—or that worshipped nature did not evolve.
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Words cannot convey the magnitude of the change wrought by the Bible's introduction into the world of a God who rules the universe morally." - Dennis Prager
The utopia of limited to no government would only be possible for a population constantly striving at all times to be moral. Such a utopia would require all individuals to always act cooperatively, honesty, and transparently. We lack the required moral fiber for anything like this to work at our current juncture in history. |
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Not sure why Coincube keeps making up this stuff that "god" is on the Jews side of WW2:
Nothing happens in a vacuum. The antisemitism in Nazi Germany arose in part because of the the role of Jews in the rise of communism and in part due to the growing dominance of Jews in the German economy and in part due to the religious belief that the Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus. This is not to say the Jews as a people have not committed horrible crimes. They like all peoples have participated in great evils but I would argue that these evils can mostly be attributed to the Jewish Left. Specifically to large number of Jews who abandoned their faith for Leftism which can be looked at as a competing religion. For an honest critique of the Jewish Left the best sources are Jews themselves. Left-Wing Jews Are Embarrassing Judaism http://www.dennisprager.com/left-wing-jews-are-embarrassing-judaism/...
So, I say this with only sadness: Many American Jews on the left, including rabbis and lay leaders, are embarrassing Jews and Judaism. I say this to ring an alarm in Jewish life and to tell non-Jewish America that these people represent leftism, not Judaism. Furthermore, I am talking only about leftist Jews, not liberal Jews. Unfortunately, however, liberalism has become synonymous with leftism both within and outside Judaism.
This past week, the embarrassing behavior of left-wing Jews reached a new level.
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How are we to understand this?
Here’s one explanation: When Jews abandoned Judaism, many of them did not abandon Judaism’s messianic impulse. From Karl Marx — the grandson of two Orthodox rabbis — and onwards, they simply secularized it and created secular substitutes, such as Marxism, humanism, socialism, feminism and environmentalism.
Prager who is Jewish argues that Jews who abandon their faith are particularly susceptible to embrace the extreme left. Rabbi Yosef Tzvi ben Porat goes farther. Why Did Hitler Hate Jews? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTYSv_YQOVoHitler claims in his book, that the Jews are communists. They created the Russian Revolution where they killed 30 million Russians all the intelligent ones in a cruel and horrific way... the next in line is Germany. They founded the Communist and Socialistic parties. If we don't defeat them now they will eliminate us, and they will slaughter another 20 million...
And he is right the Russian revolution was facilitated by the Jews. The Russian army was built by Trotsky who was an incredible genius a (Jewish) anti-Semite like no other. He created the Jewish division of the communist party who's members informed on their fathers, mothers, brothers and sons whomever owned a Siddur (Jewish prayer book) or even a Hebrew learning book... He destroyed everything.
In the first Communist Government out of 13 members, six were Jews. Who founded the KGB? Jews. So everything is clearly written. (Hitler) didn't hate the Jews because they had payot (Jewish sidecurls). He didn't hate them for observing Mitzvoth, (He hated them) because they were communists and he writes it clearly.
Now you understand why they don't teach this in schools because who writes the curriculum those same leftists. Of course they will not teach that Hitler wanted to kill the Jews because they are the forefathers of the Left and the forefathers of Marxism, Communism and Hellenism. But that's what he writes!
Earlier iamnotback provided us with an analysis of Leftism and argued that it should be considered a religion in its own right. Below is that argument mildly edited for language. I agree with his overall argument.
Leftism is the religion which promises the individual he/she can entirely free, protected, while protecting the right of everyone else to be entirely free and protected.
Sounds very noble right? Read on...
All religions exist to protect the society (and the family) against the defection of the individual. Traditional religions argue that subjugation of some of the "evil" whims of the individual (e.g. extra-martial affairs) is necessary to maximize the success of the society, e.g. children who grow up without their fathers usually do statistically much worse in life in various metrics, including health.
Whereas, in leftism the "evil" is not "protecting the right of everyone else to be entirely free and protected". But what does this really mean? It is double-speak. It really means to steal from production so as to enable people to abandon their moral responsibilities so that the society can be utterly destroyed by hedonism and other ramifications of offering everyone "state-supported freedom" (which is a guaranteed megadeath hell in the future).
But don't dare tell the leftist, atheists that their idealism is corrupt, bankrupt, and disingenuous. They will gut you with a knife if you dare challenge the veracity of their beloved social justice.
"Entirely free" means you can do what ever you want and there are no NATURAL LAW ramifications (the State will always support your right to do what ever you want), as long as you support the State's right to protect and economically provide for everyone's right to do what ever they want. In other words, a "free for all" of political correctness and stealing.
But NATURAL LAW in inviolable. No State can protect every individual from the NATURAL LAW. And if you tell people they can be entirely free (including economic freedom for everyone and every whim), then you have lied.
In short, leftism is a Tragedy of the Commons. Thus is a false religion. It lies. It is Satan's religion.
To understand society we need to understand what our options are. There are only two ways to build and sustain a large and complex society. The first is oppression and slavery. Using oppression and slavery one can enforce control through violence. The second and far harder path is to build a free society but this path is challenging and slow as humans are not inherently designed to function in large groups. Whatever tribal hardwiring humans have it is designed for small groups where all members are known watched and observed. Maintaining a group larger then a tribe requires either the oppression of a police state or in the case of a free society a moral populace. This was well stated by Henning Web Prentis, Jr who described how the loss of morality would take a people from freedom to bondage. Paradoxically enough, the release of initiative and enterprise made possible by popular self-government ultimately generates disintegrating forces from within. Again and again after freedom has brought opportunity and some degree of plenty, the competent become selfish, luxury-loving and complacent, the incompetent and the unfortunate grow envious and covetous, and all three groups turn aside from the hard road of freedom to worship the Golden Calf of economic security.
The historical cycle seems to be: From bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to apathy; from apathy to dependency; and from dependency back to bondage once more." It is moral degradation that leads to bondage for it is moral strengthening that allows free societies to be built in the first place. Loss of ethnic or racial homogeneity is unimportant except to the degree such diversity contributes to moral strengthening or decline. This is why ethical monotheism is so important and the reason why so much that is good in the world came from the west. It is ethical monotheism that teaches us not to sin even when dealing with strangers. Whatever other factors may be present in an act of wrongdoing, folly is one that is never absent. To do a wrong act a man must for the moment think wrong; he must exercise bad judgment.
Sin, I repeat, in addition to anything else it may be, is always an act of wrong judgment. To commit a sin a man must for the moment believe that things are different from what they really are; he must confound values; he must see the moral universe out of focus; he must accept a lie as truth and see truth as a lie; he must ignore the signs on the highway and drive with his eyes shut; he must act as if he had no soul and was not accountable for his moral choices.
Sin is never a thing to be proud of. No act is wise that ignores remote consequences, and sin always does. Sin sees only today, or at most tomorrow; never the day after tomorrow, next month or next year. Death and judgment are pushed aside as if they did not exist...
Sin is basically an act of moral folly, and the greater the folly the greater the fool.
The Nazi strategy was to use organized force and violence to place themselves above their fellow man who they viewed as lesser beings. It was a philosophy of slavery and thus was actually quite similar to it's hated opponent communism which as we saw above is also just a Tragedy of the Commons that degenerates into dictatorship and slavery. The Nazi's lost and the Communist's "won" but over the long run freedom out-competes slavery and so unsurprisingly Soviet communism is now also gone. Nothing the Nazi's did was irrational or illogical. Our modern secular society has a problem coming to grips with the fact that evil is often entirely rational and reasonable yet it is still evil. Both German Nazism and Soviet Communism were ultimately philosophies of slavery. To fully understand this we must understand freedom. Freedom is neither license nor anarchy: It does not mean chaos or the use of tooth and nail. Freedom does not give any man or group the right to steal, to use fraud or aggressive force or threats of same to get what one wants. Freedom is the right of the individual to choose how he controls himself, so long as he respects the equal rights of every other individual to control and plan his own life. Freedom is thus not the ability to do whatever you want. It is self-control, and self-government, no more, no less. Thus "freedom is self-control" leads to the conclusion that as acting individuals, we must respect the rights and boundaries of others. In other words, every individual should control his or her actions such that they do not aggress or invade against other individuals or their rightfully owned properties. "Freedom" as "self-control" points up the dual nature of human existence: of the Self (mind, soul, and spirit) housed in a physical body. Human beings require both spiritual freedom and physical liberty The evolution of the social contract is a progressive climb to systems with increased overall freedom. The state of nature begat tribalism. Tribalism grew into despotism. Despotism advanced into monarchy. Monarchies were replaced by republics. Each iteration has a common theme for each advance increased the overall cooperative activity and freedom the system permitted. The ultimate driver behind this process is Ethical Monotheism for this is the underappreciated foundation that freedom rests upon. The Ten Commandments are often misunderstood as as restrictions. In reality they are the road map to freedom. To better understand this I highly recommend the following 5 minute video clip from Prager University. God Wants Us To Be FreeFreedom out-competes slavery. This is why the Odin worshiping vikings were replaced by Christian vikings. It is the ultimate reason why Arab polytheism was replaced by Islam and why the Jews who who's traditions demand an individual understanding and observance of scripture have so excelled. A person is responsible for every action he takes and for every action he refuses to take. Thus, he is responsible for commissions and omissions, and whether these are good or bad. The individual is the responsible unit. Responsibility cannot be collectively delegated. Each person is responsible in exactly the same way and to the same degree that every other person is. At the level of the individual we again return to choice. Do we truly care about freedom or do we care about our cravings and wants? If we choose freedom we must embrace that which makes freedom possible. If we choose whims and desires we should admit to ourselves that we do not prioritize freedom and are most concerned with our ability to sate our appetites. We have a very long way to go to truly be a free people. Freedom is not an all or none affair. We are not a free society, yet we live in a society that is far more free than societies of the past. We can focus our efforts on taking over the remaining mechanisms of slavery allowing us or our group to take the role of top oppressor or we can focus them on advancing freedom and moral self-improvement laying the foundation necessary to overturn those mechanisms over the long run. Both courses of action are rational but only one is good. |
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But is says to do so in the Bible.... so why do you not follow the bible?
Stats I already answered your question but you may have missed it upthread so I will try one last time. Let's look at another similar example. Exodus 31:14 "Ye shall keep the sabbath therefore; for it is holy unto you: every one that defileth it shall surely be put to death; for whosoever doeth any work therein, that soul shall be cut off from among his people." According to your interpretation stats we should execute everyone we see working on Saturday? Personally I feel that such an action would violate the Biblical prohibition on murder don't you? What is the actual meaning? I think it means is that if we work 7 days a week we make slaves of ourselves separating ourselves from our families and communities and over the long run doing so is extremely bad for us even fatal. The Japanese call this Karōshi literally death from work. The following five minute clip from Prager university covers this in more depth. https://www.prageru.com/courses/religionphilosophy/remember-sabbath |
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How Is the Godless West Working Out? By: Dennis Prager https://www.google.com/amp/townhall.com/columnists/dennisprager/2016/09/13/how-is-the-godless-west-working-out-n2216907%3Famp%3Dtrue?client=safariThere are many recent developments in the godless West. To name a few:
--The Supreme Court of Italy last week ruled that public masturbation is legal (except in front of minors).
--The New York City Council voted in May that public urination is not a criminal act.
--The San Francisco City Council decided, by one vote, to continue the city's ban on public nudity -- not, of course, on the grounds of "decency" but on the grounds of public health. Since that can easily be resolved by use of a towel on public benches and chairs, it is only a matter of time, probably a couple of years, before people will be permitted to walk around naked in San Francisco.
--A few weeks ago, teachers in Charlotte, North Carolina, were instructed not to refer to their elementary school students as "boys and girls" but as "students" and "scholars." The reasoning is presumably for inclusivity -- there may be a student who has no gender identity -- and that adults should not impose a gender identity on young people.
--In a New York Times op-ed column, a professor of philosophy noted his shock at learning that most young Americans do not believe that moral truths exist. They are incapable of asserting that anything, including killing for fun, is wrong beyond personal opinion.
These are all inevitable consequences of the death of belief in God and Judeo-Christian values, and of the Bible as society's primary moral reference work.
The West has been in moral decline since World War I, the calamity that led to World War II and the death of national identity and Christianity in most of Europe.
There has always been one exception: the United States. But now that is ending. The seeds of America's decline have been sown since the beginning of the 20th century, and they came to fruition with the post-World War II generation, the baby boomers.
Radical and aggressive secularism and atheism have replaced religion in virtually every school and throughout American public life.
We have gone from President Abraham Lincoln reading the Bible every day to Alaska Airlines feeling forced to stop passing out prayer cards with meals. In a hundred years, we've gone from near-total biblical literacy to near-total biblical illiteracy. One wonders whether half of America's college seniors could correctly identify Cain and Abel, or whether more than 1 in 10 Americans could cite the Ten Commandments. We have gone from President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaiming the need to save "Christian civilization" in World War II speeches to a virtual ban on American presidents mentioning the word "Christianity." And, as is widely noted, Americans are no longer supposed to wish strangers "merry Christmas," and they must refer to a Christmas party as a "holiday party."
Similarly, the European Union constitution never mentions Christianity, despite the fact that it was Christianity that formed Europe.
The prices that we Americans and Europeans are paying for creating the first godless societies in recorded history amount to civilizational suicide. Boys and girls are not to be referred to as boys and girls; Western elites dismiss national identity as protofascism; the belief that moral truth exists has been destroyed and replaced by feelings and opinions; fewer people are marrying; and more people live alone than at any time in American history.
Western European countries have become empty, soulless places. They are pretty and appear materially secure (for now), but they stand for almost nothing (except "multiculturalism" and "tolerance"). They have replaced a Jewish population that overwhelmingly wanted to assimilate with a Muslim population that does not want to. And nearly all European countries are headed to Greece-like insolvency as fewer and fewer workers pay enough in taxes to support those who collect welfare, and as tensions with their Muslim inhabitants increase.
But the good news is that now, beginning with Italy and New York, citizens can watch each other masturbate or urinate in public.
There is no way to prove that God exists. But what is provable is what happens when societies stop believing in God: They commit suicide.
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Freedom is neither license nor anarchy: It does not mean chaos or the use of tooth and nail. Freedom does not give any man or group the right to steal, to use fraud or aggressive force or threats of same to get what one wants. Freedom is the right of the individual to choose how he controls himself, so long as he respects the equal rights of every other individual to control and plan his own life. Freedom is thus not the ability to do whatever you want. It is self-control, and self-government, no more, no less. Thus "freedom is self-control" leads to the conclusion that as acting individuals, we must respect the rights and boundaries of others. In other words, every individual should control his or her actions such that they do not aggress or invade against other individuals or their rightfully owned properties. "Freedom" as "self-control" points up the dual nature of human existence: of the Self (mind, soul, and spirit) housed in a physical body. Human beings require both spiritual freedom and physical liberty The evolution of the social contract is a progressive climb to systems with increased overall freedom. The state of nature begat tribalism. Tribalism grew into despotism. Despotism advanced into monarchy. Monarchies were replaced by republics. Each iteration has a common theme for each advance increased the overall cooperative activity and freedom the system permitted. The ultimate driver behind this process is Ethical Monotheism for this is the underappreciated foundation that freedom rests upon. The Ten Commandments are often misunderstood as as restrictions. In reality they are the road map to freedom. To better understand this I highly recommend the following 5 minute video clip from Prager University. God Wants Us To Be FreeFreedom out-competes slavery. This is why the Odin worshiping vikings were replaced by Christian vikings. It is the ultimate reason why Arab polytheism was replaced by Islam and why the Jews who who's traditions demand an individual understanding and observance of scripture have so excelled. A person is responsible for every action he takes and for every action he refuses to take. Thus, he is responsible for commissions and omissions, and whether these are good or bad. The individual is the responsible unit. Responsibility cannot be collectively delegated. Each person is responsible in exactly the same way and to the same degree that every other person is. At the level of the individual we again return to choice. Do we truly care about freedom or do we care about our cravings and wants? If we choose freedom we must embrace that which makes freedom possible. If we choose whims and desires we should admit to ourselves that we do not prioritize freedom and are most concerned with our ability to sate our appetites. |
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I think that something like moral self control is a problem akin to elimination of bias. In economics, the individual will often act irrationally therefore the individual can only eliminate bias a little bit. An organization can successfully work to eliminate bias and moral decay but it takes a lot of individual hard work. What are some good organizations to enlighten the world to the truth? I do not want to bias myself against any creative solutions.
The only model I am aware of that seems to work is the religious one. The quote from Christian pastor A.W. Tozer below meshes well with your conceptualization of moral improvement as the elimination of bias. Whatever tribal hardwiring humans have it is designed for small groups where all members are known watched and observed. Maintaining a group larger then a tribe requires either the oppression of a police state or in the case of a free society a moral populace. This was well stated by Henning Web Prentis, Jr who described how the loss of morality would take a people from freedom to bondage. Paradoxically enough, the release of initiative and enterprise made possible by popular self-government ultimately generates disintegrating forces from within. Again and again after freedom has brought opportunity and some degree of plenty, the competent become selfish, luxury-loving and complacent, the incompetent and the unfortunate grow envious and covetous, and all three groups turn aside from the hard road of freedom to worship the Golden Calf of economic security.
The historical cycle seems to be: From bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to apathy; from apathy to dependency; and from dependency back to bondage once more." It is moral degradation that leads to bondage for it is moral strengthening that allows free societies to be built in the first place. Loss of ethnic or racial homogeneity is unimportant except to the degree such diversity contributes to moral strengthening or decline. This is why ethical monotheism is so important and the reason why so much that is good in the world came from the west. It is ethical monotheism that teaches us not to sin even when dealing with strangers. Whatever other factors may be present in an act of wrongdoing, folly is one that is never absent. To do a wrong act a man must for the moment think wrong; he must exercise bad judgment.
Sin, I repeat, in addition to anything else it may be, is always an act of wrong judgment. To commit a sin a man must for the moment believe that things are different from what they really are; he must confound values; he must see the moral universe out of focus; he must accept a lie as truth and see truth as a lie; he must ignore the signs on the highway and drive with his eyes shut; he must act as if he had no soul and was not accountable for his moral choices.
Sin is never a thing to be proud of. No act is wise that ignores remote consequences, and sin always does. Sin sees only today, or at most tomorrow; never the day after tomorrow, next month or next year. Death and judgment are pushed aside as if they did not exist...
Sin is basically an act of moral folly, and the greater the folly the greater the fool.
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Of course!!! "And blood on their heads" is a metaphor for what?
Seems like you must constantly adjust the interpretation of this book. 1000 years ago people were probably killing gays on spot, following this book.
Because today you cannot do that, you adjust the interpretation so that you don't break the laws by following this "holly" book.
Happy cherry picking....Delusion continues...
Yes you must adjust your interpretation of the Book as you grow in moral wisdom and gain a deeper understanding of meaning. This is a given. How Is the Torah/Bible Interpreted? http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/819698/jewish/How-Is-the-Torah-Interpreted.htmTorah is G‑d's wisdom. Intellect, by its very nature, allows for – and indeed demands – different avenues of understanding; how much more so when dealing with the infinite wisdom of the Infinite G‑d.
Our sages tell us that Torah can be interpreted in four different general ways: peshat, remez, drush and sod.
1) Peshat is the simple interpretation of the Torah. When the verse says (Genesis 1:1) that "In the beginning G‑d created the Heaven and Earth," it means exactly what it seems to mean, in a very literal sense.
Within these four methods of understanding Torah, there exist countless possible avenues of understanding
2) Remez is the different hints and allusions which are contained within the Torah. One of the methodologies the Torah employs to make these hints is gematryia, the numerical value of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet. For example, the gematriya of "Bereshit bara" ("In the beginning He created)" is the same as "b'Rosh Hashanah nivra ha'olam" (on Rosh Hashanah the world was created)!"
3) Drush (or Midrash) expounds upon the deeper meaning of the verse. The Hebrew word for "In the beginning" is bereshit. The midrash tells us that this word can be split into two words—b reshit. The Torah is telling us that the world was created for two ("b") "reshit"s ("firsts")—the Jews and the Torah. Although this is not the simple interpretation of the word, nevertheless it is a true and valid way of understanding the Torah.
4) Sod (secret) is the esoteric, mystical part of Torah. The Tikkunei Zohar (a book which gives seventy (!) different esoteric explanations for the word bereshit) explains that the word bereshit can also be split into "bara shis" (created [with] six). This is because the world was created through G‑d's six emotional powers: kindness, severity, beauty, victory, splendor and foundation.
Within these four methods of understanding Torah, there exist countless possible avenues of understanding. For example: There are many different ways to understand the Torah according to Peshat. That's why there are many Torah commentators who concentrate on Peshat -- Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Rashbam and many more – and they will very often (it seems, more often than not...) disagree on the literal meaning of a verse. In fact, according to Kabbalastic teachings there are 600,000 ways to understand Peshat, 600,000 ways to understand Remez, 600,000 ways to understand Drush, and 600,000 ways to understand Sod!
Any insight in Torah is acceptable as long as it (makes sense and) does not contradict any of our fundamental beliefs.
Our sages tell us that "any chiddush (novel idea) which a reputable disciple will ever come up with was already given to Moses by Sinai." Moses might not have heard this specific idea which the rabbi living thousands of years later has just thought of, but the basis of this idea was already given by Sinai.
G‑d gave us the tools to delve into the words of Torah and reveal the divine wisdom hidden therein.
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What about the freedom to take out a car loan? One who trades nothing ( "a signature") for something is a thief.
Shall I choose my wants or shall I refuse the "false gifts"?
And what about the freedom to travel freely in that car?? There is no such freedom in the usa, travel must be approved by patrol agents who use "emergency powers" and authority status to convince the public that travel must be tracked and regulated. Almost nobody can truly assert a right to travel, due to indoctrination and acceptance of this norm. A similar example is when the nation's high court ruled that the right to remain silent does not amount to freedom from having to provide response or answer to a question, and that only someone who is very clever can practically choose a beneficial course of action in this situation. Here we have replaced "one nation under god" with a perpetual state of fraud and darkness. Police claim to enforce a "moral law" under their own authority and coded rules of deception. The commercial enforcement and bail/fining process is not about control of your car but rather control over your signature and freedom of motion. God and freedom are a long way away, the situation is looking more like "1984" where freedom merely denotes the relative size of one's cage.
Freedom does not mean not being bound by our word or the inability to enter contracts. Freedom is self-control, and self-government. Provided the choice is made without coercion if we willingly choose to limit our autonomy and freedom via an obligation to another there is nothing wrong with this. With two caveats: 1) In our current system whenever we take out a debt we are simultaneously stealing from everyone else thus debt under in a fractional reserve fiat system amounts to a form of legalized theft. Though we may be forced to participate in such theft in order to function we should at a minimum do what we can to promote reform and oppose the status quo. See Finance: Part 1, 2, 3 for details on how the current monetary order works. 2) Usury in general is probably a very bad idea which we should all strive to move away from. This is a lesson society has yet to learn. Your other examples simply highlight that we have a very long way to go to truly be a free people. Freedom is not an all or none affair. We are not a free society, yet we live in a society that is far more free than societies of the past. We are not far enough along the road of self-improvement to even consider abolishing police forces or allowing unrestricted travel across all national borders. Freedom comes from moral self-control and we lack the required moral fiber. You say the situation is looking more like 1984 and I do not entirely disagree if we limit our view to the west. However, perhaps I am an optimist when I argue that if one expands one's view to the entire human race freedom continues to move forward. |
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CoinCube..... I see you missed the others.
Do you want to explain how the bible explains slavery and marrying the rapist, or even not wearing clothing of 2 different materials..... what about forbidding you from eating rabbit, shellfish, pork, weasels, scavengers, reptiles, and owls.
Please.... any of these will do?
If they are too hard, what about killing? 2 crops in the same field? No Jewelry or ostracizing people with disabilities?
Please shed some light.
Stats its not really my job to answer these questions for you nor do I have all the answers but I will answer the hardest one on your list and leave it to you to figure out the rest. Lets look at slavery. Why might the Bible/Torah have rules about how slaves should be treated rather then simply prohibit slavery outright? Let's start simple:
Take an agrarian society surrounded by hostile nations. Go in there and forcefully abolish slavery. The result? War, bloodshed, hatred, prejudice, poverty and eventually, a return to slavery until the underlying conditions change. Which is pretty much what happened in the American South when the semi-industrialized North imposed their laws upon the agrarian South. And in Texas when Mexico attempted to abolish slavery among the Anglophones there.
Not a good idea. Better idea: Place humane restrictions upon the institution of indentured servitude. Yes, it's still ugly, but in the meantime, you'll teach people compassion and kindness. Educate. Make workshops... Eventually, things change and slavery becomes an anachronism for such a society.
Which is pretty much what happened to Jewish society. Note this: At a time when Romans had literally thousands of slaves per citizen, even the wealthiest Jews held very modest numbers of servants. And those servants, the Talmud tells us, were treated better by their masters than foreign kings would treat their own subjects.
Torah teaches us how to run a libertarian society--through education and participation. Elsewhere in the world, emperors and aristocracy knew only how to govern a mass of people through oppression. Look what happened to Rome.
Getting Real Change
If God would simply and explicitly declare all the rules, precisely as He wants His world to look and what we need to do about it, the Torah would never become real to us. No matter how much we would do and how good we would be, we would remain aliens to the process.
So, too, with slavery (and there are many other examples): In the beginning, the world starts off as a place where oppressing others is a no-qualms, perfectly acceptable practice. It's not just the practice Torah needs to deal with, it's the attitude. So Torah involves us in arriving at that attitude. To the point that we will say, "Even though the Torah lets us, we don't do things that way."
Which means that we've really learnt something. And now, we can teach it to others. Because those things you're just told, those you cannot teach. You can only teach that which you have discovered on your own.
History bears this out... As much as Rome ruled over Judea, Jewish values deeply transformed Rome. One of the results was the legal privileges eventually granted to slaves and the gradual recognition of the value of human life.
Christianity’s influence, in the west, set into motion the belief that man is accountable to God and that the law is the same regardless of status. http://crossandquill.com/journey/the-influence-of-christianity-on-western-civilization/Take the conflict between the Christian emperor Theodosius the Great and St. Ambrose. It happened in 300 A.D. when some in Thessalonica rioted and aroused the anger of the emperor who overreacted by slaughtering approximately seven thousand people, most of whom were innocent. Bishop Ambrose asked the emperor to repent and when Theodosius refused, the bishop excommunicated him. After a month Theodosius prostrated himself and repented in Ambrose’s cathedral.
Ambrose readmitted the emperor only after several months of penance and when he promoted a law, which in the case of death sentences would allow a thirty-day lag before the execution would be enforced. One can only speculate how many other massacres were avoided throughout history by the mitigating influence of a religion who's commandments include "Thou shalt not kill"
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So now we are going to talk about processing methods? Since your 'pork Bible wisdom' did not work too well?
Did you read all of the Leviticus? How many times did you personally follow Leviticus 20:13?
I have found Leviticus makes more sense if one translates "put to death" as meaning that the punishment for the crime is death at your owns hands meaning genetic death or eventual cessation of your line due to participation in behaviors that are not conducive to long term survival or reproduction. |
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Again, that is not unique to pork. I hope you have heard of avian flu, mad cow disease.
Kosher slaughtering techniques will help minimize the chance of spreading Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) if properly followed. http://www.jta.org/2003/12/31/archive/kosher-butchers-our-beef-safer-from-mad-cow-diseaseRegarding avian flu I am aware of less data. However, most cases of this are to the best of my knowledge spread to humans not through the farming but by the handling of carcasses. Also I suspect the inter-species barrier is much higher for a pathogen to jump from bird to man though I admit I do not have scientific data on hand to prove this last point. https://hencam.com/faq/do-chickens-transmit-diseases-to-people-%3FThe chickens in our backyards carry around their share of germs and it’s prudent to worry about whether we can get sick from them. The quick answer is that there are very few diseases that humans and birds share. Our biologies are just too different. That said, there are a small number of pathogens to know about, all of which can be neutralized by hand washing and good animal husbandry. The truly scary diseases are not coming from the backyard flock, they’re coming from animal factories (let’s not call them “farms.”) I’m not going to go into a diatribe here about how crowded factory production facilities that rely on antibiotics to keep their animals alive are creating “superbugs” that are resistant to drugs, I’m sure you’ve read this on-going story in the press. Instead, let’s go over what you need to know about the hens in your backyard.
The biggest fear that many have is of Bird Flu. The first cases of H5N2 appeared in North America in December of 2014. This is highly pathogenic to poultry, but at this point is not a concern to humans. Cases in the news of people getting sick are almost always in situations in which many dead and diseased birds are handled in close and unsanitary conditions. Even in those situations, the symptoms are mild. There are no cases of human to human transmission. However, our backyard flocks are in danger of contracting H5N2 – and it will decimate your flock. Wild waterfowl are the main vector and so it’s prudent to keep your chickens away from ponds and other areas that migratory birds congregate.
Another disease that you might have heard is zoonotic (transmissible from animal to human) is Newcastle Disease. Rest assured that it isn’t of great concern for backyard chicken keepers. In chickens it causes respiratory ailments. Transmitted to humans it triggers mild conjunctivitis, but even this is usually only seen in people who administer the Newcastle vaccine to poultry, or are lab workers who do necropsies. Two other zoonotic diseases are erysipelas and chlamydiosis, which are mostly hosted by turkeys, and only affect humans who work in slaughterhouses, and farmers of large flocks. Avian tuberculosis is another one that is quite rare (it’s more prevalent with parrot fanciers) but possible to contract.
Hey here is another interesting biblical quote. How interesting these are. Leviticus 11:28 Anyone who picks up their carcasses must wash their clothes, and they will be unclean till evening. These animals are unclean for you. |
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Sausages, ham and bacon is a different story. Nitrates can definitely cause cancer. But I'm talking about lean pork meat that you raised yourself. How can it kill you?
Of course if you gorge yourself on sausages and bacon, your liver might not be able to handle the assault.
These days most of the produced food is contaminated. Pork injected with antibiotic or chicken meat with growth hormones, soaked in chlorine cannot be good for you.
The issue might be with the production methods not the type of meat.
Here is another way pork can kill you. There are other reasons why pork or specifically pigs may be dangerous to humans. Pigs have a respiratory system that is similar to our own close enough to ours to allow diseases to jump the species barrier. This is probably how the 1918 influenza pandamic got started which killed 50-100 million people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic#Hypotheses_about_sourceInvestigative work by a British team led by virologist John Oxford[19] of St Bartholomew's Hospital and the Royal London Hospital in 1999 identified the major troop staging and hospital camp in Étaples, France, as almost certainly being the center of the 1918 flu pandemic. A significant precursor virus, harbored in birds, mutated to pigs that were kept near the front.[20] The Flu Can Spread from Pigs to People and from People to Pigs
Human flu viruses can infect pigs and can introduce new flu viruses into the swine population.
The flu viruses that normally circulate in pigs can infect people...
In 2005 and 2006, three cases of infection with flu viruses that normally circulate in swine (“variant viruses”) were reported in people.
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In 2012, 313 variant cases were reported to CDC, the largest number of cases reported in a single year.
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The flu viruses that commonly spread in humans are different from the ones that spread in pigs.
People who get vaccinated annually against human influenza can still get sick from swine influenza viruses.
Pigs that have been vaccinated for swine influenza can still get sick from some human influenza viruses.
Most reported cases of human infection with variant viruses have occurred in people who have been near infected pigs in public settings such as fairs or petting zoos, or who work directly with infected pigs.
Being just close enough to allow disease to cross the species barrier only rarely but similar enough to allow those diseases to possibly thrive when they do so is a recipe for very deadly cross species disease transfer. |
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Pork can kill you? How? I raise my pigs, I kill them, and process them, how eating them can kill me?
Please explain? How?
Humm, not really sure how to help you here af_newbie. Maybe this will help. You can read the original news article in the link below or better yet the study itself. Processed meat 'early death' linkhttp://www.bbc.com/news/health-21682779Sausages, ham, bacon (= pork) and other processed meats appear to increase the risk of dying young, a study of half a million people across Europe suggests.
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those eating more than 160g of processed meat a day - roughly two sausages and a slice of bacon - were 44% more likely to die over a typical follow-up time of 12.7 years than those eating about 20g.
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"Something has been done to it to extend its shelf life, or to change its taste, or to make it more palatable in some way... and this could be a traditional process like curing or salting."
She said even good quality ham or sausages were still classed as processed meat So the answer to this question is yes pork can kill you. Why might pork kill you? We do not really know. However, we cannot make the mortality effect vanish by controlling for other health factors so to the best of our current knowledge the effect is real. |
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God tells us to pray, in the Bible.  It also tells you to: Kill To not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material Strictly forbids you from eating rabbit, shellfish, pork, weasels, scavengers, reptiles, and owls Own slaves Not accept disabilities Not to plant two crops in the same field No Jewelry And finally.... a rape victim must marry their perpetrator. How many of these do you do? Nope. You are wrong. The Bible doesn't tell anybody to do these things. Those instructions are listed in the Old Testament, and were for the ancient nation of Israel. They aren't for today's Israel, because Israel has stepped out of the God-fearing nation that ancient Israel was. The New Testament is for everyone. It tells nobody to do the things you have listed. However, those rules you have listed, under similar life circumstances today as were found in ancient Israel back then, are some of the best rules that any nation can follow. Stats I see you mentioned the Deuteronomy prohibition on eating pork. Utterly silly right? No reason at all to not eat pork. Religious scaremongering. Hold on wait a second. Deuteronomy 14:8"The pig is also unclean; although it has a divided hoof, it does not chew the cud. You are not to eat their meat or touch their carcasses."Processed meat 'early death' linkhttp://www.bbc.com/news/health-21682779Sausages, ham, bacon and other processed meats appear to increase the risk of dying young, a study of half a million people across Europe suggests.
It concluded diets high in processed meats were linked to cardiovascular disease, cancer and early deaths.
The researchers, writing in the journal BMC Medicine, said salt and chemicals used to preserve the meat may damage health.
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It showed people who ate a lot of processed meat were also more likely to smoke, be obese and have other behaviours known to damage health.
However, the researchers said even after those risk factors were accounted for, processed meat still damaged health.
One in every 17 people followed in the study died. However, those eating more than 160g of processed meat a day - roughly two sausages and a slice of bacon - were 44% more likely to die over a typical follow-up time of 12.7 years than those eating about 20g.
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"Something has been done to it to extend its shelf life, or to change its taste, or to make it more palatable in some way... and this could be a traditional process like curing or salting."
She said even good quality ham or sausages were still classed as processed meat, while homemade burgers using fresh meat were not. Processed meats do cause cancer - WHOhttp://www.bbc.com/news/health-34615621Processed meats - such as bacon, sausages and ham - do cause cancer, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Its report said 50g of processed meat a day - less than two slices of bacon - increased the chance of developing colorectal cancer by 18%.
Processed meat includes bacon, sausages, hot dogs, salami, corned beef, beef jerky and ham as well as canned meat and meat-based sauces.
"For an individual, the risk of developing colorectal (bowel) cancer because of their consumption of processed meat remains small, but this risk increases with the amount of meat consumed," Dr Kurt Straif from the WHO said.
Processed meat 'could be bad for asthma'http://www.bbc.com/news/health-38370057The survey looked specifically at asthma symptoms - breathlessness, wheeze, chest tightness - and intake of cured meat: a single portion was two slices of ham, one sausage or two slices of salami.
Among the people with asthma, higher meat consumption was linked with a worsening of their lung symptoms.
People who said they consumed more than four portions a week - eight slices of ham or four sausages, for example - had the biggest deterioration of their asthma by the end of the study.
The experts stress that their work cannot prove diet is definitely to blame. There are lots of factors in a person's life that can make their asthma worse.
The researchers tried to eliminate the most obvious ones, controlling for things like obesity, and the link between processed meat and worsening asthma remained.
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When you study the word "tax" in the legal dictionaries, if you study it deeply enough, you will find that it equates to "fraud." So, we should descend into anarchy? And live like apes with sticks,stones, stealing from each-other, not building anything, not having any regulations, any funds to build something useful? We are often forced to choose the lesser of two evils when forced to confront evil. Take national defense. It is not wrong to tax to fund national defense to the extent necessary to stop others from murdering you and your countrymen. There are many other situations when taxation is justified for the overall public good also as the lessor evil. The problem arises once a majority of your population views taxation collectivism and redistribution as a good rather than a necessary evil society has a problem. |
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Conservatism at least in our modern iteration also steals.
Your examples were leftism. Republicanism isn't conservatism. They are all leftists to some degree. Conservatists advocate nearly no governance. Again I ask for any counter argument? Conservatism as you define it does not exist as a sustainable stand alone structure. It naturally morphs into Republicanism/Monarchism/Despotism unless it is built upon a stable superstructure. It exists as a personal stable culture, akin to how the Jews are orthogonal to any nation-state. I've been practicing it in my life so far. I am not going to try to control what society does. Society will always self-destruct. Waste of time. That is why I have never voted and never will. I don't tie/bind myself to the Titanic. The decision has trade-offs. Especially without a superstructure of like-minded friends who share the same values. I am trying to find them here, but they are few and far between. I had hoped you were one, but you are not. You want to build society. I understand. You are not incorrect. It is a choice. An evolutionary strategy. iamnotback I addressed this issue in my most recent post in the Health and Religion thread. I have copied this post below. Freedom and GodFreedom is neither license nor anarchy: It does not mean chaos or the use of tooth and nail. Freedom does not give any man or group the right to steal, to use fraud or aggressive force or threats of same to get what one wants. Freedom is the right of the individual to choose how he controls himself, so long as he respects the equal rights of every other individual to control and plan his own life. Freedom is thus not the ability to do whatever you want. It is self-control, and self-government, no more, no less. Thus "freedom is self-control" leads to the conclusion that as acting individuals, we must respect the rights and boundaries of others. In other words, every individual should control his or her actions such that they do not aggress or invade against other individuals or their rightfully owned properties. "Freedom" as "self-control" points up the dual nature of human existence: of the Self (mind, soul, and spirit) housed in a physical body. Human beings require both spiritual freedom and physical liberty The evolution of the social contract is a progressive climb to systems with increased overall freedom. The state of nature begat tribalism. Tribalism grew into despotism. Despotism advanced into monarchy. Monarchies were replaced by republics. Each iteration has a common theme for each advance increased overall cooperative activity and freedom the system permitted. The ultimate driver behind this process is Ethical Monotheism for this is the underappreciated foundation that freedom rests upon. The Ten Commandments are often misunderstood as as restrictions. In reality they are the road map to freedom. To better understand this I highly recommend the following 5 minute video clip from Prager University. God Wants Us To Be FreeFreedom out-competes slavery. This is why the Odin worshiping vikings were replaced by Christian vikings. It is the ultimate reason why Arab polytheism was replaced by Islam and why the Jews who who's traditions demand an individual understanding and observance of scripture have so excelled. A person is responsible for every action he takes and for every action he refuses to take. Thus, he is responsible for commissions and omissions, and whether these are good or bad. The individual is the responsible unit. Responsibility cannot be collectively delegated. Each person is responsible in exactly the same way and to the same degree that every other person is. At the level of the individual we again return to choice. Do we truly care about freedom or do we care about our cravings and wants? If we choose freedom we must embrace that which makes freedom possible. If we choose whims and desires we should admit to ourselves that we do not prioritize freedom and are most concerned with our ability to sate our appetites. |
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Freedom and GodFreedom is neither license nor anarchy: It does not mean chaos or the use of tooth and nail. Freedom does not give any man or group the right to steal, to use fraud or aggressive force or threats of same to get what one wants. Freedom is the right of the individual to choose how he controls himself, so long as he respects the equal rights of every other individual to control and plan his own life. Freedom is thus not the ability to do whatever you want. It is self-control, and self-government, no more, no less. Thus "freedom is self-control" leads to the conclusion that as acting individuals, we must respect the rights and boundaries of others. In other words, every individual should control his or her actions such that they do not aggress or invade against other individuals or their rightfully owned properties. "Freedom" as "self-control" points up the dual nature of human existence: of the Self (mind, soul, and spirit) housed in a physical body. Human beings require both spiritual freedom and physical liberty The evolution of the social contract is a progressive climb to systems with increased overall freedom. The state of nature begat tribalism. Tribalism grew into despotism. Despotism advanced into monarchy. Monarchies were replaced by republics. Each iteration has a common theme for each advance increased the overall cooperative activity and freedom the system permitted. The ultimate driver behind this process is Ethical Monotheism for this is the underappreciated foundation that freedom rests upon. The Ten Commandments are often misunderstood as restrictions. In reality they are the road map to freedom. To better understand this I highly recommend the following 5 minute video clip from Prager University. God Wants Us To Be FreeFreedom out-competes slavery. This is why the Odin worshiping vikings were replaced by Christian vikings. It is the ultimate reason why Arab polytheism was replaced by Islam and why the Jews who who's traditions demand an individual understanding and observance of scripture have so excelled. A person is responsible for every action he takes and for every action he refuses to take. Thus, he is responsible for commissions and omissions, and whether these are good or bad. The individual is the responsible unit. Responsibility cannot be collectively delegated. Each person is responsible in exactly the same way and to the same degree that every other person is. At the level of the individual we again return to choice. Do we truly care about freedom or do we care about our cravings and wants? If we choose freedom we must embrace that which makes freedom possible. If we choose whims and desires we should admit to ourselves that we do not prioritize freedom and are most concerned with our ability to sate our appetites. See: The Beginning of Wisdom for more.
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If you dedicate your life to some false idea... No big deal, natural selection will take care of it.
On this point at least af_newbie we agree. In that spirit I would advise you to read the demographic information provided in the OP. What defines a false idea? Good and Evil like Normal and abnormal are both subjective. Good and Evil are only subjective if one rejects God. Such a rejection is a poor idea for a number of reasons. One of these reasons is outlined in Dennis Pragers most recent book which is a short and very interesting read. The Ten Commandments: Still The Best Moral Code https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00USBMEX2/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1By: Dennis Prager "Imagine for a moment a world in which there was no murder or theft. In such a world, there would be no need for armies, or police, or weapons. Men and women and children could walk anywhere, at any time of day or night, without any fear of being killed or robbed. Imagine further a world in which no one coveted what belonged to their neighbor; a world in which children honored their mother and father and the family unit thrived; a world in which people obeyed the injunction not to lie. The recipe for a good world is all there—in these ten sublime commandments. But there is a catch. The Ten Commandments are predicated on the belief that they were given by an Authority higher than any man, any king, or any government. That’s why the sentence preceding the Ten Commandments asserts the following: “God spoke all these words.” You see, if the Ten Commandments, as great as they are, were given by any human authority, then any person could say: “Who is this man Moses, who is this king or queen, who is this government to tell me how I should behave? Okay, so why is God indispensable to the Ten Commandments? Because, to put it as directly as possible, if it isn’t God who declares murder wrong, murder isn’t wrong. Yes, this strikes many people today as incomprehensible, even absurd. Many of you are thinking, “Is this guy saying you can’t be a good person if you don’t believe in God?” Let me respond as clearly as possible: I am not saying that. Of course there are good people who don’t believe in God, just as there are bad people who do. And many of you are also thinking, “I believe murder is wrong. I don’t need God to tell me.” Now that response is only half true. I have no doubt that if you’re an atheist and you say you believe murder is wrong, you believe murder is wrong. But, forgive me, you do need God to tell you. We all need God to tell us. You see, even if you figured out murder is wrong on your own, without God and the Ten Commandments, how do you know it’s wrong? Not believe it’s wrong, I mean know it’s wrong? The fact is that you can’t. Because without God, right and wrong are just personal beliefs. Personal opinions. I think shoplifting is okay, you don’t. Unless there is a God, all morality is just opinion and belief. And virtually every atheist philosopher has acknowledged this.Another problem with the view that you don’t need God to believe that murder is wrong is that a lot of people haven’t shared your view. And you don’t have to go back very far in history to prove this. In the twentieth century millions of people in Communist societies and under Nazism killed about one hundred million people—and that doesn’t count a single soldier killed in war. So, don’t get too confident about people’s ability to figure out right from wrong without a Higher Authority. It’s all too easy to be swayed by a government or a demagogue or an ideology or to rationalize that the wrong you are doing isn’t really wrong. And even if you do figure out what is right and wrong, God is still necessary. People who know the difference between right and wrong do the wrong thing all the time. You know why? Because they can. They can because they think no one is watching. But if you recognize that God is the source of moral law, you believe that He is always watching. So, even if you’re an atheist, you would want people to live by the moral laws of the Ten Commandments. And even an atheist has to admit that the more people who believe God gave them—and therefore they are not just opinion—the better the world would be.In three thousand years no one has ever come up with a better system than the God-based Ten Commandments for making a better world. And no one ever will." |
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It exists as a personal stable culture, akin to how the Jews are orthogonal to any nation-state.
In this I believe you are simply factually incorrect which is rare for you. To show this, however, will take some work which I do not have time for today. I will type up a more detailed rebuttal tomorrow. |
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Conservatism at least in our modern iteration also steals.
Your examples were leftism. Republicanism isn't conservatism. They are all leftists to some degree. Conservatists advocate nearly no governance. Again I ask for any counter argument? Conservatism as you define it does not exist as a sustainable stand alone structure. It naturally morphs into Republicanism/Monarchism/Despotism unless it is built upon a stable superstructure. |
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