Yeah the nature of religion as a social ordering mechanism can't be discounted. And I say that as a hard-line atheist.

I think a good analogy of its mechanism is the Santa Claus myth. It is used by parents to attempt to control the behaviour of children in a good moral direction, before they are able to determine morals by themselves rationally. Religion is basically this concept writ large. It is relatively intelligent men attempting to 'reign in to morals' the activity of the stupid bulk of the population, by providing a false simplistic story which can be understood, and invoke emotion in (such as fear), all individuals in society.

The question is whether or not the population can be made to behave intelligently and pro-socially without this mechanism. I'm of the opinion that it can be (as proven by Japan, Taiwan, and other godless countries). But if it were the case, for whatever reason, that a population cannot avoid Leftism (social degeneration) without the religion mechanism (inter-generational behaviour-modifying lies), then I would have to concede religion is necessary.

It's pretty dangerous, potent stuff though. One Arab named Muhammad (May He Go Fuck Himself) writes his own religion for selfish reasons, and hundreds of years later dudes are still hacking off heads and stoning women to death.

Would rather be part of the "problem" than consumed with "righteous arrogance."

See ya.

on subject of Muslim invasion of Europe.....has anyone here read Geert Wilders' book "Marked for Death- Islam's War against the West and Me" ??

btw...really good video of Pat Condell about Islamization of Europe and persecution of Wilders (it's actually 5 years old, but very relate-able)

(12-20-2015 09:40 AM)Phoenix Wrote:  Yeah the nature of religion as a social ordering mechanism can't be discounted. And I say that as a hard-line atheist.

I think a good analogy of its mechanism is the Santa Claus myth. It is used by parents to attempt to control the behaviour of children in a good moral direction, before they are able to determine morals by themselves rationally. Religion is basically this concept writ large. It is relatively intelligent men attempting to 'reign in to morals' the activity of the stupid bulk of the population, by providing a false simplistic story which can be understood, and invoke emotion in (such as fear), all individuals in society.

The question is whether or not the population can be made to behave intelligently and pro-socially without this mechanism. I'm of the opinion that it can be (as proven by Japan, Taiwan, and other godless countries). But if it were the case, for whatever reason, that a population cannot avoid Leftism (social degeneration) without the religion mechanism (inter-generational behaviour-modifying lies), then I would have to concede religion is necessary.

It's pretty dangerous, potent stuff though. One Arab named Muhammad (May He Go Fuck Himself) writes his own religion for selfish reasons, and hundreds of years later dudes are still hacking off heads and stoning women to death.

I'm no expert on Japan, but isn't it a bad example with its low birth rate and high level of social degeneracy? It seems like a civilization in rapid decline.

I can't speak for Japan but I can tell you Taiwan is not a godless society. It's a secular society but I would say it's secular in the same way the US is secular - there's no state church and the government is not allowed to favor one religion over others but there's a definite religious presence in the country. It's hardly atheist in the same say Sweden is. Taoism and Buddhism as well as folk Chinese religion still hold sway there and I've also noticed a up tick in the presence of evangelical Christianity since the mid 2000s as well. So in a way you can say Taiwan is an even more god filled society then the United States is since in addition to the one supreme God brought over by Christian missionaries you also have the many lower-case gods such as the ones found in Taoism and Chinese folk religion and yes, even Buddhism. Even though Buddhism gets promoted as an atheist religion in the West there's actually a lot of gods and god like figures in it that people pray to and beseech, basically the way religion is practiced by most people in the world.

(12-19-2015 09:26 PM)storm Wrote:  The claim that the decline of religion is related to the so-called cultural decline is - due to the vast changes which independently - at best tenuous.

Samseau, why do you consider this more reasonable than, say, Kaczynski's arguments?

Kaczynski's main focus is modernity.

Samseau is specifically talking about Western Civilization.

Been on a streak of Watching almost all videos of Pat Condell on YouTube about this issue now.

A brave, well-spoken man. Recommended for all

Quote:The question is whether or not the population can be made to behave intelligently and pro-socially without this mechanism. I'm of the opinion that it can be (as proven by Japan, Taiwan, and other godless countries).

Neither of your examples prove what you assert. Both countries would have totally conquered by now without the protection of the Christian USA. Before the USA smashed Japan, they also had a primitive religion of worshipping their Emperor as God.

Quote:Would rather be part of the "problem" than consumed with "righteous arrogance."

Who are the arrogant ones - the ones who believe they know better than thousands of years of tradition or the ones who defend it?

"But you believe in sky wizards and I don't!"

The greatest fallacy of self assured intelligence in the 21 century.

(12-20-2015 05:31 PM)Samseau Wrote:  Neither of your examples prove what you assert. Both countries would have totally conquered by now without the protection of the Christian USA.

As would have the Christian Britain of 1941...without the help of the Christian USA and communist-atheist Soviet Union. Military might alone is a poor measurement of religious veracity.

Quote:Before the USA smashed Japan, they also had a primitive religion of worshipping their Emperor as God.

Shinto is hardly primitive, it's quite a profound and worthy tradition; certainly it's been pleasantly devoid of the habitual sectarianism that's plagued Christianity since before the Council of Nicaea. Moreover, emperor worship was only different in semantics from Christian claims to be God's earthly representative (among other contentions).

(12-20-2015 05:51 PM)Saga Wrote:  

(12-20-2015 05:31 PM)Samseau Wrote:  Neither of your examples prove what you assert. Both countries would have totally conquered by now without the protection of the Christian USA.

As would have the Christian Britain of 1941...without the help of the Christian USA and communist-atheist Soviet Union. Military might alone is a poor measurement of religious veracity.

The Soviet Union was built on a Christian society. Its focused turned to atheism when a fifth column group infiltrated the upper reaches and needed to divide and conquer, just like what is happening to the US right now.

Putin took out the leftovers of the fifth column to keep what was left of his country together. Trump will do the same.

(12-20-2015 06:50 PM)kleyau Wrote:  The Soviet Union was built on a Christian society.

It was as Christian as Jacobin France, which is to say it wasn't in any appreciable sense. Christianity was viciously persecuted and torn down all through the 20's and 30's...churches were ransacked and demolished to symbolize the "triumph" of "proletarian progress". Stalin started to permit some limited outward expressions of Christian faith during the war but to call Soviet society (let alone the state apparatus of which the military was certainly a part) Christian is quite simply incorrect, it was anti-Christian.

However the real point is that the military strength of a society does not alone serve as a benediction for its religious inclinations or disinclinations.

(12-20-2015 07:02 PM)Saga Wrote:  

(12-20-2015 06:50 PM)kleyau Wrote:  The Soviet Union was built on a Christian society.

It was as Christian as Jacobin France, which is to say it wasn't in any appreciable sense. Christianity was viciously persecuted and torn down all through the 20's and 30's...churches were ransacked and demolished to symbolize the "triumph" of "proletarian progress". Stalin started to permit some limited outward expressions of Christian faith during the war but to call Soviet society (let alone the state apparatus of which the military was certainly a part) Christian is quite simply incorrect, it was anti-Christian.

However the real point is that the military strength of a society does not alone serve as a benediction for its religious inclinations or disinclinations.

So Stalin and the Bolsheviks attacked the symbols of Christianity and a two thousand year religion was wiped out in less than a generation, when this religion also formed the basis for everything they took over? That makes no sense. That's like saying the US military is not the most Christian institution in the US simple because Obama has waged a war on Christianity for the last 8 years. It's not as Christian, but you're still going to find a whole lot of public prayer which is not accepted anywhere else.

Christianity was still the basis for the people.

And all strong militaries have a religious basis. The belief in a shared purpose is what drives people to sacrifice for their country men.

(12-20-2015 07:13 PM)kleyau Wrote:  So Stalin and the Bolsheviks attacked the symbols of Christianity and a two thousand year religion was wiped out in less than a generation, when this religion also formed the basis for everything they took over? That makes no sense.

One pattern in history is that it usually takes a long time for things to be built, and a relatively short time for them to fall. It wasn't merely the symbols of Christianity that the Bolsheviks attacked but every possible manifestation of Christianity in the country. Not content with that, they wanted to erase the very idea of God and replace it with the party and state. Christianity persisted as an underground faith and ultimately survived, yes, but to say that that society, at that point, was a Christian one, is inaccurate, and the fact that you point to what Russia had been based on rather than what it had by then become is all the more proof of it.

As for the basis of Russian civilization, practically all of it was overturned and smashed in the years that followed the revolution. Russia in 1940 was an altogether unrecognizable country from the one it was in 1910.

Of course, this makes the recent resurgence of Christianity in Russia all the more important and commendable.

Quote:Christianity was still the basis for the people.

I would ask you to clarify this. Iceland has lost a great deal of is Christian character over the last century, yet this alone does not preclude the continued existence of the Icelandic people. Peoples do not appear with the adoption of a new religion, nor do they disappear with the abandonment of an erstwhile one.

Quote:And all strong militaries have a religious basis. The belief in a shared purpose is what drives people to sacrifice for their country men.

I don't deny that religion fulfills this but shared purpose can be answered in other forms. Ask the Chinese military how much they love religion and you won't get a predominately pious answer.

Quote:As would have the Christian Britain of 1941...without the help of the Christian USA and communist-atheist Soviet Union. Military might alone is a poor measurement of religious veracity.

Military might alone is a poor measurement, but combined with many other measurements it's actually a very strong indicator. Strong militaries are almost always the by-product of a healthy society. When the society's health fails, the military eventually fails as well.

Hence, "the meek shall inherit the earth," because the meek and humble outlast the proud and arrogant, and then become the new owners of the land. Military might in the present is almost always a direct result of hard work and sacrifice in the past. It takes inherent virtue to be the best and strongest.

Quote:Shinto is hardly primitive, it's quite a profound and worthy tradition; certainly it's been pleasantly devoid of the habitual sectarianism that's plagued Christianity since before the Council of Nicaea. Moreover, emperor worship was only different in semantics from Christian claims to be God's earthly representative (among other contentions).

Are you sure about that? How many Civil Wars have the Japanese had over claims of who is the rightful owner? China has had nearly 10, yes?

Also, no Christian soldier ever committed a kamikaze in the name of his King. The Japanese's divine right was clearly qualitatively different than the divine right of European Kings.

In all fairness Sam, the Chivalrous Code does allude to dying rather than retreating

Talk of degeneracy is all relative. Japan is 100x more "civilised" than any western country. Ethically and moralistically there is still a strong social contract that is founded upon principles of Confucianism, Buddhism (though the religion is not so practiced) and human decency. You guys sitting in your armchairs need to buy a ticket and see it for yourself.

(12-21-2015 01:11 AM)dreambig Wrote:  Talk of degeneracy is all relative. Japan is 100x more "civilised" than any western country. You guys sitting in your armchairs need to buy a ticket and see it for yourself.

And would the Japanese be able to afford the same level of living without the world's most powerful and expensive military protecting them?

^^ You don't think Japan could afford to arm itself? They have the ability to build nukes within a couple of months (!) but are not currently allowed to do so thanks to the American written constitution.

Religion is not necessary to galvanize a people and harness its incipient energies to combat threats both within and without.

Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer.

Not saying it's good, just saying it "is." And it's just one example. Nationalism is a force at least as strong as religion and just as emotionally powerful. Which is exactly why it has been under vicious assault in the West, just as religion has been.

Was going to post a new thread, but dunno if it's been touched on before -

Has Merkel and the like naused up Northern and Eastern Europe for guys that have a slightly 'ethnic', southern european, middle eastern look? I have the classic features of the region, dark eyes, olive skin. Could easily pass as Greek, Turkish, Italian, or heaven forbid Syrian...

Undoubtably places like Poland, Czech and the Baltics are experiencing huge rises in anti-immigration sentiment, quite rightly frankly, however this fuels a nationalistic and 'anti-outsider' outlook too. If you're classic white guy northern european, this wont be such an issue, but for others of more southern extraction it could be seriously detrimental...

Any thoughts?

(12-21-2015 03:53 AM)Fast Eddie Wrote:  Religion is not necessary to galvanize a people and harness its incipient energies to combat threats both within and without.

Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer.

Not saying it's good, just saying it "is." And it's just one example. Nationalism is a force at least as strong as religion and just as emotionally powerful. Which is exactly why it has been under vicious assault in the West, just as religion has been.

I believe even the Nazis felt that Nationalism alone wouldn't be enough, hence the great prevalence of ancient Germanic religious imagery/occult symbols used in their architecture, uniforms, rituals etc.

I think the point is not that 'one must believe in God' or 'be a Christian', per se, but rather that one must believe in something transcendent of oneself. Religion provides an existing, distinct means of doing so. So does Leftism - you only have to read the excuses made for genocide made by notable Leftist 'philosophers' such as Satre and Zizek, or their favourable treatment by 'historians' such as Hobsbawm, to see that the Leftest ideology is transcendent of the human condition, and aims at something more abstract. This, really, is the key to their success in my view, and explains why the virulent strain of Leftism has not only survived, but thrived, even in the face of such overwhelming evidence of its ghastliness.

If you look at the Islamists, and their religious zeal, it is their ability to believe in something greater than themselves, and to think in such a manner that is always referential to this greater belief, that has allowed them to be as successful as they have been historically. This is the same thing that is happening in our schools with Leftism. Children are growing up believing in values they perceive as metaphysical, and all their thinking is done with reference to these values. Because 'equality' is an a priori good to them, they are unable to effectively question the validity of that truth.

It is in this that atheism, and right-wing thinking filtered through the prism of atheism, falls down. Since it is fundamentally a non-belief, and specifically recognises no higher goal than than the fallibly human, there is no aspiration beyond the purely selfish. You might very reasonably suggest that the ability to think unencumbered by the weight of doctrine is to enjoy true intellectual freedom, and to an extent this is true. However, I'd offer two criticisms of that viewpoint:

1. You are not really unencumbered by dogma, you simply believe yourself to be. Not recognising that accepting as truth what cannot be satisfactorily proven to be the case (ie the non-existence of God), ensures that all your subsequent thinking is based on an intellectually lazy first premise, a premise that places the ego as the highest good, and ensures subsequent thought is self-referential, thus arguably requiring a very low threshold of intellectual integrity be met.

2. Intellectual freedom is great for some, but it is very clear from how comprehensively defeated we have all been in just about every political and moral arena that transcendental belief is a far more powerful gift, correctly harnessed. Clearly, for all of us who prize our intellectual integrity, this is a bitter pill to swallow, but one need only look around at everyday life to see the truth, that belief is more powerful than thought, that our potential is far greater when we aim at something beyond ourselves.

(12-20-2015 10:50 AM)Gmac Wrote:  Would rather be part of the "problem" than consumed with "righteous arrogance."

See ya.

The ironic thing is that this reply is sufficiently steeped in righteous arrogance.

Mainstream left media reporting recruitment for attack in Germany.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/worl...referrrer=

Next year will be phun! My predictions:
- Beginning from March more than 10k "refugees" will come each day. I estimate 2-3 million 2016. The housing market will explode
- They will do a terrorist attack at a public viewing event during the EC2016 in France and/or Germany

(12-21-2015 12:33 AM)Samseau Wrote:  Military might alone is a poor measurement, but combined with many other measurements it's actually a very strong indicator. Strong militaries are almost always the by-product of a healthy society. When the society's health fails, the military eventually fails as well.

Yet one can be strong and impious at once (China today), or weak and pious at once (Britain and most of Europe in 793).

Moreover, as dreambig already mentioned, Japan could quite easily defend herself, and is only hindered in this by the US-written constitution (and it should be noted that the impracticality of the article in question should have been obvious before the ink was dry...it's the geopolitical cognate of prohibition).

Quote:Hence, "the meek shall inherit the earth," because the meek and humble outlast the proud and arrogant, and then become the new owners of the land. Military might in the present is almost always a direct result of hard work and sacrifice in the past. It takes inherent virtue to be the best and strongest.

Strength is a virtue contrary to those promoted by the New Testament, which champions the weak. You lionize the strong, which I agree with, but it seems a statement diametrically opposed to the scripture you seek to defend.

Quote:Are you sure about that? How many Civil Wars have the Japanese had over claims of who is the rightful owner? China has had nearly 10, yes?

Easily fewer than the wars within Christendom, especially during the Reformation and Counterreformation. That aside, Japan's civil wars were not fueled by Shinto zealotry but by political allegiances, instability and ambition...the customary ingredients of most internecine conflicts. In fact, the groups that can be said to have been motivated chiefly by religious conviction were Buddhist or Christian.

In other words, of all the causes of the civil wars, Shinto cannot rightly be said to be among them. Most non-monotheist religions exhibit relatively little (if any) intolerance and flammability.

Quote:Also, no Christian soldier ever committed a kamikaze in the name of his King. The Japanese's divine right was clearly qualitatively different than the divine right of European Kings.

Millions of good Christian men were ordered to do exactly that on the hellish battlefields of WWI. And unlike a large portion of those suicidal charges into machine gun fire, at least the kamikaze held some discernible tactical and strategic value.