Commentary 8: A Weapon Against Western Civilization

[Mark Rippetoe]

Commentary 8: A Weapon Against Western Civilization - YouTube

[Subby]

Bravo.

I dare say Western civilization (which is unquestionably a force for good in world history) won't reach the sink or swim point without some unified ideology to push back the lost ground. Traditionally Religion, proper Religion, not this rainbow uniting church crap we have now, seems to be the only existing existing ideology that fits the measure. The current Pope needs to die off and the new one declare marxism and globalism as not just a sin and antithetical to humanity and God, but name it as heretical Gnosticism. This shit goes back a long way.

[francesco.decaro]

Bravo.

I dare say Western civilization (which is unquestionably a force for good in world history) won't reach the sink or swim point without some unified ideology to push back the lost ground. Traditionally Religion, proper Religion, not this rainbow uniting church crap we have now, seems to be the only existing existing ideology that fits the measure. The current Pope needs to die off and the new one declare marxism and globalism as not just a sin and antithetical to humanity and God, but name it as heretical Gnosticism. This shit goes back a long way.

Can you give me an example of when "traditional religion" has been a force for good? Or even western civilization for that matter.
I don't see how replacing one religion with another and declaring our side of the planet the good one serves any purpose

[Jovan Dragisic]

Can you give me an example of when "traditional religion" has been a force for good? Or even western civilization for that matter.
I don't see how replacing one religion with another and declaring our side of the planet the good one serves any purpose

It was ok when the devil made the Church steal all the gold from the Americas (not my proposition, the jesuits created a film production company and hired Russel Crowe to let the people know).

[Subby]

Can you give me an example of when "traditional religion" has been a force for good? Or even western civilization for that matter.
I don't see how replacing one religion with another and declaring our side of the planet the good one serves any purpose

What type of example?

[Satch12879]

It was ok when the devil made the Church steal all the gold from the Americas (not my proposition, the jesuits created a film production company and hired Russel Crowe to let the people know).

Child sacrifice was already down a couple of percent; those nasty conquistadores messed it all up.

[francesco.decaro]

What type of example?

You claimed western civilization is unquestionably a force for good for world history, based apparently on religious motivations.
So can you can give an example of how Proper Religion has been a force for good? Or any other aspect of western civilization that are unquestionable and directly attributable to "it"?
Maybe it would be useful if you defined these two things, "western civilization" and "proper religion".

[VNV]

You claimed western civilization is unquestionably a force for good for world history, based apparently on religious motivations.
So can you can give an example of how Proper Religion has been a force for good? Or any other aspect of western civilization that are unquestionable and directly attributable to "it"?
Maybe it would be useful if you defined these two things, "western civilization" and "proper religion".

Western civ. and its religious imagination inspired great art, music, literature. (Arguable, I guess, particularly for those who lean towards deconstruction.) Contrast this with Soviet thinking which produced concrete beehives, etc.

It gave us modern science, by proposing that the world is intelligible because it is made and made orderly by an intelligence. Other approaches to Order inevitably beg the question, or prohibit one from asking it (not so Free).

The magnitude of the various charitable organizations are also concrete witness. Catholic Charities is the second largest non-profit in the US, with one independent report claiming 90% efficiency. I don't find this particularly interesting, but it's there.

I suppose you've run your own thought experiment, a la John Lennon, and have imagined a better world without Religion. Care to share how you think that would've played out over a couple of thousand years? (Wasn't that the old world, B.C, anyway?)

[Jovan Dragisic]

Child sacrifice was already down a couple of percent; those nasty conquistadores messed it all up.

Hey, I never claimed that the South Americans had good religion.

[francesco.decaro]

Western civ. and its religious imagination inspired great art, music, literature. (Arguable, I guess, particularly for those who lean towards deconstruction.) Contrast this with Soviet thinking which produced concrete beehives, etc.

It gave us modern science, by proposing that the world is intelligible because it is made and made orderly by an intelligence. Other approaches to Order inevitably beg the question, or prohibit one from asking it (not so Free).

The magnitude of the various charitable organizations are also concrete witness. Catholic Charities is the second largest non-profit in the US, with one independent report claiming 90% efficiency. I don't find this particularly interesting, but it's there.

I suppose you've run your own thought experiment, a la John Lennon, and have imagined a better world without Religion. Care to share how you think that would've played out over a couple of thousand years? (Wasn't that the old world, B.C, anyway?)

Religion is definitely part of modern history as much as ancient history.
Along with the inventions that would've been made no matter what because we are humans and that's what we do, horrible things have happened because of them. The artistic value in the Western World is obviously undeniable, as well as a lot of the suffering that happened because of it (just think of the Colosseum), but you could compare it with something else rather than the Soviet Union. Asia and the Arabic world have obtained the same scientific achievements, sometimes earlier than us, and contributed their own artistic value to humanity.

I have come to think of religion as an interesting philosophical tool to search for truth individually, but when looked at in an historical context, I think we can agree a lot of awful shit came out of it.

So I don't know if this west vs everyone else argument really makes sense, because you'll find great things and awful things humans did as they advanced through history and still do all over the planet, and because everything has an ending.
Advancement was always made through enormous human sacrifice, just think of the fact that up until 100 years ago most of the world was poor, hungry or malnurtured, sick and generally had a shitty life. So whatever "we" did in the centuries prior, didn't really help with that. A lot of recent scientific advancement or research was done by nazi doctors, wasn't it?
Women and black people were heavily discriminated against on a legal and social basis until not even 60 years ago, and that's in the US alone. 2 major world wars happened and a third one is on its way. And so forth.
I think most of the advancement we enjoy today has been achieved only in the last 100 years at very very high costs.
There is something to be said about suffering and artistic value though, for some reason suffering brings out surreal talent out of people while abundance and happiness doesn't most of the time.

My wish is that there would be no countries (meaning governments), but from a libertarian point of view, not a hippie one.