Jobar

Albert:
Suffice it to say, that by championing the Divine Right of kings I am not necessarily championing a monarchy, but (what in your mind is probably even worse!) a theocracy, a form of government in which “because because” is sufficient, where some things are not negotiable.

Albert, I think that championing monarchy would be a far safer opinion to express considering where you are!

And it's been tried often throughout human history. Quite recently, in Afghanistan. What happens if some sect of which you don't approve gets the power? Got your prayer rug ready?

Albert Cipriani

Dear Philosoft,
You say You are being hopelessly relativistic here. Lots of people think the moon walk was staged in Hollywood. Lots of people belong to the “Flat Earth Society.” You and I don’t lose sleep over them. Why should you then concern yourself with the “lots of people” who are their religious equivalent?

You don't. It’s enough that you honestly verify your own feelings and intuitions. That is all you are responsible for, not the insanities of the world.

And it’s really not as difficult as you are making it out to be. For example, you who have such difficulty believing in a single God, ought to have no intuition for a belief in a million gods. Ergo, in one stroke you can eliminate Hinduism and paganism. By such a rational process of elimination based upon honest intuitions and sound metaphysics everyone has an excellent chance of becoming Catholic. – Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

Albert Cipriani

Dear Jobar,
You say of theocracies: Of course, my wish for theocracies is predicated upon open borders.

Yes, and with a greater record of success than democracies (which brought us Hitler) or republics (which brought the French the Great Terror and Europe, Napoleon). Have you forgotten the stability and technological success of the Incas, Aztecs, and Egyptians and the cultural success wrought by the Catholic theocracy of the Italian Renaissance? -- Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic Searching for a Theocracy that Will Have Him

Bill Snedden

From where I sit, both (theocracy/monarchy) are equally immoral and invalid forms of political systems.

You just couldn't keep this above boards, could you? Is it really necessary to poison the well by implying that "abortions, drugs, and decadence" are all things desired by secular humanists? I shouldn't have to remind you that these things are pretty popular here in the good ol' U.S. of A. where we have a pretty substantial CHRISTIAN majority.

I'll restrict my comment to noting that again, from where I sit, monarchical systems are immoral in and of themselves.

You realize, of course, that you're talking about, as a likely end result, a continuous series of civil wars between competing factions? Sort of a "theocratic social darwinism", eh? How ironic...

I'd be only too happy to drop it. I only brought it up because I've only recently attempted to get one of your "fellow travelers" to confess his monarchical leanings (without success, I might add), and it was surprising to see you admit it so freely.

Regardless, no matter how much we disagree, I'd never be inclined to accuse you of sympathizing with the Taliban in the sense that you mean. However, you must admit that you're obviously sympathetic to what they tried to achieve... (Sharia and all that)

I think it's also interesting that, in your last reply to Jobar, the "bad" democracies you listed, were all dictatorial corruptions of once democratic systems (Hitler, Robespierre, Napoleon), rather than true democracies while the "successful" monarchical systems were all from pre-modern times. Where are today's successful monarchies? Saudi Arabia? Kuwait? Morocco? Lesotho? Bhutan? In truth, the most successful societies are democratic ones, and the most successful of these, in terms of the progress of technological and sociological civilization, is the one in which you now live, and unfortunately for your thesis, it is a democratic republic.

Regards,

Bill Snedden

Inconnu

I dont have faith in what I disbelieve, I have faith in my belief that the universe and everything exists regardless of a god, hence, no need to believe in one. I wont point out the difference.

Irishbrutha

I know I'm jumping in kind of late, I just wanted to make two comments. First, hindu's proof only adduced that she, in fact, is within her epistemic rights to not believe in a God. What she has not proven is that there is none.

Second, I'm going to share an example given in one of my philosophy classes by my prof. concerning Existence of God discussions. He quoted a specific seminar he attended and I forgot who the speaker was, but here is the gyst of what he said.

A multitude of individuals throughout history have claimed to experience God (by this I mean the minimal God, all the omni's included). If only one of them is veridical, this God exists. On the other hand, a multitude of individuals, Bertrand Russel, for example, have claimed that they honestly and sincerely pursued an experience of that God and have not achieved such experience. If only one of their claims is true, then God does not exist.

The man (it was either Geissler or Craig, I think) went on to say this; This second claim does not succeed, for the non-experience of such a being by a finite individual in no way entails that being's non-existence. After my professor finishes, a classmate said, well what of other "religious experiences" of "gods" where the person's experiencing it claim their 'gods' made them do evil and hurtful things? To that I responded that the existence of such beings in no way entails the non-existence of the God being. Understand that I am referring to the title of a Being who has particular attributes, not the personal God Jehovah. If Jehovah does not have those characteristics then He would not be God. And these evil beings of course do not fit our description of God, therefore they have nothing to say about God. It is perfectly logical that these beings and God could exist. And any one experience of a Being who had the attributes of the titular God would veridically satisfy a proof of His existence. Now, the problem of course becomes verifying them, and this would be another topic. My point is merely to assert that for experience to be conclusive as a universal negative it must be such that it encompasses all of space and time. If it does not then it should be given no weight whatsoever, even probabilistically, to determine the existence of a being.
-Shaun

Philosoft

This is a red herring. I don't generally concern myself with the random unsupported musings of others. What you need to explain is how any of us can determine which religious-type beliefs are true, given that the processes that go into generating those beliefs are largely internalized.

Your idealism is refreshing, but it's obviously not enough for most people.
I hope this was intentional humor.

Albert Cipriani

Dear Bill,
Au Shucks, can’t a theist have any fun? I don’t deny you guys your stereotypes of us guys being uneducated, inbred, dullards, so let my tag of drugs, sex, and rock and roll stick. Without our stereotypes, neither of us could muster the outrage to reach out to one another.

If you believe that then you should also believe that the 100% vote for Saddam Hussein two months ago truly indicated that he was approved of by 100% of the Iraqis. Come come, you are one of the most sophisticated members on these boards. You’re not THAT naïve.

We’ve been living in a post-Christian era for half a century now. Europe has been post-Christian for a full century. But more importantly, Europe has been post-Catholic since the French Revolution. And that’s the source of its and our moral decline.

Thank you. I respect you, too.

Agreed. But that truism contains a hidden assumption: success is spelled solely in terms of creature comforts. And those technology-driven creature comforts are made before the altar upon which our moral, communal, and psychological integration is being sacrificed. It’s a sacrifice that sensitive thinking people ought not to be willing to make anymore. It’s a sacrifice that could be justified to lift us out of Medieval times into the Renaissance, but not to transition us from LPs to CDs, or VCRs to DVDs.

Anthropologists studying a stone age village asked them if they had a problem with suicide. It took them forever to communicate the concept which there was, of course, no word for in that culture. When finally the question was understood, the village rolled on the ground laughing. It was the funniest thing they’d ever heard. They believed it was a joke disguised as a question. They could not take the anthropologists seriously. That’s how well that "unsuccessful" non-democratic society was morally, communally, and psychologically integrated.

Is there any among us who have not considered suicide? I freely admit that I have. I’ve been told that such Hamlet ruminations are actually a sign of mental health, that it’s those who never consider the option that are most likely to do the deed. What a terrible testimony for the shape of what passes as mental health in our successful democracy. – Suicidally Yours, Albert the Traditional Catholic

keyser_soze

A couple of things....

Please document where you found that people who did not ponder suicide were more likely to commit suicide. As an ex-psychologist/social worker, I would find such a study very interesting. Especially since it flies in the face of not only common sense, but generally accepted anecdotal evidence to the contrary. And probably more than one actual study.

Next, not putting your political views on the seat here at the trial, but WTF? Are you serious? I think numerous flaws with that thought pattern were already voiced, but the biggest is history. We are not villages. We CANNOT be preindustrial villages. We do not wish to give up our progress and our creations to return to a prehistoric style government! Perhaps you want to go back and sacrifice yourself for some sun god on the incan ruins, but I'll keep my TV and mercedes. Your political stance seems quite strange, but also kind of fitting(that's right, I'm setting your view up as the straw man, and at the same time an ad hominem attack on you) since you are also a superstitious person. A bigot one might say.


And someone pointed out, it might have been a quote...something to the effect of "there was once a time when the church ruled unimpaired, where belief in god was dominant...And those times were called the dark ages". To me that is such a fitting statement.

Deke

Albert writes: We’ve been living in a post-Christian era for half a century now. Europe has been post-Christian for a full century. But more importantly, Europe has been post-Catholic since the French Revolution. And that’s the source of its and our moral decline.

The ol’ ‘moral decline’…ya gotta love it. The latter half of the 20th century in America saw a great awakening of civil rights. Blacks, women, and a whole host of other previously oppressed groups had their voices heard, and action ensued. The result is a much more tolerant and diverse culture. It is my experience that the view you have espoused is one held by fundamentalists (usually Caucasian) who equate diversity with immorality.

If you wish to discover a truly ‘immoral’ time in American history, try reading about the treatment of Indians, Blacks, women, and children during the latter half of the 19th century.

MHO,

Deke