France in the mid-eighteenth century was a nation with an official faith—Catholicism—which tolerated no rival. Huguenots (French Protestants) had faced nearly continuous persecution since the advent of the Reformation. Protestants were excluded from the major professions, such as medicine, law, and the pharmacy, and were required to be married by a Catholic priest in order for a marriage to be recognized.
In fairness, it must be said that Protestants proved to be just as vigorous persecutors as Catholics, perhaps more so. Calvinists, in their regions, went after every symbol of Rome they could lay their hands on; and their literal interpretations of (selected) scriptures could prompt them too to paroxysms of religious fanaticism.
Jean Calas was a Protestant textile merchant living in the city of Toulouse. This city’s Parlement was dominated by Jansenists, a Catholic sect known for its severity and fatalism. In 1761, we are told, the Parlement of Toulouse sentenced a Protestant man to death after he had been accused of killing a son who tried to convert to Catholicism.
Suspicions were in the air that Protestants were capable of committing murder to prevent conversion to Catholicism. Religious faith was then far more important to people’s lives than now. The death penalty for religious apostasy would in most of the world today be unthinkable, but in Europe in those days it was a matter of deadly earnest. It is only by appreciating this fact can we begin to understand the tragedy of Jean Calas.
Calas and his wife had four sons, and employed a Catholic governess for his family. One of Calas’s sons had converted to Catholicism. Another son, named Marc Antoine, was a law student tormented by gambling debts, alcohol, and sectarian vacillations.
On October 13, 1761, Marc Antoine was found hanging by a rope in his father’s textile store. A doctor was called, but it was too late: he had died by hanging. We must here again set aside our modern mentality and understand that, in that era, suicide was viewed as a serious crime against one’s own body.
Under the law, the bodies of suicide victims were required to be desecrated by crowds, and then publicly hanged. Their property was also confiscated by the courts. Not wishing this fate for his son, Jean Calas contrived a plan to make the suicide look like either a murder or a natural death. It was an act of rash stupidity that would trigger a terrible sequence of events.
The authorities detained several family members and questioned them intensely. They changed their story of the cause of Marc Antoine’s death, and admitted that it had been a suicide. The problem was that no one believed them. As previously noted, feeling against Huguenots in Toulouse ran high, and it did not take much for the mobs to demand Calas’s head.
Marc Antoine now became a martyr in the eyes of the public, murdered by his father to prevent his conversion to Catholicism. The trial of the Calas family, conducted by twelve judges, was a muddled and pathetic affair, ending predictably in the conviction of Jean Calas, his wife, and a son. A friend of the deceased, named Lavaysse, was sentenced to slave labor in the galleys, and the Catholic governess received five years. She had testified as to the blamelessness of the family, but this testimony was discounted.
On appeal to the Parlement of Toulouse, the sentence was affirmed in the case of Jean Calas; for the others, it was reversed. Calas refused to confess to any wrongdoing. He was subjected to miserable tortures: his limbs were stretched on the rack, and he was filled to the bursting point with water.
But no confession would come. So on March 10, 1762, Calas had his arms and legs broken publicly by an executioner, after which he was strangled; his body was then burned at the stake. His property was forfeited to the government, and his surviving relatives quietly fled the area.
And here is where the great Voltaire became involved. He was then the most influential writer in France, perhaps also in all of Europe. After hearing about the case, he conducted his own investigation by interviewing the key witnesses. Manifest inconsistencies, inaccuracies, and errors in the case were brought to light. These convinced him that Calas had been innocent.
Voltaire
Only a man of his stature and keenness of mind could have done anything at this point. Stirred to outrage by the fanaticism and injustice of the Toulouse authorities, as well as by the smug silence of the Church authorities, he made the case a personal crusade. He hired lawyers to consult with him, and then raised funds to have the case reopened; it soon took on an international aspect as donations came in from notables and rulers from abroad.
Voltaire even arranged for the family to meet with officials of King Louis XV in March of 1763, after which the case was ordered to be reopened. To help prepare public opinion, Voltaire released a stirring work, a Treatise on Tolerance, which argued eloquently against fanaticism and bigotry.
Vindication came on March 9, 1765, when a royal decree came down annulling the conviction of Jean Calas. He was declared innocent, and his family was awarded 30,000 livres. It was one of Voltaire’s greatest triumphs, and one which would help inspire him later to adopt the rallying cry, “Écrasez l’infâme!,” or “Crush the infamy.”
Injustices and iniquities committed by fanatics are all around us. Some of them are glaringly obvious; others, less so. It is our duty to speak out against them when we can. And if this is not possible, we must refuse to associate with, or to assist, the forces of injustice.
To do anything less would be an abjuration of our responsibilities as moral men.
Read More: 8 Tactics Of The Occult War
Having just read this, I must say that as always your articles do not disappoint Quintus. I’m having a bit of a dilemma forming an opinion though, or better said, one that I can express that conveys my rather nuanced thoughts on this topic.
Like, what if one doesn’t believe injustice is being done? thin line between injustice & the social justice warriors being railed upon.
Thin line indeed.
That’s my quandary. SJW’s lionize Voltaire, or at least they’re taught to revere the name and are fed a few quotes so that they can feel properly “educated” and thus safe to venture forth pointing the finger at everybody and screaming “J’accuse!”
Hence my need to make sure that the proper nuances are placed into their proper context. Looking for real injustice from a macro level is great – if a government is walking around randomly slaying people because they won’t sign a Loyalty Oath, that’s an injustice. If a government is asking people for an ID to vote, that’s not an injustice, that’s simple prudence. Most people can’t differentiate any longer between right and wrong even on the macro scale unfortunately.
What if they require ID to vote but then close the ID issuing centers but only in certain demographic areas? What would that be?
If somebody doesn’t have the foresight to get a driver’s license or non-license state issued id prior to election day then they are probably too stupid to be trusted to vote in the first place. I mean there is at least a year or two between elections, and 4 between the ones that “everybody” shows up at, I suspect that there’s ample time to get any problems solved.
My point was that there are true examples of gross injustice, and then there are SJW “it’s inconvenient, I don’t like it, it doesn’t give stupid people everything on a silver platter” stuff which bother me. If the example doesn’t appeal to you, then think of something more trivial, for example, Best Buy only starting their Black Friday Thanksgiving rush on the day *after* Thanksgiving instead of at 9pm on Thanksgiving day proper. Or whatever.
Remember, NAZI’s lionized Nietzsche despite his hating anything that even resembled nationalism and often saying that anti-semites should be put to death.
Voltaire has a great message. SJW’s misappropriating shit to suit their needs is not just part and parcel but a definitional characteristic.
Also, voting is dumb.
Also, Also….I am going to spend the rest of the week shouldering “j’accuse” at random. If anyone asks why I will just say that I thought it meant “blowjob”
Yeah, if it actually worked it would be illegal.
I do think at the local/state level it still is more or less legit (except, of course, Chicago). But federal level is all pretend as far as I’m concerned.
I like the idea that if it worked it would be illegal. Well put. Yeah, federal voting is even more silly than local if that can be believed. He is another far left icon, but Michel Foucault really understood this. It is just a chance to participate in the scenario of power. I often wondered how it is possible that every person who studies foucault is a left wing political activist. I think that being passionate about politics and understanding what cognitive dissonance is is mutually exclusive.
Not sure how Chicago works. I know that our idiot mayor here in NYC has really shined a light on just how bad an idea it is to have a mayor who is both lefty, pussy whipped and stupid all at the same time.
People under 30 have been shocked that there are actually homeless people in NYC. We had a good 12 years or so of hiding them. The same kids who don’t remember when the Yankees sucked have no idea that Taxi Driver is a realistic portrayal of what NYC looked like when I was growing up. So yeah, I guess on a local level who is in charge matters. However, this doesn’t mean, I believe, that voting matters. Further, even if it does I do not want to participate in a system where my vote counts the same as that of retarded people, people with brain injuries, idiots and women.
Only chance I ever register to vote is if I move to Geneva back when it was it’s own country…so yeah, going to need to work on the flux capacitor.
Voting doesn’t compare to death…it just seems rather subjective at times.
The time frame shouldn’t matter as much as long as one falls into the constraints of the time needed to acquire the id. But within the context it seems like itd be an injustice to close some yet not all when all are entitled to the vote.
re ‘j’accuse’ this case does seem like an ancien regime dry run for the dreyfus affair that would polarise french society for many years. I wasn’t aware of this case but Zola probably would have been aware of what Voltaire had done before him, so maybe voltaire was his model. The fundamental difference between voltaire, zola & your modern SJWs is the fact that the former would not have been interested in manufactured issues and victim posturing (at least I hope not). As a satirist Voltaire would probably have been the more reliable of the two in seeing through the SJW disease
We always vote what we want for dinner.
Well its similar to the way the State lionizes the Founding Fathers while proceeding to do the opposite of what they intended.
That said, I think the government should have the right to ask but you should have the unrestricted right to say “no”.
I studied a bit of Foucault. His books were boring but his book on Madness really stayed with me.
If that were the case in regards to other things, I’d agree. Voting is not even an actual right, it’s a privilege. Buying/acquiring a gun, on the other hand, is a right yet they force ID. I agree that I should have the unrestricted right to say “no” in either case.
Great comment, I do agree.
You know, I actually don’t sometimes. For example, I abhor taking drugs (outside of alcohol and caffeine, yes I know I know) I mean taking the really mind banging ones, yet I’ll vote for the repeal of the drug laws each and every time I get. I’m also not fond, at all, of hooligans out sleeping in tents on the sidewalk and screaming obscenities to passersby (OWS) but I’ll never vote to take away their right to speak or assemble. There are still some people who recognize principle over their immediate desires.
I honestly put no stock in anti-ID laws for voting. Any other day of the week you can get an ID without hassle, anywhere. So do it. The “selective closing” I suspect may be a few rare cases and not widespread. Solve those specific areas, problem solved. Wiping out ID for voting, when I in fact am forced (and shouldn’t be) to produce it for buying firearms, is inconsistent and wrong.
It’s not dumb. It’s just the election system is dumb. Most parties in the “West” are all different sides of the same coin/dice/whatever you inanimate object you wish to choose.
They may have different ‘issues’ they put front and center to distract us while they get their backroom deals done under the table.
I’d call go further and call voting an actual crime since essentially when you vote you are voting to take someone elses property.
Cheers
nah, ill stick with “voting is dumb”
Better put, it is just participation in a scenario of power that doesn’t really exist. Like pushing the button on a pole to make the light change faster.
I liked his stuff on prisons and on societal panopticon. It all seemed to make sense to make. For some reason people who read a lot of foucault tend to be really politically active…like protesters and shit. Seems disingenuous. The worst thing to ever happen to philosophy was philosophers.
Disagree. I firmly believe “voting is dumb” when those doing the voting are dumb. Which also happens to be the case.
Foucualt is a great philospher. I have studied some of his work but fall short of left wing political activist.
he is and you are to be commended. I think that super left university faculty read what they want into it while ignoring the very excellent source material.
Ever buy alcohol? ID is required to purchase. Last I read, the state would issue ID for free for those who want to vote. It is a non-issue, but the democrats don’t want it because it becomes harder to commit election fraud. Are you a willing dem party tool or you really believe in the “disenfranchised” BS?
We vote when we can at the dinner table. She’s like a fuhrer when it comes to the agenda of what to eat. We vote by either finishing it or not finishing it. In that sense we can pull the strings.
ON THE DRINKNNG, well I don’t think any trusted judge should be allowed to drink, and maybe even lawmakers during session. Think about the long term effects. Judging is done with a clear mind. I can’t imagine going before god and he has a 90% empty 2 liter jug of Kentucky Gentleman between his legs. ”sheeit he ain’t judging me!” I’d get the fug outta there. . man
The wife knows what I like, so she stays in that range. The times she wants to try one of those froot-loop type girl recipes where they add a few spices then call the dish by all the spice names at once (“It’s an Arugula Cilantro Cinnamon Chicken!”) I’ll sometimes try, sometimes not. She’s a top notch cook, so it’s not usually life endangering, that I’ve found so far.
On drinking, I figure if you’re not on duty in any capacity, it’s not my business. So basically agree with you, although I don’t mind a judge drinking when he’s not working on my dime, it’s not my business.
God and alcohol? I consult Benjamin Franklin on this topic:
“Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards, there it enters the roots of the vines, to be changed into wine, a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy.”
For breakfast I like my croissant with REAL butter. She knows I mean ‘CRISSY’-ant.
Is it really free when your local ID issuing is closed without reason and unexpectedly prior to an election and the nearest is now hundreds of miles away? Might be a case of something being legal but not right.
It seems like a thin line to some; to me, meting out death to the destroyers of Western Civilization and of objective morality, is eminently just, civilized and moral.
I am personally sworn not to take up arms. And modern men have to face the reality that an armed revolution is not a practical option at present, nor would isolated incidents of ideological violence serve any cause, nor necessarily be just in themselves. But, in different circumstances, it is morally unambiguous to me.
“Marc Antoine, was a law student tormented by gambling debts, alcohol, and sectarian vacillations.”
I guess this pinpoints the exact cause of all this unfortunate sequence of events. Had this son not been this stupid to do what he did with his life and not killed himself, his father wouldn’t feel compelled to do what he did and history would take another path.
Possibly. But this is how things are sometimes. Crazy things happen. People act irrationally.
Or more simply: he was a spoiled selfish bum.
His dad was only a merchant. Voltaire would have found other issues to rectify. I kind of see Voltaire as a ‘Michael Moore’ type. I’m guessing he’s a firebrand Mercury sign but his youth perhaps lacked essential experiences. If he had a femicunt marriage, he’d overwrite everyone on this site from experience. With pen he could pound out a symphony. He’d be Beethoven on here. It’s all in your life’s experiences. I hate to wish it on anyone but if only Voltaire had an AMERICUNT WIFE.
Great article. It is interesting that Voltaire put so much effort and personal money into this. He didn’t just tweet out a meme of support, and he backed up his reasoning with a lengthy treatise. At the end of the day it is the stone in the shoe that matters, and real-life examples such as this propagate advanced beliefs.
SJWs don’t know shit about Voltaire. If he were alive today, he would be attacking them, just like he attacked bigots and fanatics in his own day.
I agree that Voltaire would be repulsed by modern SJWs. But it seems clear to me that the modern SJWs do descend in a direct, ideological line from Voltaire and his ideals. It is a prime example of the road to hell being paved with good intentions.
*Caveat: I believe Voltaire’s intentions were objectively evil and proceeded from an imbalanced mind that had “zeal, but not according to knowledge.” But I believe he was sincere and had good feelings about his intentions, which is what most people mean by the statement.
Hmm. Trying to equate Voltaire to a modern personna. He was a 18th century France’s ‘Alex Jones’ no?
Nice read
Voltaire seemed to be a real warrior who really worked to get justice and went against the masses to do so. He wasn’t like these failures today, sitting around and tweeting out lies from safe distances.
well said. There are certain values worth fighting for. I am sure Voltaire would be mortified if he saw how his name was being used in this bloated and sinking society.
As a french person, I have go to tell you that Voltaire is highly praised in France. At school we are taught that he was a great defender of liberty and justice. It is said that the french revolution and the french republic is inspired by his ideology. So to sum up a great man to admire blindly.
It will be too long to talk about his “dark side” but to sum up he was just a wolf in sheep’s clothing, working for the powerful with the goal to destroy the traditional society with his liberal views.
I recommand you the book of Marion Sigaut: Voltaire, une imposture au service des puissants.
I think the better way to say it would be this: he placed too much confidence in Reason, and had too little understanding of the importance of religion and tradition. He made the same mistake that the other philosophes made. Still, he was one of the most brilliant writers of all time, and he did do much to advance Enlightenment ideas.
Exactly, it’s really quite staggering how distorted his public image is. To give you an idea, he defended a powerful figure, prince Conti, who had raped and tortured a prepubescent girl in order to gain favors and money.
Candide after Swift’s Gulliver’s travels is perhaps one the best examples of acerbic bitter, sharp and hilarious satire in western literature. Satire and irony seem to be lost entirely on university educated students these days. Their literal minded one-dimensional sensibility that shouts racist, and, homophobic bigot at even the mildest satire is truly very depressing.
I don’t know about this, Voltaire may have been right on this particular case, but he is one in a long procession of Enlightenment thinking that’s led the modern west to what it is today
Best take his teachings with moderation
Yeah, he advocated sanity and reason. Bad things.
more like romantic drivel
Indeed
sometimes it sounds like Voltaire wields reason as a bludgeon for moral outrage, which is not reasonable at all
That was Rousseau.
Much like all Western Leftists from the 15th century on, he “advocated” for things he never practiced. His Treatise on Tolerance is a tangled mass of unreasoned utterances and emotional appeals.
You think it was better then?
I don’t think it was Voltaire who led us to where we are today.
It infallibly was.
Voltaire was himself the best example of Enlightenment thinking. Still is.
Voltaire was an early SJW. Everyone is doing what Voltaire did: using whatever means they have available (great or small) to force society to conform to a philosophy that is more agreeable to them, by coercion or convincing.
We just have to be better than the other guys.
I’ve always liked Voltaire and have a fine old copy of his letters from England. This case seems to be an example of a abominable miscarriage of justice, aggravated by religious prejudices of the time. It’s quite possible though that Voltaire was as attracted to the opportunity to call out religion behaving absurdly as he was concerned to exonerate the executed man. Below is a link about two old conspiratorial but still interesting sources suggesting Voltaire and his fellow philosophes were enemies of religion in alignment with the illuminati and the Jacobins and the revolutionary age to come
http://www.freemasonrywatch.org/robison.html
Calas was not found “hanging at a rope” but fallen on the ground with a rope tied to his neck. Thus, since the house was closed from the inside, and the only ones present were Calas family, the judges ruled out the suicide as cause of death after having re-enacted the scene several times, and questionning several witnesses that highlighted the short temperament of his father and the fact that they both hated each other.
Voltaire carefully waited that the case had been judged and that Calas’s father had been dead to get involved, because he hated risk.
He got the judge fired through lobbying and harrassment, using his powerful friends.
You cannot give any historical value to his writings, for he kept lying and distorting the truth to serve his agenda. He even bragged about it in his letters to his friends.
I would advise you to read on how he fanatically denigrated the great explorer Mauterpuis, for example.
Voltaire was the proto-swj, and saw in this case a wonderful chance to attack catholicism, which he pathologically hated.
He overlooked Calas’s gambling problems, and the fact that he lost his money’s father short before his death.
I had a feeling your take on it was the correct one. Please do me a favor and give me some sources so I can look further into this.
Do you read French ? This is all well sourced in “C’est la faute à Voltaire… : Une imposture intellectuelle ?” from Benoit Garnot and “Voltaire : une imposture au service des puissants” from Marion Sigaut and “Voltaire méconnu : aspect cachés de l’humanisme des lumières” from Xavier Martin.
Forgive me, I am afraid I am not familiar with that excellent and noble language.
Please do not take it badly, I can barely even speak my own true native language properly, but am forced to rely on the language of the gracious English to convey my thoughts.
I haven’t read these books but from all I have learnt about Voltaire (even from Casanova’s mémoires), I have come to the conclusion that the guy was a (brilliant) prick who didn’t give a fuck about injustice and the well being of the populace. Quite on the contrary, he did everything he could, together with his friends from the “Lumières”, to destroy the royal protection on the ceiling of the price of the grain (wheat for bread) and the interdiction to store grain and speculate on it.
He was in fact a hypocrite, posing as a defender of the poor whereas he was serving the powerful bourgeois class against the poor, merchant class for which he helped give birth to the 1789 revolution, which is the direct origin of cultural Marxism coupled with ruthless economic liberalism that favors only the hyper elite financial class, to our era.
Voltaire helped dismantle everything that is important and sacred in society: religion, tradition, protection from a benevolent ruler (to replace it with the submission to “cosmopolite” bankers), family, etc.
It is really worth studying in more depth these scelerate “enlightened” thinkers, who to this date, benefit from an aura of holiness, largely based on misunderstanding or superficial knowledge of their disgusting role against mankind in history.
I will be extremely happy to read the very talented Quintus Curtius on the topic, with more substantiated knowledge, in a few years perhaps…
That is exactly how I see him and the “Lumières”. Great post !
Dupe
Thank you.
It is interesting to notice that all French speakers on this thread, who
perhaps know the historical context better, seem to have the same negative
view on Voltaire and the “Enlightenment” thinkers.
Unfortunately, many historical heroic figures such as Voltaire do not stand up
to deeper scrutiny, as for instance:
Mother Theresa
“”Despite routinely receiving millions of dollars in donations, Teresa deliberately kept her clinics barren and austere, lacking all but the most rudimentary and haphazard care.”
http://www.fitz-claridge.com/Articles/MotherTeresa.html
“”Mother Teresa had a unique perspective of the people she said she served. “There is something beautiful in seeing the poor accept their lot, to suffer it like Christ’s Passion. The world gains much from their suffering,”
http://www.emaxhealth.com/1275/mother-teresa-less-saint-sick
Nelson Mandela
ANC Founder, Nelson Mandela singing: “Kill the whites!”
ANC leader and South African President, Jacob Zuma: “Kill the whites with
a machinegun” at political meetings:
Gandhi
Who preached sexual abstinence for everybody and contributed to the destruction of many tantric “Kama Sutra” sculptures in temples all around India.
Yet he openly slept naked with his underage nieces (and had sex with them)
http://www.minoritiesofindia.org/gandhis-sexual-abuse-of-grandnieces/
Martin Luther King:
violent obsession for white prostitutes? (I am not 100% sure about this one)
“According to Assistant Director Sullivan, who had direct access to the
surveillance files on King which are denied the American people, King had
embezzled or misapplied substantial amounts of money contributed to the
“civil rights” movement. King used SCLC funds to pay for liquor, and
numerous prostitutes both Black and White, who were brought to his hotel rooms,
often two at a time, for drunken sex parties which sometimes lasted for several days. These types of activities were the norm for King’s speaking and organizing tours.
In fact, an outfit called The National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis,
Tennessee, which is putting on display the two bedrooms from the Lorraine Motel
where King stayed the night
before he was shot, has declined to depict in any way the “occupants – -of
those rooms. That “according to exhibit designer Gerard Eisterhold “would
be “close to blasphemy.” The reason? Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spent his last night on Earth having sex with two women at the motel and physically beating
and abusing a third.”
http://www.martinlutherking.org/thebeast.html
No historian that I’ve ever heard of believes Calas was guilty. He was framed by the bigotry of the mob. Voltaire may have had his issues with Christianity, but we must remember that he was living in an age when the Church wielded incredible power over life and death. Censorship was the rule.
Voltaire was without question one of the most brilliant writers who ever lived, and to equate him with the likes of Lindy West or Manboobz is beyond obscene.
You guys seem to think that anyone who fights against injustice is somehow a “SJW.” Wrong.
Nous devons accepter les choses comme elles sont, car il est essentiel pour nous d’agir dans ce monde de façon intelligente et saine. Si nous ne le faisons pas, nous sommes perdus. Nous allons terminer notre vie à l’asile, être torturé, mis en prison, ou tués. On n’as pas besoin d’être en conflit avec la société, et le désir d’être différent de ce que nous sommes aura fin quand nous choisissons le courage de nous tenir debout seulement sur nos deux jambes. Il n’y a pas de “sauveur.” Ni dehors, ni dedans.
We must accept things as they are, because it is essential for us to act in this world in a smart and healthy way. If we do not, we are lost. We will finish our life at the asylum, being tortured, imprisoned, or killed. We have no need to be in conflict with society and the desire to be different from what we are will end when we choose the courage to stand up only on our two legs. There is no “savior.” Neither outside nor inside.
A topical piece given the recent debate between religious advocates and “atheists”. I hope that people draw the appropriate conclusion that religion is no barrier to human error and atrocious criminal activity.
Indeed, more often than not religion is the reason behind atrocious criminal activity. In the name of some “savior” or “word of god” more infants and adults have been and are tortured and killed than we can count. All in the name of a fantasy. That’s the human sickness: to construct a fantasy, believe in it, and maim torture and kill to “glorify it,” “protect it,” or “spreading the news about how wonderful it is to believe in it.”
As an example, still today, as part of a religious ceremony, sexual assault against infant boys is allowed.
Exactly. Ritual (and Routine) infant circumcision are still widely practiced in the name of a fantasy. Unfortunately, we do not hear often nor many SJWs and/or other heralds of human rights (or Men Rights Activists or Neomasculine Men for that matter) protesting against RIC or supporting the Medical Associations which would like to ban it (for example:
http://www.jta.org/2014/01/26/news-opinion/world/swedish-danish-medical-groups-call-for-milah-ban#ixzz2rWpSafxo) even when it is the cause of very serious health issues (http://www.cbsnews.com/news/in-south-africa-circumcision-ritual-becomes-health-crisis/)
Unfortunately, what is being mostrly talked about is that FMG is “really bad” while dismissing RIC as negligeable with supporting arguments which are, again, pure fantasies.
To know more about this topic you might want to read the material you can find at the following addresses:
http://www.doctorsopposingcircumcision.org/
http://www.arclaw.org/
https://www.15square.org.uk/
http://www.noharmm.org/
http://www.kahal.org/
http://childrightsnurses.org/
Any Man who does not see RIC as the utterly barbaric and useless practice it is should choose again and base his choice on facts. Any men who dismisses the topic of RIC as a as not relevant to the present male identity crisis and its consequences at large ought to reconsider his choice on the basis of factual reality. That is justice applied TODAY, not in some past obscured by the clouds of possibly gratuitous interpretation.
Meanwhile, in the atheist USSR, it was perfectly peachy to gun down tens of millions of people to get “better, stronger Russians” purge style. Toe-may-toe, toe-mah-toe.
More corpses piled high in the last century for Atheist ideals than all the religious wars put together. Their “faith” is a bit peculiar.
Well I am not posing a whose atrocities are worse debate (mines bigger ‘en yours!). I am pointing out that this notion that religion of any kind is some bastion of good and holy morality is completely misguided. Christianity is no protection against evil or unethical behaviour and like many oppressive institutions, will lend its authority to the most savage of behaviours just like the modern secular state. And men will feel justified in their actions because they receive their license from God.
The modern democracy is merely a new form of organised religion. There is no substantive difference.
Part of the problem that men who have been circumcised don’t want to see it as a disability. And so to justify this (and to continue to feel part of a growing group) they support committing this crime against their own sons. You see the same thing in East Africa with women being the prime supporters of FGM.
“More often than not?” Indeed, I’ve committed seventeen crimes this morning, all in direct fulfillment of my religious duty.
Your statement is utterly disconnected from reality, in a world which has seen a death toll greater than in all of prior human history, at the hands of humanistic and atheistic Communists, Eugenicists, Socialists and Abortionists.
And also religion is no marker of scientific ignorance. Just to put that out there.
Maybe not, or not in all cases. But it sure constitutes a marker for useless superstitious belief based on fear.
Just to put that out there too.
False.
A look at the atheist thread sees a plethora of highly intelligent, non-science denying Christians and theists debating mostly bitter, hostile, name calling atheists.
The notion that believing in religion is an indication of some kind of buck toothed ignorance is a plain invention of the Marxists. Americans prior to the 1970’s were highly religious, yet managed to invent a whole slew of technology. I reject your Marxist teachers’ views wholesale.
Well said, look no further than the last article discussing atheism to prove your point.
Look no further than Free’s remarks which attempt to pigeon hole theists in the “u r stoodpid and er-fraid, bro” category. So many atheists entire belief system seems to revolve around the need to spew ad hominem.
Indeed. For such an enlightened bunch, they sure are confrontational and close-minded to any ideas that conflict with their own beliefs.
@Unabashed and @GhostOfJefferson:
Sorry to point it out, but your very own words speak volumes about the underlying fear of losing what you know and having to resort to fantasies to try to hold on to it. If you don’t have a problem you don’t feel that you are living…. The fact is that you don’t want to be free.
Again, my interest is to point out that Man can walk without ANY crutches.
Anyway, reject everything you want and have fun with it.
And do not follow me, it does not bring you anywhere! 🙂
🙂
What, pray tell, am I afraid of losing? The fact of the matter is I do have a problem and I stated it above:
99% of atheists that I talk with cannot (or will not) have a civil conversation regarding the issue without immediately resorting to condescension, insults, and ad hominem attacks. They immediately dismiss any claims made and spout the same rhetoric over and over. If you do not want to accept my beliefs, that’s perfectly ok. But if you automatically discount any counterarguments made to atheism simply because it is made by someone of faith, then you’re as close-minded as the people you mock.
Actually I was commenting on the need to personalize and use ad hominem in lieu of debate. Ad hominem is rejected for a reason, that is, it is invalid.
Hey, if I’m wrong I lose nothing, my life ends. If you’re wrong, well…
I have no fear chief. You don’t get to define “free” for me, as well. Your trying to personalize in lieu of discussion to me, speaks of crutches.
This is an amazing topic, as religion and belief systems are the most powerful of all control devices.
Your statement boils down to, “individual persons are fallible, religious or not,” which is rather obvious to all, including religious persons. The important thing, is to examine the ideals and logical coherence of the belief system itself.
It isn’t obvious to all, that’s the point. Read some of the comments and replies to me, where even though people have read my comment and then clearly it goes right over their heads.
“His property was forfeited to the government,..”
Dispense with “justice”– your prime motivation for a conviction is right there.
I would need to learn more about the case, but I am disinclined to attribute any generous motives to Voltaire or his ilk.
It should be pointed out that “Écrasez l’infâme!” is better translated as “crush the infamous thing” (“infamy” would be infamie, but infame is “infamous person/thing”). For Voltaire, this was the whole system of patriarchy and tradition, especially the Catholic Church.
Many do not realize this now, but many of the early Protestants – especially the Calvinist/Puritan strain – were possessed of a mighty self-loathing for Western Civilization. They subjugated the arbitration of absolute Truth to personal authority, and conducted this arbitration in a spirit of radical skepticism and opposition towards Tradition. Such things as eating pretzels or hot cross buns, having a Christmas tree or in any way recognizing holy days, were viewed as evil; it was truly a movement that was cannibalistic of Western Civilization and Tradition. For good reason, Catholics saw in them the destruction of everything that they held dear – not just of religious doctrines, though these are of great importance, but also of every kind of pleasant custom, social comfort and good cheer.
Everything that made a man French, European and Catholic, was under attack. They were opposed bitterly to all traditional structure in society (until they could gain control of the levers of power, in which case they would introduce forms of monarchy far more absolutist than any Holy Roman Emperor had enjoyed). Catholics were as right, then, to exclude them from society as we would be, today, to exclude subversive, immoral, communistic, revolutionary and socially Marxist movements from our society. Men still took their core beliefs seriously in those days, and our lack of vigour in defending our views is not the mark of greater civilization and enlightenment, but of less. We are “men without chests,” as CS Lewis might say.
Understandably, there was bitter contention between the two. (It should also be pointed out that the Jansenists were condemned and excommunicated, and do not represent the Catholic Church; indeed, the same Louis XV suffered an assassination attempt by one of these Jansenists who was upset over their excommunication.) Certainly the contest over Western Civilization was bitter on both sides. Well, a group of humanists got sick of the contest, and, feigning to effect a “truce” in Western Civilization, they actually took Protestant thought to the next phase, forming an humanistic and relativistic system of thought that promoted the destruction of “divisive superstitions” through a syncretistic brotherhood of man that ostensibly “transcended” creed. But, it should be obvious to any thinking man that this new form of thought was itself a new creed. And this new creed immediately went to work fighting for its own triumph, submerging Europe into revolutions and wars which have continued to grow, and to deteriorate with each new manifestation, for three centuries and counting.
Voltaire was a partisan of this revolution. The principles of this new, humanist religion – with indiscriminate Egalitarianism as its core dogma – are the same principles that have driven Socialism, Communism and Cultural Marxism, including Feminism and the Civil Rights Movement, which I thought the “Manosphere” and sites like ROK firmly opposed. Voltaire is one of the most embittered and revolutionary minds of this crimson tide of counter-traditional violence and cultural devastation in the West. His Treatise on Tolerance is a monstrously evil tome, breathing with the muddled spirit of syncretism at the service of Civilizational auto-destruction, employing the standard tactics of the revolutionary leftist (straw men, half-truths, emotional appeals) in order to promote the tolerance of error in the name of Western, Patriarchal self-immolation. An example of his arguments: “Are you sure that Confucius will burn in hell forever? That sounds really mean and irrational. I’ll allow the implication to linger, that therefore all of Western Civilization as we know it is infamous and should be marked for destruction.” This is irrational even if we assume his premise is true, which, of course, it isn’t.
His treatise, in short, reads exactly like a Feminist treatise against Patriarchy, except his treatise pits Masonic Humanism against Western Civilization. He may quote some great authors of the West, but he speaks contrary to their spirit. Today’s partisans of “tolerance” also mischaracterize traditional and patriarchal views in the name of relativism, promoting self-doubt and abandonment of the Western Tradition in favour of yet more “tolerance.” But we all know how their “tolerance” goes, and it was no different with Voltaire – a man who cried “tolerance” but ended all his letters with “Destroy the Infamous Thing!” Tolerance, indeed! Tolerance for me, but not for thee, has always been their cry. I say Death to Tolerance, which is by nature an whore, and wanton; Long Live the Truth! There is room in Truth for mercy, but in Tolerance there is only the abyss.
There is an exact, ideological and philosophical continuity between Voltaire and the modern dys-civilizational Left – and Quintus, though you know I hold you in esteem, I have to say I’m surprised to hear you praise him and his work. He and his school of thought are the very thing that a neo-masculine movement of patriarchy and tradition seeks to counteract. He is on the ground floor of the movement we oppose.
Yes, Cui, you make very valid points. Let me say that I do not share Voltaire’s loathing for religion. I never intended to convey this impression, if I ever did. As a matter of fact, I think he was not a complete man. His relations with his niece (sexual in nature), for example, were disgraceful. He overestimated his own cleverness, and there is a certain smugness that emanates from his books.
And he overestimated the value of “Reason” and did not appreciate the need for tradition and custom as the inheritance of the race.
However, he did perform some useful functions, which we would be amiss not to recognize. He was living at a time when the established religion seemed to be holding back the march of progress.
We must give him his due. He was a brilliant writer and, at his best, was capable of great courage in resisting fanaticism and bigotry. The fact that some SJWs like him should not change the fact that we neomasculinists have just as much right to claim him for ourselves. If he were alive today, he would be attacking feminism and PC culture.
Human society needs both respect for tradition–in the form of religion–and an impetus to move it forward, in the form of dissenting intellectuals, such as Voltaire. See it as the gas pedal and the brake of society’s automobile.
Perhaps we now have a better perspective than he did then. But there is still some value in recognizing the truth that systems of oppressive authority should be occasionally challenged and confronted.
I am a lover of tradition, but I also see the need for tradition to be challenged every now and then. When we cease to honor Voltaire, we cease to be worthy of reason.
Certainly I never mistook you as denigrating religion generally; you’ve demonstrated more than once that you respect it. It’s my turn to ask forgiveness if I gave a different impression.
I also agree with the general point you make, here. There is a line in the Scriptures: “therefore every scribe instructed in the kingdom of heaven, is like to a man that is a householder, who bringeth forth out of his treasure new things and old.” The man of wisdom should not know only Tradition, but should understand the Truth which Tradition seeks to enshrine, so that he is able always to develop or accept a necessary, new approach. One needs to be able to accelerate and decelerate, as you say (and to turn, check the mirrors, etc.).
I suppose I only hesitate to agree on two points: 1) as to Voltaire’s personal character, I found him to be a clever man, but generally not half so reasonable as he thought, and generally morally vicious – but I admit I don’t know enough about him to hold this view dogmatically; 2) I am wary of your expression (but certainly not of your real meaning) in referring to the benefit of dissenters from the Tradition – at least in so far as we’re discussing the Church, which I believe to speak with the very mouth of God, I see no benefit at all in dissenting from her definitive teachings, nor even in cultivating an attitude of dissent against her general social and doctrinal influence. But, I certainly agree that there should be a freedom to pose the kinds of questions which a skeptical and dissenting mind would pose so far as doctrine is concerned, and that those who criticize legitimate failings in the men who administrate the Church do her a great service. I think many people fail to realize just how much the Church has welcomed pious skepticism (for example, Aquinas’ Summa is essentially a collection of the best and most probable-sounding arguments against Catholic doctrine, for the purpose of really understanding the Faith; and the Church has always had the Devil’s Advocate to argue against canonizations, etc.), and how she has canonized many saintly men who did oppose injustice in the Church (Ss. Athanasius, Irenaeus, Francis of Assisi, etc.).
Voltaire was finally brought in almost as an afterthought in this. Sure seems like Quintus’s real point was to take swipes at Protestants and Jansenists, and also take shots at a Vatican (at that time) not yet under the totalitarian boot heel of total Jesuitical domination.
No, not really. My real point was to give an example of why people (regardless of personal beliefs) should fight against manifest injustice when they see it.
Voltaire is much more popular amongst the left liberals than our side…
Voltaire was atheist wasn’t he? QC are you going give partial credit to non-believers here?
Yes, I recognize the importance of Voltaire and the philosophes in performing a useful function as dissenting intellectuals. Voltaire was not precisely an atheist: He did subscribe to a vague theism.
I think it’s important to understand context. We don’t have a clue as to what it was like living in those days. It’s like being a patriotic American seeing his country go down the tubes all around him; how would you feel about that? Jansenism is like that, but at the same time it’s a Heresy every bit as much as Protestantism, in all its forms, is. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Jansenism, it’s basically a very holier-than-thou approach to Catholicism, and it spread in the wake of the Protestant Revolt and all the calamity it ensued. Those of us who are Catholic, especially, can relate to the feeling of being considered “less-than-Catholic” because we took a sip of wine, or we enjoyed a movie or a book or something, or ate meat on a Friday during Lent. Well, Jansenism is a heresy because it lacks both context and understanding of who the saints were; that many of them drank wine and enjoyed life, trying their best to be good Christians, and succeeding; in other words, it’s the belief that you’re somehow better than the saints because of X, Y, and Z. Zeal is important, but when you begin to misapply justice, which is a saintly virtue, you stray into disunity with Christ.
Here’s a discussion on the topic by the great Sir Charles Coulombe and Bill Biersach, made around the turn of our century. It was recorded during one of their little radio discussions with a live audience, so it’s not stimulating in a direct sense. But they do illustrate what life was like pre-Protestantism for Christians, and addresses Jansenism.
By the way, Voltaire was a strident anti-Catholic bigot.