The "Academic Preparation" Book Club

[John Watson]

If you're going to go there - need it be pointed out that the 20th century rivals all for slaughter, and that it was primarily done in support of secular collectivist utopian ideals?

This is a matter of authoritarian versus libertarian, not secular versus religious.

[hector_garza]

If you're going to go there - need it be pointed out that the 20th century rivals all for slaughter, and that it was primarily done in support of secular collectivist utopian ideals?

No, you needn't go there. I'm not defending, or advocating, for statism. I'm pointing out a flawed understanding of Christian history.

[Scaldrew]

If you're going to go there - need it be pointed out that the 20th century rivals all for slaughter, and that it was primarily done in support of secular collectivist utopian ideals?

It does need to be pointed out that this is a complete fabrication. Every time in these incidents, the state was working closely with religious institutions and keeping them in power. H-dog was best pals with the Vatican, which celebrated his birthday apparently even after he was dead and the war was over. Stalin was not only aiming to become an ordained minister before he gave the whole tyrant business a shot, he also replaced god as the de facto top of people's religious hierarchies. Both used religiously sensitised peoples to propel themselves to the top by converting the state into a religion with the tyrant as its god figure. To ignore this or otherwise to distort this plain fact is to be dishonest and, well, Christian. Never mind the fact that the 20th century is where the idea of a utopia went to die and that any religion is more of a collectivist nightmare than any secular ideology could ever hope to be (cf. the lord's flock, aka sheep). Never you mind that, pretty please.

But yeah, you and Peterson, Mr. Potent. You don't care about any of the arguments that have already been made against your position. This is why I just kept my mouth shut and hoped for the thread to die. So we have "muh Nietzsche and Hitler" out of the way. What's next on the list, atheists are nihilists and nihilism means psychopathy? Please, raise that inane point next just so everyone can see how silly catering to religious sensibilities really is.

[Brodie Butland]

If you're going to go there - need it be pointed out that the 20th century rivals all for slaughter, and that it was primarily done in support of secular collectivist utopian ideals?

And what does this have to do with whether the (mostly) gentle Christianity (in the Western world) today is an aberration largely resulting from a secularization of society, the progression of science, and a movement away from church-and-state marriage, and that it was far more violent when Christians took their holy book more seriously instead of arbitrarily casting off more than half of it as historical enigmas? I don't think "well, Christianity only killed a few million people, versus the tens of millions killed by Stalin and Mao" is a particularly persuasive argument for it.

And need it also be pointed out that it wasn't Christendom that stopped the mass slaughters of the 20th century? At absolute best, the single most influential Christian institution in the world (the Vatican) was complicit in the rise of the Third Reich and the mass murder of millions of innocent people...but there's a good case to be made that it crossed into promotion. The only powers that managed to stop the religiously-based and religiously-approved slaughter were Great Britain and the United States, both secular democracies who used secular ethics and ideals and nationalism as the rallying cry for fighting and beating the Axis Powers.

To be clear, I'm not in any way suggesting that being Christian automatically makes someone a bad person. There are good and evil Christians, just like there are good and evil Jews, just like there are good and evil Muslims, just like there are good and evil atheists--you have to evaluate people individually, not group them based on religious adherence. But let's dispense with the fiction that somehow the only true Christian doctrine is a loving, tolerant one, and that Christianity embraces scientific discovery, when we have several centuries of history taking an exactly opposite view supported by entirely logical Biblical exegesis. As I said, there's a very precise reason why we have an Establishment Clause in the First Amendment in this country, and why one of the three things Thomas Jefferson was most proud of was drafting the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom.

[Pluripotent]

It does need to be pointed out that this is a complete fabrication. Every time in these incidents, the state was working closely with religious institutions and keeping them in power. H-dog was best pals with the Vatican, which celebrated his birthday apparently even after he was dead and the war was over. Stalin was not only aiming to become an ordained minister before he gave the whole tyrant business a shot, he also replaced god as the de facto top of people's religious hierarchies. Both used religiously sensitised peoples to propel themselves to the top by converting the state into a religion with the tyrant as its god figure. To ignore this or otherwise to distort this plain fact is to be dishonest and, well, Christian. Never mind the fact that the 20th century is where the idea of a utopia went to die and that any religion is more of a collectivist nightmare than any secular ideology could ever hope to be (cf. the lord's flock, aka sheep). Never you mind that, pretty please.

But yeah, you and Peterson, Mr. Potent. You don't care about any of the arguments that have already been made against your position. This is why I just kept my mouth shut and hoped for the thread to die. So we have "muh Nietzsche and Hitler" out of the way. What's next on the list, atheists are nihilists and nihilism means psychopathy? Please, raise that inane point next just so everyone can see how silly catering to religious sensibilities really is.

I don't buy any of this. All of the collectivist ideologies from national to international socialism targeted religious people specifically. This view is just ahistorical.

And what does this have to do with whether the (mostly) gentle Christianity (in the Western world) today is an aberration largely resulting from a secularization of society, the progression of science, and a movement away from church-and-state marriage, and that it was far more violent when Christians took their holy book more seriously instead of arbitrarily casting off more than half of it as historical enigmas? I don't think "well, Christianity only killed a few million people, versus the tens of millions killed by Stalin and Mao" is a particularly persuasive argument for it.

This is not my argument. Merely that you can't find peace in ideology.

And need it also be pointed out that it wasn't Christendom that stopped the mass slaughters of the 20th century? At absolute best, the single most influential Christian institution in the world (the Vatican) was complicit in the rise of the Third Reich and the mass murder of millions of innocent people...but there's a good case to be made that it crossed into promotion. The only powers that managed to stop the religiously-based and religiously-approved slaughter were Great Britain and the United States, both secular democracies who used secular ethics and ideals and nationalism as the rallying cry for fighting and beating the Axis Powers.

To be clear, I'm not in any way suggesting that being Christian automatically makes someone a bad person. There are good and evil Christians, just like there are good and evil Jews, just like there are good and evil Muslims, just like there are good and evil atheists--you have to evaluate people individually, not group them based on religious adherence. But let's dispense with the fiction that somehow the only true Christian doctrine is a loving, tolerant one, and that Christianity embraces scientific discovery, when we have several centuries of history taking an exactly opposite view supported by entirely logical Biblical exegesis. As I said, there's a very precise reason why we have an Establishment Clause in the First Amendment in this country, and why one of the three things Thomas Jefferson was most proud of was drafting the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom.

The Vatican today is also disturbingly left leaning.

I don't have any argument with the last bit.

[Scaldrew]

I don't buy any of this. All of the collectivist ideologies from national to international socialism targeted religious people specifically. This view is just ahistorical.

Now I'm starting to think you can't even think besides being unable to read. Atheism among the general population is a very recent thing. Most if not all of the general population in the 30s and 40s and so on were religious. So for any tyrant to come along and to aim specifically for these people, as if the atheists not only existed but were a prominent or dominant demographic, is again an inane point. They didn't need to "target them specifically" because that was just about everyone. But I never said they targeted them specifically, I said they "used religiously sensitised peoples to propel themselves to the top by converting the state into a religion with the tyrant as its god figure." That is to say, they played on generations upon generations, going back thousands of years, of indoctrination. All these tyrants did was become absolute monarchs in a time where absolute monarchs were supposed to be through. People were still conditioned to be subjects to a single infallible ruler. H-dog and S-man saw this and took full advantage of it. You can "not buy it", but that's how it is.

To "disagree" is simply to fail to see the structural similarities between religion and, as you say, "collectivist ideologies", of which religion is absolutely one. More than being part of it, it predates our notion of collectivist ideology. But as I'm typing this, I get the distinct feeling that I've said all of this in my original response. Nevertheless, let's go over the similarities, shall we?

Free thinking: the freedom to think whichever thought you want, regardless of agreeing with it or not, and to make your own decisions. Not permissible in religion or a "collectivist ideology"; thought crime avant la lettre meant burning at the stake, exile, a few lashes (and not the eye kind), and ultimately burning in a roasty oven forever (hey, isn't that what H-dog... uh). In dictatorships, not buying the state propaganda meant torture, brain-washing, exile, but most likely execution; a nice public one with a nice efficient bullet. Burning is really passé.

Free speech: the freedom to utter these thoughts even if, or probably especially if, others disagree. Cf. supra.

Follow the leader: the state is governed by one man and one man only. Additional members of state are there as window dressing; the most important man to fear (cf. supra) is the one at the very top who passes virtually all judgement, directly or indirectly. God is ultimately the sole ruler as his word is law. Ministers only authority is through him, so indirectly; they cannot make up scripture to serve their own goals, though reading the same words differently is somehow possible even before postmodernism in the 1980s. Almost as if language is necessarily arbitrary, huh? Almost, though. #wordsmeanwhattheymeanwhateverthatmeans

A teacher of mine once told me to always explicitly state the link between all the items in your own list. It'd be remiss of me not to do so and the sign limit is almost reached anyway. In this short list you get all the elements for a successful religion and a successful dictatorship, barring the single element that really binds all of these together, viz. undying love for your lord and saviour. Thought and speech is limited to only be permissible to the man in charge. The whole point is to obey, to ensure the persistence of the leader, and through him, the state. That state is one of absolute subjection to the utmost tyranny; to relinquish yourself, your person, to someone else without question. This becomes the new way to ensure your own survival, your own persistence; to deny yourself absolutely is paradoxically to stay alive. It doesn't matter how you feel or think about the first commandment, it matters that you shut up and believe it and live it. It doesn't matter how you feel or think about the first amendment, it matters that you shut up and believe in the reverse and live it. Don't be dishonest by "disagreeing"; so far, you've shown more inclination to simply dismiss points and facts you dislike by claiming they're "unconvincing", therefore attempting to transfer onus to others, than disagreeing with any form of fact, yourself. To "disagree" is to be dishonest, or unable to read, or, well, Christian.

[Pluripotent]

Now I'm starting to think you can't even think besides being unable to read. Atheism among the general population is a very recent thing. Most if not all of the general population in the 30s and 40s and so on were religious. So for any tyrant to come along and to aim specifically for these people, as if the atheists not only existed but were a prominent or dominant demographic, is again an inane point. They didn't need to "target them specifically" because that was just about everyone. But I never said they targeted them specifically, I said they "used religiously sensitised peoples to propel themselves to the top by converting the state into a religion with the tyrant as its god figure." That is to say, they played on generations upon generations, going back thousands of years, of indoctrination. All these tyrants did was become absolute monarchs in a time where absolute monarchs were supposed to be through. People were still conditioned to be subjects to a single infallible ruler. H-dog and S-man saw this and took full advantage of it. You can "not buy it", but that's how it is.

To "disagree" is simply to fail to see the structural similarities between religion and, as you say, "collectivist ideologies", of which religion is absolutely one. More than being part of it, it predates our notion of collectivist ideology. But as I'm typing this, I get the distinct feeling that I've said all of this in my original response. Nevertheless, let's go over the similarities, shall we?

Free thinking: the freedom to think whichever thought you want, regardless of agreeing with it or not, and to make your own decisions. Not permissible in religion or a "collectivist ideology"; thought crime avant la lettre meant burning at the stake, exile, a few lashes (and not the eye kind), and ultimately burning in a roasty oven forever (hey, isn't that what H-dog... uh). In dictatorships, not buying the state propaganda meant torture, brain-washing, exile, but most likely execution; a nice public one with a nice efficient bullet. Burning is really passé.

Free speech: the freedom to utter these thoughts even if, or probably especially if, others disagree. Cf. supra.

Follow the leader: the state is governed by one man and one man only. Additional members of state are there as window dressing; the most important man to fear (cf. supra) is the one at the very top who passes virtually all judgement, directly or indirectly. God is ultimately the sole ruler as his word is law. Ministers only authority is through him, so indirectly; they cannot make up scripture to serve their own goals, though reading the same words differently is somehow possible even before postmodernism in the 1980s. Almost as if language is necessarily arbitrary, huh? Almost, though. #wordsmeanwhattheymeanwhateverthatmeans

A teacher of mine once told me to always explicitly state the link between all the items in your own list. It'd be remiss of me not to do so and the sign limit is almost reached anyway. In this short list you get all the elements for a successful religion and a successful dictatorship, barring the single element that really binds all of these together, viz. undying love for your lord and saviour. Thought and speech is limited to only be permissible to the man in charge. The whole point is to obey, to ensure the persistence of the leader, and through him, the state. That state is one of absolute subjection to the utmost tyranny; to relinquish yourself, your person, to someone else without question. This becomes the new way to ensure your own survival, your own persistence; to deny yourself absolutely is paradoxically to stay alive. It doesn't matter how you feel or think about the first commandment, it matters that you shut up and believe it and live it. It doesn't matter how you feel or think about the first amendment, it matters that you shut up and believe in the reverse and live it. Don't be dishonest by "disagreeing"; so far, you've shown more inclination to simply dismiss points and facts you dislike by claiming they're "unconvincing", therefore attempting to transfer onus to others, than disagreeing with any form of fact, yourself. To "disagree" is to be dishonest, or unable to read, or, well, Christian.

You interpretation of the Christian religion as the original oppressor is what I disagree with. I'm not sure why I'm not allowed to disagree with you or to find your arguments unconvincing. You're interpretation is based on focusing on all the areas where Christianity went wrong. You can focus on the Spanish Inquisition - for instance, but you can't say that's characteristic of the whole. All ideas are subject to perversion. You can also focus on the fact that Christianity probably developed the idea of the sanctity of the individual to its highest level of any other religion. But I'm sure you'll disagree with me on that point, which is fine. I don't think you have to "believe" in anything. But anyone can read what is there and come to their own conclusions, as far as I'm concerned. I'm not convinced that "the church" is the same thing as the works it's supposedly based on, perhaps this is where the confusion is coming from.

[Alex Ptacek]

You interpretation of the Christian religion as the original oppressor is what I disagree with. I'm not sure why I'm not allowed to disagree with you or to find your arguments unconvincing. You're interpretation is based on focusing on all the areas where Christianity went wrong. You can focus on the Spanish Inquisition - for instance, but you can't say that's characteristic of the whole. All ideas are subject to perversion. You can also focus on the fact that Christianity probably developed the idea of the sanctity of the individual to its highest level of any other religion. But I'm sure you'll disagree with me on that point, which is fine. I don't think you have to "believe" in anything. But anyone can read what is there and come to their own conclusions, as far as I'm concerned. I'm not convinced that "the church" is the same thing as the works it's supposedly based on, perhaps this is where the confusion is coming from.

You think it's a perversion. I think Scaldrew and I would disagree. Many people think things like killing apostates or martyrdom are simply perversions of Islam, where in fact these actions are actually closest to the what the doctrine entails. Say whatever you want about how the West originated from Christianity, but you can't just take credit for all the good things and pretend like the bad things are perversions. That's just disingenuous.

[Scaldrew]

But anyone can read what is there and come to their own conclusions

I think this thread, alone, demonstrates conclusively that this isn't the case. Welcome to reading, everyone. Sure, the alphabetical symbols are the same, but they'll never make up the same texts twice in a million billion lifetimes. Anyway, on to more captivating threads.

[Pluripotent]

You think it's a perversion. I think Scaldrew and I would disagree. Many people think things like killing apostates or martyrdom are simply perversions of Islam, where in fact these actions are actually closest to the what the doctrine entails. Say whatever you want about how the West originated from Christianity, but you can't just take credit for all the good things and pretend like the bad things are perversions. That's just disingenuous.

I don't think that's necessarily true. I don't think you are required to defend all the acts of Christendom just to say that there may have been some useful ideas at the base of it. It's not as black and white as you are making it out to be, and I personally believe for the most part organized religion got it wrong, which ironically is one of the main ideas of the New Testament.

I think you can actually pick through these ideas yourself and decide on your own. But this makes me an apostate to you and to the "true believers." But that's OK. I tend to frequently find myself in the middle of two camps with spears pointed at me from all sides. This seems like the best place to be most of the time.

Now, if you were to pick something like collectivism -- either it's national or international variation -- there is nothing redeemable there. It's rotten from the core philosophy all the way up to practical implementation.