Christianity was the basis of European civilization, and now it is dead save for a remnant smaller than mustard seed. Civilizations die with their animating religion, being devoured by demons.
Progressivism wears the religions it has devoured like a monster that dresses itself in the skins of people it has eaten. It has consumed Judaism, Christianity, and most of Islam, though the worst and most harmful religion, Islam, still lives and is fighting back. The martial Christianity of Charles the Hammer would serve our civilization well. The pragmatic, realistic, and cynical Christianity of restoration Anglicanism would serve our civilization very well, though it proved vulnerable to people whose beliefs were dangerously sincere, being reluctant to martyr them properly for reasons of mere pragmatism. Counter Reformation Catholicism would serve our civilization well. But none of these live, and their revival is unlikely.
More Right proposes a solution: The universe is dead, but we live. The universe does not know good or evil, but we know good and evil. Therefore, let us write our religion upon ourselves, rather than upon the sky.
Tradition is the accumulated experience of our ancestors. We should conduct ourselves as if, on death, one goes to the hall of one’s ancestors, and they pass judgment upon our life. One can have ancestor worship without taking the proposition that our ancestors are literally still around too seriously.
It would be better if we could revive Christianity – that being the religion of our ancestors, but that looks difficult, and every day looks harder.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CxsgNX9eErU
Our mechanical/robotic/computer age is one large killer of religion.
When a large chunk of your populace wants to be a soulless computer/robot/Obama drone living off an EBT card, your religion better take that into account, or else that large chunk of the population just lines up behind the priests of the Cathedral.
We could fight to take back our Gods, nations, people.
Now if we’re not going to fight for whatever we believe in, for ourselves and families as well as the extended families known as nations, then there’s no point in writing something else we’ll abandon when it gets hard.
And let’s be clear – this ISN’T HARD. Not YET.
We need only be men and fight for our own, and many we’ll be amazed at how much else falls back into line.
The enemy’s legs are made of Paper.
Cheer up, it’s not so Black in the real world. We’re at the beginning of a Trial, there will be blood, we’ll have to fight or die. These things have happened since the Dawn of Man.
But nothing happened by waiting around for the perfect idea to solve our problems. All the enemies gains in America were almost entirely without any blood. The South losing for instance in 1865 wasn’t the death of Christianity and Western Civilization, and both are still here if men would fight for them.
Traditionalism is interesting, but it doesn’t go anywhere on its own.
A.J.P.
I must disagree with one thing here in particular. “Progressivism” (to use the rather awkward and misleading term) has surely not “swallowed up” Judaism to anything like the same extent it has Christianity.
Jewish culture is perfectly designed, perfectly evolved for surviving, even thriving, in a hostile environment. As Nietzsche pointed out:
“The Jews… know how to succeed even under the worst conditions (in fact better than under favourable ones), by means of virtues of some sort, which one would like nowadays to label as vices…”
[Beyond Good And Evil]
Jews ride Evola’s tiger with skill and enthusiasm. -Were it otherwise, would they spur it on so relentlessly? They know the tiger will lay waste to everything around it. But Judaism can survive a wasteland better than Christianity.
This is a minor quibble, though. Your concluding sentiment certainly deserves to be heard more loudly and more often. If I am to submit to judgement by anyone, let me be my own ancestors than the present wretched cultural consensus. They have more right, and I’m likely to get a better deal, into the bargain.
Progressivism may have swallowed the more reformed versions of Judaism in the US, as seen by the fact that in the US those groups are not reproducing at near replacement level. (In Israel, however, even “secular” Jews have pretty good fertility.)
However the more Orthodox Jews are reproducing quite nicely, which by Jim’s own arguments, suggests they have not been swallowed by Progressivism.
Why not wear the skin of another, living religion? If entryism worked so well for the left then why not use it? If Islam and progressivism are the last religion then why not take Islam through entryism and drive it to the right? There are plenty of converts to Islam in the UK. Most of them young, british women.
You can only wear the skin of another religion by murder. Over time, the skin will rot, and you’ll need to murder again.
A consistent religion is the desirable religion.
I must disagree with one thing here in particular. “Progressivism” (to use the rather awkward and misleading term) has surely not “swallowed up” Judaism to anything like the same extent it has Christianity.
Jewish culture is perfectly designed, perfectly evolved for surviving, even thriving, in a hostile environment. As Nietzsche pointed out:
“The Jews… know how to succeed even under the worst conditions (in fact better than under favourable ones), by means of virtues of some sort, which one would like nowadays to label as vices…”
[Beyond Good And Evil]
Jews ride Evola’s tiger with skill and enthusiasm. -Were it otherwise, would they spur it on so relentlessly? They know the tiger will lay waste to everything around it. But Judaism can survive a wasteland better than Christianity.
This is a minor quibble, though. Your concluding sentiment certainly deserves to be heard more loudly and more often. If I am to submit to judgement by anyone, let it be my own ancestors rather than the present wretched cultural consensus. They have more right, and I’m likely to get a better deal, into the bargain.
I agree with the sentiment of this post. Civilizations die with their animating religion. Non-religious populations and civilizations have historically not been a surviving concept.
One piece I want to add: The primary reason that Christianity is fading away is because government has taken over all the practical functions that religion has served throughout history and has left modern Christianity as this empty husk with no practical purpose.
– K-12 education: Religion was a dominant institution of many of the great K-12 schools. In the west, that is fading away.
– Higher Education: Christianity birthed the concept of a university. Many of today’s great universities like Harvard and Yale were founded as strictly Protestant institutions mostly for training clergy. Their religious association has gradually been stripped and power transferred to the state.
– Health: Many of the great hospitals were run by religious organizations and staffed with nuns and monks who had formal medical training, but worked for lower wages than non-religious medical workers and liven in religious housing.
– Altruism: Helping the needy used to be overwhelmingly done by religion. Today, in the west, the Welfare State has seized power.
But we have the corporation and blessed, blessed equality.
The only thing more useless than trying to revive religions is inventing new ones. I doubt any here were raised without even a slight vestige of Old Western Religion, and the smallest vestige of that will be a more powerful pillar than an invented one.
we’re not inventing a new religion so much as developing a philosophy that is based on the truth, eh? I mean, it’s just true that Odin and Thor are our ancestors, we are the snow-people who build civilizations, good and evil are described in our DNA and in no one else’s, and so forth. It’s not a religion, progressivism is a religion, it’s the truth. Also, we like Greco-Roman and Romano-Christian mythology.
Yes, that is the plan. I would not go so far as to say good and evil are inscribed in our DNA and no one else’s, but our’s is more developed.
Humans cannot do without religions, and when deprived of one, as for example LessWrong, promptly cook up a new one. If the old one is dead, and its replacement demonic, what are we going do?
Other than cook up a new one that is less apt to be destructive, and more credibly based on reality?
The choice is: revive the old one, cook up a new one, or vanish from history.
How about find a promising cult (preferably one whose prophet is conveniently dead) and adapt it for our purposes. That’s what St. Paul did and it worked out pretty well.
There is a shortage of promising cults. They tend to be based on progressivism. You cannot make severely aneuploid malignant metastatic cancer back into healthy tissue.
And Christianity wasn’t? All cults are based on leftism. That’s what sells.
Pauline Christianity was clearly rightist. As to what Christ’s Christianity was like, what we know of it is that it was enough like Paul’s version that those who met Jesus in the flesh generally went along with Paul’s version. Jesus’ position of marriage was well to the right of that of the pharisees and Sadducees, and his position on paying taxes was quietist.
Most cults are based on some guy and his ponzi scheme for wives, such as Mohammed, Joseph Smith, and Anabaptist Münster.
There’s also L. Ron Hubbard, who was in it to make money. There’s also Jesus, I’m not sure we can describe Jesusism as a plan to acquire resources, unless Jesus really was planning on being the leader of the Sanhedrin.
And then there’s cult of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. And Cicero and Marcus Aurelius.
And, oh, the cult of Yudkowski, which tells people to believe in nonsense, quietly study PUA while disavowing it, and have multiple simultaneous sex partners.
And then there’s the cult of Moldbug…
Spandrell, if the early Christians were leftists, then they would have fomented revolution against Caesar instead of shunning the world as a whole for being a corrupt influence. Their political ideology was quietism (look up political quietism) not leftism.
Jim: “As to what Christ’s Christianity was like, what we know of it is that it was enough like Paul’s version that those who met Jesus in the flesh generally went along with Paul’s version”.
My understanding is the Christ’s followers considered themselves Jewis, while Paul’s followers did not.
To me that sounds significant.
I have numerous objections to this entire line of thought.
1. “Cooking up” reeks of modernism.
2. If you cook up something new, your new religion will have no tradition or heritage, and will be useless. You do not want an invented heritage for your children, you want an authentic age-old heritage. He who knows he has had 10,000 forefathers is more likely to succeed at becoming one himself.
3. If you are consciously “cooking up” a new religion, how faithful to it are you actually being? What you are being faithful to is the idea that one can cook up a new religion, not to the new religion itself. Being faithful to the former and not the latter is being faithful to the religion of material post-modernism.
Progressivism might wear the skins of its victims like a demon, but rearranging and creating your own new skin is not any better. What is necessary is to live in your own hide.
Authentic Christianity is essentially dead because everything that is living eventually dies. If there will be a new great Western religion that is decidedly non-Christian, it will not be invented by the lot of us. It will arise organically in the bloody battlefields of a Balkanized America or warring Europe. In the meantime, the authentically reactionary & rightist thing to do is live authentically the religion you inherited from your forefathers, not waste time “cooking up” new ones. You might as well start “cooking up” new forms of Utopian government and start hanging out with granola leftists.
Whatever new religion you invent will likely not differ significantly from the form of European Christianity we have inherited, which has a glowing track record of civilization arguably some 2000 years long. And if it does not differ significantly, what fascinating new tweaks have you come up with that justify the cost of breaking tradition with such a rich heritage? We are all aware that the Churchianity promoted by progressives-wearing-the-skins-of-Christians is not actually Christianity. Actual Christianity has no problems (and for nearly 2000 years HAD no problems) with racialism, ethnocentrism, tough gender roles, etc.
If Christianity’s collapse merits its rejection for something new, then by the same logic the Englishman’s, or Frenchman’s, or Swede’s collapse merits their rejection for something new. I am not willing to leave behind Christianity, nor am I willing to leave behind Englishmen, Frenchmen or Swedes. All four are corrupted, weak, crippled and flailing, but they are not dead, and to abandon them would be a dishonorable breach of every imaginable Western moral code that has ever existed, pagan, Christian or otherwise.
Hypocrisy only lasts a generation, because the next generation does not get the joke. Every Christian everywhere believes in the trinity, though the doctrine was whipped up by a military dictator to solve a political problem. God is three and god is one, and any inquiry as to what aspects are threeness and what aspects are oneness will get you eternally damned.
Conveniently, there is arguable reason to believe that the Norse gods were in fact the actual ancestors of the white race, if we count the battle axe people as the real original whites, which is close enough to the truth.
>Every Christian everywhere believes in the trinity, though the doctrine was whipped up by a military dictator to solve a political problem
The New Testament seems to believe something similar to the Trinity. It repeatedly uses phrases like “the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit”, and asserts that the Son is divine. The concept of a “divine three” is also present in antenicene writers like Polycarp.
Repeated uses of “God” in the singular, and claims that “the Father and I are one”, imply that the three persons are actually one God.
It’s possible the New Testament is consistent with modalism, but that’s the only non-Trinitarian explanation that could work.
The argument that trinitarianism is the only possibility that makes sense fails, because trinitarianism does not make sense either. If we are allowed interpretations that do not make sense, there are quite a lot of interpretations we could go with.
trinitarianism seems pretty obvious now, but it might not have been the only reasonable interpretation of the written New Testament in the first few hundred years. It is reasonable to assume that Trinitarianism has always been understood by the College of Bishops, but it’s also possible to make the case that it was one of a few options that the College of Bishops were considering.
it’s not supposed to make sense so much as be consistent with scriptures
>because trinitarianism does not make sense either
And why does Trinitarianism not make sense? Three persons, one substance.
A Father, Mother and Child can be three persons, and one family. The three actually share flesh, in a physical sense. The child is made up of a part of the father and part of the mother. The mother quite literally absorbs part of the father (in sex). Obviously not a perfect metaphor, but a rather old one.
the Trinity is a father, a son, and a ghost. Men should be able to relate to all three persons of one substance.
But this is silly. Jim thinks that the Trinity was chosen as an interpretation of John 1 and the part where Jesus tells the Apostles to baptize the nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, for historical reasons, and it’s only obvious to us now after having heard it for almost 2000 years. It’s not a stupid assertion, I think it’s wrong, but Jim is pretty convincing a lot.
Empire tends to be hostile to the race that conquered the empire. Alexander’s empire, which instantly fell apart, reflected and resulted in a biological expansion of the Greek race.
The Roman empire on the other hand destroyed the Roman race, replacing it with culturally romanized outsiders. Similarly, the British empire was a great success until they crowned Queen Victoria empress, whereupon it sucked.
This seems highly implausible to me. Constantine’s political problems could arguably have been better resolved by pushing for Arianism – the philosophy with which he was more sympathetic (and by whom he was baptized, if I remember aright), and which was more popular with the people he hoped to rule or with whom he hoped to enjoy peace beyond his borders.
The notion that any enquiry as to what aspects are “threeness” and which are of the unity, was somehow forbidden and damnable, seems to me to betray a deep, deep ignorance of what went on at the time, and subsequently. The import of terms like homoousion vs. homoiousion, the import of the prepositions of the doxology, the pros and cons of prosopon vs. hypostasis, the ongoing articulation of the proper understanding of the Essence, Persons, Operations, Relations, etc., within the Trinity, all were discussed at great length and have continued to be. One could argue that Constantine had a vested interest in seeing all Christians united under one, imperial orthodoxy…. but why that would have to be Trinitarian, seems less clear.
And, the Christians who suffered for the faith – many of whom came to the Nicaean Council with the evidence of the wounds and losses they had suffered – supposedly all apostatized so easily for Trinitarianism? Likewise with the notion of a substantial difference between “Pauline” vs. “Jeshuan” Christianity; it’s just not borne out by the evidence, and betrays the assumption of Western Modernity that the first Christians were primarily “Bible believers” and got all their stuff from the “Bible,” and so were influenced extensively by the Pauline epistles. It’s a complete anachronism. The early Christians were a cosmopolitan bunch, and their propensity for comparing notes and forming a consensus of the broader tradition began early on, centering upon the natural center of communication, and locus of the Chief Apostles’ martyrdom, Rome. Even in the Scriptures, there appears to be no fundamental difference between Peter’s Christianity and Paul’s (“he extended to me the right hand of fellowship”), doctrinally, and it would appear that the city that honored both of their memories so sedulously so no conflict, either.
Check your religious privilege. Some of us don’t have living traditions to return to. Our parents are progs and the religion of our grandfathers makes no sense.
The thing I “cooked up” over at MR is in substantial part composed of living traditions that actually exist, and the remainder of new stuff I actually believe, unlike Christianity. I’m not going to deconvert from my crazy ass new religion just because it’s new and incomplete. Even if I wanted to, I don’t know how.
The thing I cooked up is what came out when I attempted to convert to christianity.
I disagree.
This isn’t inventing a new religion in the same way that scientology is inventing a new religion.
To a significant extent this “religion”, is expressing things that we already know and/or feel. I for one already practice this religion and have been for a long time, although not formally.
And that’s why I am, however feebly, resisting our doom instead of relaxing poolside.
“The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried. “
On the contrary, has been tried, worked pretty well, but was subverted by people claiming superior holiness.
@Jim
The obvious solution to me seems not to be to discard Christianity, which you admit worked pretty well, but to reboot Christianity with a better safeguard against holiness-leftism.
With what prophet? Jim is not a christian, and is in no position to reboot christianity. Niether am I. We are in position to formulate what it is that we believe, and do the necessary mental gymnastics to make it plausibly civilization-positive.
As Jim says, our option is this madness, a dead religion we don’t know how to believe, or demon gods we don’t find compelling.
Jim seems to think that Russian Orthodoxy is alive. Before you reboot Christianity, perhaps you should make sure it’s dead.
https://blog.reaction.la/culture/western-sponsorship-of-russian-protest/
Christianity wore the skin of Roman Paganism, the older Christian sects even wear the same garb as the Ancient Roman Pagan Priests. Progressives wear the skin of Christianity and others. But now, “Hammerite” Prophets are wearing the skin of Progressivism.
http://thefrailestthing.com/2014/10/11/elon-musk-prophet-of-cosmic-manifest-destiny/
Great stuff. Now we just need to get the basic details sorted out and get Musk on side and we’re set.
Isn’t the answer nature and ancestor worship? That seems to be the default belief system for humankind. People don’t necessarily need an ironclad belief system they just need some rituals, a bit of superstition to take the hard edges off life, and a social framework. It also fits better with modern science.
Amish Birth-Rate: 6 kids/woman
Old Believer Birth-Rate: 6 kids/woman
It took Christians about 350 years to take over the Roman Empire. Assuming the disparity between groups like these, and the main population stays stable…
disparity in birth-rate, that is
3x per gen, adding death call it 2x. 25 years per gen. 350 years is 2^14 = 16000x.
Plausible.
Funny how they never took over the Muslim empire.
If they start to grow too fast, make them pay jizya double taxation.
The Chinese are still slaughtering pigs and offering their blood to the local gods.
http://img2.cache.netease.com/photo/0001/2014-12-25/900x600_AEBK53JB00AP0001.jpg
Just happens that the gods keep changing. So convenient that Mao was born in slaughter season.
Wouldn’t they have enough experience with the Cultural Revolution to know that Mao promoted atheism?
What a stupid thing to say. Don’t you ever get tired of asking the wrong questions?
It’s obvious that we don’t understand each other. To clarify: What do you mean by “right questions”?
LessWrong also promoted atheism, and look what happened.
Indeed. You should go there and eat their hearts because their silly superstitious behavior evinces reactionary attitudes. Then you can be a redguard.
“Hammer, anvil, forge and fire,
chase away The Hoof’ed Liar.
Roof and doorway, block and beam,
chase The Trickster from our dreams.”
[…] Nyan Sandwich has got some thoughts (a lot of them) on Post-Rationalist Religion over at More Right. I picked on it on the twitter, but really it is an excellent piece—very well written, very well thought out. It deserves a blog post type of response. Jim offers a few wistful thoughts. […]
Traditionalism is interesting, but it doesn’t go anywhere on its own.
A.J.P.
Jim, the decline of traditional Western religion is partly a natural outcome of Glubb’s cycle of history – the West has been a superdominant empire for too long.
However, the other explanatory factor is aptly described by Matthew Arnold’s poem, “Dover Beach”. The sea of faith has receded as science revealed the naked shingles of the world.
I know that you focus on Darwinism. However, I believe that the most important theoretical advance driving this process was not in biology, but in metaphysics. The proofs for the existence of God – ontological, cosmological and teleological – fell before the subjectivist revolution contained in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. Theology, betrayed by her handmaiden, was quickly reduced from the Queen of Sciences to village slut.
Any attempt to revive religion, be it traditional Christianity or Shinto Vikingism, must find some firmer philosophical footing than subjectivist solipsism if it is to be embraced by elites.
Towards that end, I humbly offer my popularized version of an answer to Kant: “Let’s Get High and Prove that Ghosts Exist.”
http://www.potandphilosophy.com/t25/lets-get-high-and-prove-that-ghosts-exist/
I believe this whimsical proof reestablishes the viability of intelligent belief in the supernatural – which should help tremendously in convincing people to die for whatever god is next.
>Any attempt to revive religion, be it traditional Christianity or Shinto Vikingism, must find some firmer philosophical footing than subjectivist solipsism if it is to be embraced by elites.
This is the most serious criticism of my scheme I’ve seen so far. Is it compelling enough? I think it is, or rather could be. What we have over at MR is the microkernel of a religion, with the metaphysical problem solved in such a way that we can construct the rest of it more or less as desired without need for self-deception. This has not been done yet, of course, but I find the cult of Gnon to be highly compelling so far, and it seems ripe for development.
Where’s the evidence that religion “requires” firm philosophical footing?
The evidence is rather thin, and mostly against. Most religions seem to have the philosophical footing done after the fact.
I personally find it hard to reason my way into believing in anything that doesn’t pass certain tests of philosophical rigor, like being compatible with my current beliefs.
I don’t know what MR is, Nyan, so I cannot inspect your kernel.
Obviously, religion does not require a firm philosophical footing: religion predates philosophy.
Likewise, soil desalination is hard, expensive, and unnecessary for agriculture – except when one aims to rebuild Carthage in 140 BC.
I would suggest that restoring sincere Western elite religious belief of any sort is akin to the above. Christianity was history’s greatest religion, and its ruins are as desolate as Mordor.
What is the half-life of elite philosophical skepticism? Perhaps it lingers forever if not addressed. I’m sure the *popular* sentiment of anti-religious subjectivism is nothing a good Dark Ages can’t fix – but none of you will be alive to see the first green shoots of (human) Nature reasserting itself. The road to neo-Odinism is harder than you think, and I’m offering to help.
A wrong example. Agriculture where is more evaporation than rainfall eventually also requires soil desalinization or moving on. A flood from time to time has its benefits.
What is MR? something reactionary, right?
Never mind, I see: MR = MR
More Right
[…] Nyan Sandwich has got some thoughts (a lot of them) on Post-Rationalist Religion over at More Right. I picked on it on the twitter, but really it is an excellent piece—very well written, very well thought out. It deserves a blog post type of response. Jim offers a few wistful thoughts. […]
For a religion to be successful you need to approach if from one of two directions 1) It has to be adopted by the elite or held by an invading elite. 2) (A more round about process) It has to be adopted by the populace to such a degree that it forces the elite to adopt it to keep control.
Now, in the current state system, the state has appropriated all of the roles of the church by virtue of declaring the state out of bounds to religion. Progressivism has come along and claimed to be non religious and then taken over these roles (which it then wields to force kowtowing to progism). You could argue this very process of statehood and “secularism” in the state has acted as a filter on Protestantism and selected for progism without it being a conscious decision (memetic evolution).
The implications for a new religion can be boiled down to 1) don’t call it a religion 2) make sure the adherents are either numerous enough to force elites to comply or 3) Convert the elites and take over state control (and more pointedly) economic centers to make it economically beneficial to kowtow to the new (*not*) a religion. This last strategy seems most efficient, and would be more efficient if there was a counter-elite ready to capitalize on any coming problems.
O, and Islam is alive, well and fighting back, and the state system in Muslim areas is dead. This is not an irrelevant correlation. Immans and Islamic structures act as a glue which the state was unable to break. This is partly because (taking Afghanistan as an example) the immans saw what was coming after seeing the fate of the central soviet republics with Muslim population. Seeing what progism was doing to the West and how it works, the Immans have been riling up a fight back since. As Progs have been unable to set up states in Muslim nations, and then use those state to dispense economic benefits in return for Kowtowing to progism, no one in Muslim nations gives a crap. To make it funnier, in the Western nations, progism has got it self so confused, and is so busy attacking the white people who do not Kowtow, that it is giving economic benefits to Muslims for NOT kowtowing (aka diversity). Progism + the state are inseparable. One possible way of seeing the immigration push is that the progs are bringing populations into areas (states structure) where the progs can exert some form of control. They are juggling too many balls, and making a mess.
As their control of the periphery breaks down, they figure if they bring all seven billion to the formerly white countries, they will control them.
2010 seems like a lifetime ago. Did the White progressive true believers expect Whites to get more racist over the past decade?
All the progressives hope that with enough persons of color they will be able to win elections and get gay rights and economic equality, but I think the White progressives think the Republicans are on a timer and Democrat victory is inevitable. The Jews probably understand that they are on a timer and are hoping that enough non-Whites are added quickly enough to prevent any organized resistance to Jew power. They’ve been on a timer since they started lying about race to Americans a hundred years ago.
If you’re consciously inventing or developing a religion, you won’t believe it properly. Most religions have an inbuilt sense of timelessness and ancientness. For that sense of timelessness you have to see it directly as a clear and obvious eternal truth.
Medieval Christianity served this purpose very well, especially with the dehistoricized sense of Christ always being crucified. It’s not enough to use science fiction, because typically that is situated in space and time. Medieval Christianity, and at least the truths it was pointing to, was indifferent to space and time – if it is not eternal and ever present, it is nothing. The truth of the religion must = natural law, but also must = experience of all subjects.
This is something that depends upon mystical experience for impetus, but when represented to the public (a kind of obscurantism), it can take on more typical or mundane forms, such as symbolism and imagery. But note how every strong religious tradition has at its core the true mystical experience of individuals. In Christianity, this was never so strong as in the middle ages.
There are a few cults of the present age, but no true religions. Quantum mechanics is a cult. Progressivism has its cults. But these are beliefs divorced from direct mystical experience or spiritual fulfilment. They are empty and hollow materialisms that cannot last.
In short, it’s not enough to think up what the future religion might be. Whatever the religion is, it has to be true.
Well that is true. On the other hand, consider the doctrine of the trinity.
Hypocrisy only lasts one generation, because the next generation does not get the joke.
The trinity is a solution to the God-too-big problem. Priests always claim that “my god is bigger than your god”, so you end up with a god too great to relate to. The trinity solves this problem by making God simultaneously big and small. It was not a sincere believer that came up with the transparently self contradictory doctrine that “God is three and god is one”, but now every Christian believes it sincerely.
What is truth, asked Nyan Sandwich, and came up with a rather convincing answer.
the answer to the “god too big” problem is in the beginning of the Gospel according to John, so pretty early in Christianity. God is clearly identified as big-G God and the relatable figure of Jesus.
Jim: Christianity is dead, and unbelievable by today’s jaded populace. So, let’s bring back a religion that’s been dead for a millenium. Ancestor-worship, that’s the ticket!
Could you entertain the possibility that like geometry and math, religions are not something invented out of thin air for convenience but better or worse reflections of a deeper objective reality?
Jim has called himself a materialist. So long as his beliefs are consistent with that, the answer is no.
A materialist trying to advise people on religion is like a Jew advising people on cooking pork. He’s either a bad Jew, or giving silly advice.
This would be a good argument if it was easy to obtain well cooked pork.
Right now Christianity is, if not totally dead, at death’s door. Even Orthodoxy in Russia shows none of the signs of life that Islam does.
I’m not sure what you mean about religion/pork.
You seem to measure resistance to the Cathedral by the amount of violence people do. Muslims are going to win that, because of their violence-disposed-DNA and the fact that Islam’s primary method of resistance to opposing religions is violence.
Not to mention, Russian Orthodoxy is extremely weak, from persecution of the Soviet era. The average Russian was totally cut off from the church in his daily life. It will take time for Orthodoxy to reassert it’s role in people’s lives. But if you measure the religion by what it’s priest class believes, then Russian Orthodoxy is fine. The theological liberalism that engulfed the West has largely avoided them.
Syria and Afghanistan are vivacious versions of Islam, because nobody spent 80 years eliminating Islam. The US occupation of Afghanistan is not willing to use the same tactics on the Afghans that Lenin used on Russian Christians.
Y’all seem to be misunderstanding what we’re doing. We’re not just proposing something we should believe, but also laying out the philosophical foundations of things we do in fact believe, and learning new things to believe. We go searching for a religion that can actually be believed by us good rationalist materialists, and finding one, and believing it.
Since we know good and evil, and think ourselves good, we won’t find ourselves worshipping dark gods that would have us tear down civilization, and so will end up with a pro-civilization religion. Since we find ourselves wanting truth and refusing to self-decieve, we will find ourselves with a true religion, or at least one that appears to us to be true without need for self deception. And so we get a true and good religion that requires no funny mental gymnastics to get into, for those of us susceptible to it.
The trick was how to find a religion which is both true and good. Having thought about it for a while, and I think having solved the philosophically difficult part of that trick, all that is left is filling in the details and fleshing it out.
All this stuff about Gnon and identity with my ancestors are in fact things that I believe to be true on the Truth side, and compelling on the Myth side. There is no doublethink here (or maybe the doublethink is abstracting over the existence of doublethink).
It remains to be seen if we can sort through the fog and find something we can believe with conviction, and whether it is possible for a religion that is both true and good to also be stable over time, transmissible between people and to children.
>We’re not just proposing something we should believe, but also laying out the philosophical foundations of things we do in fact believe, and learning new things to believe. We go searching for a religion that can actually be believed by us good rationalist materialists, and finding one, and believing it.
Duckspeak. No different from postmodernists.
>Since we know good and evil, and think ourselves good, we won’t find ourselves worshipping dark gods that would have us tear down civilization, and so will end up with a pro-civilization religion.
Well, when you put it that way, I can’t help but be convinced. Carry on, Knowers of Good and Evil Who Think Themselves Good.
B, you are not making any sense.
I’m pointing out that “laying out the philosophical foundations of things we do in fact believe, and learning new things to believe” is no different than the process by which every feminist or postmodernist professor professes to operate.
“We know good from evil and think ourselves good”-has there been a wicked cult that hasn’t started from this premise? Would the Communists, the Nazis, Jim Jones or the Oneida Commune disagree with this foundational statement?
Sophistry and hubris.
@B
Sure it’s not sufficient, but I don’t see what you’re going to do differently.
What I’m going to do differently? Let’s start with taking religion seriously enough not to assume I can just go ahead and make one up to suit my purposes.
Fair enough, but you are, if not making one up to suit your purposes, reinterpreting one to suit your purposes. Do the Jewish sages propose that Ruth and Boaz had a wedding in which they contracted with each other before witnesses, Roman style? If they do, how ancient are those sages? How about Isaac and Rebekah?
And, of course, the Old Testament prescribes that Hebrews maintain cultural, religious, and racial purity by alarmingly drastic means. While Israel obviously needs to apply firmer measures, you are not proposing to go all the way back to Old Testament measures.
If you took the Old Testament seriously, you would have to do something like noticing that in practice, Old Testament Jews were seldom really all that drastic, and then deduce general principles, and argue that measures appropriate to Israel’s present environment are in accordance with the general spirit, though not the exact letter, of the Old Testament. But to do so, you would have to admit that you are not in fact following the letter of Old Testament law, because, since the exile and before the return, were not able to do so.
> Do the Jewish sages propose that Ruth and Boaz had a wedding in which they contracted with each other before witnesses, Roman style? If they do, how ancient are those sages? How about Isaac and Rebekah?
You are really being obnoxiously obtuse. I’ve told you repeatedly that the issue is not the wedding but whether female consent is required for a kosher marriage. I’ve also told you repeatedly that the sages of the Talmud require the woman’s consent to marriage. Here’s the original, since you are an expert: http://www.dafyomi.org/index.php?masechta=kiddushin&daf=2a
>And, of course, the Old Testament prescribes that Hebrews maintain cultural, religious, and racial purity by alarmingly drastic means. While Israel obviously needs to apply firmer measures, you are not proposing to go all the way back to Old Testament measures.
Can you please elaborate?
>If you took the Old Testament seriously, you would have to do something like noticing that in practice, Old Testament Jews were seldom really all that drastic, and then deduce general principles, and argue that measures appropriate to Israel’s present environment are in accordance with the general spirit, though not the exact letter, of the Old Testament.
I take it seriously enough to defer to the authorities in its study, interpretation and application. Similarly, I take the laws of aerodynamics seriously enough to fly in airplanes built and operated by experts. I do not argue with those experts while they are doing their job, and I do not presume that, based on my massive intellect and casual perusal of an textbook dealing with aeronautical engineering, I know their field better than they do. This would make me an idiot. However, I have subjective preferences which I express by voting with my feet/wallet. I can tell you that flying in a 50 year old C-130 is less fun than flying in the latest Airbus. Likewise, I don’t lecture the plumber or electrician on how to do their job based on first principles. If their results suck, well, I’ll find different ones, or maybe spend some serious time and effort learning their trade, preferably from an expert. Considering that building a religion, culture, civilization is much more difficult that building and operating a plane or setting up plumbing/power, the point should be obvious.
In old testament times, no formal witnessing of consent, and in modern times, formal witnessing of consent in a ceremony that is inherited from Christians, who inherited it from the Romans. Therefore, in Old Testament times, Boaz acquires ownership of Ruth as if she was a sheep, book of Ruth, Chapter 4. If consent had been required, there would have been a ceremony formally witnessing it, as there is now. See also the marriage and rape laws of Deuteronomy 22 and Exodus 22, where it is perfectly clear that consent is not legally required.
Since exile, and before the return, the authorities did not have to struggle with the alarmingly drastic laws on dealing with outsiders, heretics, and apostates, since it was obviously impossible or suicidal to apply them.
Since the return, the authorities have stuck their heads under their pillows and put their fingers in their ears.
So I don’t think you are deferring to the authorities.
From whom did Boaz buy Ruth?
(you can’t claim there was no ketubah because it was not mentioned, just as you can’t claim that they weren’t wearing clothes because clothes are not mentioned.)
Boaz inherited Naomi after anonymous declined her. Naomi, Boaz, and anonymous were the heirs of Elimelech. Ruth belonged to Elimelech. Naomi gave all that was Elimelech’s, including Ruth, to Boaz, so that Boaz became the rightful heir of all that was Elimelech’s, and his male issue by Ruth the rightful heir in turn of all that was Elimelech’s.
What are the laws on dealing with heretics and apostates? What are the laws on dealing with outsiders? What are the laws on who is to implement those laws? What are the limits on their implementation?
Among them is the law to put an entire city to fire and sword, if the city as a whole is heretical.
>Among them is the law to put an entire city to fire and sword, if the city as a whole is heretical.
Yes, very good. Questions: who is obligated to do this? What are the criteria by which they do this? What are the limitations? Please name a single city which was put to the sword for being heretical? With sources, please.
You are going to come up with a string of rationalizations why that law, and numerous others resembling it, is inoperative, and I expect that they are good rationalizations. I am not arguing that you need to kill everyone in Israel, though the strict letter of law would seem to imply it.
I am telling you that, given that some level of repression is required to maintain cohesion, and the Old Testament commands a great deal of repression, you need to come up with an argument that reasonable and appropriate level of repression fulfills the intent of Old Testament and corresponds to actual practice of the ancient Hebrews.
>Boaz inherited Naomi after anonymous declined her. Naomi, Boaz, and anonymous were the heirs of Elimelech.
Elimelech was not Ruth’s husband. Since you are an expert in the Bible, I’m sure you know that in the case of a husband’s death, the woman does not become his father’. Not in Judaism, at least. If anonymous was a heir, there was no need for a transaction to be witnessed by a court, and certainly he would not be referred to as a REDEEMER, but as an INHERITOR.
>Ruth belonged to Elimelech.
She belonged to Mahlon, not Elimelech. As a wife, not property. A man can’t sell his wife or give her away to another man (at least in Jewish law) as one does a sheep or a chest of drawers.
But Mahlon was dead. So…
>Naomi gave all that was Elimelech’s, including Ruth, to Boaz,
Oh? When did she do this? Why is this not mentioned in the text?
And where does it say that Ruth became Naomi’s property? We certainly don’t see this in the exchange they have at the beginning of the book, which is between two independent parties.
Perhaps you can find a passage in the Torah where it says that in the case of a man’s death, his wife is his mother’s property? Or are you just making things up?
In the text, Boaz says as follows: a) I’ve bought all of the property of Elimelech and his two sons from Naomi. FULL STOP. b) MOREOVER, I’ve acquired Ruth for a wife.
He specifically sets her out as not part of the property he’s buying from Naomi. He is acquiring her for a wife, but not of Naomi.
> so that Boaz became the rightful heir of all that was Elimelech’s, and his male issue by Ruth the rightful heir in turn of all that was Elimelech’s.
You are misunderstanding the institution of Levirate marriage. The redeemer is not the heir of the deceased. His son by the widow of the deceased (or his daughter) is the heir. So, for instance, if the redeemer has previous children, they inherit nothing of the deceased, as they would if the redeemer was not a redeemer but the heir (as is the case if, for instance, there is no widow). Everything goes to the son, who is legally the deceased’s progeny, as it were. We’ve been arguing over this story for months and you haven’t been able to grasp this basic fact. THIS is why anonymous didn’t want to marry Ruth-he didn’t wish to dilute his children’s inheritance (and probably had questions on the prohibition on Moabite converts.)
And Rebekah was not Abraham’s husband, but Abraham owned Rebekah, rather than Isaac.
“for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge”
“Then said Boaz unto his servant that was set over the reapers, Whose damsel is this?”
King James translates “I have purchased Ruth for a wife”
You seem to have conceded that no one formally witnessed Ruth consenting to her purchase, though obviously she informally consented.
>And Rebekah was not Abraham’s husband, but Abraham owned Rebekah, rather than Isaac.
Of course not. This is completely unsupported by the text, and nowhere else in the Torah do we see that the father-in-law possesses his son’s wife, not during the marriage and not after the son is deceased.
>“for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodgeâ€
This is not property. You don’t buy a sheep by having the sheep announce its intention to follow you. Ruth is, in plain text, saying that she will stick by Naomi. Not that she is Naomi’s property.
>“Then said Boaz unto his servant that was set over the reapers, Whose damsel is this?â€
The Hebrew is “l’mi”, meaning, what is her allegiance, of what people is she. And his servant says, ” And the servant that was set over the reapers answered and said: ‘It is a Moabitish damsel that came back with Naomi out of the field of Moab”. Meaning what, she is the property of Moav? Obviously the servant doesn’t say, oh, she’s the property of Naomi, her slave.
>King James translates “I have purchased Ruth for a wifeâ€
He says “kaniti,” which means to acquire or buy. But in the kinyan (acquisition or purchase of a wife,) you give her her price, which is a thing of value, a ring or a coin or something like that. You can’t buy her from someone else or for someone else (the only exception is purchasing a minor from her parents with the explicit intent that she will be wed to your son when she is an adult, but even then she is not officially his wife until the wedding, and during the wedding he must acquire her in the normal way) and you can’t buy her with something that is not yours (for instance, a ring you bought on credit which you haven’t paid off, or with a promissory note or a debt owed you by another.) All of which is not the point. The point is, Boaz separately speaks of the property of the deceased, which he is buying from Naomi, and of Ruth, whom he is acquiring of herself.
>You seem to have conceded that no one formally witnessed Ruth consenting to her purchase, though obviously she informally consented.
No. There was a ceremony, she consented (if only by implication-silence counts as consent http://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/4613-consent.) This is why there were witnesses there. A wedding requires witnesses.
Deuteronomy 22:13-29 and Exodus 22:16-17 show that marriage is by purchase, normally purchase from the father of the bride. The purchaser may be, perhaps usually is, the husband, but in the case of Abraham, the father in law purchased a bride for his son without really consulting his son on the matter.
To recap my argument again, the laws of Deuteronomy 22:13-29 and Exodus 22:16-17 show that women are property and female consent has no legal significance, and Genesis 24 and the book of Ruth show people acting as if these laws mean what they say, and say what they mean, acting as if women are property and female consent has no legal significance.
If female consent matters, need a wedding ceremony to witness consent.
If female consent had legal significance in the time of Jesus, Jews in the time of Jesus would have had a wedding ceremony. Instead, Christians got their wedding ceremony from the Romans, and Jews from the Christians.
>The purchaser may be, perhaps usually is, the husband, but in the case of Abraham, the father in law purchased a bride for his son without really consulting his son on the matter.
I would like to first caveat that this is not really relevant, since the whole affair took place before the giving of the Torah, and we occasionally see the Patriarchs doing things which are prohibited by the Torah, i.e., marrying two sisters, serving guests meat with milk, etc. Second, Itzhak consented to be sacrificed, so it stands to reason that he would marry whoever he was told. Third, we have Rivka’s explicit consent documented. Fourth, she was not married to him in his absence. She came to Canaan and married him, and presumably consented at least implicitly.
>To recap my argument again, the laws of Deuteronomy 22:13-29 and Exodus 22:16-17 shows that women are property and female consent has no legal significance,
Just the opposite. Exodus 22:16 is saying that a seduced woman and her family can make the seducer marry her, and even if they don’t want him to marry her, he must pay her father a large sum of money. Her consent is still required according to the Talmud.
Deuteronomy 22:13-19 is not denying female agency-the opposite is the case. Read it closely. The false accuser doesn’t bring a bad name upon the father of the woman-he brings it upon her, and for this he is whipped publicly and must pay a huge fine (naturally, to her father, since all her property is at his disposal-though it is not his, he is its manager.) And if the accusation is true, she is punished, not her father. Because she has agency, and misused it. A sheep which is stolen, on the other hand, we don’t blame for the theft.
And look at the beginning of Deuteronomy 22: Thou shalt not see thy brother’s ox or his sheep driven away, and hide thyself from them; thou shalt surely bring them back unto thy brother. And if thy brother be not nigh unto thee, and thou know him not, then thou shalt bring it home to thy house, and it shall be with thee until thy brother require it, and thou shalt restore it to him. And so shalt thou do with his ass; and so shalt thou do with his garment; and so shalt thou do with every lost thing of thy brother’s, which he hath lost, and thou hast found; thou mayest not hide thyself.
If women were property, they would be listed here. They are not. You are not obliged to bring a woman who has run away from her husband back to him forcibly, nor do I believe you allowed to. The most that can happen is that she will not get her ketubah sum if he can show she left for no good reason.
>Genesis 24 and the book of Ruth show people acting as if these laws mean what they say, and say what they mean, acting as if women are property and female consent has no legal significance.
Ruth shows that a woman who is nobody’s property is acquired of herself. “What day thou buyest the field of the hand of Naomi–hast thou also bought of Ruth the Moabitess”-meaning, whoever marries Ruth is acquiring her from herself. Obviously, you don’t buy a sheep from itself, and if she doesn’t consent, you are not acquiring a woman of herself.
>If female consent matters, need a wedding ceremony to witness consent.
No, in Jewish law you need two witnesses and a ketubah (a marriage contract.) The earliest extant Jewish legal documents, the Elephantine Papyri, 6 centuries before Christians existed, include such contracts, with clauses inserted by the woman, guaranteeing for instance her right to divorce upon demand.
No. It says the father can make the seducer marry her and pay the father for damage to his property. Her view on the matter is irrelevant.
Further, compare Exodus 22:16-17 with Deuteronomy 22:28-29
28 If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found;
29 Then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel’s father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife; because he hath humbled her, he may not put her away all his days.
So rape and seduction are treated as very similar. They are both property crimes against the father’s property right in his daughter’s virginity. And if you rape a non virgin who is not married or betrothed, no significant property damage.
Those are not wandering oxen or sheep. “Driven away” is the same thing as abducting a women. Stealing a woman and stealing a sheep are treated as very similar.
In context, Ruth 4:3-6 clearly means that the land goes with Ruth and the legal obligation to support Ruth, and any future children of Ruth, and Ruth goes with the land. Anonymous would like the land, but not the obligation to support Ruth. If he accepts the land, he has to accept Ruth, although we are told that Ruth and Naomi would much prefer Boaz. Ruth’s opinion on the matter is irrelevant.
>No. It says the father can make the seducer marry her and pay the father for damage to his property. Her view on the matter is irrelevant.
This is in a situation where she is a minor living in his household.
>So rape and seduction are treated as very similar. They are both property crimes against the father’s property right in his daughter’s virginity. And if you rape a non virgin who is not married or betrothed, no significant property damage.
This is your derivation, which is not shared by any religious Jews, and never was, and you can’t bring me an example where someone raped a woman who was not a virgin, not betrothed or married, and it was OK.
You are misreading this law, which is telling us there are additional damages for raping a virgin on top of the normal damages for humiliating someone, physically assaulting them, etc., as though they were the only damages. This is like a law that tells you that DUI is illegal and carries a suspended license, and claiming that this means that driving while drunk can only get your license suspended, even if you run someone over in the process. The reality is that negligent homicide, vehicular homicide and property damages are dealt with elsewhere in the code, and doing these things while drunk carries an additional penalty. Similarly, rape is a punishable offense, no matter against whom, but raping a virgin carries additional damages, since you are also affecting her future brideprice.
>Those are not wandering oxen or sheep. “Driven away†is the same thing as abducting a women. Stealing a woman and stealing a sheep are treated as very similar.
No, this is not similar. Women are not listed in this fairly extensive catalog of property. And the penalty for kidnapping is death, while the penalty for theft is returning the theft four or five-fold. In this case, it’s talking about returning lost or stolen property, the same as Exodus 23:4: If thou meet thine enemy’s ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again. And women are not listed as property-other rules apply.
>In context, Ruth 4:3-6 clearly means that the land goes with Ruth and the legal obligation to support Ruth, and any future children of Ruth, and Ruth goes with the land. Anonymous would like the land, but not the obligation to support Ruth. If he accepts the land, he has to accept Ruth, although we are told that Ruth and Naomi would much prefer Boaz. Ruth’s opinion on the matter is irrelevant.
No. It literally says that if you buy the land from Naomi, you will also be buying OF Ruth, meaning, FROM her. “Me’et” means from. “Et” is the direct object marker for something you are doing-you buy “et” a thing “me’et” its owner. And in this case, Boaz says, you will be buying “me’et” Ruth on the same day you buy the field from Naomi.
Seeing as you are buying the field from Naomi, what will you be buying from Ruth? Herself, in marriage. You have to redeem her if you’re going to redeem the property, and the children you get upon her will inherit all of the property you redeem, none will go to you and your children. It’s like the case with Onan, who didn’t want to get Tamar pregnant-he had married her in levirate, the children would have inherited all of Er’s inheritance, Onan’s children wouldn’t have gotten any of it. Ruth’s consent is implied. This is not so much an obligation on her as much as a prerogative she is exercising, to make the nearest kinsman marry her, which Boaz is exercising on her behalf, and the kinsman is refusing to carry out his duty.
And a little further down, Boaz makes two separate statements: that he is buying the property of the deceased, which he has the elders witness. And then he says that he is moreover acquiring Ruth for a wife, to provide the deceased a heir, and has the elders witness this separately. These are two separate (linked) transactions, requiring separate statements and witnessing. She is not part of the property.
The laws have no provision for the case that a woman is not the property of some man. Either no such women were expected to exist, or if they did exist, no real punishment for mistreating them, other than possible social disapproval, since the law dealt entirely with disputes between males, some of these disputes being disputes over their property rights in women.
That is the plain wording of the laws, which is confirmed by the actual behavior of Hebrews depicted in the old testament, plus the fact that Jews did not have a wedding ceremony formally witnessing female consent until some time in the Christian era – the Jewish wedding ceremony is clearly descended from the Christian wedding ceremony, which is descended from the Roman wedding ceremony.
The reading “from her” makes no sense in context. Book of Ruth 4. If you buy the land, you buy Ruth, (and the obligation to support her and to give her children to inherit the land and support her in her old age) not from Ruth. That is the whole reason why Boaz in Book of Ruth 3 was unable to boink her right away on the spot.
If Ruth could consent, she had already consented in Book of Ruth Chapter 3, when she showed up at Boaz’s bed in the middle of the night. The whole problem was that she could not consent, being property attached to some land. She did not own the estate, the estate owned her. Better than slave status, equivalent to serf status, but still property. If she owned the estate, Boaz would have boinked her on the spot.
The Sages of the Talmud say that there has never been a rebellious city in the strict definition, and there never will be. Ditto the rebellious son. These commandments exist to teach us something, but the way in which they are constructed makes them not operative in a literal sense. This is difficult for me to understand, but at the very least I am sure the sages are talking in good faith an that if there had been such cases, they would have been aware of them and had quoted them.
For sure no city in modern Israel would be subject to this penalty, since the vast majority of secular Jews are in the category of tinok shenishbu, a kidnapped child raised by non-Jews, who is not liable for violating the law, which he was never taught.
Of course some level of coercion is necessary in a government. Maimonides spells out what level is to be applied and how. Forcing people to work for a living is outside that bound, just as much as forcing others to support the able bodied who do not wish to work. The draft is a separate issue. I am unsure whether a conscript army is necessary or desirable. I quite sure that forced conscription of Haredim as they are today would cause civil strife, and for what? To get poorly motivated, untrustworthy soldiers? I see tons of those already every time I go to Tel Aviv. The military plainly has no work for them, so has them making coffee and mopping floors and whatnot. Does it need Haredim to lounge around making coffee and mopping floors?
Eventually, they will volunteer to serve proudly, but this will not happen through coercion.
The sages are full of crap then.
However, it is clearly the intent that the threat be made in order that the necessity of carrying it out does not actually arise. The rebellious son, and the rebellious city, needs to fear the plausible possibility that the threat be carried out, but the authorities do everything possible to avoid actually carrying out the threat.
Compare the similar, and considerably harsher, Chinese rule on fathers executing rebellious sons. Chinese fathers have executed quite a few of their sons, and we have a lot more data on the practice than we have for Old Testament Hebrews. Questionable cases were investigated and recorded, and, by and large, when it happened, seemed pretty damned reasonable to me – clearly a last resort in extreme and extraordinary cases, as one would expect. The Chinese rule did not require the agreement of the mother, nor necessarily require prior examination by the authorities, and it still, in practice, seems to have worked well and humanely. Absolute power exercised by fathers seems, unsurprisingly, to have been considerably more humane in practice than absolute power exercised by bureaucrats or judges.
Having soldiers do logistics is a result of having women and cowards in the military. You need makework for the women to do, and then because you cannot discriminate, you have the male soldiers do makework and logistics also. Soldiers should be training full time at hurting people and breaking their things, when they are not actually hurting people and breaking their things. Logistics should be a separate, socially inferior, and lower status group, as with the British army before the Crimean war. Everyone who is military should be expected to face danger, and all military activities should revolve around this. Used to be that logistics was “camp followers” – vitally important, but largely female and at the bottom of the status hierarchy.
He that does not work, neither shall he eat.
I can’t find too much to argue with in this interview with Yoni Chetboun: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/189302#.VKL_o14AAA
Of course, you have to read between the lines a bit.
>The sages are full of crap then.
Well, either them or you. Name a counterexample, and prove it’s not you.
>Having soldiers do logistics is a result of having women and cowards in the military.
Not having been in the military, it’s understandable that you don’t know how it works. If a young infantryman dismisses e.g. truck drivers as cowards, this is stupid but understandable as foolish bravado. For a civilian to do so is ludicrous. How many IED strikes have you experienced? How many times have you driven up and down an Iraqi highway?
>You need makework for the women to do, and then because you cannot discriminate, you have the male soldiers do makework and logistics also.
The vast majority of a modern military is made up of non-combat troops, of necessity.
>Soldiers should be training full time at hurting people and breaking their things, when they are not actually hurting people and breaking their things.
Not having actually set up this kind of training and carried it out, you can be forgiven for imagining a sort of Starship Troopers. The fact is that it takes a vast amount of resources and coordination. And while all this is going on, the troops are having their time wasted. Even in special operations units, you will see a certain amount of days killed on BS/going home early. There is only a certain amount of firing ranges, only so much road marching you can do, only so much physical fitness training and only so many airplanes to jump out of. You can of course practice using your organic equipment, for instance, setting up and using radios, or digging holes in the ground behind your barracks, but that gets gay fast. And that’s for combat units. Which are a minority in any modern
>Used to be that logistics was “camp followers†– vitally important, but largely female and at the bottom of the status hierarchy.
Really? Women would drive wagon trains? Amazing. And they would also load and unload them? And have you, perhaps, noticed that the military no longer uses mules and handwritten stationery for supply and communications? A modern military needs transportation, aircraft, maintenance, fuel, engineering, signals, intelligence, military police, its own court system and judicial specialists, medics and simply a huge amount of other shit, and a vast bureaucracy to keep all that shit operating and working with itself and keeping track of itself. And that bureaucracy creates a large amount of waste, and the main thing it wastes is time. Fortunately, the military purchases time in bulk, so is very tolerant of wastage.
>He that does not work, neither shall he eat.
Lenin and Paul both agree with you, comrade, but the Jews do not.
Alexander had ten camp followers for every soldier, and every one of them vitally needed and essential for the war effort, but he called them camp followers.
Men that actually fight should train or fight full time, and should have a distinctly different and higher status.
We are always ruled by priests or warriors, and calling camp followers soldiers is a ploy by priests to lower the status of warriors. If you find yourself calling your camp followers soldiers, your priests have far too much status and power.
>Men that actually fight should train or fight full time, and should have a distinctly different and higher status.
They do have different and higher status, both in the American and Israeli military. Nonetheless, if everyone else is a civilian, untrained in using a weapon and not subject to military discipline, you’re in for a bad, bad time. During the Battle of the Bulge, Peiper’s guys were held off, in the end, by a gang of support soldiers, including cooks and the divisional band. Insulting and denigrating your noncombat soldiers will mean that your best guys will not go to, e.g., Signals Intelligence. Which is a big problem.
>We are always ruled by priests or warriors,
You are, yes.
> If you find yourself calling your camp followers soldiers, your priests have far too much status and power.
I call cargo helicopter pilots, signals intelligence guys, combat engineers etc. soldiers, and I dare you tell them to their face they are not.
In fact, I saw a platoon of Marine military police living in the middle of an Afghan city, doing dismounted patrols daily, etc. Who are you to call them cowards and camp followers?
Tell that to Alexander the Great.
Military police are not logistics. Cooks are logistics. Military police are soldiers, cooks are not soldiers.
haha, starship troopers wanted every decent guy to become an officer, and very few officers. He didn’t really talk about how many civilian contractors there were in the navy part of the ship, or how many civilian contractors there were running supplies from place to place. The marines were fighting men even though they did their own chores on the ship.
Anyway, the place starship troopers falls totally flat on its face is the first few pages where every creed is acceptable. We’ve done that experiment. That’s how you raise a generation of atheists.
Anyway, the Yanomami of the Amazon jungle only require one year of celibacy in order to become a priest. In the West, if you want to be a priest, must be celibate for your entire life; and the best people want to be priests like Augustine, Anselm, and Aquinas. St. Paul wasn’t telling everyone to be celibate, he was just saying missionaries should, but that doesn’t matter now, Augustine said otherwise and monasticism is just monasticism.
How can we go about telling people with higher verbal IQs than performance IQs shut up without accidentally reducing the number of children high IQ people have? Maybe we can phrase it like that, instead of phrasing it like get in the cloister with your crazy ideas.
>Tell that to Alexander the Great.
There is a large difference between the military profession today and then. Already the Byzantines had a field ambulance service and other professional battlefield support.
>Military police are not logistics.
Their job typically consists of guarding gates, handing out speeding tickets and other such bullshit.
>Cooks are logistics.
Why, because instead of handing out parking tickets, their day job in garrison involves handing out burgers? During the 2003 invasion of Iraq, when the 82nd Airborne was planning to jump into Baghdad International Airport, my acquaintance who was a cook was supposed to jump in with a machine gun. The jump was cancelled, and they spent the deployment being the personal security detail for the regimental (I think) commander.
>Military police are soldiers, cooks are not soldiers.
Says who?
I don’t see anything that has changed between 1840 and 2015 that alters the relationship between logistics and actual fighting. The status of Florence Nightingale was elevated to lower the status of the soldiers dying under her care, not because government healthcare is a gigantic improvement on semi private healthcare.
The originals of military police are the praetorians and the Coldstream guards. Before the empire became decadent, the chief of the praetorian guard could do anything a common soldier could do and do it better. Similarly, the Coldstream guards motto was “second to none”. The reason that military police do shit jobs is that soldiers and officers are generally disarmed. Officers should always be armed, and soldiers should be routinely armed. You need military police to hand out parking tickets only because soldiers are disarmed, and soldiers are disarmed because the priesthood fears them.
yes, yes, everyone is armed, and no one shoots up the base because discipline.
Now who hands out parking tickets / finds vehicles parked improperly and summarily flogs whoever was just driving them?
If an officer is irritated by an improperly parked car, he should find who improperly parked it, which should be a couple of clicks away on his cell phone, and inform that person’s commanding officer of the improperly parked car.
Having military police perform those sorts of functions undermines the chain of command and the authority of the officer class – which is of course the intention.
>I don’t see anything that has changed between 1840 and 2015 that alters the relationship between logistics and actual fighting.
That’s nonsense. Mass specialization, the blurring of the front line, the vastly increased amount of specialized technology and its operators and the emergence of combined arms doctrine all changed the relationship between support and combat troops. Examples: in 1840, a typical wagon driver would not expect to be engaged by hostile fire. An artilleryman would be on the front edge of the battle area, not 10 miles back. There was no equivalent of battlefield vehicle recovery. There was no equivalent of tactical signals intelligence, or aviation. “Fighting” is a vague term-is the forward controller who spends the entire battle with a radio in his hand “fighting”? Is the transportation guy who is getting into running firefights while convoying supplies “fighting”? What about a combat engineer blowing up mines while getting shot at? Or a bridge crew member, putting up a bridge while people are trying to kill him?
>The originals of military police are the praetorians and the Coldstream guards.
1) Nonsense. The military police come from the Provost Marshal, who combined logistical and administrative duties. For instance, under Charlemagne, he was responsible for logistics, and under the Normans was responsible for enforcing military discipline. Coldstream Guards and Praetorians have nothing to do with anything. If you want to find their modern analogue, look for the palace guard, which in America is the 3rd Infantry Regiment, the Old Guard.
2) Would be irrelevant even if it were true. We all come from some sort of small rodent-like mammalian ancestor. Does that mean we should all skitter around and live in burrows in the ground?
>Before the empire became decadent, the chief of the praetorian guard could do anything a common soldier could do and do it better.
Irrelevant. Today, gaining and maintaining proficiency in infantry skills and tactics is a fulltime job. Gaining and maintaining proficiency in the ceremonial and security functions of the palace guard is also a fulltime job. Gaining and maintaining proficiency in the security and law enforcement functions of the military police is also a fulltime job. Anytime anyone seeks to convince you that they’ve successfully put 15 pounds of shit into a 5 pound bag, you can start looking around for the other 10 pounds. Vis the Marines with their “every Marine a rifleman” nonsense.
>Similarly, the Coldstream guards motto was “second to noneâ€.
Hey, my motto is “I’m always right and a multimillionaire genius.” QED.
>The reason that military police do shit jobs is that soldiers and officers are generally disarmed.
This is a stupid statement. First, in Israel, where soldiers and officers are generally armed, there is a military police corps which functions in the exact same way as it does anywhere else, that is, maintaining public order and discipline among the armed forces, controlling traffic during wartime/on base, etc. And this has been the case in every single large military in the last 100 years. Second, the reason that they take care of law enforcement on military bases and in areas under military occupation is because law enforcement is a profession and a full time job, which doesn’t have much in common with most other professions in the military. To say that, e.g., infantry guys and artillerymen should take turns pulling over drunk drivers on base, responding to domestic disturbance calls and investigating drug dealers in the military is crazy. They are not qualified to do so, and it would be mismanagement of their skills, which cost a lot of time and money to acquire.
A major part of strategy, for example the Roman empire’s wars with the Germans, was always to disrupt supplies by engaging the enemy’s camp followers, and to defend one’s own camp followers.
Similarly, Alexander’s strategic tactics were dominated by protecting his camp followers from attack, creating safe areas for his camp followers from which his troops could strike. Alexander had huge logistic tasks, and correspondingly huge numbers of camp followers.
Making camp followers part of the army was not a response to military events, but was overtly political, and was accompanied by, and driven by, a mass media campaign of lies to present fighting men as victims, rather than heroes. Every bad thing that happened to them was shouted from the rooftops, while great victories won by great courage were quietly buried.
It was an attack on warriors by priests, using the standard weapons of the Cathedral. You know of Florence Nightingale, you do not know of the Highlanders marching into Kerch.
>If an officer is irritated by an improperly parked car, he should find who improperly parked it, which should be a couple of clicks away on his cell phone, and inform that person’s commanding officer of the improperly parked car.
Oh, yes. We should give all officers access to a nationwide database of license plates to run on their phone. If the offender’s commanding officer, when he gets that phone call, says, yeah, I don’t care, the offended officer should go up his chain of command, until he gets to the point where his chain of command joins the offender’s chain of command, to get things sorted. Those generals have lots of time, so having 30 “Private Smith from 2nd ID parked his car improperly, so Lieutenant Jones in the 35th MI BDE called Smith’s captain, who told Jones to go fuck himself” calls every day should be a welcome change of routine.
And if the car has no license plate, the officer should force the guy whose car it is to identify himself at gunpoint. And if that guy tells him to go fuck himself, or is another officer, they should have a fistfight. Maybe they can bring their units, and whoever wins is right!
And if someone is swerving around on base drunkenly, everybody around him should make a citizen’s arrest. That’ll work well.
And when you have a military traffic jam in the middle of a war, everyone should get out of their vehicles and argue it out, figure out who’s senior, whose boss is senior, whose mission has priority, etc. That will work out even bette!
Being able to say “I don’t care” gives officers authority. Not being able to say “I don’t care” makes them minions and bureaucrats – as is the intention.
Sure. If the car’s parking irritates an officer, is probably on a military base. If on a military base, martial law applies. The whole point is that officers should have real, everyday, authority – and camp followers should not.
You have heard of Florence Nightingale, but somehow, you have not herd of the battle of Kerch.
The reason you have heard of Florence Nightingale but not Kerch is that Kerch is the battle where the British won the Crimean war by destroying the Russians ability to supply Sevastopol. Did you even know the British won the Crimean war?
If you are going to lower the status of fighting men, heroes do not suit the narrative. The narrative was of the British fighting man as victim. Making logistics part of the army rather than camp followers was every bit as political and media driven as the UVA rape case. And to this day, very hard to find any information about Kerch, just as the fact that the UVA rape case was a lie is quietly disappearing down the memory hole.
Standard procedure was to designate a particular officer in charge of a convoy. Should convoys interfere with each other, The highest ranking officer on the spot and in charge of a convoy should take charge (not the highest ranking officer, the highest ranking officer designated to control a convoy). If there are several equally ranked officers, they should quietly, indeed furtively, agree amongst themselves that one of them is in charge, and announce to the men that one of them is in charge. If they are unable to agree without it becoming apparent to their own men that they are in disagreement, then they should all be demoted and punished.
>Being able to say “I don’t care†gives officers authority.
The only authority they have is delegated from their leadership. Which can also delegate authority to military police and charge them with maintaining order. Being able to say “I don’t care” about violations of good order and discipline committed by their soldiers is not “authority”-it’s anarchy.
>Sure. If the car’s parking irritates an officer, is probably on a military base. If on a military base, martial law applies.
Not “martial law.” Military law. And under military law, in every single country I’m familiar with, military law enforcement is a specialized function delegated to MPs. Which is why you don’t see soldiers and officers having showdowns at gunpoint.
>The whole point is that officers should have real, everyday, authority – and camp followers should not.
You have no clue what you’re talking about.
>You have heard of Florence Nightingale, but somehow, you have not herd of the battle of Kerch.
Neither Florence Nightingale nor the Battle of Kerch are relevant.
>Making logistics part of the army rather than camp followers was every bit as political and media driven as the UVA rape case.
That damn Charlemagne, always looking to please Jezebel. Those spineless Normans and their Buzzfeed.
>And to this day, very hard to find any information about Kerch, just as the fact that the UVA rape case was a lie is quietly disappearing down the memory hole.
Call Alex Jones!
>Standard procedure was to designate a particular officer in charge of a convoy.
Irrelevant.
>Should convoys interfere with each other, The highest ranking officer on the spot and in charge of a convoy should take charge (not the highest ranking officer, the highest ranking officer designated to control a convoy).
Brilliant. You do understand that it’s quite possible for a captain to lead a convoy that takes precedence over one led by a major? You understand that sometimes you have hundreds or thousands of vehicles moving, stretched out over tens of miles? Every element’s leaders should run back and forth frantically, trying to unfuck the situation.
>If there are several equally ranked officers, they should quietly, indeed furtively, agree amongst themselves that one of them is in charge, and announce to the men that one of them is in charge. If they are unable to agree without it becoming apparent to their own men that they are in disagreement, then they should all be demoted and punished.
Oh, yes, that seems like an effective way to resolve questions like “who should have priority to cross this bridge” under fire and/or time constraints. The Karachi Traffic Jam method! Why didn’t those dumb generals in Russia, Germany, England, the US, France, etc. think of that? Why would they go with the irrational solution of taking a group of guys, delegating them with positional authority, briefing them on traffic priority and giving them visible symbols of their authority in order to keep things moving? Why not leave their units to unfuck things through impromptu discussion meetings?
Other examples of the conspiracy include the Marines designating their shore parties with highly visible red tabs as a symbol of their positional authority, and traffic cops unsnarling traffic jams manually rather than letting drivers settle their priority with verbal persuasion and symbolic brandishing of weapons.
Authority is converse of discipline, thus comes from below, not from above. The King is a King because those around him act like he is a king. Having military police means that officers are treated less like officers. undermining discipline.
Then have it led by a major.
I cannot really visualize anyone paying the slightest attention to military police while under fire.
Therefore, there is no point in having them in normal times, since everything in the army should be preparation for abnormal times.
>A major part of strategy, for example the Roman empire’s wars with the Germans, was always to disrupt supplies by engaging the enemy’s camp followers, and to defend one’s own camp followers.
Not the point. Occasional light cavalry raids are one thing. Constant exposure of all units within 20 miles of the front to artillery, air attacks, IEDs, etc. is another. During Alexander’s times, the structure of the military was very simple-you had infantry, cavalry and archers or peltasts, lined up by regiment or squadron or what have you. In modern maneuver warfare, you have armor, infantry, engineers, artillery integrated together in task forces down to company and platoon level, with sliced in attachments from scouts, signals, mechanics, artillery, medics, tactical intelligence and the air force. Even back in the Napoleonic days and before, drummers, buglers and messengers and other combat support were soldiers, as were armorers (military artificers,) not camp followers.
If making camp followers soldiers was done for military, rather than political, reasons, you would have heard of Kerch and not heard of Florence Nightingale.
Just as the fact that you have heard of Marie Curie and not heard of Dorn should tell you that women should not be scientists, the fact that you have heard of Florence Nightingale and not heard of Kerch should tell you that those doing logistics were classified as soldiers to lower the status of warriors relative to priests.
I hear navy ships have always used marines with a separate command structure to do their MP stuff.
Officers are supposed to buy their rank, though, which is looking better and better as officers are increasingly chosen for their political reliability.
Today’s military medics can practice on niggers, which are closer analogues to humans than pigs.
If only the British had lost everything in the Charge of the Light Brigade and gone home.
>Authority is converse of discipline, thus comes from below, not from above.
No. Authority is delegated from above. If you disagree, next time a cop pulls you over, just fire him.
>Then have it led by a major.
You don’t need to have it led by a major. A general is quite capable of delegating authority to anyone in his chain of command he chooses.
>I cannot really visualize anyone paying the slightest attention to military police while under fire.
That’s because your familiarity with the military comes from Heinlein novels.
Any place you rely on police for security of property and person is a dangerous place. In fact it is so dangerous that the police are apt to wander off to some place where people don’t rely on police for security and buy some donuts and coffee.
What makes the military strong, and capable of ruling, is discipline. Military Police substituting for the authority of officers undermined discipline, and insourcing logistics, dispensing with camp followers, undermined honor, and thus discipline. The priests are frightened of the warriors, so do not want the army to be effective.
You don’t get discipline simply by the government awarding officers nominal power. It is a lot more subtle than that.
>Military Police substituting for the authority of officers undermined discipline, and insourcing logistics, dispensing with camp followers, undermined honor, and thus discipline.
Well, take it up with Charlemagne, the Normans, Napoleon and his battlefield ambulances, the British Army and its Royal Military Artificers and Provosts, and a long list of people who doubtless knew less about how to run an army than you do.
>The priests are frightened of the warriors, so do not want the army to be effective.
This must be why Napoleon had military flying ambulances and train regiments staffed by soldiers. He was afraid of his army being effective.
>You don’t get discipline simply by the government awarding officers nominal power.
That’s the foundation of it. The government appoints officers, who appoint noncoms, and together they administer discipline. The whole system operates with the silent consent of the whole, but at any point its ability to impose discipline on any individual or group despite their will stems from the authority delegated to them from above. It comes down to the fact that those officers have the weight of the system at their disposal. Hence, “respect the rank, not the person,” and hence positional authority such as MPs have works, despite their low rank.
Military police generally did not exist until recently. In those few cases where something vaguely resembling them existed, their role was far less than today’s.
Logistics was, until the Crimean war, “camp followers”.
The transition to camp followers becoming nominally part of the army and nominally soldiers with the same status as warriors came during the Crimean war, and was part of a massive propaganda offensive against warriors, by priests.
Military police are part of a program to undermine discipline, thus make officers less capable of conducting a coup. Making camp followers part of the army is part of a program to demonize and denigrate the warrior class, thus make military rule less popular.
peppermint says:
“yes, yes, everyone is armed, and no one shoots up the base because discipline.”
@peppermint
Stay out of military discussions. Your ignorance is telling.
>Military police generally did not exist until recently. In those few cases where something vaguely resembling them existed, their role was far less than today’s.
Not so-their role was sometimes more extensive than today: http://rhqrmp.org/rmp_history.html
Also, http://home.mweb.co.za/re/redcap/new-pm.htm
>Logistics was, until the Crimean war, “camp followersâ€.
Not so. See above. One of the Provost’s original functions was running logistics. Civilian contractors were supervised by a military core, just like today (in Iraq, for instance, the big logistics convoys were largely made up out of civilian vehicles with civilian drivers. Also, see Napoleon’s Train Regiments.
>The transition to camp followers becoming nominally part of the army and nominally soldiers with the same status as warriors came during the Crimean war, and was part of a massive propaganda offensive against warriors, by priests.
The links above show you that it’s not so.
>Military police are part of a program to undermine discipline, thus make officers less capable of conducting a coup. Making camp followers part of the army is part of a program to demonize and denigrate the warrior class, thus make military rule less popular.
Repeating this doesn’t make it so. Military police go back 1000 years. Professional military logisticians do as well.
If you want to make the argument, focus on the SHARP/EO commissariat.
Your link fails to support your claim. Before 1855, before the big attack on warrior status, they can only find very small numbers of individuals that they can arguably cast as performing military police duties. “the Provost Marshal’s staff included: a chaplain; two judges; two tip-staves (proto-police officers); two gaolers; a hangman and his assistant; and several horsemen.” Two!
According to your link, The first big appearance of military police is in 1855, by an amazing coincidence, approximately the same date as the first big disappearance of camp followers.
I have read your links, and they show me that it is so: “The modern history of the Military Police as we know them today commences with a War Office circular dated 13th June 1855,”
The job of logistics was to shepherd the camp followers, who usually substantially outnumbered the soldiers.
More on MPs in history: http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/HEER/2006-12/1166604359
http://canadianprovostcorps.ca/history-0.htm
>Before 1855, before the big attack on warrior status, they can only find very small numbers of individuals that they can arguably cast as performing military police duties.
Washington’s marchaussee under Von Heer was a company (80 men) out of about a division (a continental army of about 16,000.) This is not a very small number but about what you’d see today.
>“the Provost Marshal’s staff included: a chaplain; two judges; two tip-staves (proto-police officers); two gaolers; a hangman and his assistant; and several horsemen.†Two!
The tipstaves were like court bailiffs. The Provost had such extensive powers that he didn’t need an extensive permanent staff-he could show up and commandeer soldiers as necessary. “The Provost must have a horse allowed him and some soldiers to attend him and all the rest commanded to obey and assist or else the Service will suffer, for he is but one man and must correct many and therefore he cannot be beloved. And he must be riding from one garrison to another to see the soldiers do not outrage nor scathe the country.” He was the King’s direct representative, and spoke for the King.
>I have read your links, and they show me that it is so: “The modern history of the Military Police as we know them today commences with a War Office circular dated 13th June 1855,â€
You have read the links poorly, which is typical. Before the formal establishment of the Mounted Police (which, by the way, had 21 personnel when stood up,) there was the Corps of Mounted Guides and the Staff Corps of Cavalry, which did the exact same thing and were comprised of hundreds of soldiers. Wellington established them because the Provost Corps was not big enough to enforce discipline effectively. Was Wellington a Communist trying to undermine military authority? Then, during the Long Peace, they were disbanded. The establishment of the Mounted Police in 1855 was actually a re-establishment.
>The job of logistics was to shepherd the camp followers, who usually substantially outnumbered the soldiers.
Irrelevant. Today’s situation is no different, with the transportation and cooks supervising civilian third country national contractors far outnumbering them.
Their main task was keeping order amongst the camp followers, (though they also stopped deserters, etc) and their main instrument for maintaining such order was to ensure that each camp follower was there by the permission of, and subject to the supervision of, a high ranking officer – they functioned to subject camp followers to military discipline.
Their primary job was to ask the same question as Boaz asked: “Whose damsel is this?”
Thus
1: You need to compare their numbers with the number of camp followers, not the number of troops.
2: They were there to support the authority of officers over camp followers, not replace it.
>Their main task was keeping order amongst the camp followers, (though they also stopped deserters, etc)
Not so, according to the links.
“The winter at Valley Forge was a difficult time for the Continental Army, and numerous discipline problems arose. A particularly troublesome offense was pillaging. Washington was indignant over the fact that the soldiers were robbing their fellow countrymen. To prevent these abuses he drastically curtailed the soldiers’ movements outside of camp.
There was a strong effort to bring law and order back to the encampment and during the army’s stay at Valley Forge there were 161 military personnel tried by courts martial, 39 for civil crimes and 122 for purely military offenses. There were 13 allegations of fraud, extortion or, embezzlement, eleven cases of assault, seven of theft, two of perjury, two for issuing challenges to duel and one each of sodomy, plundering and manslaughter. There were 6 acquittals and 33 convictions for civil offenses. In addition to these cases there were trials for two women accused of conspiring with soldiers to mutiny or desert; one woman was found guilty and the other acquitted.
The military offenses were as follows: 42 cases of desertion, 18 cases of insubordination or disobedience, 16 cases of neglect of duty, 14 of conduct unbecoming the character of a gentleman, 10 of abuse of authority, 7 of absence without leave, and 5 each of gambling, cowardice, and violation of sundry General Orders. In all the court martial cases there were 86 convictions, and 26 acquittals.”
Camp followers are an afterthought. Their primary function was to enforce military discipline. And this didn’t change as time passed and the American army reformed:
“On January 29, 1778 General Washington declared that there must be a major reorganization of the Continental Army, and in that reorganization a Provost Corps must be established. The men of this unit were to be assigned as light dragoons, and they must be trustworthy above all else. These men were to receive higher pay and there was to be a higher ratio of officers to enlisted men, and their assignment was to “watch over the good order and regularity of the army”. The Corps was to be drafted from the brigades and was to be mounted and armed and accoutered as light dragoons. The business of the corps was to watch over the regularity and good order of the army in camp, quarters, and on the march. The Marechausee had to quell riots, prevent marauding, straggling, and desertion. They should also detect spies, regulate sutlers and women in camp, check for inferior goods and whiskey being sold by the sutlers.”
Sutlers and camp women are an afterthought.
Then in Ocrober Washington issued instructions to Von Heer beginning thusly: ” The principal Duty of the Corps under your command while the Army is encamped, is to patrole the Camp and its environs, for the purpose of apprehending Deserters, Marauders, Drunkards, Rioters, Stragglers, and other Soldiers that may be found violating general orders.” He then goes on at some length. Sutlers (camp followers) are mentioned, but they are not the primary focus.
>Their primary job was to ask the same question as Boaz asked: “Whose damsel is this?â€
You are mistaken in both. Boaz says “l’mi,” meaning, “of whom?” The answer given, “she is a Moabitish damsel,” tells you that the question is about national/tribal allegiance, not “who owns her.” And as for the Provost Corps, Washington just told you what their principal duty was. What do you want, a personal seance with his ghost?
> They were there to support the authority of officers over camp followers, not replace it.
They were there to support good order and discipline in the army, and the camp followers were an afterthought. The officers of the army were explicitly ordered by Washington to defer to the Provost’s officers: “The Commander in Chief strictly forbids all persons whatever to do or say anything that mat tend to impede the Officers of this Corps in the Execution of their duty. On the contrary, He requires that they may be respected and assisted, as good order and discipline will be much promoted by the full Exercise of their office…all persons belonging to the Army are required to succor any part of the Marechausie (sic) Corps that may be opposed in the Prosecution of their duty.”
So John Smith had some insight on deep objective reality when he created the Mormon cult?
You’re so cute, spandrell.
Tell me, leads you to believe Smith didn’t have some insight on deep objective reality?
My evidence for the contrary: the past 150 years history of the “Mormon cult”
You guys should reclaim the word “cult” like blacks reclaimed the word “nigger”.
Oh, wait…
Mormonism succeeded to the extent that it has because it did its best to emulate the Written Torah in practice, while adjusting to the surrounding reality. Since the Written Torah is deeply based on objective reality, following it gives good results. In the case of the Mormons, a lot of wonderful people with great communities in the best parts of America.
However, the Mormons lack an Oral Torah, which is the SOP of the Written Torah. In the long run, trying to follow the Written Torah without an SOP is like trying to fly an airplane after memorizing an aerodynamics textbook. Without an intermediary layer explaining how to translate the principles of the one to concrete actions in the other, you will react to events in improvised ways that seem ok at first and then cause long term issues. Your reactions to those issues themselves cause additional problems, creating a positive feedback loop leading to disaster. So, the Mormons had to deal with problems in their theology by stacking crazier theology on top of it. They had to deal with problems arising from their neighbors by fleeing across the Rockies carting their possessions in handcarts. Then they had to deal with the 3rd Cavalry showing up by cutting a deal. Which led to another deal. Which led to accepting black priests at gunpoint, allowing caffeinated beverages like Coke, half the NSA being Mormon (with the result that Mormons are now getting up and delivering federally mandated sexual harassment, rape prevention and equal opportunity briefs to other Mormons,) and soon will lead to open homosexuality being considered acceptable and whatever other wedge issues the cathedral chooses being turned against the Mormons.
You’re getting a bit too carried away there by a few fringe issues, B. The sexual revolution has been in swing for 60 years and had little effect on Mormons, while destroying western society. It’s going to take more than a little pressure from the mass media to begin to worry them.
You guys are on the trailing edge of progress.
Says the pot to the kettle.
The Mormons changed their line on race, are accepting one Cathedral doctrine after another on sexuality (notably that sexual preference is immutable and untreatable) and are making big noises about caring deeply for homosexuals.
Nobody cares deeply about homosexuals, homosexuals least of all. You care about friends or kin who are homosexuals, but homosexuals as a whole are icky weird badly behaved people who spread disease. Politicians try to make homosexuals a tribe the way various racial groups are tribes, but it is not working very well.
Keep telling yourselves that. Get back to me when something of note actually happens, not drinking coke and telling homosexualists they shouldn’t act on their desires.
>Says the pot to the kettle.
All I’ve heard from you is that we are becoming rapidly lefter and lefter, since we require female consent for marriage. When I point out repeatedly that we’ve done so for at least 2500 years as evidenced by the Elephantine Papyri, and that the legal basis was made explicit 1800 years ago in the Mishna, you repeat yourself.
As for Mormons-I like them, served with a lot of them, and think that of the existing options they are the least bad for white Americans. But I also see their political structure as compromised by a deal with the devil, and so bad things have already started happening and will continue happening. At some point the Cathedral will start an anti-Mormon witchhunt, just like it did with the Catholics, and I think the church will buckle. Once it does, the constituency will continue maintaining the outer rites while losing faith.
I want to repeat what I said-the only long-term hope for Europeans and Euro-Americans is Noachide belief.
I would say it is pretty obvious he did. Figured out how a religion should work, observed how existing religions did work, and proceeded to manufacture one.
Yes, he did. He may ALSO have engaged in a tremendous amount of fraud. However the results are just as Trey and Matt described.
I also suspect that Smith and Jesus had the same insight on deep objective reality, but that is a discussion for another day.
There is still a strong case for Christianity. After all, the Orthodox Church did survive both the Mahometans and Bolsheviks, while for example a Protestant denomination founded a year ago may no longer exist. And despite numerous problems Orthodox Church is in today, unlike the Vatican, Orthodox Church did not go Politically Correct (nor full retard like so many Protestant denominations).
Where it is subject to the Cathedral, did go full retard. If Orthodoxy survives, it is because the core of its followers are in places where the Cathedral has limited power.
While it’s true that I have met many in the Orthodox Church who try to reconcile Political Correctness with their Christianity, I must admit that I have personally never met anyone who was willing to go full retard i.e. never have I met a person in favor of ordination of women, nor for allowing unrepentant sodomites a Communion and let alone someone in favor of same-sex “marriage”. What I have noticed however is that people in the Orthodox Church who are struggling with cognitive dissonance between their Political Correctness and their Christianity usually either leave the Church or reject Political Correctness. I would argue that Orthodox Church is reactionary in its nature and that it’s current (and true, feeble) resistance to the zeitgeist in the West is not just a consequence of many traditionalist/conservative refugee converts from Protestantism or Vatican. So, may it perhaps be the case that Cathedral has limited power in those places where Orthodox Church has core of its followers, because of the presence of the Church, and not vice versa?
The Cathedral will exterminate everyone, if it has the power. We’re just examining who seems to be the most resistant. Orthodoxy seems to be more resistant than Catholicism, and Catholicism more than mainline Protestantism. And mainline Protestantism more than low-church Protestantism.
Yes, orthodoxy more resistant than Catholicism, but that is not saying a whole lot.
It did take a couple of World Wars to crush Catholicism. If Italy had never been brought under the rule of liberal Democracy, I bet the current Pope would believe the same sort of things Archbishop Lefebvre did.
And even in America, all of Orthodoxy has not gone full retard. Take a look at the ROCOR.
“If Orthodoxy survives, it is because the core of its followers are in places where the Cathedral has limited power.”
Gotta love having an independent and large stash of nuclear weapons.
Yes, I suspect nukes are the primary reason for Orthodoxy’s resistance the the Cathedral.
The problem with christianity is that it is of questionable compatability with materialism and rationality. I find myself unable to conceive of anything but materialism, let alone believe it, and I’m certianly not able to just coerce myself to believe something I don’t understand against my better judgement.
So as good as Christianity might be, that way is closed to me.
What are the premises of your materialism, Nyan Sandwich?
I can’t understand anything else
An interesting metaphysical stance. You have assumed materialism, ergo materialism explains everything. Not an entirely rational position.
I decided a while ago that metaphysical rigor wasn’t worth the neurons it was printed on. Correct me if I’m wrong.
There’s no circular reasoning here, I’m just deriving a bunch of stuff from materialism, which seems solid to me, and which I have believed for quite a while. That I believe it on metaphysically questionable grounds is not to concerning as I find metaphysics to be itself rather questionable.
As for whether materialism is reasonable, metaphysics aside, it explains everything except first cause, does so simply and concisely, and doesn’t appear to be self-contradictory. I have no better hypothesis, having searched for a while and having asked around, so I feel reasonably confident in materialism.
In other news, half of you are accusing me of believing stuff more strongly than is warranted, and half are accusing me of coming up with something I won’t be able to believe, so I must be on the right track.
>I’m just deriving a bunch of stuff from materialism, which seems solid to me, and which I have believed for quite a while
To ask the old philosophical question: how can you believe scientific laws exist if you’re a materialist? Scientific laws are not material.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re aware of the serious deficiency in your line of thought, yet continue to hold it just the same?
My comment at 2.06 am was directed at NS.
@Adolf
Scientific laws don’t have to be material. They are mathematical. It is a mathematical fact that a system that embodies certain laws will accumulate knowledge.
If you say that math isn’t material, I say “whatever”. Material reality seems governed by math, that’s enough for me.
@George
I am aware that anyone serious about metaphysics doesn’t take my line of reasoning seriously. This doesn’t concern me because I’ve never seen anyone correct serious mistakes or deduce interesting things from metaphysics, and have seen quite a bit of contradictory insanity deduced by metaphysics.
I’m willing to argue these points, but you have to provide serious clear insight up-front for me to consider arguments for metaphysics or against empiricism. “You have no metaphysical basis for that” is, after many fruitless iterations, no longer enticing to me.
NS, that’s a bit of a red herring. I simply pointed out your irrational approach of simply assuming materialism, and admitting you “can’t understand anything else” but materialism. Of course you’re not going to understand anything but materialism.
If you don’t see that as a problem, then you will go nowhere as a serious thinker.
You are arguing that if someone does not accept Aquinas’ arguments for the existence of God, he is not a serious thinker.
Well, after careful consideration of Aquinas’ arguments for the existence of God, I conclude he is, on this matter, totally full of shit.
>If you say that math isn’t material, I say “whateverâ€.
Didn’t you just say
>I personally find it hard to reason my way into believing in anything that doesn’t pass certain tests of philosophical rigor
Jim, I don’t understand your comment.
The issue is simple. There are two premises;
Materialism is true.
Materialism is not true.
Tell me how you would determine which premise is true?
Pretty much the same way I know we are not regularly visited by flying saucers. The oversupply of weak evidence for flying saucers makes the undersupply of strong evidence for flying saucers somewhat odd. The inability of anyone else to read the golden tablets, and the prophet’s inability to read the same thing twice from the golden tablets is a case in point.
@George
It’s a problem that I have no alternate hypothesis to materialism, but it is also a problem that I have no alternative hypothesis to 10000 other things I believe that don’t even have names.
It’s a problem, but I believe it’s not a very big one, so I’m not losing any sleep over it. If you have evidence that it’s a big problem, or any evidence that I’m wrong, I’m interested, but further repetitions of “you should be really worried about this problem” without such evidence will fail to move me.
As to being a serious thinker, I know this is a shitty test but, I’m quite pleased with my progress so far.
@Adolf
I assume you mean that my argument for believing in math was a bit sloppy. Basically, my belief in math is based in empiricism. Mathematics empirically has significant and unbroken predictive power over material reality. This seems sufficient to believe in it. That is compatible with what I believe about the nature of reality. I don’t feel the need to get into these details most of the time, hence “whatever”.
NS, “any evidence that it’s a big problem”?
Big problem? How about the fact that one of your core assumptions about reality may be false? That this is the assumption your building your entire philosophical edifice on.
If this does’t really concern you there’s not much point to continuing.
>Basically, my belief in math is based in empiricism. Mathematics empirically has significant and unbroken predictive power over material reality. This seems sufficient to believe in it.
We are acknowledging certain non-material things exist, on the basis of empiricism. You believe in empiricism because you believe in induction. You believe in the “unjustified assumption” of induction because you are naturally programmed to believe in it.
Do you believe that your morals actually exist in a way similar to how numbers exist? Moral realism?
If these things (morality, math, et cetera) exist, what is their origin?
Restated:
1.Induction is an “unjustified assumption”
2.Morality is an “unjustified assumption”
3.Induction is the basis for empiricism, which is the basis for objective claims about reality
4.Morality cannot be a valid basis for objective claims for reality
If you believe the above, your belief system is silly, and arbitrarily places induction over morality.
I don’t recognize your restatement. One of us is failing to understand Nyan Sandwich
There you go again, jim. Are you deliberately being obscure to muddy the waters? Why do you make your comments so difficult to follow?
Are you saying you believe materialism is true because it is true? I cannot parse it any other way.
If materialism was not true, there would be things around like some brass plates in hebrew.
math is about deriving things from assumptions. It studies what is logically possible. God is omnipotent, meaning He has all powers, meaning He can cause any effect, where an effect is something that is logically possible. Whether or not God actually exists, in a real sense, mathematicians look over His shoulder. This has very little to do with the argument here.
Someone is trying to use the fact that physics is gr8 to justify some claim about the world other than that the world governed by physical law is the world governed by physical law. This does matter, because if God exists, and if Jesus Christ is His son, then we should follow His Church. If God can be found not to exist, we should invent an ‘atheism minus’ that isn’t stupid. But God’s existence has been unprovable either way since the dawn of man.
Nick B. Steves thinks that God exists because God exists. Zippy thinks that atheism is a sin that should be confessed. Andrew Anglin says that Jesus is the Son of God because that’s what his forefathers have always believed and they are not stupid. Nyan Sandwich isn’t happy with following the religion of his forefathers because his parents didn’t. Jim isn’t happy with it because he thinks it’s communist.
Can these people come to an agreement? Should the future reactionary society include freedom of religion between approved sects? Or should some of these people be locked up for the good of the White race?
@Jim
Depends on what version of non-materialism is true.
@Jim
What don’t you understand about my restatement?
I believe objective, transcendent morality exists. I do not believe there is any evidence for transcendent morality, and I do not think it needs to be proven. I believe in transcendent morality, for the same reason I believe in induction. It’s an assumption my brain tends to make.
@george
“If this does’t really concern you there’s not much point to continuing.”
It doesn’t concern me. If it aint broke, don’t fix it. If it’s broke, why does it look like it’s working?
@Adolph
>We are acknowledging certain non-material things exist, on the basis of empiricism.
No. I am recognizing regularities in observable reality. I am calling these regularities “mathematics”.
>Do you believe that your morals actually exist in a way similar to how numbers exist? Moral realism?
No. Morality is just things I’m programmed to care about (and do in fact care about). Numbers don’t really “exist” either, though.
>If you believe the above, your belief system is silly, and arbitrarily places induction over morality.
Morality doesn’t try to make claims about reality.
>I believe objective, transcendent morality exists. I do not believe there is any evidence for transcendent morality, and I do not think it needs to be proven. I believe in transcendent morality, for the same reason I believe in induction. It’s an assumption my brain tends to make.
This seems basically reasonable. If you agree with
1. Aliens or AIs probably won’t have exactly the same assumptions about transcendent objective morality. (empirical claim)
2. I’m not willing to compromise on morality. I’m right by assertion and fuck everybody who disagrees. (moral claim)
then we are in agreement on everything but terminology.
@peppermint.
Seems to me we can mostly get along, because all of our religions either get the same results, or agree to disagree and be good neighbours.
Its the death-to-infidels muslims and all-oppression-is-unacceptable progs who have to be gassed, because otherwise they’ll try to fuck with us.
>Seems to me we can mostly get along, because all of our religions either get the same results, or agree to disagree and be good neighbours. Its the death-to-infidels muslims and all-oppression-is-unacceptable progs who have to be gassed, because otherwise they’ll try to fuck with us.
Well, THIS is promising. Five minutes ago you made up your silly religion, which you yourself don’t believe in because it’s D-U-M: Odin-worship? And already you’re figuring out whom you’re going to have to gas. Fortunately, for now, most of the other religions are safe. For now. “We know good from evil and think ourselves good,” indeed.
You are taking me far too seriously, B.
>No. I am recognizing regularities in observable reality. I am calling these regularities “mathematicsâ€.
So the patterns exist. But don’t exist in reality?
>1. Aliens or AIs probably won’t have exactly the same assumptions about transcendent objective morality. (empirical claim)
Even other humans don’t have exactly the same assumptions. Check with a sociopath.
>2. I’m not willing to compromise on morality. I’m right by assertion and fuck everybody who disagrees. (moral claim)
I’m not willing to compromise on morality. But that doesn’t make me right by assertion.
Humans are different, and have different moral assumptions. It would be possible for a human to not know that certain actions (i.e. murder) are immoral. If he thought that way, he would be classified in the same way a dangerous animal is classified. For example, it might not be a crime to shoot him on sight. And shooting him on sight would not quite be murder, because he lacks an innate part of being human.
My moral assumptions are for humans. They have limited application to certain groups, like sociopaths, aliens, and AI.
I can demonstrate my morality by showing that all humans share the same morality. The details are a bit vague, but the Trolly problem indicates that there is a lot amount of moral universalism hard-wired into our brains.
>So the patterns exist. But don’t exist in reality?
The patterns exist in reality, but not as their own platonic form. Idiotic arguments like this are why I avoid metaphysics. Who cares what exists? Empiricism and reason work to some extent a-priori, they empirically verify and refine themselves, adding mathematics and (probably) materialism. End of story.
Three exists as a property of any group of three items, as red exists as a property of apples and cherries. A statement about the natural numbers is a statement about piles of sea shells on the beach.
>You are taking me far too seriously, B.
Religion’s a serious business. Just how serious is shown by the fate of every group which didn’t take it seriously (coming soon to a theater near you!) or picked the wrong one (maybe ditto.)
>Who cares what exists?
I do. But it’s hard to argue against a statement like that.
>As for whether materialism is reasonable, metaphysics aside, it explains everything except first cause, does so simply and concisely, and doesn’t appear to be self-contradictory.
Explains everything except first cause and qualia.
@nydwracu
I suppose that’s true in the sense that some materialists are confused by qualia.
At least for myself, I can explain with materialism why a material being would experience qualia, but people remain unconvinced.
This has been an interesting exchange.
NS, would you object to someone who reasons from the assumption that God exists?
@George
No I would not be offended by or object to someone who claims to reason using the existence of God as a premise. I just think they’re wrong and likely to shoot themselves in the foot.
Interesting. By what metric would you say they are wrong?
My guess is that you would propose that theories developed upon the premise that God exists tends not to conform to reality. Would that be right?
The original versions of Asatru or Helenic Paganism or Celtic Paganism or something like those are religions of our ancestors. All of those predate Christianity in the West by thousands of years.
I know why people who aren’t necessarily believers want Christianity or for the more warped ones Islam of some sort, Having a theoretical unification schema and cheap social capital is irresistible but importing Middle Eastern thinking and Middle Eastern troubles and heck Middle Eastern people has never been good for the common man or really good our cultures.
Frankly, what we have now in terms of the multi-cult especially in its more sexually puritanical forms is Christian in its values set , moreso than Christendom ever was, well minus public ritual anyway.
Maybe we should try something else, not universal, for Europeans or just for people of X European nation for a while and just use reason ans ruthlessness to protect ourselves from Africa andf the Middle east and Asia of course
And the stuff they’re worshiping in Africa predates Asatru and Helenic Paganism. Returning to religious origins ends in whatever an animal’s religious beliefs are.
As long as Africans aren’t in European lands and Europeans aren’t taking up whatever Africans are doing what skin is it off my nose?
Folk religions are for a specific folk after all. And to my way of thinking, Christianity being a Jewish sect is best for Jewish people not necessarily European people.
And yes I know “Universalism” is tempting, it lets people rule more lands and more divergent cultures, its not by any means a good thing and constant attempts to revive the Roman empire in whatever form (Communism, Christendom, The Cathedral, NDSAP, whatever) are a fools errand and guaranteed to cause as much misery as any Caliphate or Co-Properity Sphere.
There is no clear line between a “folk religion” and a non-folk religion.
Thor and Odin replaced previous nordic gods. And if we trace the line back far enough, it ends in African gods, and even further, amnism.
Why go back to Thor? Why not Ea, the Indo-European god of fire? Or even further back, to Ogabooga (or whatever his name is) the African god of cannibalism?
Battle axe people arguably the ancestors of the modern white race. Odin one of the ancestors of the battle axe people, though probably not himself exactly white, since the white race arose shortly after his time, supposing him to be based on a real person. The further we go back, the more universalist we get.
Then the least universalist worldview is self-worship. Satan the Reactionary.
Religions ought to be believed because they are true. And you think there is no spiritual truth, because you are a materialist. So you give weird advice, about how a religion can best delude the population.
@Adolf
>delude
>implying
The point of my PostRationalist religion experiments was to find a materialist religion that does not involve nihilism or self-deception.
>materialist religion
No such thing (check the dictionary’s definition of “religion”). Your religion will either find a sneaky way to be non-materialist, or it won’t be a religion.
Here’s a better place to start. You presumably believe in induction, despite the problem of induction. But have to proof if it. Why? If you can figure out why, then you can extrapolate to actual religion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_induction
*have no proof of it
@adolf
That none of the dominant religions that claim to be religions are materialist, and thus that the dictionary has no report of it, doesn’t seem like terribly strong evidence that it’s impossible, especially when I think I’ve done it.
I use induction. Problem of induction is equivalent to the no free lunch theorem, which states that it is impossible to do anything without making unjustifiable assumptions. Turns out we are born with some unjustifiable assumptions that purport to enable us to do something. I have no basis to challenge those assumptions, so I believe in those assumptions (which are inductive).
>Turns out we are born with some unjustifiable assumptions
Agreed.
>I have no basis to challenge those assumptions, so I believe in those assumptions
Agreed.
Now, most humans would have included morality in their list of unjustifiable assumptions. You (not unlike those weirdos at LessWrong) are part of a minority of American culture, who seems to reject the (metaphysical) idea of morality. And American culture is historically notable for it’s nihilism (and similar moral chaos).
Morality seems to be somewhat biologically programmed, and so it seems natural for it to be one of the “unjustifiable assumptions”. Yet you do not share it? Or, perhaps you’ve been brainwashed out of it by state-funded progressives and nihilists.
(and by “morality” I mean transcendent morality – objective morality that is wrong regardless of feelings)
@adolf
I do in fact believe that morality is a set of unjustified assumptions that we have no basis to challenge, and so I believe it. So do the LWers. You are accusing us of believing the opposite, so I’m confused.
I am not familiar with what you’re doing. And from what I’ve read of LessWrong, they seem to reject the idea of moral realism. I seem to have put my foot in my mouth.
@Adolph
LWers believe morality is inherent in human brains, and thus subjective in that aliens would not agree on most of it. Since there is no external basis for morality, they call this moral relativism or moral anti-realism.
It’s probably mostly semantic; morality is discoverable through the operation of the faculties for reason given us by Gnon, but not all beings will share our conclusions.
The six commandments concerning how neighbors shall deal with neighbors would obviously have to be shared by any alien species that is likely to survive:
Except, of course, an alien that had the sex determination system employed by bees, ants, etc, would say “Honor thy elder sister” rather than “honor thy father and mother”
Well because we have some idea how Odin (or Woden) might have been worshiped or maybe can be worshiped an dhow a philosophical foundation could be created. Those faiths could create the thing we are lacking which is virtue and a mindset suited to success
The nine noble virtues of Asatru — namely Courage, Truth, Honor, Fidelity, Discipline, Hospitality, Industriousness, Self Reliance, and Perseverance would serve better than the softer servant mindset of a good Christian or the submission of Islam
We know next to nothing about Indo-European practices or Ea who was Hittite as much as anything else anyway and they can’t be used as a foundation.
More importantly, the Nordics and Saxons share more philosophical and genetic kinship with we modern Europeans than the Indo-Europeans or the Africans. Those peoples are quite alien to us in ways that even the older faiths are not.
as for the Battle Axe people, its conjecture that Odin was an ancestor one of them and they are a dead and lost people anyway.,
The older religions however still exist after a fashion and could be restored if people wanted them. They don’t for the most part however,
Lastly, re: Christianity, certainly muscular Medieval Christianity or Orthodox would work but at least the Catholic the church was corrupt centuries ago, to an unmanageable level by Luthor’s time .Even if some miracle could manage the corruption can’t serve the role it did in its earlier days and it certainly can’t serve the role when its fastest growing population is African’s and Mestizos .
In the end though, a globalist church is not going to be useful to the needs of European Folk one can serve two or more masters and the needs to those folk (less so the Mestizos) are not those of Europeans.
More importantly it can’t create a workable new hybrid of Middle Eastern/Jewish and Pagan thinking these days anyway. It might serve to civilize Africa or South and Central America a bit but the Wests problem isn’t being civilized. It might well be the opposite and as such modern Christianity at least in its American forms is lacking in any kind of foundation to build virtue,
Orthodox might work but it feels alien to many Christians and is of no value to Pagans. Heck it might be possible go full out and become actual Jews in fact , if we can manage to deal with the food taboos and the old animosity
As I see it since it may well be impossible to revitalize Christendom, why not try something else?
>Heck it might be possible go full out and become actual Jews in fact , if we can manage to deal with the food taboos and the old animosity
There is no animosity towards converts, but I think that the 613 commandments are too much for the vast majority of non-Jews. The vision of the Torah is that the Jews are to be a holy nation and a kingdom of priests, while the rest of the world keeps the seven Noahide commandments (in their extended form) and more or less does whatever it wishes diet-wise, Shabbat-wise, etc. The Jews are therefore to serve as a conduit to G-d, while the rest of the world has far less stringent requirements.
@B
Do you have a webpage where some Rabbi gives a detailed criticism of the West for not following the Noahide commandments?
I know of no online comprehensive critique of the non-Jewish world by a rabbi for not following Noahide commandments. Maimonides says that non-Jews are obliged in them lest the world become corrupt. A very cursory treatment of the problems caused by a gentile society not following them is here: http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/314509/jewish/Adams-Birthday.htm
Some more depth is provided by this article: http://www.jlaw.com/Articles/noach2.html#intro
And by this site: http://asknoah.org/7-commandments
Apparently, this book deals with the matter in more depth: http://www.amazon.com/Perspectives-Noahide-Laws-Universal-Ethics/dp/B0037TVODI/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top
The Noahide commandments are decadent subversive crap which would corrupt the gentiles in pretty much the way that the disproportionately Jewish progressives are corrupting the gentiles.
The Pauline commandments are considerably shorter than the long version of the Noahide laws, and yet they manage to cover a whole lot of stuff that the long versions of the Noahide commandments curiously omit. They command patriarchy, which the Noahide laws completely ignore. They command a bunch of practical pragmatic measures to artificially raise male status and lower female status without mistreating women or causing unpleasantness. They forbid effeminacy and similar decadent behavior. They limit charity to avoid encouraging feckless behavior among the recipients and to avoid charity substituting for family.
The long form of the Noahide commandments is a product of Exilic Judaism. Exilic Judaism is subversive of its host society, and continues to be subversive even when that society is Israel. I believe you when you tell me that your version of Judaism is not subversive of Israel, but your version is different, and needs to be more different still. Israel was conquered and is defended by secular Jews, and most religious Jews still want to dodge military service, contrary to the clear Old Testament precedents and Talmudic directives. The long form of the Noahide commandments are what we would expect from Israeli draft dodgers.
Obviously draft dodging is healthy for a community in exile, though unhealthy for the host society. Judaism, unfortunately, is still spiritually in exile. I know you are trying to bring it home, and I know there are limits to what an ordinary Jew can do to bring it home. I just urge you to be a little less deferential to those in authority who are very comfortable with a Judaism adapted to exile, an inherently subversive Judaism, and do not particularly want the temple back, or a genuinely Jewish state.
In a genuinely Jewish state, non Jews would be resident aliens, and unwanted non Jews would be illegal aliens. The apparatus of state and the highest status universities would be exclusively Jewish, you would take the temple mount back, and you would not pretend that female soldiers are actually soldiers.
Further, in a genuinely Jewish state, you would do what you are not doing, and would adapt the alarming drastic Old Testament prescriptions for maintaining a Jewish state to the modern world, rather than piously ignoring them.
Actually existent Judaism is not a reactionary religion. It is a subversive religion. You are trying to make it less subversive of Israel, and I am sure your version is a lot less subversive of Israel, but for it to be the actual state religion of a Jewish state, needs more work. The current state religion of Israel is progressivism, which if followed seriously would result in Israel committing suicide, and most orthodox Jews are disturbingly comfortable being aliens in a society with a different state religion.
>The Noahide commandments are decadent subversive crap
Crap is your attempt at exegesis. With your approach, your people would be raping bears and sacrificing children to Odin within two generations.
>which would corrupt the gentiles in pretty much the way that the disproportionately Jewish progressives are corrupting the gentiles.
The Jewish progressives are corrupted by the gentiles, as we see by the fact that they emulate them in every way possible. If they out-Hellene the Hellenes, whose fault is that?
>The Pauline commandments are considerably shorter than the long version of the Noahide laws, and yet they manage to cover a whole lot of stuff that the long versions of the Noahide commandments curiously omit.
They have worked out great for you. Especially in their stability. Hey, look, I think another branch of Christianity has just popped up. In this one, transsexualism is not just praiseworthy but mandatory.
The Noahide commandments explicitly list prohibited sexual relations, for instance. Christianity doesn’t have much of an opinion in practice. The Noahide commandments demand the establishment of a system of courts to uphold laws. Christianity says render unto Caesar and leaves it at that. The Noahide commandments prohibit abortion, euthanasia, sterilization, etc. Christianity is wishy-washy. The Noahide commandments demand secure property rights. Christianity doesn’t have much to say on the matter.
>The long form of the Noahide commandments is a product of Exilic Judaism.
You are unfamiliar with both the long form of the commandments and Judaism, so how are you so confident in your judgement?
> Exilic Judaism is subversive of its host society, and continues to be subversive even when that society is Israel.
What is subversive is idolatry, which both the progs and your make-believe ancestor-worship are both examples of.
> Israel was conquered and is defended by secular Jews, and most religious Jews still want to dodge military service, contrary to the clear Old Testament precedents and Talmudic directives.
Demonstrably a lie. Most religious Jews in Israel serve in the military, and the combat arms have a disproportionately high representation of religious Jews. Also, I thought the Talmud was also Exilic Judaism?
>The long form of the Noahide commandments are what we would expect from Israeli draft dodgers.
Jim, have you ever been in the military?
> Judaism, unfortunately, is still spiritually in exile.
It is in recovery.
>In a genuinely Jewish state, non Jews would be resident aliens, and unwanted non Jews would be illegal aliens. The apparatus of state and the highest status universities would be exclusively Jewish, you would take the temple mount back, and you would not pretend that female soldiers are actually soldiers.
There is constant progress on this front. Once the majority of the population is religious, there will be a sea change (and it is interesting that this is the only countryin the world where more people are becoming religious of their own free will.) As for female soldiers-the Talmud says that for an obligatory war, we even take the groom and bride from their chamber.
>Further, in a genuinely Jewish state, you would do what you are not doing, and would adapt the alarming drastic Old Testament prescriptions for maintaining a Jewish state to the modern world, rather than piously ignoring them.
It would help if you were familiar with those prescriptions in some detail. Their scope, implementation, whom they are binding upon, etc.
>Actually existent Judaism is not a reactionary religion. It is a subversive religion.
This is a religious assertion masquerading as a reasoned statement.
>The current state religion of Israel is progressivism, which if followed seriously would result in Israel committing suicide, and most orthodox Jews are disturbingly comfortable being aliens in a society with a different state religion.
Most orthodox Jews in Israel serve in the military, work a job, pay taxes, vote and are certainly not aliens.
Agreed. The return made it possible to recover, and the external threat helps the recovery. But I think Judaism still very ill and has a long way to go.
Also, I think its recovery will be preceded by an existential crisis, when it becomes obvious that the actual state religion, progressivism, is incompatible with survival.
>But I think Judaism still very ill and has a long way to go.
This is very true. But I think that the fact that it is recovering shows its resistance to digestion by the Cathedral. In this, it is unique-Islam is also resistant but at the price of barbarism and appeal to its followers’ savage instincts.
>Also, I think its recovery will be preceded by an existential crisis, when it becomes obvious that the actual state religion, progressivism, is incompatible with survival.
Sadly, this is probably true, but I hope that disparity in birth rates and Judaism’s increasing appeal over progressivism to Jews on the fence will pave the way for a quick and easy resolution of such a crisis. I know one thing-prematurely precipitating such a crisis would lead to disaster for us.
@B
As an Israeli myself (secular, just finished the army), I’m curious as to what you think about the Haredi problem. It seems obvious to me that unless heavily dealt with the Haredim will continue to grow and will become more of a burden with time. The Religious Zionists, while themselves great people who give more to the country than most other groups, seem to be too supportive of the Haredim in my eyes.
>As an Israeli myself (secular, just finished the army), I’m curious as to what you think about the Haredi problem. It seems obvious to me that unless heavily dealt with the Haredim will continue to grow and will become more of a burden with time. The Religious Zionists, while themselves great people who give more to the country than most other groups, seem to be too supportive of the Haredim in my eyes.
I am supportive of the Haredim. Without Jews there is no Jewish state, and without Torah there are no Jews (in the long run,) and the Haredim are doing the most towards creating Jews and learning Torah. Frantic hatred of them generally stems from the understanding that the group the hater belongs to is transient, and the Haredim are here to stay. Their criticism of the State of Israel is generally correct-the State is a subsidiary of the Cathedral, it is morally corrupt and generally shit. We all know a million examples: the forced adoption of Teimani children and the organized attacks on religion in the early days, the “disengagement” from Gaza, the destruction of communities in the Shomron, mounted police and Yassam beating Jewish protesters, Shabak provocation and trumped up charges against dissidents, etc. Hell, you can see what this state is from its reaction to Arabs setting an 11 year old Jewish girl and her father on fire last week. Any Jewish state would have levelled the attackers’ village to the ground and killed the inhabitants, instead of sending the Duvdevan to go take them to Arab University, from which they will be freed in 10 years with college degrees. Not to mention the gay pride parades, flagrant discrimination against settlers with no legal recourse, and other cherries on top.
That said, I think that the current situation, where the state pays starvation-level subsidies to Haredim who learn Torah or pretend to learn it, and dispenses funds to their communal leaders in exchange for vote bank services, is historically abnormal, against the Torah (specifically, Pirkei Avot and the Rambam,) economically unfeasible, degrading to human dignity and morality.
As the Haredim succeed in growing into a large sector of the country, they will change, learning trades and professions, working for a living, and eventually serving in the military. They are intelligent people with a developed sense of dignity, and do not enjoy the present situation any more than you would, so they are looking for a way out. This is already happening very quickly.
A few examples: I visited a Daati Leumi friend at his workplace in Modiin. He is a programmer, working on a contract. The company with which he is working takes Haredi women, teaches them programming for a year, then contracts them out, paying them a low wage. Another friend was working with a manufacturer producing stuff for the military. The entire factory floor was Haredim running CNC machines. A third friend was telling me about the grandson of the Satmar Rebbe, the most anti-Zionist of the Chassidic groups, who recently joined the IDF and is serving with a very special unit. Chardal is growing.
The main thing is that this change comes from within and gently, not by force from without. If the State attempts to push it down their throat, in typical Cathedral fashion, it will cause a violent rejection. I suspect that this rejection is what the Cathedral wants subconsciously, because the current situation serves it quite well for the time being. Impoverished Haredim whose votes are cheaply bought are not a threat but a valuable tool. When the State needs to do something vile like destroy a Jewish settlement or give away Jewish land, bought Haredi votes or abstainments provide a very useful stamp of approval. Haredim who do not serve in the military pose no threat of military disobedience. Witness the quiet terror inspired by growing numbers of daati leumi officers, most recently expressed in the campaign to get rid of Winter on bullshit charges. After all, a military full of religious Jews might refuse amoral orders, and then what? Unthinkable. Terrifying. Haredim serving en masse would be terrible for the state.
So, the current strategy is to try to drive a wedge between Haredim and secular Jews if not between Haredim and Daati Leumi, blame all economic problems on Haredim as much as possible, provoke a reaction from the Haredim, slow down their social adaptation, use them both as a scapegoat for the seculars (if home prices are astronomical, it’s not the State’s refusal to grant building permits, but the Haredim! etc.) and as a cheap vote bank, divide and conquer.
Moses and the rest were not shy about using force from without.
The problem with the Cathedral is not that it is using coercion to impose a belief system, but that it is using quite moderate coercion to impose an insane, evil, and self destructive belief system.
Successful theocracies do not allow open entry into the role of priest/opinion leader/community organizer. If Judaism becomes the state religion of Israel in place of progressivism, it is going to have to be at least as coercive as progressivism, in which case Haredim who are disinclined to work or fight will get at least the treatment that “racists” and “homophobes”, get in the US, and probably a good deal worse.
>Moses and the rest were not shy about using force from without.
Moshe was a prophet. None of us are. I am against forcing people to do the right thing if you can convince them to do the right thing.
>The problem with the Cathedral is not that it is using coercion to impose a belief system, but that it is using quite moderate coercion to impose an insane, evil, and self destructive belief system.
Using force to impose a bad system is bad. Using force to impose our system is good, because our system is good, because we are good! Jim, you’re a communist.
>Successful theocracies do not allow open entry into the role of priest/opinion leader/community organizer.
In Judaism, you get to be a rabbi with public influence by a) learning, b) being acknowledged as a rabbi by other rabbis, c) being acknowledged as a leader by a significant number of Jews. It has always been like this, and will always be like this.
>If Judaism becomes the state religion of Israel in place of progressivism, it is going to have to be at least as coercive as progressivism,
In some terms, yes-for instance, public desecration of Shabbat will not be allowed. In other terms, no-private behavior and opinions will not be dictated.
>in which case Haredim who are disinclined to work or fight will get at least the treatment that “racists†and “homophobesâ€, get in the US, and probably a good deal worse.
Again, you are a communist. In Jewish law, nobody is forced to fight in an optional war, and in fact everyone who is afraid is exempt from battle. As for working, I am not against the Haredim or any other Jew learning Torah all day if they can find a person or endowment to support them financially. I am only against using the government to force other Jews to take this role. Labor armies and forced productivity are not the Jewish way.
According to the rabbis it has always been like this, but there is no indication that it was like this in Old Testament times, plenty of indications that it was not, and when we see rabbis exercising power, in the time of Jesus, we see the holier than thou cycle that Jesus ridiculed, which cycle of ever greater holiness eventually led to suicidal war and exile.
The only time that we see real evidence of the Sanhedrin ever existing and ever exercising real power, we see them holier than thou, as ridiculed by Jesus, governing badly and self destructively.
Judaism needs to be the state religion of the state of Israel. But you cannot have a state religion with open entry into the priesthood, because you will get pharisaism, which is the failure mode of today’s Cathedral and of Judaism after Herod.
If you have a theocracy, and open entry, you will get the competitive holiness rightly ridiculed by Jesus, pharisaism.
>there is no indication that it was like this in Old Testament times
Our oldest written documents discovered so far indicate rabbinical Judaism-the Elephantine Papyri, the Qumran scrolls and Josephus’ testimony.
>plenty of indications that it was not
Your uninformed inferences from a cursory reading of a translation of the Torah are not “indications.”
> and when we see rabbis exercising power, in the time of Jesus, we see the holier than thou cycle that Jesus ridiculed, which cycle of ever greater holiness eventually led to suicidal war and exile.
War was inevitable from Roman occupation.
>The only time that we see real evidence of the Sanhedrin ever existing and ever exercising real power, we see them holier than thou, as ridiculed by Jesus, governing badly and self destructively.
They had no good choices, and did the best they could with what they had. Had things gone slightly differently, they would have repeated the Hashmonaic feat and broken free of the empire. Or were the Maccabbees also silly, holier-than-thou, etc.? Had Jesus been around in their time, he probably would have mocked them as well.
You blame the rabbis for not compromising with Roman desecration of the Torah and the Temple, and give them no credit for the Jews’ survival and recovery after the crushing of the rebellion and mass exile, but this is wrong. Without the rabbis and rabbinical Judaism, we would have shared the fate of the Samaritans or the Karaites. See a lot of them around?
>Judaism needs to be the state religion of the state of Israel. But you cannot have a state religion with open entry into the priesthood, because you will get pharisaism, which is the failure mode of today’s Cathedral and of Judaism after Herod.
“Open entry” is like “open entry” into the medical profession, or the military. If you are willing to spend many, many years gaining expertise and are acknowledged as a top expert by other top experts, you should make decisions in this field.
Romans were perfectly happy to the let the Jews practice their strange religion provided they paid taxes and obeyed Roman law. The Jewish religious leadership went looking for trouble. Nothing intolerable happened under Herod. After Herod’s death, Jews made trouble, rebellions everywhere, so the Jews suffered direct rule by Pontius Pilate. Nothing intolerable happened under Pontius Pilate. Pontius Pilate put Roman Eagles on the temple, as Herod had done, but then took them down in the face of Jewish protests in order to maintain tranquility. He also required the priests to build an aqueduct out of temple funds.
The Romans could not possibly desecrate the Torah. It is a book. Did they go into every learned man’s house and trash his library? And as for the temple Pontius Pilate agreed to leave the temple alone, in return for tranquility, and got no tranquility.
Medicine and military are constrained by external reality, for which other top experts are merely an inadequate substitute. Official truth is apt to be alarmingly unconstrained by reality.
>Romans were perfectly happy to the let the Jews practice their strange religion provided they paid taxes and obeyed Roman law.
Wikipedia says: according to Josephus, the violence of the year 66 initially began at Caesarea, provoked by Greeks of a certain merchant house sacrificing birds in front of a local synagogue.The Roman garrison did not intervene there and thus the long-standing Hellenistic and Jewish religious tensions took a downward spiral. In reaction, one of the Jewish Temple clerks Eliezar ben Hanania ceased prayers and sacrifices for the Roman Emperor at the Temple. Protests over taxation joined the list of grievances and random attacks on Roman citizens and perceived ‘traitors’ occurred in Jerusalem. The Jewish Temple was then breached by Roman troops at the order of Roman governor Gessius Florus, having seventeen talents removed from the treasury of the Temple, claiming the money was for the Emperor. In response to this action, the city fell into unrest and some of the Jewish population began to openly mock Florus by passing a basket around to collect money as if Florus was poor.Florus reacted to the unrest by sending soldiers into Jerusalem the next day to raid the city and arrest a number of the city leaders, who were later whipped and crucified, despite many of them being Roman citizens.
The Jewish Virtual Library adds that this was after Rome took it upon themselves to appoint the High Priest, after Caligula demanded his statue be set up in the Temple, after Roman soldiers exposed themselves in the Temple and burned a Torah scroll.
>The Jewish religious leadership went looking for trouble.
How dare they refuse to bring an idolatrous statue into their Temple, or object to Romans exposing their genitals there or robbing the Temple, or burning their Torah? The rage of the Romans was no different than that of the Seleucids or that of Martin Luther-who do they think they are, the Jews?
>The Romans could not possibly desecrate the Torah. It is a book.
Jim, I know you’re not an idiot, so why do you say idiotic things? The Torah is a scroll, not a book. What reaction do you think burning it was supposed to elicit?
>Medicine and military are constrained by external reality,
For the military-you’d be surprised. I recommend the Good Soldier Svejk. For medicine-puerpural fever killed many, many women while the medical profession came up with crazier and crazier theories and mocked the one guy who got it right. For many decades, everyone knew that stress gave you ulcers and bacteria had nothing to do with anything. And I suspect today’s psychiatric medication will be looked upon in the future in the same way that we see lobotomies and electoshock treatment today.
>for which other top experts are merely an inadequate substitute. Official truth is apt to be alarmingly unconstrained by reality
Your official truth is the provenance of the officials. But we are all commanded to study the Torah and the Talmud, which are available to all. There is no “don’t argue with me, I’m a doctor” in Judaism.
Pointius Pilate agreed to leave the temple alone in return for tranquility, got no tranquility.
Romans started to repress Judaism because Judaism kept rebelling against Romans, not the other way around.
So someone was practicing their religion, the dominant religion of their society and their city, too close to Jews practicing their religion.
This sounds rather like Jews starting a civil war over people in Chicago decorating their house with Santa and reindeer, a civil war that they could not possibly win. If Jews are living outside Israel, they should expect that they can practice Judaism their side of the property line, and the other guy can practice his religion the other side of the property line.
>Pointius Pilate agreed to leave the temple alone in return for tranquility, got no tranquility.
Pilate first provoked the Jews by putting graven images in the Temple. The Jews did not revolt. Here is Josephus, whom you like to quote:
2. Now Pilate, who was sent as procurator into Judea by Tiberius, sent by night those images of Caesar that are called ensigns into Jerusalem. This excited a very among great tumult among the Jews when it was day; for those that were near them were astonished at the sight of them, as indications that their laws were trodden under foot; for those laws do not permit any sort of image to be brought into the city. Nay, besides the indignation which the citizens had themselves at this procedure, a vast number of people came running out of the country. These came zealously to Pilate to Cesarea, and besought him to carry those ensigns out of Jerusalem, and to preserve them their ancient laws inviolable; but upon Pilate’s denial of their request, they fell (9) down prostrate upon the ground, and continued immovable in that posture for five days and as many nights.
3. On the next day Pilate sat upon his tribunal, in the open market-place, and called to him the multitude, as desirous to give them an answer; and then gave a signal to the soldiers, that they should all by agreement at once encompass the Jews with their weapons; so the band of soldiers stood round about the Jews in three ranks. The Jews were under the utmost consternation at that unexpected sight. Pilate also said to them that they should be cut in pieces, unless they would admit of Caesar’s images, and gave intimation to the soldiers to draw their naked swords. Hereupon the Jews, as it were at one signal, fell down in vast numbers together, and exposed their necks bare, and cried out that they were sooner ready to be slain, than that their law should be transgressed. Hereupon Pilate was greatly surprised at their prodigious superstition, and gave order that the ensigns should be presently carried out of Jerusalem.
4. After this he raised another disturbance, by expending that sacred treasure which is called Corban (10) upon aqueducts, whereby he brought water from the distance of four hundred furlongs. At this the multitude had indignation; and when Pilate was come to Jerusalem, they came about his tribunal, and made a clamor at it. Now when he was apprized aforehand of this disturbance, he mixed his own soldiers in their armor with the multitude, and ordered them to conceal themselves under the habits of private men, and not indeed to use their swords, but with their staves to beat those that made the clamor. He then gave the signal from his tribunal [to do as he had bidden them]. Now the Jews were so sadly beaten, that many of them perished by the stripes they received, and many of them perished as trodden to death by themselves; by which means the multitude was astonished at the calamity of those that were slain, and held their peace.
So, the Jews did not revolt but protested peacefully. Pilate removed the banners, then went and robbed the Temple and built the aquaduct with the proceeds. What an asshole! But the Jews did not revolt then, nor when Caligula ordered the desecration of the Temple. So your version of events, which is that the rabbis multiplied stringencies and irrationalities until they provoked the Romans, is untrue. The Romans continually provoked the Jews, until the Jews had no choice but to revolt, though the revolt was nearly hopeless.
>Romans started to repress Judaism because Judaism kept rebelling against Romans, not the other way around.
Poland provoked Germany throughout the 30s and finally attacked it. Good thing the Germans were able to defend themselves! Damn Poles, you can’t reason with them.
Fortunately, no one is proposing radical traditionalism.
That comes later, The implosion of the rational/capitalist order now mutated into the Cathedral is too new and there is too much attraction to Christian Universalism as a means of keeping the established system, which has benefits I might add, alive.
Once the current systems contradictions and idiocies weaken it enough I expect to see radical traditionalism get stronger
The Mormons have already figured all this out, guys. You’re a little late to the party.
Mormons have peaked, and are being assimilated as we speak. In 10 years they’ll have gaymarriage and mexican bishops.
You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t believe you, spandrell. Where are your sources?
Spandrell has a time machine.
Mormon’s are already rationalizing gay marriage, signalling to the Cathedral they will surrender, and begging to be given more time for capitulation.
Sources please jim, forgive me if I think I know more about Mormon’s than you and spandrell.
I hadn’t heard that they were rationalizing gay marriage. Source?
…
At each confrontation the Mormon church moves a tiny bit closer to gay marriage, no fault divorce, and female priests.
From the first article:
“For the second time in two years, a top official of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has explicitly stated the church’s opposition to gay marriage.”
From the second article:
“Women went one-by-one to the door of the Tabernacle and asked to be allowed in to the priesthood meeting, reprising a demonstration they did at the general conference last October. They were told no, as expected.”
I’ll need more evidence than that Jim.
http://gaymormon.net/637/mormons-launch-new-website-to-support-gay-mormons
In other words, the Mormon church now endorses the official Cathedral theology that homosexuality is not a choice.
For some male homosexuals, quite a lot of male homosexuals, obviously is a choice, hence prison homosexuality and Afghan homosexuality.
For all female homosexuals, is a choice. By and large women who identify as lesbian screw more men than women who identify as heterosexual do. Lesbianism is just a shit test.
Given that the rules of the priesthood were changed in the last “civil rights battle”, I don’t think we need much evidence that Mormons are giving in on gays and women. The shift in rhetoric is sufficient.
From the same article:
“The site emphasizes that the information does not represent a change in official doctrine, only a clarifying of doctrine and of the appropriate approach to the challenges faced by Mormons in this situations. The goal is to provide a form of support not available in most arenas—support for people who choose not to live a homosexual lifestyle regardless of temptations and tendencies.”
“Mormon’s are already rationalizing gay marriage, signalling to the Cathedral they will surrender, and begging to be given more time for capitulation.”
This is where the good hammerite creates the artificial womb, rendering women and relationships technologically obsolete for the continuance of society. Of course it will be disguised with the skin of “gender equity” to avoid being thrown to the PC version of exile and the lion’s den.
Artificial wombs are as far off as immortality and AI. There is a lot of biological interaction between the mother and baby.
You are hoping for the world imagined in “Armitage”, where they make hot gynoids that are capable of getting pregnant and raising children, without any of the irritating willfulness of biological women. Sounds about right, in that AI and artificial wombs seem, at our present technological level, to be both very distant.
The idea of the buried gold plates on which Joe Smith the First declared that he found the first book, was borrowed from Lucian, whose false Prophet of Galatia pretended to have dug up plates near Byzantium on which were written the revelations of Apollo. How Joe Smith knew anything about Lucian is another mystery, but the whole thing is an extraordinary paradox. Not spiritualism, not table-rapping or planchette-writing, exceed Mormonism in apparent absurdity. Yet hundreds of thousands of men and women believe in it as a new communication sent from heaven, and — as is far more strange — in worldly wisdom, in practical understanding, in industry, patience, and all the minor virtues which command success in life, neither America nor our own colonies can produce superiors to them. The plain of the Salt Lake, when Brigham Young halted his caravans there after the pilgrimage through the desert, was bare as the shores of the Dead Sea. From the Snow Mountains and from the Sweet Lake of Utah they brought fertilising streams of fresh water and poured it over the soil. They fenced and drained, they ploughed and sowed, they built and planted; and now literally the wilderness is made to blossom like the rose. Our train ran on among orchards of peach and almond, pink with the early blossoms. The fields, far as one could see, were cleanly and completely cultivated, and green with the promise of abundant harvests. Cattle, sheep, and horses were grazing in hundreds. The houses were neat and well-constructed,
each with a well-kept garden round it. Place and people formed a perfect model of a thriving industrial settlement, and all this had grown in a single generation from what, to human intelligence, is the wildest absurdity, initiated by deliberate fraud. One can only conclude that man is himself a very absurd creature.
I did not care to observe Mormonism any closer. We remained half an hour at the city station. We saw at a distance the famous tabernacle, like a huge turtle-shell, ‘with the finest organ in the world.’ We went on leaving the New Jerusalem behind us, but not the proselytes of the faith. For hundreds of miles we saw the fruits of the newest ‘religion’ in the plantations, in the careful husbandry, in the wholesome and substantial aspect of the farms and dwelling-houses. At Utah, where we dined, I supposed myself to have fallen into actual contact with the peculiar institution itself. The room prepared for us was neat and nice, and the food admirable. Behind a desk sat the master of the establishment, a middle-aged man in spectacles, with serious aspect. We were waited upon by two innocent-looking, extremely pretty girls. I concluded that here was an elder in person, and that these were two of his wives, and I looked at him with repressed indignation. It was an illustration of how unjust we may be with the best intentions. I learnt, on inquiry, that the poor man was a Gentile of exceptionally high character, and that the two young ladies were his daughters.
James Froude, “Oceana”.
Mormonism was not implausible when it was written. Even Thomas Jefferson believed that the lost Tribes of Israel lived in North America. And he was the epitome of Enlightenment rationalism.
And you can find similarities between all sorts of religious figures. Golden plates is not a large one.
You misunderstand me. I am a proponent of Momonism. Jim’s last paragraph is answered by Mormonism.
Note that our most successful healthy and prosocial religion was cooked up by a cynical scammer in a blatant fraud.
I think your premise may be false here, Jim.
“Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.
Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.”
Matthew 7:16-20
Heh . My Mama always told me “God works in mysterious ways”
See the entirely accurate South Park episode on mormonism. Mormonism was implausible when written, since the founder was unable to rewrite the material supposedly seen on the brass plates.
That episode was full of falsities. An example:
“All you’ve got are a bunch of stories about some asswipe who read plates nobody ever saw out of a hat, and then couldn’t do it again when the translations were hidden!”
http://www.spscriptorium.com/Season7/E712script.htm
This is directly contradicted by the testimony of the Three Witnesses and the Eight Witnesses.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Witnesses
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_Witnesses
If you can’t even be bothered to do the most basic research on a topic, don’t bother to pontificate.
You are acting like a progressive. Do your research.
Awaiting moderation.
jim, I have a comment still in moderation, it is in response to your false claim about the South Park episode being “entirely accurate”.
Does not matter how many people saw the angel and heard the voice of God. Fact is, the prophet could not do it again when the translations were hidden.
That is a red-herring. I took issue with your statement that the South Park episode was “entirely accurate”. Why should I take you seriously on the topic of Mormonism when your only source seems to be a cartoon?
This is very disappointing, jim. Mormonism is the only alternative to progressivism, yet you, as a purportedly serious thinker, dismiss it out of hand because of a cartoon.
It is clear you haven’t even done the most basic research into the topic, yet you trumpet your opinions as if they have some weight. It’s like being on salon or the Huffington Post.
>Mormonism is the only alternative to progressivism
We are not short of religions, and Mormonism does not appear to be the religion most resistant to progressivism.
I didn’t say that we are short of religions, Adolf, or that Mormonism is the religion most resistant to progressivism.
>Mormonism is the only alternative to progressivism
Adolph make a rather important point about LDS and progressivism I think. A great many of my chums are Mormons, regular church attendees, missionary trained and well read
and aye yi yi are they caught up in Liberal doctrines. In not that many years , a few decades unless one of their prophets does something about it or the culture shifts harder Right expect them to degenerate as well.
You (and South Park) have a weird way of testing a religion’s credibility. In the OT, a prophet is judged by whether he can perform miracles, and whether his prophecies prove true. In ancient Greece, a religion was judged by whether it’s description of the world aligns with reality.
South Park wants to test for the existence of Golden Plates. If some Golden Plates with paleo-Hebrew script were found in upstate New York, would Stone and Parker convert to Mormonism? Unlikely. They’d dismiss them as fakes, or find some reasonable (non-Mormon) explanation for them. The existence of Golden Plates does not make or break Mormonism.
The founder stated he was commanded by God not to go back and re-write scripture, as it is written “thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God”. One detail South Park did get wrong was that 12+ individuals were privileged to see the plates, and of the three who were shown them by an Angel, none recounted their testimony even though they all later left the church, and on their deathbeds testified of the divinity of what they’d participated in.
And even then Jim, you yourself have written that you wouldn’t mind a state religion requiring you to believe absurdities — as long as those absurdities didn’t contract reality.
As Jesus said, it all comes down to fruits, that’s how you distinguish between a false prophet and a true one, and even those right-wingers most hostile to Mormonism admit it has good fruits.
I think one who studies early Christianity and sees the evolution in doctrine and has also studied Mormonism would see plenty of evidence to suggest it was indeed a restoration of the primitive Church. Hugh Nibley wrote a pretty good book on it. Creatio Ex Nihilo was something rejected by the earliest Fathers (And Joseph Smith seemed to just glean it from learning a little Hebrew) that didn’t become a Church teaching until the end of the 2nd century, multiple Gods acting for one God rather than three persons in one substance (variants of subordination and adoptionism), an absence of transubstantiation, etc.
Not to mention the amazing internal consistency yet complexity of the Book of Mormon’s narrative, a text dictated in two months from a man with his face in a hat, the Hebraisms later discovered in the text and even-more-so in the original manuscript, the most recent DNA evidence suggesting 1/3 of the Native American genome came from the Near East, the many ancient parallels to Smith’s Book of Moses; and while on the surface the Book of Abraham appears to be a fraud – the existence of another Egyptian papyri depicting a similar scene and obscure story (Abraham being sacrificed) and labeling it as such to the one Smith claimed was depicted in his copy of the Book of the Dead raises question.
Forgive my rambling and run-on sentences, but as a true believer and apologetic who was raised Mormon but fell away for a time, I’d love to answer any questions about Mormonism in-depth. The mainstream LDS Church pays lip service to political correctness, but the religion itself is still very much alive and producing good results even though the church has problems.
*as long as those absurdities didn’t *contradict* reality.
The primary difficulty with Mormonism is that it thinks the New Testament contains errors. One can easily object to Mormonism on the basis of NT doctrine, but if we cannot accept the word of the NT itself…
And while Mormonism has some points that could plausibly be a restoration of 150 AD Christianity, it has ten times as many points that are inconsistent with 150 AD Christianity. Doctrinally, all non-Gnostic sects of Christianity agree on a lot of things (i.e. Trinity, ancestral/original sin), and Mormonism is really inconsistent with that line of thought.
As a side note, how do Mormons rationalize the whole “no black priests” change in teaching?
I wouldn’t say that Mormons think the NT contains many errors, just things were removed from it. The earliest gospel fragments we have date to ~130 AD, decades after the Apostles died.
Some of Smith’s corrections to the King James Version of the NT seem to have historic evidence to back them up (eg: he removed “without a cause” as a justification for anger from the Sermon on the Mount, changed “touch me not” to “hold me not” when the resurrected Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene, changed “to God and his Father” to “to God, his father” in Revelation 1, all of which is supported by the earliest Greek).
The biggest changes to the NT were Joseph Smith clarify Paul, specifically what he wrote regarding faith’s relation to grace (Peter himself warned that what Paul wrote could be grossly misinterpreted in 2 Peter 3:15-16), and stated that the context of 1 Corinthians 7 was that it was written in response to a question about missionary work, that it is only missionaries that should abstain from marriage, but should get married if it is necessary to avoid sin.
Blacks and the priesthood is a messy thing in Mormon history, the exact origin of the ban isn’t known, whether it was Brigham Young or Joseph Smith. Brigham Young once said that all the other children of Adam would be given an opportunity to receive the priesthood before the Seed of Cain, and he didn’t expect a change to happen until after the millennial resurrection.
Here’s how the LDS Church officially explains it: https://www.lds.org/topics/race-and-the-priesthood
My opinion: In the Old Testament period, priesthood was for hundreds of years restricted to specific lineages, and in the New Testament the gospel was restricted from the gentiles during Jesus’s life. Both those things clearly changed, and the Lord makes restrictions and changes for whatever reason, when he sees fit.
Ultimately, the Church said that the change to allow black priests occurred after the prophet spent months praying about it, gathered the Quorum of the Twelve to make the decision official, and they all had an extremely spiritual experience in the temple confirming it was the right decision. I think this section of a Wikipedia article is actually better than the LDS.org one I previously linked: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spencer_W._Kimball#1978_revelation_on_priesthood
I see obvious symptoms that a similar extremely spiritual experience is coming on gays, female priests, etc.
And you think it’s a coincidence that this “revelation” occurred in the civil rights era?
Do you think it was a coincidence that the Apostles not only received revelation to preach the gospel to the gentiles, but then also subsequently received revelation ending their practice the Law of Moses. after the Jews rejected Christ and had him killed?
The timing of the revelation on blacks doesn’t bother me because past prophets said the time would come when the ban would be lifted, that was the time when race was a big issue, and the prophet was extremely focused on it and seeking an answer about it. Most revelations in Mormon history have been given in response to questions.
And now they are questioning sex and sexual preference. Revelation is on its way.
I think gay marriage and female ordination are totally different ballparks, much more doctrinal problems would be associated with those changes. But we’ll see.
>after the Jews rejected Christ and had him killed?
No, I think it’s because the church was just starting, and examining issues like Gentile converts for the first time. Can’t really say the same about Mormonism and blacks.
Also, the Jews killed a lot of prophets. Religious change was bound to happen around the murder/rejection of one.
I’m not sure you’ll see. If they accept female priests and gay marriage, Mormons will accept them in a way that limits the offense to the conservative Mormon community.
For example, Pope Francis promoted gay civil unions, while officially opposing gay marriage. And the modern Roman Catholic church has placed women in places of authority, and let them teach, while technically retaining the title of “priest” for men. The only things women can’t do is bless the Eucharist, and be a Bishop.
Which prophets did Jews kill? Aside from Ahav, who was certainly not acting out of consideration for Judaism.
Jews who killed prophets usually didn’t do it out of piety.
>Urijah
>John the Baptist
>Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest
To name a few
And I recall a (perhaps not Talmud-approved, I am not sure) Jewish Tradition that Isaiah was sawed in half.
>Urijah
Not a prophet.
>John the Baptist
Not a prophet according to Jews, Also, put to death by Herod whose mother was a Samaritan, thus not Jewish.
>Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest
True. And Joash was killed for this.
>And I recall a (perhaps not Talmud-approved, I am not sure) Jewish Tradition that Isaiah was sawed in half.
This was under Menashe, who sacrificed his own son to idols and murdered prophets. He would have been Judah’s equivalent to Ahav, except that he later repented. Still, if you consider the prophetic era as starting with Avraham and ending with the building of the Second Temple, it went on for something like 1500 years, and the killing of a prophet was a highly unusual event.
>the killing of a prophet was a highly unusual event
I don’t think it’s worth arguing over this, but
>Urijah
Jeremiah 26:20 There was another man who prophesied in the name of the Lord, Uriah the son of Shemaiah from (A)Kiriath-jearim. He prophesied against this city and against this land in words like those of Jeremiah. 21 And when (B)King Jehoiakim, with all his warriors and all the officials, heard his words, the king sought to put him to death.
You are right-not Uriah the Hittite. But again, these were exceptional moments of national tragedy over 1500 years.
“Spandrell, if the early Christians were leftists, then they would have fomented revolution against Caesar instead of shunning the world as a whole for being a corrupt influence. Their political ideology was quietism (look up political quietism) not leftism.”
What history books are you reading? The early Christians did foment revolutions against Caesar (they lead a number of revolts which had to be put down – Eusebius admits this). They were not quietists; they eventually seized power thanks to Constantine and immediately set about wiping out “heretical” Christians, Gnostics, pagans and others. If the Christian sect that seized power and declared itself “Orthodox” had actually shunned the world as a whole for being a corrupt influence, we would have never heard of them.
This exchange has been revealing. It is hard to take you seriously, jim.
“It would be better if we could revive Christianity – that being the religion of our ancestors, but that looks difficult, and every day looks harder.”
Is this sentiment genuine? I doubt it, from what I’ve seen today.
Is it hard to consider Mormonism a genuine option as a religion? Apparently so. All one needs to do is watch cartoons and repeat what you heard with an official air. No need to do actual research. That would be taking the problem seriously.
And don’t you know Mormonism is surrendering to the Cathedral! Some homosexualists said so! Really…
And this was good too:
jim says:
December 28, 2014 at 5:07 am
B, you are not making any sense.
LOL! This coming from the man who posted this nonsense to my questions.
George says:
December 28, 2014 at 3:26 am
Jim, I don’t understand your comment.
The issue is simple. There are two premises;
Materialism is true.
Materialism is not true.
Tell me how you would determine which premise is true?
jim says:
December 28, 2014 at 4:21 am
Pretty much the same way I know we are not regularly visited by flying saucers. The oversupply of weak evidence for flying saucers makes the undersupply of strong evidence for flying saucers somewhat odd. The inability of anyone else to read the golden tablets, and the prophet’s inability to read the same thing twice from the golden tablets is a case in point.
George says:
December 28, 2014 at 4:26 am
There you go again, jim. Are you deliberately being obscure to muddy the waters? Why do you make your comments so difficult to follow?
Are you saying you believe materialism is true because it is true? I cannot parse it any other way.
jim says:
December 28, 2014 at 5:04 am
If materialism was not true, there would be things around like some brass plates in hebrew.
How do those responses bear any relation to what I asked. Looks like the classic Leftist tactic of the retreat to rhetoric.
It is good to know where you stand, though, jim. You are not really serious.
You seem to be asking for some philosophical justification of materialism. Any philosophy that purports to provide answers on such an issue is nonsense produced by clever sillies. I provided an empirical justification of materialism.
Thank you for a coherent response, jim.
But, irrational, because you would also provide an empirical justification for empiricism.
As Ayn Rand said …
What did Ayn Rand say?
“it’s turtles all the way down!”, said the clever silly.
Then he ordered another $5 latte, paid for by the government, which took the money from someone with a real job creating actual value.
That he would, as would I. Empiricism seems to work, therefore it probably works. The problem of induction is that we have no basis on which to challenge our inbuilt assumptions, like that things that seems to work actually work.
This is an interesting discusion, I have a few questions to pose. Why not look to something like Confucianism as a model? My understanding is that at the level of the commoner it has aspects of ancestral worship, and at the level of the mandarin it places strong emphasis on keeping the kingdom well ordered. If the mandarins fail in their duty then the mandate of heaven is lost and the kingdom will fall into chaos. I guess in this way it is a bureaucratic religion as apposed to a warrior one like the christianity of the song of roland or asatru. I bring it up because I am reading Kissinger’s book on china, I am sure there are readers with more familiarity. But maybe confucianism with christian characteristics is something to consider (or is it possible that progressivism itself is this, where the mandarin pushes for more egalitarianism least the state fall into a period of discrimination; this may seem absurd to us, but it could be a model of what progs are actually thinking).
Something else to look at might be freemasonry. Although this would be more for structure and not so much ideology. At some point we need to carve out a space in the physical world, something that can be a vehicle for the things that we would like religion to provide. Our own schools, a social / business network, and a physical center to the community. Outwardly this vehicle should be non-idealogical, and having a multi-layer system of initiation can keep entryists out. Something that is flexible enough to allow for different reactionaries to work together under; then hopefully over time the exact philosophical / religious content would evolve organically.
Maybe in practice this would turn out to work too much like orthodox judaism, and maybe this would end up being a feature instead of a bug. The united states is heading to something on a line spanned by brazil and venezuela, and it may be too late to change this. Whites will need to organize themselves into a defensible position until the usa balkanizes totally.
I expect prolonged war, similar to the dark age that followed the fall of the Roman empire in the west, so a belief system that supports the martial virtues and allows ruthless measures against outsiders might well be wise. Transition to a strong centralized cohesive bureaucratic state, after the fashion of China, might well require something like Confucianism. But my guess is that putting together a post progressive state is going to be difficult.
[…] Jim: […]
I don’t understand B’s angle on this.
Is he arguing that we should all just die? Or is he arguing that we should all convert to Judaism?
That’s a skin I could totally get behind wearing, but it’s hard to imagine that Judaism would remain unchanged after numberless hordes of goyim with very different heritable behavioral traits joined up.
If B is arguing that we should convert to judaism he’s basically arguing in favor of his own cuckolding.
If B is arguing that we should all just die, we should probably stop listening to him.
I think he is pretending to argue in favor of one thing, but really arguing in favor of another.
Judaism is not a proselytizing faith. We are commanded to love the convert, and every non-Jew has the right to convert, but we are not to go and seek him out and convince him to convert.
I am not worried about dilution of our precious bodily fluids (I live in a community which is equally made up of Yemenite, Sepharadi and Ashkenazi Jews, and like it very much,) but doubt that the vast majority of non-Jews, by dint of their innate traits, would make good Jews or would go through the protracted conversion process.
But we are commanded to improve the world by helping non-Jews serve G-d in a proper way, which for them is the 7 Noahide Commandments.
It’s obvious to the typical reader/commenter of this blog that there is something very wrong with the religious precepts of their society (Euro-American, we’ll say,) and that this wrongness is interfering with basic functioning on all levels, from the most personal like reproduction and sexual behavior, to family formation, to crime, to government, to national economy. This is because of wrong beliefs leading to wrong thought leading to wrong actions leading to wronger beliefs, so that there is a downwards spiral. Disharmony leads to more disharmony, until catastrophe occurs.
Having identified the problem correctly, they are completely helpless to propose a workable, effective, implementable solution, throwing out bad sci-fi novel precepts (“what if they’re, like…neo…Confucian…Vikings, man? And chicks can’t say no! They’ve gotta, like, give it up!”) Meanwhile, catastrophe is getting closer. I personally like Americans as a whole, like many other nations as a whole, and do not want to see them undergo a catastrophe. Even the nations I dislike, I would prefer to see improve themselves than crash and burn.
Well, a simple, workable solution is to acknowledge G-d as the cause of all things and of order in the universe, in society and within man, then identify the minimum key commandments that must be kept in order for a harmonious coexistence of men with each other, with their families, with themselves. Once these commandments are identified, everything else is completely up to the individual nations.
Forgive me for not addressing your suspicions that I want you all to die and am using secret Joo-magic to convince you to kill yourselves.
B, your big problem is that you’ve rejected Christ. The people of the West’s problem isn’t to worry about their survival, it’s to worry about their own salvation. Everything falls into place after that.
What does salvation do about out earthly problems?
Christianity is a pacification procedure used to get violent uncivilized pagans to stop fighting. Given a population of over-civilized whites cowering and being destroyed instead of fighting for their own existence, christianity is poison.
I’m afraid you misunderstand Christianity, Nyan Sandwich. It is the true religion of man. It cannot be replaced. Without it, man has no purpose. And that is what we see in the West.
If a people has no purpose, why would they resist their own destruction? They are entirely superfluous.
In the past lots of people who were not Christians resisted their own destruction fiercely, and the ones today who are doing the best job of it are Muslims, not Christians.
And, as B will probably point out, Jews are coming in at number two, well ahead of Christians.
What does that have to do with anything I said?
@Simon
We remain unconvinced that your principles are more important than the survival of our race. We remain unconvinced that your principles hold any water at all.
@jim
I apologise, I see why you replied how you did. I will reply soon.
I suppose I didn’t answer your point either. I also remain unconvinced that your religion can provide the impetus to defend ourselves.
I agree with your analysis except that Christianity as it is now isn’t going to do it. Too soft. Too pwned.
Your big problem is that you first let some guy tell you that G-d doesn’t mean what he says and then let someone else tell you that guy was a god. Straight line from there to a homo pope kissing African refugee toes and lesbian reverends with tats and nose piercings. The shortcuts end up taking you straight to hell.
Talmudists are in no position to complain about other people saying that God does not mean what he says.
The only reason you have a translation of the written Torah is because we told you what the words mean in the plain sense. If we are trustworthy in translating the plain sense, we are trustworthy in explaining its implementation.
It is one thing to say, for instance, that “eye for an eye” means that the offender pays the victim the established price of an eye. It is a completely different thing to say that the victim is obliged to turn the other cheek so the offender can poke his other eye out.
It is one thing to say that the prohibition on cooking a goat in its mother’s milk, repeated three times, means that this is something very important and is more extensive than just the literal prohibition. It is a completely different thing to say that there is no prohibition, that G-d was joshing, it’s what comes out of a man’s mouth that is important rather than what goes in, have a bacon cheeseburger, G-d doesn’t mind.
It’s one thing to say that G-d established the Torah for our own good and wants us to keep all of its commandments and explicitly tells us that this is doable, that it’s not across the seas or in the heavens. It’s completely different to say that the vast majority of those commandments are a joke, that it’s impossible to keep them, and we don’t need to anyway since some guy got executed by the Romans in a painful way, so that makes us all exempt from most commandments, and the ones that are still binding are up for reinterpretation at will.
The Jewish approach is to take a physics textbook and build a house with an electrical and plumbing system, with many features that are not strictly essential from first principles, but good engineering and UI/UX decisions. The Christian approach is to throw half the physics textbook out, build a house with no ground or fuses, and run around sticking fingers in light sockets.
Yet when God says that rebellion against your parents is potentially punishable by death, you guys figure he was just kidding.
The reason you take the sillier and more obsolete commandments to ever sillier extremes, is because you blow off the more serious and still relevant commandments.
It’s not QUITE that bad. Jesus’s primary issue with the Jewish leadership seems to have been that they had lost sight of the purpose of the book of rules and thus had been spiritually corrupted. Its a different flavor of the dumbass we see with liberalism, forgetting that the rules were made for a reason by people who were not stupid. The Pharisees worshipped the rules rather than the One who made them, while the liberals just toss out whatever rules they please without fully understanding why and how they are important.
The situation is a lot like running a nuclear reactor. Lots of systems and procedures and principles need to be strictly adhered to. People who are sloppy about implementing them are a huge danger. However, supervisors who impose the rules on reactor employees because they enjoy having power over others or because they are addicted to routine, structure, and sameness are also a threat. They inspire rebellion (which is unhelpful) and will attempt to apply the rules outside the scope they were designed for. The master nuclear engineer never loses sight of the fact that the purpose of the rules is to KEEP THE PLANT FROM BLOWING UP and will act accordingly.
1. Our reactor is still running. The Christian reactor has had several extremely bloody meltdowns over the years, arguably starting with the collapse of the Western Roman Empire due to Prudentius-type progressivism, then the Albigensian Crusade where the Cathars took Christianity’s Gnostic element seriously and had to be mass murdered, then Jan Hus and the Protestant Reformation, and now the latest unpleasantness, where Christianity-G-d=modern civilization. Evidently, the rules that got thrown out were somehow important.
2. The cheapest way to gain power is to criticize the authorities from the left. “The rent is too damn high!” “The rules are too damn strict!”
3. We can judge whether the rabbis abused their position by a few stories in the Talmud. Those of them who did not have an inheritance worked a trade, for instance, candle making. Rabbi Akiva was a woodcutter. Rabbi Yehoshua, when he was visited by Rabban Gamliel, the Exilarch (hereditary prince of the Jews) who remarked on the soot-blackened walls of his house, said “woe to the leader of a generation who is not aware of how his sages suffer for how they make a living, and how they earn their keep.” And if you reply that they benefitted from their learning through pride and not money, Rabbi Akiva also said “he who esteems himself highly on account of his knowledge is like a corpse lying on the wayside: the traveler turns his head away in disgust, and walks quickly by.” The vast majority of Jews, who were in a position to judge whether the Christian accusations against their rabbis were accurate, apparently didn’t see merit in them, which is why Jesus’ followers had to go sell to the Greeks and other gentiles and cut them hefty discounts.
4. The one thing you couldn’t say about the rabbis of the first century CE was that they were spoiled by complacency and routine.
The talmud is official history as written by the rabbis.
We can judge whether the rabbis abused their position by inquiring whether they got holier and holier and more and more repressive, which they did, eventually leading to suicidal holy war against the Romans and their neighbors.
Rabbis are subject to the same incentives as anyone in that position, and will behave like anyone else in that position. A theocracy with open entry into the priesthood will go pharisaical. That is not specific to Judaism. That is universal. You need an archibishop, a grand inquisitor, and a warrior ruling class to keep them in line. Either that or abolish theocracy, as the progressives believe they have done, but we saw how that turned out. Or you can bribe the indolence of the clergy by making holiness hereditary private property, as with the Japanese and icelandic priesthood, shutting down outsiders from entering the priesthood, which may well be less oppressive.
Spoiling the priesthood with complacency and routine is a good way to keep them from making trouble. Also known as “Bribing the indolence of the clergy”
>The talmud is official history as written by the rabbis.
It’s interesting why they included all the embarrassing parts about themselves, all their internal disagreements, their mistakes and so on.
Your critique is fundamentally no different from the typical prog critique of, say, Froude. Well, OF COURSE he thinks colonialism is good-HE’S A WHITE EUROPEAN RACIST MALE! Of course the rabbis would say that-their narrative must be self-serving! The idea that honesty and forthrightness are themselves precious to a certain class of people, and they are willing to forego self-promotion for them is alien to you.
>We can judge whether the rabbis abused their position by inquiring whether they got holier and holier and more and more repressive, which they did, eventually leading to suicidal holy war against the Romans and their neighbors.
The holy war was caused by the Romans and their Greek clients committing various outrages against the Torah and the Temple, in exactly the same way the Hasmonean Revolt was caused by the Seleucids. The amazing thing is that Rabbinical Judaism survived the crushing of the revolt and exile, several times, and thrived.
>Rabbis are subject to the same incentives as anyone in that position, and will behave like anyone else in that position.
If you assume that the content of a religion and philosophy has no effect on its adherents’ behavior, sure. But in this case, your analysis is no different than that of any postmodernist/Marxist, who deny human agency and see human behavior as dictated by economic factors or striving for power. And this explains why you are advocating for an obviously bullshit religion-you think that religious structure is more important than content. In fact, it’s the opposite-stupid, unwashed, tribal Arabs, armed with monotheism, without any well-developed social structure, came out of the desert and wrecked the Byzantine and Persian empires, which had elaborate and well-engineered structure and weak content.
>A theocracy with open entry into the priesthood will go pharisaical. That is not specific to Judaism. That is universal.
We are an exception to the rules of history. Our enemies will be the first to tell you. I won’t quote Hitler, but let’s have some Martin Luther:
“But what will happen even if we do burn down the Jews’ synagogues and forbid them publicly to praise God, to pray, to teach, to utter God’s name? They will still keep doing it in secret. If we know that they are doing this in secret, it is the same as if they were doing it publicly. for our knowledge of their secret doings and our toleration of them implies that they are not secret after all and thus our conscience is encumbered with it before God.”
Anyone else would respond to incentives, but not the damn Jews, says Martin. They are infuriatingly different.
>You need an archibishop, a grand inquisitor, and a warrior ruling class to keep them in line.
That worked well for the Catholics, didn’t it?
We are not an Indoeuropean society, with a clerical, merchant, warrior and peasant class. Every man among us is obliged to learn Torah all his life, every day, in the morning and in the evening. Every man is obliged to go out to war when necessary. There is no line between a merchant, artisan or farmer. We do not need an archbishop, and we do not need any inquisitors. Rabbi Hillel said, when he had forgotten a law that if the Jewish people are not prophets, we are the children of prophets, and we will figure it out.
Issue 1: Yes, Team Orthodox Judaism does have some quality design features. But I’m with Jim on being suspicious of its long term stability. Let’s all hope I’m wrong and Team Judaism can hold the line and do well!
Note that Team Judaism has had some pretty spectacular meltdowns as well. When your tribal HQ is taken out and the majority of your tribe gets wasted, something has gone off the rails. Both the Romans and the Germans did a real number on Team Judaism. “It may not be your fault, but it is your problem.” I suspect Jesus saw the mess with the Romans coming. “Give unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s” may have been Jesus’s way of saying “You idiots who want to rebel against the Romans right now are going to get us all killed stupidly.”
Issue 2 is very important. The real problems come when the rules really DO need to be relaxed in order to avoid worse trouble — the potential for long-term systemic corruption entering at this point is very high.
As for the rabbis’ corruption around the time of Jesus, my suspicion is that those that suffered from the problems Jesus was talking about got killed in the following chaos and that those rabbis that survived solved the core problem independently. For example, B, you clearly understand that the rules were created by God to help people, and it is not simply a matter of “Obey our rules because God (we) says so and His (our) word is law.”
Moses receiving the Commandments is analogous to the reactor operator getting the instruction manual. “Holy shit, some fucking DOCUMENTATION! Now we have some hope of straightening things out.” This analogy puts typical rebellion against the rules in a new light. No sane technicians resent good documentation.
Note that Jim’s criticism of Jewish rules is different from the normal rebel. His is more akin to “we pulled this lever, but the gauges aren’t responding like the manual said. Also, the core temperature is still rising. We need to start pulling off panels and looking around in the guts of this thing and wise up real fast.”
>But I’m with Jim on being suspicious of its long term stability.
It’s been a few millennia, under all kinds of conditions.
>Let’s all hope I’m wrong and Team Judaism can hold the line and do well!
Thanks.
>Note that Team Judaism has had some pretty spectacular meltdowns as well. When your tribal HQ is taken out and the majority of your tribe gets wasted, something has gone off the rails.
That’s not a meltdown. That’s a tragedy. A meteor strike can happen, too.
> Both the Romans and the Germans did a real number on Team Judaism.
Temporarily. But it’s not really analogous to the Albigensian Heresy or the Protestant Reformation. If the Sepharadim took up arms against the Ashkenazim, or if there was a civil war between Hasidim and Litvaks, then you’d be right.
>“Give unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s†may have been Jesus’s way of saying “You idiots who want to rebel against the Romans right now are going to get us all killed stupidly.â€
Eh, well, if so, it didn’t work very well. The Christians pissed the Romans off no less than the Jews.
>The real problems come when the rules really DO need to be relaxed in order to avoid worse trouble
Who decides? Anyone who feels like it, or can demagogue up enough supporters?
>the potential for long-term systemic corruption entering at this point is very high.
I don’t know what this means. Was Rabbi Akiva taking kickbacks when he lightened certain commandments’ performance?
>As for the rabbis’ corruption around the time of Jesus, my suspicion is that those that suffered from the problems Jesus was talking about got killed in the following chaos and that those rabbis that survived solved the core problem independently.
I doubt it. We can see who the rabbis were in Jesus’ time, and we can see who their followers were. Jesus’ arguments were typical demagoguery.
>For example, B, you clearly understand that the rules were created by God to help people, and it is not simply a matter of “Obey our rules because God (we) says so and His (our) word is law.â€
It is fundamentally a matter of doing G-d’s will because it is His will, and everything else comes after. Anyway, every Jew has the obligation to learn Torah all his days, according to the same rabbis, and so the implication that they would keep people ignorant so they could just make stuff up and cackle demonically is unfounded.
>Moses receiving the Commandments is analogous to the reactor operator getting the instruction manual.
Moshe receiving the Commandments is like the reactor engineer going through first year physics at university. They then spent 40 years learning the practical applications in the desert. And the Torah refers to this. For instance, G-d tells Moshe, slaughter animals like I told you. And nowhere in the Torah do we see any further details. So, is G-d joking? Is he pulling our leg? Judaism says, no, he gave Moshe the extended explanation, which Moshe then passed to Yehoshua Ben Nun, the 70 elders and the rest of Israel. Logically, it doesn’t take even 40 days to read the entire first five books of the Torah. We go through the whole thing during the course of a year, about 20 minutes per portion read every Saturday, with handovers and blessings included.
>Note that Jim’s criticism of Jewish rules is different from the normal rebel. His is more akin to “we pulled this lever, but the gauges aren’t responding like the manual said. Also, the core temperature is still rising. We need to start pulling off panels and looking around in the guts of this thing and wise up real fast.â€
What gauges are not responding? Someone who reacted to perceived reactor malfunctions by chucking big blocks of poorly understood machinery out the back door would not be a very good reactor operator.
R: The real problems come when the rules really DO need to be relaxed in order to avoid worse trouble
B: Who decides? Anyone who feels like it, or can demagogue up enough supporters?
Yes, this is the problem isn’t it? Any system that wants to remain stable has to have a solution to this particular problem that doesn’t compromise the integrity of the architecture. The person applying the patches to the code need to understand and respect the overall purpose and design of the system or there will be big trouble. Only someone who really is “Right with God”(TM) will be able to distinguish corruption from necessary modification.
It’s a subset of the Expert Problem. If I could choose the correct expert to learn the rules from this would imply that I already had the expertise needed to judge the experts. Given the large number of potential rule-makers and rule fixers to choose from the chances of me not screwing up badly are quite low.
Consider the ongoing dispute between you and Jim: you say “We Joos got this, it’s all gonna be good” and Jim says “Y’all are boned just like everyone else.” How are individuals to decide who is right?
The Sufis claim that there would be no way out of the Expert Problem when it comes to spirituality were it not for one critical advantage: we all have a fragment of divinity within us that *knows* what is right. (I suspect Simon is closest to understanding this of those here.)
>The person applying the patches to the code need to understand and respect the overall purpose and design of the system or there will be big trouble. Only someone who really is “Right with Godâ€(TM) will be able to distinguish corruption from necessary modification.
Not only that, but they need to understand all the minor details and how they interact. Overall purpose is not enough. And one person is not enough. An organic hierarchy of expert courts led by a Sanhedrin is required, and it’s acknowledged in the Talmud that even the Sanhedrin can err as a body and make a mistake, and are liable for a sin offering.
>If I could choose the correct expert to learn the rules from this would imply that I already had the expertise needed to judge the experts.
Hillel says that if we Jews are not prophets, we are the sons of prophets.
>Given the large number of potential rule-makers and rule fixers to choose from the chances of me not screwing up badly are quite low.
Not really. When we read the Talmud, we see that the Sages are arguing about the details but agree on the large points. Likewise, when you need a plumber or a doctor. Your plumber may disagree with others on whether nylon tape or pipe dope is better for a particular joint, and that’s fine. If he starts trying to seal pipes with toilet paper gaskets, you need a new plumber. Ditto, your doctor can think that for someone who is a product of 10KY of agriculture, eating grain and legumes is fine or recommend paleo, but if he tries to cure your hypertension by sprinkling chicken blood on you, well…in Judaism, you have the absolute right to ask for an explanation of your rabbi’s ruling (you have the obligation to ask if you don’t understand it,) and you can always consult another rabbi.
>you say “We Joos got this, it’s all gonna be good†and Jim says “Y’all are boned just like everyone else.†How are individuals to decide who is right?
They can use their brains or consult someone whose brain they trust. What else is there? How do you know whether paleo is good or a crock of shit? How do you know whether to buy a diesel car or a gasoline one or a hybrid?
>we all have a fragment of divinity within us that *knows* what is right.
This is a very dangerous thing to rely on, because it can easily lead to idolatry (self-deception and self-worship.)
R: Note that Team Judaism has had some pretty spectacular meltdowns as well. When your tribal HQ is taken out and the majority of your tribe gets wasted, something has gone off the rails.
B: That’s not a meltdown. That’s a tragedy. A meteor strike can happen, too.
The Holocaust was not a meteor strike. A reasonably educated person, much less a Prophet, could see it or something similarly bad coming. Hitler wrote a book describing his overall plan, and it clearly wasn’t going to be good for the Jews.
It was the responsibility of the rabbis to either stop this or get everybody out of the blast radius. Where was the International Zionist Conspiracy? Oh, wait, there was no International Zionist Conspiracy. WHY THE HELL NOT? When your enemies who control the organs of propaganda claim that there is an International Zionist Conspiracy, you guys better damn well create one, since you’ll be blamed for it anyway, and then USE it to get everyone to safety.
The next time something like this goes down, if it looks like Israel is going to get overrun, you Jews get the hell out of there, ya hear me? Come to Texas to regroup: we’ve got plenty of arable land and we appreciate good bagels. (There’s a certain Israeli scientist we know who I’ve reserved couch-crashing privileges for if it comes to this.) We need you guys and gals ALIVE to hold your flank in the spiritual battle, so no more of this Masada nonsense, ok?
>The Holocaust was not a meteor strike. A reasonably educated person, much less a Prophet, could see it or something similarly bad coming. Hitler wrote a book describing his overall plan, and it clearly wasn’t going to be good for the Jews.
We haven’t had prophets in a very long time. And there was no clear way out. The Americans and Brits didn’t want Jews. The only realistic option most European Jews had was to flee to the USSR and get sent to Siberian internment like Begin. I personally think that going to Israel would have worked, G-d would have opened the way, but rational analysis at the time would say that Israel was controlled by Brits who didn’t want any more Jews than they already had and that the Germans would probably overrun it anyway. People remembered the cultured German troops of WW1 and hoped for the best.
>It was the responsibility of the rabbis to either stop this or get everybody out of the blast radius.
The only major rabbi who saw Israel as something other than the pet project of a bunch of godless socialists was Rav Kook. The others didn’t see it. Like I said, a tragedy.
>The next time something like this goes down, if it looks like Israel is going to get overrun, you Jews get the hell out of there, ya hear me? Come to Texas to regroup: we’ve got plenty of arable land and we appreciate good bagels.
Thanks for the offer. It’s generous. But we didn’t come here to run away, and I don’t believe G-d brought us back after 2000 years to wipe us out. If I thought like that, I wouldn’t be here.
B: I don’t believe G-d brought us back after 2000 years to wipe us out. If I thought like that, I wouldn’t be here.
I hope you’re right — keep those breeder reactors burning!
This reminds me of something I read long ago, about certain Christian supporters of Israel in the US who are most definitely NOT your friends:
http://www.preteristarchive.com/dEmEnTiA/2000_north_reason-support-israel.html
Executive summary: these Christians need an intact Israel controlled by Jews so that 2/3 of them can be exterminated as part of the lead-in to the Rapture. Some really sick stuff — watch your back!
Yes, this is true. However, you also have problem, one which is common to most Christians: you underestimate your ability to live up to Jesus’s standards. You worship Jesus, so he will always be above you. This was not Master Jesus’s intention, and will limit your effectiveness.
Master Jesus was a true genius. He was also Divine. Go back and read his stuff again — he knew exactly what he was doing.
– Do Not Deny God
– Do Not Blaspheme God
– Do Not Murder
– Do Not Engage in Incestuous, Adulterous or Homosexual Relationships.
– Do Not Steal
– Do Not Eat of a Live Animal
– Establish Courts/Legal System to Ensure Law Obedience
Some reasonable stuff there, but a pretty sketchy framework really.
It seems to me that a demographically significant segment of the American population has been pretty good about doing this stuff, but that it has NOT been sufficient to stop the left from achieving power over them and scheduling them for destruction.
The sketchy framework has an extensive SOP, just like the 613 commandments of the Torah for Jews have the extensive SOP of the Oral Torah. For instance, what is a just court? How should it run? What punishments can it deliver, and what are its limits? The answers are extensive and not arbitrary. You can see a very cursory treatment here: https://books.google.co.il/books?id=fgv_Gt8ygz8C&pg=PA102&lpg=PA102&dq=noahide+court+requirements&source=bl&ots=6R_PyyoErc&sig=IotbNzsiBhuCc3dqSiLCBZuBzYk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=v86hVOazN4rwUubRg6gL&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=noahide%20court%20requirements&f=false
It’s similar to how the Constitution is a sketchy framework, but your local PD has an SOP taking up a large 3 ring binder or several. Principles need to be elaborated and then the elaborations need to be applied to the typical real life situations you might deal with. The Constitution doesn’t tell the local deputy sheriff how to deal with a domestic dispute in a meth lab that caught fire, and it would be idiotic to assume he should just figure out how to apply it on the spot.
Accepting the Noahide Commandments doesn’t mean doing them because they’re nice, because it’s traditional, or because eating flesh taken from a live animal or gay sex are gross, which is how most Americans “keep” them. This is not accepting them. Accepting them involves accepting that G-d is supreme, that his Torah is true, and that this is what he demands from non-Jews, non-negotiably. To leftists, this sort of thing is like garlic to a vampire, because the essence of leftism is rebellion against G-d and any restriction of the self’s desires, and worship of the self.
I have read the extensive SOP. Unimpressed. Seems like the work of a religion of exile that cannot help being subversive of its host society even when it has the best intentions. Pauline rules are much better.
Yes, a framework which says nothing about economics or courts, and which sets celibacy as te ideal for family life is much healthier and less subversive. Good luck, let me know how it works out for you. Unless you go with the Thor-Confucianism or whatever it is this week.
Let’s back up a bit.
This is fundamentally a cultural engineering discussion. We want to construct / repair / extend one or more cultures in order to achieve specific objectives. As with any engineering project, we need to settle on the design goals FIRST, before we worry about whether specific implementations (or parts of them) are suitable for a specific context.
Agreeing on the goals is made harder by the theists / non-theists divide. The theists are all about doing God’s will, while the non-theists appear to be trying to optimize for some other definition of civilizational survival or progress. To move forward, we need an operational definition of God that everyone can bite down on.
I like Moldbug’s statement on this: “When we say “God,” we know what we mean – it is a shorthand for the superhuman and perfect, for infinite wisdom and intelligence, just as the character of Hamlet is a shorthand for a mercurial and hesitating character.” Even the hardest atheists can now participate: God is just the mathematical limit as dumbass approaches zero. Even if the limit does not EXIST, we by definition would be stupid not to get closer to it.
So with that established, what high-level design goals would God want us to have for cultural engineering?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iax0g1zbbA
It was fun watching Jim argue with le happy merchant about inheritance law. Of course the merchant knows inheritance law better than the aryan. At the same time, the aryan was pointing out that the woman’s consent was not required for a marriage, unlike today, in contrast to le happy merchant’s claim that marriage has not changed.
The merchant and the aryan care about different things.
Le happy merchant offers the Noahide Laws to the goyim. He says that these laws are the minimum requirements good goyim must uphold in order to stay healthy. Silly goyim should want to follow concrete laws instead of St. Paul’s rulings that are so easy to misinterpret and ignore or make up Thor-Confucianism. This is a static vision of humanity, in which le happy merchant rules over the masses of sub-human garbage and humanity exists only to serve the merchant. It’s what Fnargl imposes. Moldbug is a Jew. As is Marx, who could only see commerce in terms of buying and selling statically, and couldn’t see the connection between entrepreneurialism and other people’s money.
I guess if we want to defend Thor-Confucianism against Judaism or Christianity, it’s like how we must defend the aryan race against Judaism or anti-racism. We need to look outside, to Gnon, outer god of Chaos, instead of the friendly God of Cosmos. Because our friendly God is actually G-d and wants the Jews to rule over us as evidenced by him giving the Jews control of our media and governments and tearing down our confused version of Judaism while getting us to call it Judeo-Christianity.
By looking to Gnon, we discover that we must gas the kikes race war now. In the past, we have always ended up fighting each other, but now we know that we are aryans, even the dagos, and we are destined to rule because we have souls. Having souls, and wondering of others have souls, is how the Jews managed to confuse us during the 20th century into trying to be one human race. But it turns out that we are the one human race. We know this because niggers make french fries with transformer oil because they biologically don’t care about whether they can stay alive to support their offspring, kikes biologically only ever care about what is good for the Jews and money, and riceniggers like to live in foetid hives like a writhing mass of ants.
Thor-confucianism isn’t a religion in the Western sense of something we truly believe, it’s just stories we tell ourselves, like the Greek myths. The only thing we truly believe in is mathematics, game theory, evolution, and biology, which we developed because we have souls. We hope that we can continue to adapt our thoughts according to our understanding of the world, not getting stuck in a rut like we have been for the past hundred years, and thus continue to exist under Gnon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVCFP8_Hthw
I mean, of course I have to encrust anything I say about Jews with anti-semitism so you know which side I’m on, just like liberals and respectable conservatives infuse their statements about race with anti-racism.
This is a joke, right? “Thor-Confucianism”? The “Imperial We”? (When nobody seems to agree with you on this site, let alone anywhere else.) Could you be any more puerile?
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FWIW I collected my thoughts into this article, which you may care to read: https://aramaxima.wordpress.com/2015/01/02/quit-playing-prophet/
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Your link, along with the whole of moreright.net, is “excluded from the Wayback Machine”. I have never encountered this when accessing any other site via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, and I accessed an image of moreright.net a few months ago using the Wayback Machine.
Is this a good time to get paranoid about Internet Archive taking down crusty pdfs of Old Books of particular importance?
YESSS!!!
And translate them into Volapük…