So, Strodel, you just said that left wing politics were destructive and then went on to say that left wing agendas brought forth some of the greatest scientists and thinkers of our time, influence much of the motivation behind scientific progress, and were largely responsible for the opening of sexuality.

So...what was destructive about them, again...?

Destructive because they yield such great advances but then say/do/advocate things that don't fit into his (jstrodel) ideological box.

(March 14, 2013 at 2:06 pm)Darkstar Wrote:

(March 14, 2013 at 12:03 pm)jstrodel Wrote: I associate radicalism with naive thinking, unproven assumptions, dogmatism and a kind of idealism that is in many ways attractive but dangerous.

Is this you using irony again?

I have a theory that he has been satirical this entire time.

I'm reminded of that scene in the movie "Airplane" where the radar operator is tracking the height of the incoming plane, and he says,"they're at 600 feet, no, 500 feet, no 800 — this guy's all over the place. What an asshole!"

First, the obvious, jstrodel doesn't know a damn thing about Marxism. His notions of Marxism are as misinformed as his views about atheism. And once again, we see the patented "strudelization" of stringing a bunch of things that have some sort of relationship or association with each other together, and then claiming that the first and the last in the chain are identical in some respect.

Further, he argues that a radical is someone who exists outside the established political system. Then in the next paragraph, he redefines it as being outside the political mainstream. These aren't even remotely equivalent, and thus form an equivocation. If he means the former, atheists aren't demonstrably composed primarily of radicals. If he means the latter, he's not only wrong in his usage, but his claim that such people are dangerous falls apart. (In addition to again failing to describe the atheist population. Those that fall outside the political mainstream may include atheists, but the bulk of them are not going to be atheists, not by a long shot. Nor are the bulk of atheists likely to fall outside the political mainstream, unless you define the mainstream as some form of conservatism.)

He's got me on ignore, so he'll never see this, but I suppose that's just as well. I'm of the opinion that this person is too incompetent and irrational for attempts at persuasion to bear any fruit. Though he does make an arguably useful chew toy.

(March 14, 2013 at 4:08 pm)Creed of Heresy Wrote: So, Strodel, you just said that left wing politics were destructive and then went on to say that left wing agendas brought forth some of the greatest scientists and thinkers of our time, influence much of the motivation behind scientific progress, and were largely responsible for the opening of sexuality.

So...what was destructive about them, again...?

Well, the people who are teaching you history are liberals and left wing people. How well can you rate achievements? The left has only been in existence for 200-250 years, something like that, maybe earlier. Liberals want to mention the fact that Einstein was a socialist, of course, to boost their movement. What is the relationship between Einstein's achievements and the rest of mankind's deepest thinkers? There have been plenty that havn't been socialists.

I would not say that science traces back to the atheist movement, it traces back to people like Locke and Bacon and Newton and Gallileo and Copernicus. Most of the early scientists were Christian. The left was like a movement to kick the Christians out of the universities. Harvard used to be Christian. Jonathan Edwards was president at Princeton at one time. Oxford has a long Christian history.

Basically what happened was that in the 19th century massive numbers of people starting following people like Freud (arguably, offered very few lasting contributions), Marx (mostly discredited), Nietzsche (argued essentially that pride was a virtue, unsurprising that he was popular) etc instead of following God. The modern atheist movement traces back to this.

As for the opening of sexuality, are you referring to the devaluing of children, the acceptance of promiscuity and the mass sexual objectification of woman in popular culture?

Attempting to exterminate the Jews also has a long Christian history. Somehow, I doubt that's going to end up on his balance sheet.

Quote:Are you aware, Strodel, of a group called Bruderhof? If not, you may wish to look into them, such research might grant you valuable perspective.

Bruderhof communities are christian groups, worshipers of the same god you're so into, that have come together into little communes over a number of countries. In a Bruderhof commune, nobody owns property; everything goes toward the common good and is distributed according to need by the authorities therein.

I am aware of many Christian movements that had left wing or liberal values, the Anabaptist, who were pacifists, the various Catholic monastic traditions, who withdrew from the corrupt Roman Empire to create non-capitalist methods of social organization, the Mennonites, who were Pacifist, the Quakers, who have a long history of pacifism and social activism, the Wesleyans who opposed slavery.

I do not consider myself to be a capitalist. I do not really follow the GOP party line. I am not trying to draw hard and fast left wing lines, only to point out that the modern liberal movement is one of the most hedonistic and selfish movements, squandering its vast economic inheritance from the post WWII boom and proving its lofty political ideals to in general be little more than liberal chic. I have seen it over and over again. Not in everyone, have met some people that inspire me.

The reason is that the left does not have the capacity to really impart spiritual values to people. The early Christians sold themselves into slavery to spread their faith. They were burned alive. The leftists I have worked with in political organizing as a group, were a lot of hedonistic, shallow people. I used to do environmental advocacy as a job, I did it only briefly, and the people would binge drink afterwards.

I realize there have been many Christian groups that have been socialist and even more that have been liberal, but if you look historically at the struggle between Christianity and atheism/deism/pantheism, you will see in countries all over Europe and America the left represented by the followers of Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Hegel, Hume, etc (Hume was a conservative though).

You are probably not aware of the theological designation that "left" and "right" bears, but it refers to theology as well as politics. The two are related. Hume was not a political conservative, but he is aligned with theological left. He wrote to disprove miracles.

The difference between left and right is related to land distribution and the power of secular governments which is closely related to whether or not the Christian God exists and what the relationship is to Western civilization. There is a lot more than whether Romney gets elected, the struggle between the left represented by Marx, Nietzsche, Freud (and the atheistic/pantheistic intellectuals) versus the right (represented by Christianity) is a long struggle that has played out and continues to play out in the battle over the secularity of America and Europe.

If you think that Christians are brainwashed because they think Christianity teaches Republican party politics, well, that may be so. The Republicans have been substantially influenced by liberalism though, as well. But if you think that there is no unbroken chain from Nietzsche to today in the universities and law schools and in the minds of politicians from Washington to Moscow, and the ruling class, you are dead wrong and you are blinded by your refusal to recognize that it matters whether people believe in God or not.

Quote:Why do I bring this up? Well, to demonstrate that the view of humanity is wider than your "atheists=left wing communist socialist evils, theists=right wing capitalist normals" dichotomy. These christians are communists, Strodel. So why are they not representative of the entirety of christianity, while radical left wing atheists are absolutely representative of the entire group? Why do you feel the need to persistently and dishonestly propagate this insipid lie?

Because identifying the "left" with atheism and socialism and the "right" with Christianity and to a lesser degree, capitalist land distribution is not political propaganda, it has 200+ years of history behind it, it is an accepted historical distinction that is extremely true and has a great deal of power to explain the dynamics of American culture as well as understand theology, as well as understand how much money and power is at stake to prove that God does not exists.

There has been a long war against God. Are you aware of it? Atheism did not emerge out of thin air.

Christianity has always had its anti-capitalist side, Jesus was not a fan of the rich. But the distinction between "left" and "right" is not a distinction based on capitalism, per se, it is a distinction that is based on who is in control, who has the power, what groups of people have power, whether it is the tradition of Marx and Nietzsche and Rawls and Kant or the tradition of Christianity and more modest proposals of social change.

Because Christians do not want to sign off on the power grab of the liberals does not mean that they have no approach to social justice. There have been many that have.

The point I am trying to make is that politics is about power, and atheism is about power, and there is a lot hanging on removing God from Western civilization. Will you at least acknowledge that? A lot of rulers being unseated, a long history, a lot of power a lot of work has been done to remove God. History has recorded that impulse. The name of that movement is called atheism, a highly political and often radical movement.

Quote:Why is it that when I read this, all I hear is "the atheists don't immediately condemn everything I don't like, and that's bad!"

See, the difference between you and us, Strodel, is that we're capable of examining claims based on merit, and are honest enough to accept that even radical claims may hold something of value. You seem to be operating under the assumption that anything that falls outside of your right wing echo chamber must be wrong and dangerous.

No, atheists call reading a book with no specialized scholarly skills "examining claims based on merit". They do not have the ability to judge whether it is true or not, but they read it anyways. They do not take seriously whether they get every point right, but feel no problem with sharing their likely wrong answers and possibly wrong interpretation with others.

Quote:Give me one example of anyone, let alone a Marxist, "using" atheism like that, and then we'll talk.

Look up the anarchist and Marxist use of Nietzsche for their movement against Christianity. Look at the Soviet Union's persecution of Christians as well as China and around the world persecution of Christians. Look at leftists like Bertrand Russell or Emma Goldman, who are also well known atheists.

When I was in high school, and in college, I met people that were politically either liberal or left wing that tried to talk me out of Christianity to advance their movement. This is a well known characteristic of liberalism, that it aims to weaken the Christian church and act as a secularizing force. It is not surprising that all four of the horsemen of the new atheism are all either liberals or leftists, Daniel Dennet, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins, all leftists.

Liberalism/leftism is a power grab, plain and simple.

Quote:Oh? I don't recall appointing anyone to speak for me. I certainly don't recall allowing you free reign to choose who my leaders are. Are you still not getting this? Leaders don't just suddenly become so by garnering attention; in order for them to be representative of atheism in the way you're trying to get at, they'd have to be appointed. They'd have to have a significant number of the atheist community giving them support: "Yes, this person says and does things that reflect my belief, and is therefore representative of it."

You are asking me to not make any criticisms of the atheist movement. I'm not going to do that. It is possible to generalize about atheists and who the atheist leaders are from things like book sale and university appointments. None of the things you say would be accepted by historians. Regardless of how you want to pain the atheist movement, as just a few people who accidentally come to reject belief in God, that is not how a historian would see atheism. Atheism is a political, economic and cultural movement that aims, in general to challenge the place that God has. You can define the symbol atheism to point to whatever you want, but that won't stop me from defining it the way that I have, which is that it is a symbol to represent the historical progression of Western Civilization from God, brought about to a large degree through intentional organizing, through political propaganda and through massive research and writing aimed at proving that God does not exist, largely for political reasons.

Atheism means power.

Quote:Otherwise, how on earth could you claim they say anything about atheism beyond their personal opinion of it? The process doesn't work in reverse, we don't magically change our beliefs whenever an atheist crosses a certain threshold of media attention. Do your beliefs automatically change whenever a christian with differing views to you gains notoriety?

Atheism is not only a personal belief, it is a historical process. A 22 year old in college may not necessarily have the best discernment when it comes to the origin of his beliefs, how he could be manipulated, what his beliefs represent on a larger scale. At any rate, it does not matter how the individuals describe atheism, what matters is the historical processes that gave rise to those beliefs. They may understand their atheism to come exclusively through critical thinking, but in reality, it came to a very large degree through the war of ideas aimed at unseated Christ from the throne of Western Civilization.

Atheism is power.

Quote:Fucking prove it. And before you point to the ecstasy thread, I'll remind you that intellectually discussing something free from the prepositional moralizing of your holy book is not the same as accepting it outright.

Atheists accept Nietzsche as a spiritual leader, despite his remarks on woman. They accept Marx, though he advocated tyranny. They accept Rand, though she advocated selfish as being a virtue. They accepted Sartre although he was a Communist and Heidegger though he was a Nazi. They accept Bertrand Russell, though he was a womanizer. They accepted the hippies and their hedonism and sadomaschism and occultism. They accept groups like the Weather Underground and Anonymous.

Christians have plenty of flawed leaders, but they take their flaws very seriously. When people fall into sin in ministry, it is a big deal. Atheists typically don't care all that much, and will acknowledge they don't really have a stick for measuring people.

Typical scene in the world of liberalism and/or atheism:
I message my cousin on face-book, I ask him what is talking about, he says Kojeve, who is a continental philosopher. My cousin is into Freud and Marx and all that stuff. He is against the Soviet Union, like most Marxists say the y are. I ask him if he knows that Kojeve was accused of being a Soviet spy. He didn't care.

Another example. A friend of mine growing up is openly Communist. He accepts Lenin and the Russian revolution. He is now a doctoral student / instructor at Syracuse U. He is openly Communist, not a theoretical Marxist, openly supports the Soviet Union. The administration at Syracuse doesn't care, probably a mixture of very liberal Christians and atheists/agnostics.

That is the way most atheists care. As long as you are talking about knowledge or beliefs about the world and you aren't talking about religious belief, there is no rules. Of course this is a tool to build a leftist political bloc and not an actual sound philosophical principle.

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(March 14, 2013 at 4:23 pm)Moros Synackaon Wrote: Destructive because they yield such great advances but then say/do/advocate things that don't fit into his (jstrodel) ideological box.

Destructive because they are against Christianity and aim to replace Christianity with a nihilistic utilitarianism with no obligations and no rules, only an empty nationalistic piety.

Nitzsche didnt make negative remarks about women.

clearly shows that you dont know german philosophy.

The remark "Wenn du zur Frau gehst, vergiss die Peitsche nicht" "If you go to a woman, dont forget the wip!" is to be understood in a completly different way.



Nietzsche hardly managed to publish any of his works. After his death, his sister, who was an antisemite an her husband a national socialist, published them with adding their ideas of what he should have actualy thought.

anyway.

Did you know that Emanual Kant thought only white men has a right to have a personality?

Did you know that some american founding fathers owned slaves?

Are they all bad people?

Anyway. jstrodl, I would relly like to reply to your posts in detail and adressing every single one of your points, but to do that could you shorten them.
Since, especialy arround 2 am, I am not in the mood for writing a 600 - 800 words text.

But Christians hold those people responsible. Atheists have no conditions for holding best selling atheist authors responsible for their mistakes, they have no leaders (according one poster), they really have very little way of holding anyone responsible.

For an atheist to rebuke someone, it is almost like that atheist is challenging them to a debate. Their is no moral authority, atheism is simply a conversation where each makes up their own mind about how to live, and few are ever held resposible (except perhaps for being intellectually mediocre)

(March 14, 2013 at 9:48 pm)jstrodel Wrote: But Christians hold those people responsible. Atheists have no conditions for holding best selling atheist authors responsible for their mistakes, they have no leaders (according one poster), they really have very little way of holding anyone responsible.

Maybe there is a language bareer here since english isnt my mothertounge.
From what I read, you believe that atheists generaly shove the responsibility for their actions on best selling or famous atheists. correct?

if yes. my answere is: I considere myself responsible for every action I take and abide to the laws of my land.

And the crime rates dont exactly show the supposedly "unresponsible atheist" being on top.

Quote:For an atheist to rebuke someone, it is almost like that atheist is challenging them to a debate. Their is no moral authority, atheism is simply a conversation where each makes up their own mind about how to live, and few are ever held resposible (except perhaps for being intellectually mediocre)

Well, one makes up ones own mind to how one lives - you are right with that ( in most cases, some atheists dont)
but the difference is: most atheists do take responsiblity for their actions.

or can you prove something different?