Greetings to the men of ROK in the joyful season of Paschaltide. This week, we’ll look ahead to the continuation of our philosophical series.
Though Cardinal Mercier’s manual discusses Cosmology next, we will be proceed to Criteriology, or Epistemology. I have judged this to be the best course of action, because one of my chief goals in this series on philosophy, is to dispel the notion that man can never be sure of the truth he knows—this idea is central to our relativism, our nihilism and the thoroughly incoherent principles of Liberalism which pull our society apart.
I intend to demonstrate that man may have certainty of God’s existence, and of many other truths as well; once these are known, we can confidently act upon them, dispensing with the rubbish that we are “imposing our opinions” on other people. We do the world a service in displacing the hegemony of Liberalism’s absurdity with Patriarchy’s hegemonic truths, for which the people should thank us (though I wouldn’t hold my breath).
Sometimes people don’t appreciate what you do for them.
In hindsight we will see that the West’s late-stage Liberalism was just a rationalization employed to justify a more convenient neglect of truth. I believe some men proposed the incoherent principles knowingly, in an attempt to destroy the Christian order with goals of erecting another in its place; but the masses accepted it because it legitimizes man’s general preference for inertia and soothes the conscience in its choice to be something less than it can (and ought) to be. For those who may object that this sounds like just another Liberal wish to “fix” the benighted rubes of society, I’ll say that it is not, because we do not embrace the incoherence of Liberalism, nor do we attempt to make incoherence’ “perfection” the enemy of incoherence’ good.
I therefore don’t intend to convince the masses through reasoned debate (nor should you), precisely because nobody accepts Liberalism on rational grounds, least of all the mass man; the favour shown to these ideas is rooted in vice and the deformity of the intellect through the passions. But for the men who are clawing themselves out of the pit, and who may form a future elite some day, or who at least aspire to be high-functioning members of a saner, post-collapse society, hopefully this contribution will serve as an elementary dose of cult de-programming from the Liberalism we have imbibed with (lamentably) our own mothers’ milk.
The fields of Criteriology and Epistemology bear directly upon this. What are they? Cardinal Mercier defines Criteriology as “the reflex study of our certain knowledge, and of the grounds, upon which certitude rests.” Criteriology comes from the Greek κρίνω (krino), meaning “I judge,” because any assertion of certitude is founded upon a judgment (as we’ll see, if it’s not already clear).
If we refuse to judge and discriminate, there is neither anything to teach nor anything to learn.
The science is also known as Epistemology, from Greek ἐπιστήμη (episteme), meaning “knowleldge,” especially “skillful knowledge” rooted in focus and experience. In discussing the broader science to which this field belongs, Cardinal Mercier rejects the fuzzy idea gaining popularity in his day (and still prevalent), that sought to subject this to the science of Logic, sometimes calling it “real logic” (as Kant did). But logic properly studies Being only as it exists in the mind (i.e., the attributes with which the action of the mind vests considered objects), whereas Metaphysics is the science of Being itself. Criteriology studies a correspondence between these things, inhering as a property in the act of knowledge, “hence it is directly connected with ideology and thus with psychology.”
As an aside, I’ve been interested to see how many terms have changed their meanings since their separation from the integrated whole of the Western tradition of learning a century ago. “Psychology,” as Mercier uses it, is the science of all living creatures (psyche, soul, being the principle of life); expanding secularism and specialization broke this up into many fields.
Man’s rational soul, as the highest type of soul, was the subject of Psychology par excellence; but with the advent of Freud and other alien, hostile influences, psychology was coopted to spread the subversive propaganda that man does not have a rational soul at all, but is simply a beast with an highly developed rationalization-machine in his head. And indeed many men behave this way, which gave credence to this idea; but when Western society promoted the higher ideal, many men lived up to it and proved it true. Having now abandoned the concept, many fail to do anything beyond the level of animal activity—eat, sleep, sex—which was the goal of advancing the degenerate concept in the first place.
“Midas, on account of the obtuseness of his judgment, is doomed to grow the ears of an ass.”
Some Terms And Ideas We Will Examine
Cardinal Mercier defines certitude (which is the object of Criteriology’s science) as “the state of the human mind, when it recognizes that it knows the truth.”
Now, to quote Pilate: “What is truth? ”
Judgment or certitude of truth implies a relation between two terms—a term in itself or conceptualized, and an idea already present in the mind (even Christ, The Truth, is the Hypostatic Wisdom of the Father). The Cardinal explains that nobody speaks of a term as “true” in absolute abstraction from this relation (i.e., “one thousand seven hundred and twelve is so true, man”—something that could make sense relative to solving a math problem, but is nonsense in absolute abstraction). We often describe things as real or true (“he’s a true friend”), and we often predicate truth of our knowledge of things (“it is true that four right angles contain 360 degrees between them”). When we speak of truth as an attribute of a thing, this is concerned with objective or ontological truth. When we speak of truth as an attribute of our knowledge of things, this is dealing with logical or subjective truth.
Objective Or Ontological Truth
This is NOT to deny the objective element in truth; it simply acknowledges that the judgment or assertion of truth, implies a relation between two things: the objective and subjective elements. Specifically, this relation is one of real, congruous agreement.
In fact, this brings us to St. Thomas’ definition of truth: Veritas est adaequatio intellectus et rei (“truth is an adequation of intellection and res). “Adequation” means “an exact correspondence or conformity.” “Intellection” is the act of perceiving with understanding, roughly equivalent to Greek νοήσις (noesis). Some people translate res as “thing,” but in English a “thing” is usually a material object, whereas the Latin res is any thing or idea, material or immaterial. So, truth is present when the mind’s idea and another res (thing or idea in itself, or conceptualized, etc.) correspond to one another in an exact way. Objective truth, then, is the part played by the res.
Subjective Or Logical Truth
Therefore, “subjective truth” does not here mean “personal” (i.e., untrue) truth, as it does in a Modernist’s mouth. Rather, we use the term here to denote the perception of truth in the mind. Speaking of the adequation of intellect and res, or truth, the Cardinal says: “to assert that this relation is present, is to formulate a judgment.” So, subjective truth is the nature of a judgment, in which there is an objective conformity on the part of the res to the judgment of the mind; it is the role of intellection, and exists only when the mind’s judgment conforms to the objective truth or reality of a res; when the mind’s judgment does not so conform, we reject the idea that it is “true” in any sense. His judgment is not “subjectively” true (for him), it is simply false.
The point, here, is twofold: 1) I am beating the dead horse, that “subjective truth” does not mean “personal opinion,” as it does for Liberals; subjective truth is the true perception and assertion of accord with an objective truth, in/by the mind; 2) this goes beyond the mere level of perception, or even of assent; it involves a deliberate judgment of the mind.
Those are the preliminaries to the discussion; and there are many implications and assumptions to address. Next week we will start to get into the meat of it, exploring whether man can be certain in his knowledge of any truth. In the meantime, don’t forget…
Surrexit Dominus vere, alleluia!
I regret not getting to say more about Easter this year; this is my first year of keeping up the whole cycle of services in the Latin Rite, and I’ve been deeply moved by them. So, in lieu of more thorough posts on Easter, I may just leave you with some tidbits of Easter traditions at the end of posts.
This year, while looking for land in Central and Southern America, I was reminded of some of the Holy Week and Easter celebrations that are common in Spain and many countries evangelized by Spain. Here is the “Encuentro Glorioso,” where the appearance of our Lord to His mother on the morning of the Resurrection is re-enacted by a procession early on Easter Sunday. The pasos (biers) are moved close together and swayed, to represent the joy at the meeting.
Their joy, already great for Easter, is better understood when you know some of the surrounding traditions. As a gesture of repentance, folk voluntarily donned the conical dunce’ cap imposed on public sinners and criminals in the Middle Ages (but with a veil, so their penance would not be an occasion for pride; this is the garb of the Nazarenos). They accompanied images of the sorrowing Virgin, or of Christ during the events of His last days and hours, to and from the Cathedral, barefoot (some still do this). They pour their heart and soul into making these images and processions beautiful. Here is the sorrowing Virgin of the La Hiniesta brotherhood, exiting her church on the 450th anniversary of that brotherhood (skip to about 2:30).
Some of these processions can last as many as 14 hours. Often the Virgin of Easter morning has been one of the sorrowing Virgins on procession earlier, but with her mantle changed from penitential colors to white.
Some of these images are very old, and are interwoven with the history of the people, which has often been bitter in recent centuries; I respect the people of Seville for not giving up on their traditions. The brotherhood based out of the Sailors’ chapel (Esperanza de Triana) had their Church stolen by Napoleonic Revolutionaries and handed over to Anglicans, then turned into a bar and brothel.
Revolutionaries and the Civil War destroyed many chapels and their images in the 20th century, and just a few years ago processional brotherhoods were threatened with graffiti on their buildings promising “ardereis como en el treinta y seis” (“you will burn just like in 1936”). Understandably, then, the people of Triana show their love very plainly as their image is escorted back into the Sailors’ chapel (restored as a Catholic Church in 1954) on the somber day of Good Friday. And their band, the Banda del Santíssimo Cristo de los Trés Caídos, is the best of all the processional brass bands at present. There are moments of real virtuosity by the trumpeters, as well as by the man who sings a solo at the end. The first half of this video is a bit slow, but from the lift at 18:00 and onward, it is touching to watch.
This is just a last remnant of what the culture of Europe and Christendom can be like, when vacuous and ugly ideologies are not withering all our beauty. When Holy Week comes around next year, one could do worse than to watch some of the many videos of these great processions, or to try to start a similar one near you.
Read More: On Impiety And The Passion Of The Lord
Too bad you did not get deeper into it. You have asserted that certain knowledge is possible, but not brought forward any argument to support this claim.
The only quality that makes knowledge anyway certain is the fact that two different people can understand the same phenomena through what our everyday language says x or y denotes in our world. Yet, this isn’t certain in any definitive sense, merely x or y are approximations of, yes that is a black cat we both see now? Black and cat are words that merely denote what we both think think we may mean or share in common in that instance??
Yes, I think so too. Regarding your example, consider color vision and its disorders:
http://patient.info/doctor/colour-vision-and-its-disorders
Those who do not share the way most people see colors will find it hard to agree on those. I have also heard of people who are sensitive to extended color ranges, such as ultraviolet. To them, colors will look different than to others.
To give another example, you can remove the infrared filter that is installed in regular photographic cameras. If you do this, the red sensitivity will be extended to infrared and thus make infrared reflecting materials appear much redder. The effect of this is typically that foliage will appear red, such as in this picture I took with such a modified camera:
http://alive-photo.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/SDIM0424e.jpg
It’s a case of when seeing is not necessarily the same as believing what you are seeing.
The symbolic system we have for communicating our perception is one thing; the actual perceived res in itself is another thing. The modern error is to assume that because one element is subjective, the objective may not really be what it is.
I believe that’s the article for next week.
I guess so.
It will be ongoing; I don’t imagine one or two articles will sufficiently establish the principle for most men of today.
Alright, looking forward.
One of the things that changed my life, is when I started to have an answer to the leftoids’ battle cry of “Who do you think you are judging me?”
Having been raised on that saying (it’s in just about every book, movie, show, etc), and a lifetime of disasters from “not judging”, one day… after yet another huge disaster that I did not see due to not allowing myself to judge..
one day….
I decided that I know exactly who I am, and yes, I have every right to judge, and I will judge.
Life has been constant improvement since then.
I find saying “reality is judging you” is a good quip.
Liberalism is a collective shirking of potential.
Yes, it’s a vast expenditure of social and moral energy on self-destruction. Quos vult perdere, prius dementat Deus.
When they say: “who are you to judge me” what they really mean is: “I know what I’m doing is wrong.”
In the UK a common phrase said is, “Don’t judge me.” A sure sign of knowing what they’re doing is wrong.
I love the “only god can judge me” tattoo. It would almost be worth it to spend the time and effort in becoming a criminal judge just to work year in and year out and wait for some moron to show up with that tattooed on their neck.
Remember the murderer who had “killer” tattooed across his face?
I didn’t, but I just googled. Priceless.
Unfortunately, so many people have dropped a very negative connotation on the term “judgment” and forget that it is closely linked to “discernment”. Life always improves when you make your own decisions rather than run with what the crowd “agrees” about. If you do happen to make a mistake, at least it’s yours.
Yeah, and that’s why the Red Pill is so important. It’s taking back the decision making for yourself, instead of letting society tell you what to think and how to judge things.
In Star Trek the original series, some leader of an alien world asks Kirk “Who are you to judge us?” and Kirk responds “Who do I have to be”? It’s a great response.
My aunt uses this line all the time. My reply to her is always a variant upon:
“How dare you judge me for judging!” Or, “Why are you so judgmental about judgmental people?” It shut her right up the first few times; now, she just gives me this blank, “you think you’re so cute, don’t you” look.
Christ’s command, “don’t judge,” merely means “do not presume to know the heart of a man.” To think that it means “do not form moral judgments even in the abstract,” is the all-time stupidest, most obviously contradictory principle one could hope to meet (why would our Lord form a moral judgment that one must not form moral judgments?). Yet somehow, because our culture is saturated with it, we’ve all developed this kind of Liberal Stockholm Syndrome, where we continue to sympathize with this idea that has kidnapped and raped us repeatedly.
Glad you’re back. Looking forward to the future discussion. I’m going through Mercier’s work myself and view these articles and discussions as a kind of internet book club, since I’m away from folks with philosophical interests at the moment (though sometimes that’s a very good thing).
Fun etymology note: “thing” actually once had more or less the same semantic field in Germanic languages as “res” in Latin, so it isnt as bad of a translation as it first seems. It apparently once meant something like “a moment of time” or “occurance.” You can see how this slowly became “an object.” A surviving use occurs in the name for the Icelandic parliament, the Althing (a meeting for a stretch of time) cf. “Respublica.”
That’s very interesting; I love etymology but had somehow never looked into the etymology of “thing!”
I just started a political/life website/channel today. I know you don’t like self-promoters, but I’m not selling anything, and have been active on ROK for quite a while (on a different discus profile). Here is my first video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIS-EZKzBes
I also have a deeper analysis and citations available on my website:
http://westerndawn.com/main-text-capitalism-and-socialism/
Let me know what you think.
ps- another great article by aurelius, as usual
If you’re moving to South America, stay away from Colombia. The women there will make you reconsider your vow of chastity.
Thanks for the warning!
I hope to avoid becoming a sex-crazed coke fiend, but life is full of interesting pitfalls for the unwary.
Decades ago I was the last in my Southern Baptist training school class to be asked “Why did God send his only begotten son to us to be tortured then crucified unto death?”. Had all the good answers been taken? In any case, my answer was ” Maybe God likes tragic endings.” Could have heard a pin drop and the preacher gave me a look that would have soured milk. But maybe God needed to have a taste of the grief and mourning that his ephemeral creations are subject to in order to comprehend what he’d wrought. I mourn because I loved, however, a mortal life without loving isn’t really living.
In order to love, one must have someone to be the object of it.
I have always viewed this entire ordeal as a sign that god wants debt to be paid.
Because we are unable to pay our debt he made his own son human to pay it for us.
I think it would make sense for a absolutely just, eternal and all-knowing being to do so.
Well, all existence is rooted in God, and everything about the human experience was already known to God more perfectly than even we understand it.
But, the point of the Incarnation was to provide a point of contact with us, for our sake, especially at that point which needed to be healed and restored – our mortality and passibility (which in our case existed as a corrective to our hedonism – a corrective fully exploited by the Lord to deliver man from bondage to hedonism and due suffering, transforming it into an highway back to Paradise and beyond). In the Crucified God, we see a God that has chosen to share our lot, to the bitterest possible end. Therefore, however much we struggle with the mystery of suffering, at least we know this: God did not remain a stranger to it, and this alone should prevent us from casually complaining about it, or any supposed injustice in it.
將心用心
To use the mind to hold the mind,
豈非大錯
is it not a great mistake?
迷生寂亂
Out of confusion arise rest and disturbance;
悟無好惡
awakening negates liking and disliking.
得失是非
Profit and loss, right and wrong;
一時放卻
away with this once for all.
眼若不睡
If the eyes are not closed
諸夢自除
all dreams stop by themselves.
(http://bit.ly/22BilRy)
“Theologians may quarrel, but the mystics of the world speak the same language.”
― Meister Eckhart
“The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God’s eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love.”
― Meister Eckhart, Sermons of Meister Eckhart
言語道斷
Discourse here stops –
非去來今
with no past, present, future.
(信心銘)
Pax Vobiscum.
Even these notions rely upon fundamental dogmas and truth; it is a great mistake, to think that “mystical truth” somehow escapes being true.
I am very familiar with the apophatic tradition; but all the greatest mystics have known that the apophatic is not the destruction of the kataphatic, but its keenest complement. There was a time, when the authentic sages and mystics of all the world religions saw the same truth, however dimly. Since the Incarnation of Truth, matters have entered a more crucial phase – if you’ll pardon the pun.
Please consider that “these notions” actually rely upon physiological changes. They have nothing to do with a negative or positive approach for describing anything. Actually, the negative approach is still a positive approach, and the positive approach is still a negative approach, as they have to rely on the opposite to be affirmed. “These notions” go beyond that. How, you will never know, and when “there,” no-one is having any experience (or “all is having the totality of it”). Words simply fail. Physiological changes happen because the body adapts to being free from millenia of limited concepts which have kept the whole psychophysical structure in chains. That being said, even the words expressing “these notions” are only an approximation of something that can only resemble a description. The so-called “incarnation of truth” has always and will always happen, and is always fully individualized and, again, cannot be defined nor imitated. Nature abhors imitation and excels in always producing something different. Its shape and manner cannot be predicted, it can only be observed when it happens as it happens. And it seems to happen at random, maybe in order to keep the surprise factor of rediscovering “itself” always fresh. (Smile).
Thank you.
A thought I have had is that the arrogant assumes that what he thinks is right, or the truth, is the truth. The self-avowed enlightened assumes that he himself may or may not be right, but what others think is what is truth. The cynic does not know if he himself knows the truth or not, but he knows that what others think is not the truth. The knowledgeable man knows that the truth is, regardless of, and perhaps despite, anyone knowing it.
You may be accused of a crime because of an action. You may think yourself innocent, others may think you guilty based on evidence, but evidence can be misleading, and truly innocent men be punished. This is why “justice” is dangerous, and one must be certain not to invite unnecessary inquisition into one’s affairs, as things may be found that are not so, but will receive punishment nonetheless.
And, in addition, the man who thinks he is enlightened for saying that we must not be dogmatic… is himself being dogmatic.
Thank you Aurelius for proving yet again how intellectually superior the Catholic tradition is to what passes as scholarly today.
I am curious to know, as a catholic, what your opinions are concerning the modern church? I myself went to a very liberal Catholic school where the preists pretty much told us that all religions believed in the same thing. It made me think that there was no point to Catholism if every road leads to where you want to go so to speak.
Well, even the various groups claiming allegiance to Christ do not all believe the same thing; how much less, then, do Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Moslems, etc., believe the same thing? This is so obviously false, that it doesn’t need to be said. It is amazing that a priest could believe anything so intellectually facile – and, in fact, I propose that they do not really believe it, but are either 1) effeminates, who think religion is just about an aesthetic or emotional experience, or 2) proactively dislike the Catholic Faith and have entered the Novus Ordo’s ministry in order to work against it.
It is true, that there is such a thing as “natural religion” – i.e., that mankind naturally has a religious impulse, and that often the various world religions respond to this natural impulse and direct people to natural goods related to the virtue of religion. Sometimes, people who mistakenly assume that their cosmopolitanism is a sign of intellectual sophistication, mistake this for the notion that “it’s all really the same thing.” But in fact there are serious and substantive differences that cannot be ignored simply because there is a similarity in some manifestations of the natural virtue of religion across different religions.
It is a definite dogma of the Catholic Church that one must be a member of the Church to be saved; in the usual course of things, this means one must VISIBLY be a member of the Church. But the Church has always taught that one can be tied to the Church by intent or desire, before one has been incorporated fully into the Church through baptism and profession of the Catholic Faith, under certain circumstances. These circumstances include what is called “invincible ignorance” of the Faith and Church (a situation where one does not know about the Church’s existence in a sufficient sense), and the personal fidelity to the graces given by God, such that one is in a state of perfect charity and contrition (which always include the desire, even if only implicitly, to be reconciled to the Church as soon as one’s ignorance was dispelled).
Otherwise, no; the Church does not teach that “all roads lead home.” Our Lord suffered and died for nothing, in that case; and we, for our part, may as well embrace a less austere religion that will not make such demands of us. In the end, that is the chief reason people toy with this idea: it excuses us from the difficulty of living in accord with Truth – a sometimes bitter and harsh thing, in the present vale of tears. But I, when I have not been parted from my own mind and self, find that the labor is more than rewarded!
I believe you are right, l me further add that I believe this tepid portrayal of faith has driven far more people away from the Church than it ever brought in, it certainly had that effect on me. After all people come to the church seeking truth not empty platitudes. But I just want to give you a few examples of how bad things were. In Religion studies class you could spout off the most self serving gobbledygook you wanted with impunity. For instance this one kid said that (paraphrasing) “this is why I think whatever you want to happen to you when you die will happen to you. If your a Christian you go to Christian heaven, if your a Muslim you go to Muslim Heaven, if your a Buddhist, you will be reincarnated.” Nobody even challenged Him! However in the same class if you defended the faith you were castigated, one person had the audacity to say (paraphrasing) “you can’t cherry pick the Bible you either have to believe all of it or none of it.” All hell broke loose, the teacher even went out of their way to make fun of the student saying “So Ryan when you masturbate do you the sacrifice two turtle doves?”
Also towards the end there were more gay faculty members then priests, we had a LGBTQ club, pride week, and even a transexual biology teacher. At a Catholic High School.
It would almost be comical except that parents were paying 12,000 a year to send their kids to this place thinking they were going to get a Catholic education.
I guess my question to you is: how did it get so bad?
The short answer:
As a judgment for our sins, God has delivered us over to our own desires and thoughts, since we wanted none of His. We are also living in the Great Apostasy (in my opinion), and through the calamity which has been foretold in all the recent, Marian apparitions.
And because being an “extremist” and “judgmental” are now the most grievous sins one can commit, most Catholics will not bring themselves to take seriously what the Tradition and explicit doctrine of the Church has always taught – that anyone claiming to be a Catholic, who deliberately neglects to adhere to the Magisterium as well as he may, is automatically excommunicated from the Church and should be avoided. In past ages of the Church, when bishops, patriarchs and even popes appeared to defect from the faith, the people would immediately break communion with them, refuse to attend their houses of worship, and wait to get things sorted out. Now, the Catholics keep attending the churches and schools and other institutions that are clearly being administered by open heretics, and think that the faithful who take matters seriously enough to absent themselves from the circus, are schismatic extremists. It is a sad statement on how far the faith has fallen – and, indeed, who can deny that it is just for us to suffer, when we are not even willing to take our own side – the Church’s side, God’s side – in the crisis?
The long answer to that question, will be the topic I address after the series on philosophy is ended.
Thank you for the reply I’m delighted to hear you will be addressing these topics with articles in the future. Sometimes I wonder how a Pope like Francis can make such contra-dogmatic statements. Do you think he really believes in what he is preaching or does he actually want people to go to hell?
Since I was exposed to it in public school’s “philosophy” classes, I always saw Freudian psychology as a tool to subvert and confuse the psyche, glad to see I was right.
Without doubt; I was about to write a full reply, detailing more about Freud and even the predatory attitude he had towards his own patients, but I’ll post this video instead. The whole “Goy Guide to World History” by E Michael Jones is worth watching, but this section in particular deals with Freud and the new “psychology.”
Oh yeah. Note that Freud’s Jewish family and freinds took his ideas and revolutionized the advertising industry. . . For the worst. Because of Freud, sex, base instincts, greed, etc. have all surrounded us in advertising and the media. Because of advertising, every aspect of our lives is now monetized, and we’re becoming incapable of genuine, human responses to things. We’ve become robots running on emotions and allowing things to guide us, not genuine thought.
“In hindsight we will see that the West’s late-stage Liberalism was just a rationalization employed to justify a more convenient neglect of truth. I believe some men proposed the incoherent principles knowingly, in an attempt to destroy the Christian order with goals of erecting another in its place; but the masses accepted it because it legitimizes man’s general preference for inertia and soothes the conscience in its choice to be something less than it can (and ought) to be. For those who may object that this sounds like just another Liberal wish to “fix” the benighted rubes of society, I’ll say that it is not, because we do not embrace the incoherence of Liberalism, nor do we attempt to make incoherence’ “perfection” the enemy of incoherence’ good.
I therefore don’t intend to convince the masses through reasoned debate (nor should you), precisely because nobody accepts Liberalism on rational grounds, least of all the mass man; the favour shown to these ideas is rooted in vice and the deformity of the intellect through the passions. But for the men who are clawing themselves out of the pit, and who may form a future elite some day, or who at least aspire to be high-functioning members of a saner, post-collapse society, hopefully this contribution will serve as an elementary dose of cult de-programming from the Liberalism we have imbibed with (lamentably) our own mothers’ milk.”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKrXr0v8uBM
A southern Jew calling a Christian ‘responsible for slavery.’ Weren’t something like 40% of southern Jews Slaveholders at some point?
If I recall correctly Stefan Molyneux quoted the figure at 70% and that’s before getting into the financiers funding and profiteering from the whole operation.
I chuckled at his desperate demands that he is sick of Christians being tolerated and should be placed in prison.
Yes, the incoherence of Liberalism. “Free speech” for me, but not for thee; I should be free “from” religion, thou shouldst not be free from irreligion.
What an apt example.
One detail: those parts of Spain you watch in the videos (the South) are at the same time the poorest and lest developed areas of Spain. North of Spain vs South of Spain is kind of similar to Northwest of United States vs former Confederate Areas.
Very interesting, that’s something I did not know.
I thought about this while witnessing some of the ceremonies in South America – these people have very little, and nowhere near the leisure time that we do. Yet look how much they dedicate to their rites and customs! We have the time and money to do this, and to do it better. What we lack, is the heart, the faith, the piety.
Look forward to the continuation of your challenge of relativism and exploration of epistemology.
don’t believe in modern day gods like I don’t believe in ancient gods.
prove they exist.
if you can’t govern yourself without mythology it says a lot about you.
Those gods do not exist. God is eternal.
that’s the point. and neither does yours, well except in your mind. if so, prove it. show a picture or a video. or if you really are certain james randy has a million dollars waiting for you to prove it(which no one has ever claimed btw).
He is not “my” God, I have no possessive quality over him, he is God I try to be his human so to speak. But very well
Causative effect: we know that the universe had a begging, this implies a creator as nothing cannot create something.
The Universe is governed by absolute laws working perfectly in tandem with each other, this belies a lawgiver.
Because all of existence is in the universe this implies that its creator would be all powerful, because all the laws in the universe have never contradicted themselves this shows that the creator would be omnipotent, because the universe could not have created itself its creator would be outside of the universe, therefore not bound by the universe, and omnipresent.
There are many other proofs but this is one, although I doubt I do it justice.
so after all that, you can’t provide any evidence other than what you believe. I can tell you that there are two invisible fish fighting behind you, but only those who have faith can see them. how do you feel if you can’t see them? do you think they aren’t there? or do you think that they aren’t even there to begin with? if you never saw the two fish, how do you feel about the people who believe in the two fish and claimed to have seen them?
look man. your argument is filled with so many logical fallacies I don’t even want to name them all tbh.
let’s just cut to the chase. you believe with faith, I believe with evidence. peace.
“let’s just cut to the chase. you believe with faith, I believe with evidence. peace.”
Have you the answer of the mysteries to the creation of our universe? Or perhaps you place your faith in ambiguous scientific concepts and theory you probably barely understand like the majority of atheists.
Please enlighten us with this hard evidence that no god exists and how the universe came to be. God cannot be proven with science nor can science prove there is no creator.
you are using a burden of proof logical fallacy here and the god of gaps theory. just because we are ignorant about something is not promise of the existence of a god.
I am ok with the uncertainty and mystery of life without saying there is some mystical man or deity in the sky that created everything because we are ignorant of how everything came to be. pretty much everything that man has credited to gods and devils in his ignorance, has been shown to be just man covering his own ignorance with his imagination when facts are uncovered.
you drug science into this, not me. but if you ask me who I would put my trust in science or religion, I would choose science 100/100 times. the stem field is pretty much responsible for life as you know it. not some adult fairy tales in a book written by some guys in the desert a few thousand years ago. don’t agree? just compare life in america to the life of the pygmy people in the congo.
if you want to believe in god that’s fine. I don’t and that’s fine.
I really have no idea what you are talking about. My evidence is creation itself so if you have eyes you can see it.
as silly as the belief in invisible fish sounds to you, the belief in an invisible god sounds to me. both would require to you believe with faith, sight unseen.
the point is you believe that creation is the result of a deity, who creates much in the way that man creates. without ever seeing that deity. at any point in history. my point is I don’t believe in a deity and I’m ok with the fact that none of us know with any certainty how this all came to be.
Ahh I see, well we never have seen gravity have we? Yet we know it exists by the way it interacts with our physical universe, likewise we can deduce that there is a God through how our physical universe interacts this was my point. Certainty in uncertainty is also certitude. Have a nice day I hope one day you find what you are looking for.
yes, we have seen gravity. gravitational waves have been detected. a quick google search will help you there. and beyond that gravity can be proven. we have also seen lack of gravity and that can be proven. that is a poor argument my friend.
I believe what you are referring to is how the force of gravity interacts with matter and energy I am referring to the force itself, but I could be wrong.
no, what I am referring to is actual research by an international team of scientists that has actually detected gravitational waves. proving einstein’s theory of relativity correct.
but either way it’s ok man, we just have two different stances on the idea of any deity’s existence. just as you don’t believe in greek, roman, or egyptian gods — I don’t either. I just take things one step further and have a disbelief in modern gods as well. they are all the same to me, man using his imagination to cover his areas of ignorance.
Ok I looked it up and that is pretty cool, but even the LIGO uses how the force of gravity interacts with lasers to prove gravitation waves. My point wasn’t that forces and laws are not provable, but that they are observed through their interactions with matter and energy.
yea man, it’s a groundbreaking discovery in the truest sense of the term.
but in the end, the gravitational waves are visible along an objective spectrum, so yea gravity is visible. and it’s effects are visible also. and ultimately man will be able to manipulate gravitational waves the same way we do other wavelengths. there are many things that people try to use as being invisible in the god argument, but most of them fall flat under enough research.
but you seem like a cool dude man, we just think differently in this area. I’m not one of those asshole atheists that will bash you for believing in religion. I respect your right to believe in whatever god that you choose, it’s your right to my friend.
“you are using a burden of proof logical fallacy here”
Hypocrisy much?
“you drug science into this, not me.”
Your whole argument is science and an invisible fish story Strawman. Is your belief system not based on science?
“if you want to believe in god that’s fine. I don’t and that’s fine”
You can believe in whatever you wish. Entering into theological discussions in a condescending hostile manner does not suggest that is fine with you.
you are shifting the burden of proof to disprove a god. when the original statement is to prove a god.
invisible fish is not a strawman. it is the basis of faith based belief. just using something as ludicrous as an invisible man in the sky. the invisible fish can’t be proven to exist, because it’s faith based. I can guarantee you would call me every adjective for dumb in the book if I really believed it. I could use any thing that’s based on you believing what’s not proven, that’s the basis of a faith based religion and belief in god. if that sounds like a strawman, imagine what you belief in god sounds like to me lol.
no, I was having a philosophical discussion on belief in things which have no evidence of existence and accepting them because you believe and want them to exist. you wanted to use the science angle because you are prob used to stereotypical atheist or agnostics. if you consider me saying if you can’t govern yourself without mythology or fairy tales to be condescending what are you really getting at? we are supposed to be adults. I don’t need mother goose to guide my life in the right direction, neither do I need the sumerians, muslims, christians, or eastern mythology. I and most people understand morality quite fine without mythology.
I said that I don’t believe in any gods past or present. and if they exist, then prove it. you took offense because you are a typical type of person in these discussions who gets way too emotional way too fast. I believe in the constitution. if you want to believe in something with no proof and call it a religion be my guest. it’s your right. you can have the last word here, don’t feel like going back over this again today.
So you wish to only degrade and denounce religion and weasel yourself out of having to defend your own position or belief system. How convenient.
There is no room for debate if you appoint yourself the only one to ask the questions placing the burden of proof on others whilst placing yourself above reproach.
To boldly declare there is no god and to imply those who would believe so are foolish, one should expect a definitive opposing view that disproves such.
ok, just to set the record straight, because you are a good spinster.
1. I do not believe in gods past or present. why? because at every turn mysticism has been debunked. I don’t have to defend it. the track record speaks for itself. if not, then why don’t you praise zeus? why don’t you praise jupiter? why don’t your praise horus?
2. not you, but if any believer can prove there is a god or any mystical phenomena, they will receive a one million dollar prize that has been standing with james randi since the early 60’s if I am correct. everyone has fallen flat.
3. if your only response to provide proof when asked, is to ask another to provide disproof, you have a poor argument. period. we can do the exact same with the invisible fish as I stated earlier. which is real, your god or the invisible fish? well according to your logic both have to be proven as false. if you can prove my invisible fish as false, then I will do the same with your god, in literally the same exact manner.
4. you are putting words into my mouth, I haven’t called anyone foolish. I just said that ppl are believing in mythology and fairy tales. this is what has been going on since the invention of the creation myth. if you want to believe in these things, it is your right to do so as an american. just don’t expect all of us to fall in lock step with you.
“because you are a good spinster.”
Hah! my irony detector just exploded. You’re just full of contradictions.
Once again you provide rubbish and deflections.
ok.
It’s great to see someone going to the original Greek to explain things. Whether people want to accept it or not, what we are today comes from the ancient Greeks. Then over the course of the centuries, language and translations became corrupted as the they were “fitted” to more current thoughts and mores. So gradually we’ve become disconnected from the most important thought-tools that we need to go forward. Martin Heigegger pointed out that we need to go back to philosophy to get back on track as humans, and to do that, we need to go back to the original Greek meanings of our words.