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Post by millring on Jul 6, 2017 5:19:24 GMT -5
The concept that good government makes good people is the philosophical foundation of fascism. Good government doesn't make good people. That's got it 160 o backwards. Can I invert/flip a couple things there so as to explain how we got trump? Why flip anything? We got what we are in Trump.
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Post by jdd2 on Jul 6, 2017 5:23:14 GMT -5
... We got what we are in Trump. You should be on TV! (and no, not one of those mud-slinging contests)
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Post by jdd2 on Jul 6, 2017 6:52:12 GMT -5
I'm not disagreeing and I'm not shooting down your idea. But how would such a thing get legs and move forward? k Well, I guess that leaves it to me to disagree and shoot down that idea. The thought of Christians being the moral arbiters of our age gives me the heebie geebies. A better solution to me would be good governance, ethical police, and a well run justice system. How hard can that be? Mike www.newsweek.com/hobby-lobby-iraq-antiquities-evangelicals-632434
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Post by theevan on Jul 6, 2017 7:27:36 GMT -5
k Well, I guess that leaves it to me to disagree and shoot down that idea. The thought of Christians being the moral arbiters of our age gives me the heebie geebies. A better solution to me would be good governance, ethical police, and a well run justice system. How hard can that be? Mike www.newsweek.com/hobby-lobby-iraq-antiquities-evangelicals-632434And what point does that make? And, BTW, I never advocated for Christians running things or not running things. My post had nothing to do with governance whatsoever.
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Post by theevan on Jul 6, 2017 7:28:23 GMT -5
It had everything to do with a civil society. That starts and ends with the heart of man.
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Post by millring on Jul 6, 2017 7:45:14 GMT -5
The only fix in my mind is a widespread Christian revival. I'm guessing others might not agree. A free society cannot long survive a descent into a non-moral or even amoral way of life. And for those of us outside Christianity--or any other religion? How do we manage to maintain our moral sense? (This without the problem of "whose Christianity?" Or "why not Islam or Buddhism or Judaism?") Hint: Some of us see religion not as a cause of moral sense but an effect of it. Even Dante recognized the existence of virtuous pagans--he had to design an annex for them. Your problem isn't going to be getting intellectuals and intellectual-wannabes to agree with you. It's always going to be getting the masses to agree with you. The left has the entirety of academia (and has for a generation now) and all they've managed to do is convey nihilism. The masses will require an opiate. Or the other solution from the left -- genocide and fascism.
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Post by epaul on Jul 6, 2017 10:03:11 GMT -5
Hey, I'm one those masses and I don't need no opiate thing. Maybe a couple beers and some Netflix, but, hey, it's rough out there.
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Post by Russell Letson on Jul 6, 2017 10:36:32 GMT -5
John, I hardly know where to start--the neo-Tory notion that religion-as-social-control is desirable, or that all "the left" has to offer is nihilism (this in the age of Bannon), or that "genocide and fascism" are "solutions" of the left.
I say again: Religion is does not generate morality, it encodes it. And it is not the only encoding mechanism available.
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Post by fauxmaha on Jul 6, 2017 10:39:42 GMT -5
Hey, I'm one those masses and I don't need no opiate thing. Maybe a couple beers and some Netflix, but, hey, it's rough out there. There's almost certainly a guy in a mobile home park on the other side of town who could hook you up, just in case you change your mind.
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Post by fauxmaha on Jul 6, 2017 10:40:49 GMT -5
John, I hardly know where to start--the neo-Tory notion that religion-as-social-control is desirable, or that all "the left" has to offer is nihilism (this in the age of Bannon), or that "genocide and fascism" are "solutions" of the left. I say again: Religion is does not generate morality, it encodes it. And it is not the only encoding mechanism available. But you are already the quintessential Christian.
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Post by epaul on Jul 6, 2017 10:50:37 GMT -5
Hey! You told me I was. Or was that just the cooking sherry talking.
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Post by theevan on Jul 6, 2017 10:53:46 GMT -5
religion-as-social SELF-control
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Post by Russell Letson on Jul 6, 2017 12:08:08 GMT -5
Jeff, if I'm quintessentially anything, it's an ex-Catholic who benefitted from a sophisticated Catholic education.
Evan--what self-control I possess I learned from my parents (especially my mother), and while some of their value-set was expressed in Catholic terms, the rest was secular and "American" in the way that blue-collar Depression- and WW2-period folks expressed such things. Eventually I sorted through both sets of "oughts" and set aside much of the Catholicism--the metaphysics, the authoritarianism, and the nervousness about anything having to do with sexuality. I note that my law-abiding Protestant, Jewish, and heathen acquaintances have traced similar trajectories. And some remain believers--though that is not what makes them law-abiding.
Civic virtue is where the circles (spheres?) of the N-dimensional Venn diagram of morality systems overlap, but building personalities that can navigate these--that can exert self-control--is a process independent of religion. Which is not to say that a religion can't help. (I think of what the black churches did to reinforce the humanity and forebearance of people who were shat upon for generations. They were literally life-savers.)
But hypertrophied religion (like a hypertrophied state) can reinforce narrowness and intolerance. Every system of social control has its pathological side.
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Post by Cosmic Wonder on Jul 6, 2017 12:19:21 GMT -5
religion-as- social SELF-control No. Self control is just that. Mike
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Post by theevan on Jul 6, 2017 12:39:32 GMT -5
Why is Japan devoid of the kind of problems we see in New Orleans? Is it because they have few guns? I posit that they have few guns because that reflects their common culture. And they have an almost uniquely monoculture. There set of shared values is highly defined and adhered to widely.
Our country used to be something of a monoculture expressed in the term Melting Pot. We have no monoculture left. All we have is multi-culture and no common expectations.
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Post by fauxmaha on Jul 6, 2017 13:16:13 GMT -5
Jeff, if I'm quintessentially anything, it's an ex-Catholic who benefitted from a sophisticated Catholic education. religion-as- social SELF-control No. Self control is just that My point in this is that while both of you may decline the label "Christian", your definition of "self control" or "being a good person" or however you want to say it is derived from the manifestly Christian culture you have been steeped in since birth. In that sense, I think it is reasonable to describe you as "christian" (note the absence of capitalization).
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Post by Russell Letson on Jul 6, 2017 13:51:59 GMT -5
My particular set of moral principles might (as a matter of historical accident) be Christian, but what about those whose values come via Judaism (or Islam or Buddhism, or Confuciansim, or Marxism)? Such folk exist even in the US. I am personally acquainted with moral people steeped in two of those traditions and read enough to know that the other three also produce ethical adults.
And if "Christian" with or without a cap can be watered down to indicate a value-set that has been stripped of reliance on the metaphysical and epistemological scaffolding of scriptural revelation and a denial of the authority of the Church Militant, then it's about as strong your average homeopathic nostrum.
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Post by fauxmaha on Jul 6, 2017 13:57:00 GMT -5
That same "historical accident" largely accounts for the six-sigma (relative to the entirety of human history) wealth, comfort and safety you have enjoyed your entire life.
The fish can not escape the sea.
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Post by Cosmic Wonder on Jul 6, 2017 14:04:03 GMT -5
Jeff, I'll grant you have a point, but regardless, people do what they want to do, mostly. I attend to my morality because it's what I want to do, it's what I think is right, and that is its own reward. It has nothing to do with any religion, other than the belief that we are all in this thing together, and everything is connected.
Mike
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Post by Russell Letson on Jul 6, 2017 14:06:10 GMT -5
And the "wealth, comfort and safety" of Japan? (Aside from the fallout from the not-so-recent Unpleasantness, of course. State Shinto had a role there, I suppose.)
Israel? Oh, I know, Judeo-Christian culture, as various First-Amendment-challenged politicians love to put it. ("America has always been a Christian nation." Don't kid yourself about what that's code for, Hobby Lobby shoppers.)
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