Wednesday 27th of November 2024
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socrates was betrayed...

religion and the bourgeois...

Religion is a cancer on the reality of being human... There I've said it. Here I shall used simplified philosophical ways to understand the "human condition" as proposed by Socrates versus the sophists, which include the religious mobs. Even if Socrates is a bit passé, and considering that the Socrates debate alone is not enough to understand the greater picture, Socrates at least felt the need for more equality amongst humans.


Yet, the sophists of today (especially the religious sophists) are still trying hard to shut the debate down — and like in the "classical" Greek times, they try to impose an exclusivity for the elite, for those who can pay for education and luxury goods. Socrates did not like the exclusion of others — especially those who could not pay to be educated. 

Like many people of today's who object to the ruling mob idiotic despotic ways, Socrates was charged on a technicality.


Though Socrates is sometimes credited as the inspiration of Western Civilisation, most of the rulers and their mainstream concepts of such, did not follow his insight. They distorted Socrates ideals by deceitfully making people believe in a debate, while discreetly imposing their will though sophism, godly psychopathy and religious dictums — including the Nicene creed. Here's the debate: we decide, you follow...


Presently the Christians and the Christian politicians are in turmoil... They are facing some challenges, from science (and are fighting like hell against it) — and their own comfort which is derived mostly from rabid capitalism is under threat. Even our Turdy, like a fake cardinal, bestow his godly benediction upon his most atrocious political development in this country — The Border Force...:


Our Turdy is toying with you... he actually said: May God bless you, may God bless your work, may God bless the country you are helping to protect and prosper. — Sky News, 1st July, 2015)

Rubbish words of the most deceitful kind. Should god exist, she would be appalled that this Turdy is organising nazi-style camps, the dangerous consequences of which cannot be reported by doctors, nurses or carers under threat of prison... This is secret sadism of the worse kind to protect highly objectionable policies. So Turdy wipes his bloody hands and delegates the deed to an army bloke and a bunch of soldiers, dressed with new uniforms akin to Hitler's SS — soldiers who are sworn to "defend the country", but DEFINITELY NOT to suit such awful circumstances of torture conditions... But Turdy is clever, swearing in the name of god in his dangerous sophistry, as to give himself a godly right to rule abominably... Belief in god, or the public display of such adoration becomes the rubber stamp of the "raison d'être" a ruthless bastard. A Turdy. 


So we, Christians, are deceived... I am an atheist and I see through this painful sting...


The Muslims are so deceived too, but they don't know it as yet. Unless they're guessing but don't want to acknowledge their turmoil for fear of loosing their flimsy religious identity, which is only maintained through massive brainwashing — an identity still preserved in the formaldehyde of Islam's warring birth, about 13 century ago. For the Christians this painful birth was 2000 years ago, though since then, they have had to rewrite and add decrees to their creed — in order to adapt to social changes and to the scientific evolution, in order to control the illusion. But it's wearing thin. Very thin.


The Muslims are now fighting each other for no other reason that one does not know — possibly for territorial advantage of one prophet against another — in the same manner that the Christians fought each others to defend various illusions of beliefs, in the middle ages until the "enlightenment"... And we, devious Christians, are presently encouraging one faction against another to serve our sneaky ways — our sadistic capitalism for we see profit in the discord. And we hate secular governments. And we use fear of the worst as a tool to flagellate ourselves into submission to draconian laws.


Religious ignorance of reality is masterful, powerful, but it is stuck in the arcane past, like a calcified dusty arrested voodoo imagination. A groundhog day or week or years, or centuries, without the benefit, nor the desire to understand the atoms of the universe — as Pluto, a useless (and unknown) planet in the scheme of religion, is being investigated by a mechanical probe that travelled billions of kilometres. 


So the juncture creating the turmoil amongst the Christians of conservative Americans is a strong subconscious realisation, a realisation that they have been dreading as a reckoning — because they do not want to wake up from the long comfortable ritualised dream. The Churches of Christendom are now led by a new progressive pope who is cleverly telling them that they got it wrong with their petits bourgeois' ways. 


For too long, basically, Christians have been sleeping comfortably with the ruthless kings, the crackpots and the neo-fascists for economic profit and they have thought this was god's mysterious way towards salvation. It is not.


As well, for years, the Churches had never been able to accept other humans such as the homosexuals and the transsexuals. For years, the churches actually demonised them and persecuted them. The churches contributed to the political system in the condemnation, victimisation and eradication programs. It is only in the recent years and possibly only since the early 1970s in Sydney, Australia, with the first major public protest by gays, that a painful understanding of the rights of the different began in the English hegemony. 


But resistance to accepting equality is still strong, often adding that marriage equality would lead to a sinful polyamory, which was perfectly accepted in the bible — through their own ancient kings David, Moses, and many other rulers' bigamy and whoring with concubines... I am not advocating polyamory per se here. It tends to encourage inequality and mismanage favours... Including repression of women, which the mono-married Christian men still practice anyway.


But the most difficult acceptance of the new pope for many religious conservative is that he is asking them to abandon their stilted harsh greedy economic views... Money has for too long ruled their brains and their charity has only been an excuse to manage the poor as a feel good foil to amassing their own fortunes. And now the blooming Pope is asking them to take care of the planet by abandoning their profitable fossil fuel burning.


These conservative Christians do not know yet that the pope is chasing them, these "petits bourgeois" —  the middle men in a corrupt system of ruthless greed. The Pope is chasing them from the temple of god like the merchants were chased by Jesus. And they resent it. They even claim the pope is wrong... But they would have to know in their hearts that he is not. They are fighting visions in their own mind that the pope is a broad church socialist and they hate socialism... They have hated socialism since they were born and baptised in ultra-capitalist environments, and now they are trying to raise the drawbridge, leaving the peasants on the other side of the moat...


This is where the Benedict Option is coming in... making excuses for their failure to understand god's message, which is their message cultivated since the council of Nicene, but which is not mine. 


Mine is that we need to become humans. 


The life of Saint Boniface is a fine example of such disdain for humanity's ways. By me, spirituality is okay, individually, though I would be the least spiritual dude on the planet, but when mixed with politics religion becomes a powder keg the fuse of which can be set off by any psychopathic morons and ignoramus in search of power anytime anywhere. Those were the kings and despots. And Turdy.


Religion is the diesel fuel to the fertiliser of politics. "Gier", greed is the fuse...


Saint Boniface is that English man who went to Germania in the eight century to convert the pagans to the new religion of Christianity. Of course always following in the footsteps of "missionaries", are the political thieves, the swindlers of lands, the destroyers of social constructs. And should religious people be unable to recognise this, either they are blind, naive and above all part of the swindle, like the Cortez and his war machine in the Americas... They are puppet front troops to the clever ruling psychopaths who send them with zeal in their trousers. 


Now in order to convert people, Boniface had to destroy their idols... One of the many things sacred to the tribes of Germania were some trees... especially a very old oak tree which Boniface was praised by Christians for axing it down himself. The Christians are still trying hard to destroy the forests that are valued by conservationists. Christian conservatives hate conservationists...


Totally nonsensical considering that the veneration of the cross is idolising two bits of timber... But following Boniface's footsteps, other Christian dudes in Scandinavia decided to cut fir trees that were venerated in season by other tribes... 


Now the relationship of religion with cancer is that fir trees — those venerated trees by "pagans", but hated by the Christian — provide some of the strongest poisons we use nowadays in chemotherapy against cancer... 


Gus Leonisky

You local atheist tree expert...

 

nothing to complain about...

 

Here is some of the sophist articles that prompted my rant above:

 

 

This is one of the most tiresome progressive lines of attack: Until and unless they start cutting your heads off, you American Christians have nothing to worry or to complain about.

Well, guess what? ISIS is throwing gays off the tops of buildings. By that standard, no American homosexual has a right to complain about anything, ever. It’s a ridiculous standard.

I do agree with Lupfer on this point, and appreciate his speaking out:

I have urged toleration for people who continue to believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. Yet, as if on cue, we have seen calls in recent days to legalize polygamy, end tax-exempt status for churches and rewrite a major federal religious freedom law.

It is harmful to religion and to democracy when one group’s members are ready to turn their backs on civil society and another group is ready to push them.

If Jacob Lupfer (and my friend Damon Linker) were managing this, I wouldn’t worry. They’re not. They’re going to be steamrollered. When even Andrew Sullivan can’t speak on some college campuses because he defends Brendan Eich, you know we are in a strange new land.

Read more: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/144089/

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Note: On March 24, 2014, Brendan Eich was promoted to CEO of Mozilla Corporation.] His appointment sparked controversy over a $1,000 political donation Eich had made in 2008 to the successful campaign for California Proposition 8, which sought to establish that, "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." This was criticized by gay rights activists on Twitter. In the ensuing public debate, OKCupid and two gay application developers called for a boycott of the company.

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Note: Sophism is a method of teaching. In ancient Greece, sophists were a category of teachers who specialized in using the techniques of philosophy and rhetoric for the purpose of teaching arete — excellence, or virtue — predominantly to young statesmen and nobility. The practice of charging money for education and providing wisdom only to those who could pay led to the condemnations made by Socrates, through Plato in his dialogues, as well as Xenophon's Memorabilia. Through works such as these, Sophists were portrayed as "specious" or "deceptive", hence the modern meaning of the term.

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Pettiscules? : ... A new word meaning "petty minuscule brains full of their own narrow-minded self-importance"

the cost of marriage is higher for women...

 

The cost of applying for a divorce has dramatically increased after the government rushed through a regulation in defiance of the Senate.

On the last day of parliamentary sittings before the six-week recess, the Senate shot down a regulation that would have restructured fees for the family court and federal circuit court.

Those changes were due for 1 July, and would have given the government a $87.4m windfall had it not been disallowed by the Senate.

On Sunday, the government reintroduced similar regulations that would take effect the next day. As of Monday, the cost of applying for a divorce went up from $845 to $1,200. Concession card holders will continue to pay a reduced rate of $280.

The cost of issuing a subpoena has gone up from $55 to $125, and amending an application, which was previously free, will now cost $125. Opponents of the price rise have dubbed it a “divorce tax”.

http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/jul/14/coalition-defies-senate-to-increase-cost-of-applying-for-a-divorce

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Here we see not just a way to make more cash, but a way to prolong marriage, even in the most appalling condition — especially for women. The minority religious right of Australia is enforcing its will upon all the good people of this country. The religious right abhors equality of marriage (women have to be subservient) and hates divorce... The little Santamarian Shit is ruling like a demented priest... 

 

And by the way, you would be a silly windmill in a mineshaft should you believe that THIS INCREASE IN THE COST OF DIVORCE had not been pre-massaged, posted and aligned with the religiosity of the Liberal (CONservative) party — as mentioned by Mr Perrottet, minister for religious edifices in New South wales:

 

now the petits bourgeois rule the roost... and when divorce was illegal...

 

Of course, the way Turdy operates, one could smell some changes afoot on the divorce front...

 

 

the empire hates secular independence...

 

Or is the explanation more diffuse: that America somehow needs Russia as an enemy for its own sense of self? This is along the lines of what Georgi Arbatov, a Kremlin intellectual of the late 1980’s, had predicted. “We are going to deprive you of an enemy,” Arbatov said while Gorbachev was dismantling the Warsaw Pact, and you won’t know what to do. John Updike’s Rabbit Angstrom, the protagonist of three of his novels thought along similar lines: “Without the Cold War, what’s the point of being an American?”

In a 1997 Foreign Affairs essay which bears rereading today, Samuel Huntington mused on the possibility that American would need an external enemy to mitigate its internal fissures. I’ve speculated before that increased diversity and multiculturalism at home would lead to a less militarized foreign policy, and still believe that’s the case. (There is no evidence that Mexican or Chinese immigrants, to take the most important of the new groups, have aggressive foreign policy agendas.) But Huntington weighs in on the opposite side: to smooth over or submerge domestic ethnic divisions, America may go out of its way to seek external enemies.

It’s an historical argument, but also speculative and psychological: no one in Washington would ever say, or even think, “Our national identity is in flux, so we need an external enemy to keep it together.” But it’s a sentiment Rabbit Angstrom’s creator would have understood. In rational foreign policy terms, it’s obvious that a conflict with Russia on Russia’s border, with America taking the side of neo-Nazis and Islamists, is the last thing America would seek if its foreign policy were determined by rational criteria. So what does explain it?

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/why-does-washington-drift-towards-war/

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So What does explain it? The answer here is simple: The Empire hates secular independence. It will sleep with crooks of all kinds and colours as long as they are subjects of the Empire. The Empire is about cash and territory, not about ideology, though its own ideology is a conglomeration of various hypocritical Christian ideals glued together with the idolisation of cash and the might of militarization.

We have exposed this position many times on this YD site. 

This was the Roman Empire. It fell when it was unable to control sectarian hordes. The divisive way Washington still controls the present mobs is to keep supporting one mob(s) against another(s), while sleeping with the well-fed despots of Saudi Arabia who pull the strings. This is Empire 101.

And whatever mob (neo-nazis, extremists, loonies, mafiosi) you take from the "opponent" (in this case from Russia) you gain territorial advantage. For this performance, you also need a compliant media that will distort facts and laud your success by twisting the ugly moral values of the mobs as "freedom seekers". Yes these neo-nazis, religious ectremists, loonies and mafiosis are "freedom seekers". These neo-nazis, religious terrorists, dangerous loonies can only do good like angels if they fight against "Putin the Terrible"...

In the mind of the turdish peasants we are, the media massaged message leads us to laud these bandits as seekers of "freedom" —while not realising we have none within our gilded cage... But does it not feel good? We are helping those poor people like we give charity. Freedom-seeking trumps all other values, including being terrorists. Crooks in search of freedom, welcome. But do it in your own territory. Should you try to seek freedom in our own vassal space you will be sent to Nauru and be raped.

Our despicable media is well-oiled to all these notions...

 

the empire is now fighting on the side of the taliban...

KABUL, Afghanistan — The American military has intensified its airstrikes in Afghanistan in recent weeks, expanding them to include a bombing campaign against Islamic State militants who defeated the Taliban in fighting over a sliver of territory in the eastern part of the country.

Throughout June, American drones and warplanes fired against militants in Afghanistan more than twice as much as they had in any previous month this year, according to military statistics.

The increase in the use of American air power comes more than six months after President Obama declared that the American combat mission in Afghanistan had ended. The vast majority of the strikes appear to remain focused on Taliban forces, the traditional targets of American airstrikes here for more than a decade. But several have targeted insurgent commanders who defected from the Taliban to swear allegiance to the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL.

read moe: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/16/world/asia/afghanistan-us-steps-airstrikes-isis.html?_r=0

delusions...

 

Deluded

I have thus written a book about Bonhoeffer's vision of theological education. It attempts to do two things: it tries to examine Bonhoeffer's theology and practice of theological education in their original context; and it endeavours to assert the biblical necessity of personal, incarnational, face-to-face education for the health of pastors and churches. To try to achieve these goals I first sketch briefly how Bonhoeffer became a seminary director and note the settings of Bonhoeffer's seminaries. I then focus on selected writings from 1935-1940 and on his daily and seasonal work as a seminary director. I quote generously from Bonhoeffer's works, both because his prose is often so telling and because I hope my observations about him and his writings are well founded, though not infallible. In each chapter I analyze selected current methods of theological education and suggest alternatives to simply repeating the past or accepting the next wave of education innovations. Finally, I discuss some objections to the incarnational imperative and suggest ways Bonhoeffer's views can be implemented today.

Bonhoeffer has been utilized on a number of subjects to good effect. Clearly, this subject was close to his heart. It makes sense, then, to converse with his views to think about how to provide theological education for church renewal. My own reflection on Bonhoeffer's ideas and commitments have led me to conclude that we must take the narrow way of personal, incarnational theological education. We can do no less if we believe the church is the visible body of Christ that follows Jesus on the narrow path of faithfulness in all seasons of life.

Paul House is Professor of Divinity at Beeson Divinity School. His most recent book is Bonhoeffer's Seminary Vision: A Case for Costly Discipleship and Life Together.

Content adapted from Bonhoeffer's Seminary Vision by Paul R. House, copyright 2015. Used by permission of Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2015/09/10/4310088.htm

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Delusions...

The new progressive Churches try to rewrite their purpose in the face of loosing traction. Some of them draw from more recent mastication of religious beliefs... And how much one can dissect Bonhoeffer's visions without destroying the beauty of his misplaced idealism. Nothing wrong with this, as long one recognise that this is an artful dodger tactic trying to sell you an old set of steak knives, those that have fallen from the back of a truck. 

The same set of knives can be got for free should you subscribe to Notional Nature Bolographic for a year. 

The new buzz words has been "incarnational" for a while — about 24 hours here in this inspection of the invented religious world at large... For an old Christian educated kook like me (now an atheist for more than 65 years), this means zilch. One has to do some research.

If my understanding of all the gobbledegooked incarnational explanations is correct, incarnational-whatever is a twist of faith, in which the gospel is discombobulated to the max to suit the new attitudinal beanie of sweet and nice loving modernity. Gone is hell, gone is the vengeful god. Welcome Jesus and god loves you unconditionally because he created you. Pass the guitar. All the history of the inquisition is forgotten or reinvented as a Sunday picnic. Wars don't exist...

You now bathe in beatitude, sinners or not, but don't take too much for granted. You still have to do some hard yards, like singing "praise the lord" from time to time and try to die in peace, while giving your cash in your will to the alleluia churches... Be happy-happy as you are swimming up to the eyeballs in a vat of "chocklit"-mousse blessed by the lord himself. Your path is narrow and faithful to him (not Her), you give cash to sustain the spruikers and you live longer than any other proton in the universe...

It's all bullshit of course, but pleasant enough to make you believe more than you should, that you have a choice of drug. Should you choose to be indoctrinated to stop yourself worrying about death, enjoy the trick. Nothing wrong with being deluded about whatever. We sometimes need respite from reality, as long as it does not become dangerously fanatical.

What is wrong here is the proselytising about it. the process turns theatrical faith into a saleable commodity like coal or oil, ice or a patch of nicotine to stop you from smoking the devil's cigars... And some government officials are profiting from the deals.

The product though tries to appear more noble than a kilo of carrots, but should one call these Daucus carota sativus, which in some ways is deemed to be the world healthiest food, we plunge into the mystery of the vegetable beyond redemption... Amen.

So, take you incarnational illusions away, eat your greens and be sensible about life. Enjoy it as it is, improve it as you wish, but minimise the delusion and breastfeed as much as you can...