lpetrich

dk: Darwin said in Origin of Species, "this is the doctrine of Malthus applied to the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms.". ...

Out of context; here is its context, from the Introduction section of the Origin of Species:Does that look as if Darwin is advocating genocide?

dk

Originally posted by Ion
Well, comparing the UN Code of Human Rights with the Bible, still gives an edge to the UN Code of Human Rights:

1. Ion: the UN Code of Human Rights doesn't have the pretense to be divine, it's only human;
   dk: Laws and statutes aren't human or divine, its human beings that set themselves above the law that pretend to be divine.
2. Ion: the Bible does have the pretense to be divine, even after its defined divinity is disproven by internal inconsistencies within the Bible, and by external inconsistencies between the Bible and the reality;
   dk: Comparing the Bible to a list of statutes like the UN DoHR is a fallacious equivocation.
3. Ion: the UN Code of Human Rights has some flaws in implementations, and has many achievements in implementations like the Conventions of Geneva and Helsinki, like the Nuremberg trial, like the World Court in Haague;
   dk: I agree.
4. Ion: the Bible, based on its external inconsistencies with the reality, did historical harm in holding back and torturing the scientific knowledge during the Inquisition, in spreading out religious blind fanaticism during the Crusades and during missionary preaching in colonial conquests of America and Africa, and is hypocritical right now in sex scandals that went covered up from the law.

dk:

• Historical harm? The Church preserved history otherwise lost to time, and so did all the great religions. That's more than I can say for the UN or the modern secular nation state that spends vast resources re-writing history, shredding records, and publishing propaganda.
• The Crusades were an immune response to a Islamic invasion.
• The Inquisition has been taken out of all historical proportions, the Kings court for example burnt witches, executed & imprisoned dissidents and confiscated more property with greater measures of torture, prejudice and brutality than the church because they had more police, military, judicial resources and secular power.
• Sexual predators within the priesthood and the cover up by Church hierarchy was the scandal of the century, in my opinion. However, it only reflects how sexually perverse the greater society has become. Its interesting that prosecuting attorneys, lawyers, psychologists, doctors, police and judges assigned to protect society also participated in the coverup, but to this day have not been called to account.

dk

I never said Darwin advocated genocide, but that Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, Mao and lesser dictators and megalomaniacs of the bloody 20th Century rationalized genocide on the pretext of Social Darwinism, dialectic materialism, Hegelian dialectic and Nietzsche's superman.

On the other hand the Ten Commandments, Beatitudes, Jewish people’s honor of OT Law and the Greatest Two Commandments have served to preserve public order and build Western Civilization upon the sanctity of the nuclear family, from ruins and barbarians of the Dark Ages. The basis of the UN DoHR was the Nuremberg Trials that in the spirit of the 1st Commandment held all men under the Law, especially national leaders, making the “rule of law” possible on an international basis.

Ion

Then why are you in the thread 'UN Code versus the Bible'?

Me, I am in the thread 'UN Code versus the Bible', in order to compare the UN Code of Human Rights with the Bible.
Whatever the explanations of these abuses against reason, they do point out that the idea of the loving, omniscient and omnipotent divinity is unsupported and is faulty.

In contrast, the UN Code of HUman Rights is humane, including faults, and is trying to build a standard of ethics based on the coherent knowledge of this time.

dk,
I have to tell you:
we are on our own to make our existence and the existence of the people around, just and enjoyable when possible; there is no proven divinity taking care of our biology, so we -humans- have to be responsible; the UN Code of Human Rights is one example of human made resposibility; at a smaller scale, but in the same vein, the rules in the 'Political Discussion Forum' on this web site, are also an example of human made resposability.

lpetrich

dk:
The Church preserved history otherwise lost to time, and so did all the great religions. ...

And sometimes rewrote it. Can anyone say "Donation of Constantine"? This document purported to give the Pope his temporal authority over the Papal States of Italy. However, from internal evidence, it was not composed ~300, but more like 750. To give an analogy, let's say that someone found some supposed Shakespearean play that had the characters referring to a car breaking down on a freeway, "Googling", "bullshit", etc. One knows immediately that Shakespeare could not have written it, because these were technologies and words invented after his time.

That's more than I can say for the UN or the modern secular nation state that spends vast resources re-writing history, shredding records, and publishing propaganda.

How so?

The Crusades were an immune response to a Islamic invasion.

A holy war deserves another holy war? That's not exactly turning the other cheek.

The Inquisition has been taken out of all historical proportions, (the kings...)

However, state and church were closely entangled in those days.

Sexual predators within the priesthood and the cover up by Church hierarchy was the scandal of the century, in my opinion. However, it only reflects how sexually perverse the greater society has become. Its interesting that prosecuting attorneys, lawyers, psychologists, doctors, police and judges assigned to protect society also participated in the coverup, but to this day have not been called to account.

And who might these villains be?

I never said Darwin advocated genocide, but that Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, Mao and lesser dictators and megalomaniacs of the bloody 20th Century rationalized genocide on the pretext of Social Darwinism, dialectic materialism, Hegelian dialectic and Nietzsche's superman.

Except that mass murder has been practiced many times over the centuries, long before when dk's villains were born. Their body counts are not as high simply because there were not as many people to kill.

Sometimes they did not have any religious or ideological motivation, like Genghis Khan, whose armies routinely slaughtered the entire populations of cities, and who wanted the entire population of Manchuria killed so that the area can become pastureland for his subjects' horses.

And sometimes they did, like the mass murders of heretics and infidels in the Crusades. Sometimes friends suffered, as in the case of Constantinople in 1204(?). By comparison, Muslims usually levied the Jizya or "infidel tax" on anyone who refused to believe in Islam.

On the other hand the Ten Commandments, Beatitudes, Jewish people’s honor of OT Law and the Greatest Two Commandments have served to preserve public order and build Western Civilization upon the sanctity of the nuclear family, from ruins and barbarians of the Dark Ages.

Except that the "nuclear family" is not a very high priority in the Bible. Kings often had several wives, Jesus Christ had been single all his life, etc.

Furthermore, why state 10 commandments when there are really only 2 that one must follow? Also, some of Jesus Christ's teachings, like "love your enemies" and "sell everything you have and give the money to the poor" have not been very popular...

dk

Ion: Whatever the explanations of these abuses against reason, they do point out that the idea of the loving, omniscient and omnipotent divinity is unsupported and is faulty.
dk: I respond that a purely rational explanation of reality tortures the mind with insoluble paradoxes and untreatable hypothesis until the mind collapses upon itself in a tailspin of skepticism, cynicism and deprivation. Human nature starves upon bread alone.

Ion: In contrast, the UN Code of Human Rights is humane, including faults, and is trying to build a standard of ethics based on the coherent knowledge of this time.
dk: Saying “human rights are humane” is a failure to elucidate, analogous to “squirrel rights are squirrelly”. An ethical system derived from fallacious nonsense is incoherent.

Ion: dk,
I have to tell you:
we are on our own to make our existence and the existence of the people around, just and enjoyable when possible; there is no proven divinity taking care of our biology, so we -humans- have to be responsible; the UN Code of Human Rights is one example of human made responsibility; at a smaller scale, but in the same vein, the rules in the 'Political Discussion Forum' on this web site, are also an example of human made responsibility
dk: I have to tell you,
there are no guarantees and people have little power over providence, life, or history apart from moral principles and ethical laws. If governments are constituted to secure human rights, then people better damn well know human laws 1) in themselves, 2) of themselves and 3) by themselves -are insufficient as the basis of life, liberty and happiness. The best government can do is preserve human dignity in a world too full of compromise & corruption and with much too little forgiveness and contrition. People participate in destiny by upholding moral law with their best intentions/efforts, and beyond that blame and responsibility have no meaning. The idea, “People through science, law and government acquire the power/knowledge/responsibility for providence is ludicrous, a prescription for disaster. History runs its own course whatever people think, and people participate in providence through moral laws conjoined to material and spiritual consequences. Man does not live by bread alone, so power and knowledge absent faith becomes lame.

Ion

Well if that's how you describe the human nature, then that's how it is, because a divinity's existence is out of question.
That's all the humans got.
There is no divinity to hold the hand of humans.
Again,
this is dealing with human shortcomings.

For a divinity to have an input, the divinity has to exist.
There is no evidence of a divinity's existence.

DMB

Thanks, dk. It makes it a bit easier for me and no doubt for other people reading your posts. I may be wrong, but I get the impression from this thread that a lot of what you are posting is the result of your having developed a fairly complex mental model of the world over time. This model makes perfect sense to you, who understand all the interconnections between the different ideas that go to make up your world picture, but the outside onlooker may see only something rather incoherent. (I say this not to attack you, but in an effort to be helpful.)

When I referred to your “blunderbuss posts”, I meant that you appear to scatter your shot very widely, rather than using the rifle technique of aiming narrowly at one particular but crucial point.

Looking at what you have posted in this thread, I think you actually have material here for starting a whole lot of separate threads. For example:
This seems to me to be entirely germane to this thread and worth pursuing here.

On the other hand, your criticism of intellectual and academic elites seems worth a thread on its own. I think it muddies the waters when you are looking at the human rights question.

Your views on Malthus and population might well go down well in the Political Discussions forum.

Another thread might be on mass murder throughout the ages and whether the 20th Century was in any way unique in this respect.

Again, how about discussing the Ten Commandments as a basis for modern legal systems?

Another political thread about the weaknesses of the UN?

And so on.

I don’t at the moment have anything more to discuss here and I wish you good luck in explaining your views to the Infidels.

dk

I don't think I took Darwin out of context at all. Darwin was not specific about how the "survival of the fittest" played out in human societies, hence left the matter open for interpretation.

Ion

dk,

you are still rambling on issues tangent to the thread.

Like for example, your rambling question of what is the source of the UN Code of Human Rights, brings your reaction "It's circular..." to my answer that humans are the source since a divinity doesn't exist.

The thread is 'UN Code versus the Bible', and in spite of your judgements of 'fallacy' and 'unacceptable', it does compare the morals of the UN Code of Human Rights versus the Bible.

So, when you are in this thread, do it.

Otherwise what's the point of you being in this thread? Any?