I Reject, I Affirm. ''Raising the Black Flag'' in an Age of Devilry. - Page 44 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

Wandering the information superhighway, he came upon the last refuge of civilization, PoFo, the only forum on the internet ...

An atheist-free area for those of religious belief to discuss religious topics.

Moderator: PoFo Agora Mods

Forum rules: No one line posts please. Religious topics may be discussed here or in The Agora. However, this forum is intended specifically as an area for those with religious belief to discuss religion without threads being derailed by atheist arguments. Please respect that. Political topics regarding religion belong in the Religion forum in the Political Issues section.
#15180100
annatar1914 wrote:So is Christianity a ''waiting'' religion? To a point I'd say, although in the interim we have God the Holy Spirit preparing us. So it's a joyful and hopeful waiting. No room there for human religion's main lever of fraudulent control; fear.


Then I'd say it's more accurate to say Christianity as a "preparing" religion, although I also think "preparing a soul for ascension / eternal life worthiness" should be a basic requirement of any virtuous religion / theology.

IMHO the "waiting" part of Christianity (or, rather, Judaism, in their initial belief of a Messiah) mostly comes from times when the virtuous and faithful (as they believe or see) are being persecuted.
#15180626
Patrickov wrote:Then I'd say it's more accurate to say Christianity as a "preparing" religion, although I also think "preparing a soul for ascension / eternal life worthiness" should be a basic requirement of any virtuous religion / theology.

IMHO the "waiting" part of Christianity (or, rather, Judaism, in their initial belief of a Messiah) mostly comes from times when the virtuous and faithful (as they believe or see) are being persecuted.


@Patrickov ;

This is not untrue,what you're saying within the bounds and context of what I've said. Mankind has these things implanted within us; and that's not a bad thing nor is it a concept alien to Christianity itself (St. Paul's sermon to the Athenians about ''the Unknown God'', based on the stele in Athens having that inscription).
#15183306
annatar1914 wrote:Political Interest my friend,thank you for your replies, they are greatly appreciated and reflected upon! I wanted to comment on a few of your statements, forgive me if I'm incomplete in addressing your statements (a certain re-consideration on my part is involved, I'm deep in reflection on the state of the world lately);


Thank you very much for your response as well! You are not incomplete in addressing what I've written in the slightest. I do hope you will excuse me for my late response, yet again and for any incompleteness on my part.

annatar1914 wrote:I agree, and aver that the modernist reply that all that is gone forever is too confident by far. On the contrary I do not believe society built on modernism can survive, it simply isn't sustainable norisit natural.


Life in the cities was perhaps not as rich as life in the country. It was always this way in the East, and in the pre-industrial West, that you would send son by son, daughter by daughter into the urban settings where they would get higher paid work and pursue education at institutes.

Social ties are broken by modernity. The West as the utmost expression of modernity lacks strong social bonds precisely because it is ultra modern or indeed post-modern.

annatar1914 wrote:Think of all the bloodshed of the ''Age of Revolutions'', caused by these turmoils of men with their minds on fire!


So much was wasted as well, all because of the need to tick the intellectual boxes of these ideologies. For example, the communist insistence on central planning at all costs without any sort of economic pragmatism, it in the end was a major contributing factor to the collapse of Russia in 1991.

These ideological suppositions and dogmas lead humanity in the wrong direction because they're entirely arbitrary in many cases. They lack a basis in the material conditions if we are to speak with some level of irony.

annatar1914 wrote:A great deal of modern philosophy is merely sophistry, status-seeking by means of exercises in verbal or written diarrhea.


Yes, and entirely pretentious and boring.


annatar1914 wrote:Good point, perhaps I have become too jaundiced and cynical.


Confucian societies are also very much modern societies these days, but Confucianism seems to provide a fundamental social stability that is lacking in the West, in spite of post-modernity. This is not to say I would advocate for the adoption of Confucianism in the West but it is at least a useful point of interest and we could take some influences from it, for example the respect for elders, politeness and an emphasis on social harmony.

annatar1914 wrote:It is similar indeed, as is to be expected I think. I think a lot of conclusions can be extrapolated from this tension in Magian culture.


It also offers a sense of preparedness, preparedness in the sense that we know that we will face the Final Judgment.

annatar1914 wrote:Dobrinya against Zmei Gorynych (the three headed dragon), an epic song of old;



St. George against the Dragon;



Brothers, we are tired of foreign land;



Memory.


From Lithuania:

#15183347
Political Interest wrote:Thank you very much for your response as well! You are not incomplete in addressing what I've written in the slightest. I do hope you will excuse me for my late response, yet again and for any incompleteness on my part.



Life in the cities was perhaps not as rich as life in the country. It was always this way in the East, and in the pre-industrial West, that you would send son by son, daughter by daughter into the urban settings where they would get higher paid work and pursue education at institutes.

Social ties are broken by modernity. The West as the utmost expression of modernity lacks strong social bonds precisely because it is ultra modern or indeed post-modern.



So much was wasted as well, all because of the need to tick the intellectual boxes of these ideologies. For example, the communist insistence on central planning at all costs without any sort of economic pragmatism, it in the end was a major contributing factor to the collapse of Russia in 1991.

These ideological suppositions and dogmas lead humanity in the wrong direction because they're entirely arbitrary in many cases. They lack a basis in the material conditions if we are to speak with some level of irony.



Yes, and entirely pretentious and boring.




Confucian societies are also very much modern societies these days, but Confucianism seems to provide a fundamental social stability that is lacking in the West, in spite of post-modernity. This is not to say I would advocate for the adoption of Confucianism in the West but it is at least a useful point of interest and we could take some influences from it, for example the respect for elders, politeness and an emphasis on social harmony.



It also offers a sense of preparedness, preparedness in the sense that we know that we will face the Final Judgment.



From Lithuania:



@Political Interest , I want to thank you for that video (note how everything in the singer's story is not only alive but also has volition, a will, true in the Old Lithuania and the Koran and Holy Bible and Old Russia too!), and to address what you're saying in a slightly different manner than my usual format with people in general. I'll tell a story, then ask some questions.

Recently by some strange twist of fate, I have been reading Lev Shestov (as an aside, @Potemkin and @Verv , you guys might be familiar with him too) , and had a 'weird' urge to familiarize myself with his arguments against modern philosophy all the way down to the Greeks and Socrates....

I then entered into, again by an unplanned twist of fate, a kind of private polemic with a gentleman who is something of a modern conservative philosopher, who as it turns out practically worships the Greek Philosophers... It did not end well.

And reading your replies @Political Interest , it strikes me that I have been talking past people when confronting the problem of Modernity....Socrates and his ilk built Modernity, 2400 years ago It began. It is not a revival of ''Paganism'' as such, and Hellenism is the construction of Greco-Roman Philosophy. It unsettles all relations. The Athenians who executed Socrates had a point.

Greek Philosophy blasphemously asks if anything is good because the holy gods decree it,or are the gods holy because they follow ''the good'' out of an iron Necessity which they themselves cannot change. I can tell you that nobody before Socrates believed in the latter.

Dostyoevsky said somewhere that ''with God all things are possible'', that with God, nothing is impossible to Him.

One can follow God, and be liberated from our miserable ethics and morality and notions of ''Necessity'', or we can follow God's commandments and trust that He is Good and can do anything. We cannot constrain Him. After all, what do we really know, we Moderns? To quote Lev Shestov;
''A = A. —They say that logic does not need this postulate, and could easily develop it by deduction. I think not. On the contrary, in my opinion, logic could not exist without this premise. Meanwhile it has a purely empirical origin. In the realm of fact. A is always more or less equal to A. But it might be otherwise. The universe might be so constituted as to admit of the most fantastic metamorphoses. That which now equals A would successively equal B and then C, and so on. At present a stone remains long enough a stone, a plant a plant, an animal an animal. But it might be that a stone changed into a plant before our eyes, and the plant into an animal. That there is nothing unthinkable in such a supposition is proved by the theory of evolution. This theory only puts centuries in place of seconds. So that, in spite of the risk to which I expose myself from the admirers of the famous Epicurean system, I am compelled to repeat once more that anything you please may come from anything you please, that A may not equal A, and that consequently logic is dependent, for its soundness, on the empirically-derived law of the unchangeableness of the external world. Admit the possibility of supernatural interference - and logic will lose that certitude and inevitability of its conclusions which at present is so attractive to us. ''


Who the Devil are we to limit the possible and the real? To shorten the Hand of God, however else we may think and believe of Him?

@Political Interest , what we discuss is a sealed book, is it not?

The implications are staggering. As you've been saying, no basis in actual reality, am I right? They can speak of''material conditions'' but fail to understand the ontological and vital dimension that provides the foundation for what they call ''matter''. They live in a different and in my opinion highly unreal Cosmos. There then can be no common polity or social order with them. I used to make fun of the thinkers of the traditionalist school, ambiguous and nebulous their thought seemed. But they're saying the same thing many people have always said, most of Humanity; ''what does Jerusalem have to do with Athens?''

EDIT; perhaps I'm venting some of my spleen, but really my friends, I want to say to some out there;

''Fuck your miserable 'ethics' and 'morality' and your 'consolations of philosophy'. Your lies have corrupted the Earth and filled It with innocent blood.''

Again with Lev Shestov, (as with Tertullian and others), about the trials of St. Job (in an essay about Kirkegaard) ;

'' The words that the friends of Job addressed to that tormented old man, lying in filth, show them to be no less educated than the Greek philosophers. Their lengthy speeches, put more concisely, all come down to what Socrates was in the habit of saying, or, if we may believe Epictetus, what Zeus said to Chryssip: if it is impossible to prevail, then men and gods alike must accept their fate. And on the other hand, if a brief version of Job's answer to his friends is wanted, it could be stated this way: nowhere in the world is there a force strong enough to make him "accept" what happened to him as proper and unquestionable. In other words, not just necessity's "right" but also its "power" is being questioned. To be exact, does necessity really have the power to arrange the fates of men and of the world? Is this a "self-evident truth" or a dreadful nightmare? How did it happen, how could it happen, that human beings accepted this power and humbled themselves before it? Furthermore, how could the "ethical," which men associate with all that is most important, most essential, most valuable in life, come forward with its "you must" to champion that meaningless, disgusting, dull, stupid, blind thing, Necessity? Can a man live in peace as long as he is dominated by necessity? Is it possible for him not to give in to despair if he has convinced himself that necessity, not satisfied with the methods of outward coercion at its disposal, has managed to win over to its side his own "conscience," and forced it to sing the praises of its evil deeds? ''


Thank God that God vindicated St. Job's point of view and specifically condemned his philosopher friends, restoring St. Job himself and everything and everyone else back to him, with interest!
#15183567
@Potemkin , @Political Interest , and @Verv ;

I guess my last post on this thread makes me out to be some Barbarian, rejecting any secular ethics or morality (certainly not any Kantian ''is/ought'' nonsense!), any civil and secularized philosophy of science or government, any rationalization of daily life by means of some logical plan and all that. Other people can live that way.

What does that mean now, with COVID and the vaccines and the role of government, the geopolitics? I took the vaccine as a gesture out of love for my fellow man, and as a medicine made by healers. It's that simple. It no longer has to do with mental categories that have become universalized and allegedly reified in the world. But none of that exists.''Necessity/Fate'' is just a Social Construct.

Maybe Civilization since the rise of Philosophy has thrown things out of balance, maybe there is some homeostatic mechanism governing the world order which was violated by, not Christ, but Greek Philosophy, made concrete by Hellenistic culture? Nietzsche and his ''Birth of Tragedy'' and his ''Apollonian''/''Dionysian'' themes might be useful as a background framing of these questions, albeit one in which that poor man can only contribute a part...

Barbarism as the Dionysian.
#15183694
annatar1914 wrote:@Potemkin , @Political Interest , and @Verv ;

I guess my last post on this thread makes me out to be some Barbarian, rejecting any secular ethics or morality (certainly not any Kantian ''is/ought'' nonsense!), any civil and secularized philosophy of science or government, any rationalization of daily life by means of some logical plan and all that. Other people can live that way.

What does that mean now, with COVID and the vaccines and the role of government, the geopolitics? I took the vaccine as a gesture out of love for my fellow man, and as a medicine made by healers. It's that simple. It no longer has to do with mental categories that have become universalized and allegedly reified in the world. But none of that exists.''Necessity/Fate'' is just a Social Construct.

Maybe Civilization since the rise of Philosophy has thrown things out of balance, maybe there is some homeostatic mechanism governing the world order which was violated by, not Christ, but Greek Philosophy, made concrete by Hellenistic culture? Nietzsche and his ''Birth of Tragedy'' and his ''Apollonian''/''Dionysian'' themes might be useful as a background framing of these questions, albeit one in which that poor man can only contribute a part...

Barbarism as the Dionysian.


In light of this last post, I was struck be this quote I found when conducting other historical research about the early Slavs, from the East Roman writer of the 6th century, Procopius;



''For these nations, the Sclaveni and the Antae, are not ruled by one man, but they have lived from of old under a democracy, and consequently everything which involves their welfare, whether for good or for ill, is referred to the people. It is also true that in all other matters, practically speaking, these two barbarian peoples have had from ancient times the same institutions and customs. For they believe that one god, the maker of lightning, is alone lord of all things, and they sacrifice to him cattle and all other victims; but as for fate, they neither know it nor do they in any wise admit that it has any power among men, but whenever death stands close before them, either stricken with sickness or beginning a war, they make a promise that, if they escape, they will straightway make a sacrifice to the god in return for their life; and if they escape, they sacrifice just what they have promised, and consider that their safety has been bought with this same sacrifice. They reverence, however, both rivers and nymphs and some other spirits, and they sacrifice to all these also, and they make their divinations in connection with these sacrifices. They live in pitiful hovels which they set up far apart from one another, but, as a general thing, every man is constantly changing his place of abode. When they enter battle, the majority of them go against their enemy on foot carrying little shields and javelins in their hands, but they never wear corselets. Indeed, some of them do not wear even a shirt or a cloak, but gathering their trews up as far as to their private parts they enter into battle with their opponents. And both the two peoples have also the same language, an utterly barbarous tongue. Nay further, they do not differ at all from one another in appearance. For they are all exceptionally tall and stalwart men, while their bodies and hair are neither very fair or blonde, nor indeed do they incline entirely to the dark type, but they are all slightly ruddy in color. And they live a hard life, giving no heed to bodily comforts, just as the Massagetae do, and like them, they are continually and at all times covered with filth; however, they are in no respect base or evil-doers, but they preserve the Hunnic character in all its simplicity. In fact, the Sclaveni and the Antae actually had a single name in the remote past; for they were both called Spori in olden times, because, I suppose, living apart one man from another, they inhabit their country in a sporadic fashion. And in consequence of this very fact they hold a great amount of land; for they alone inhabit the greatest part of the northern bank of the Ister. So much then may be said regarding these peoples.''


Emphasis in bold.

1. follow Democracy and not one-man rule

2. don't believe in Fate/Necessity

3. Believe in ''One Lord of All'' Who determines what is to be.

4. Have barbarian simplicity of character and are not base or evil-doers

Hmm, one might think these are connected traits?
#15184251
@Potemkin , @Political Interest , this post is directed at you guys, because I am having a problem with (as you know) with Philosophy, but specifically with the ''Law'' of Non-Contradiction;


''That 'A' and 'Not-A' cannot be identical in the same time and place''


I am really offended by It, the more I ponder upon it, especially as a Christian. Are Marxists with their dialectic offended by It too? It says that everything bows down to ''Necessity''even God, that that which is dead remains dead, that ''out of Nothing, Nothing comes'' (and that therefore there cannot have been a creation from nothing, and thus the cosmos is eternal in duration in some form or another), and that all the heresies of Christianity and Islam and Judaism have stemmed from the Greek logic and philosophy so-called, a devotion to rationalist principles by the wise and learned and the great instead of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

I'm seeing the outlines of a discussion where it's not just misanthropes like Nietzsche and Ludovici and Rand that are the problem on the Right (yes, these are the ''Right''!), but Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, Kant and Hegel are too.

I'm having problems with all of them really, the so-called ''laws of thought'';

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_th ... ional_laws

''Whatever is, is''.

'Everything must either be or not be.

"two or more contradictory statements cannot both be true in the same sense at the same time"
#15184289
@annatar1914 - the irony is that modern physics - the crowning glory of rational thought - itself violates the law of non-contradiction. Schroedinger’s cat is both alive and not alive in the same place at the same time.
#15184294
Potemkin wrote:@annatar1914 - the irony is that modern physics - the crowning glory of rational thought - itself violates the law of non-contradiction. Schroedinger’s cat is both alive and not alive in the same place at the same time.


@Potemkin ;

Under such a system, everything once thought ''necessary'' is to be thought quite ''contingent'', as far as i'm concerned.

Indeed my friend, so this is most true, that time has not been too kind to the foundations of modernity which rest on a number of flawed foundations . I have always had a gut feeling that Aristotle and the like with his oh-so-logical naturalist rationalism was the father of the modern bourgeoisie, with his ''golden mean'' ethics so perfectly fitted to the leisurely lifestyle with which he assures us is the first principle of philosophical thought...For the cultivation of ''virtue'', of course, ''virtue''so different in his mind to the coarse amusements of the lesser folk who have to actually work for a living.
#15184300
Something weird about contradiction or the unity of opposites in Marxist thinkers I’ve seen is its taken to be a product of reality. But some examples given are ambiguous in the extent to which is is very objective as dialectics tends to emphasize a shifting back and forth in activity. Like its easy to think of Lev Vygotskys example of Language and thought with two schools of thought being language and thought develop independent of one another and another where they’re treated as identical is easy to interpet as a contradiction of the mind. Especially as Marxists emphasize the resolution of the contradiction in identifying a unifying fact that properly explains the limits of the earlier dichotomous ways of seeing an issue. But Hegel is ahainst Kants sense of treating it only as a property of an individual mind and purely subjective but emphasizes the objectivity of the contradiction. Similarly in Marx I see the same sort of resolution where he distinguishes labor from labour power and thus resolves how equal exchange is compatible with exploited labor and its derived surplus value. It seems a theoretical overcoming of Ricardo in political economics. So the answer existed but mankind did not know. But then Marx goes on to analyze capita based on the contradiction of a commodity as both use and exchange value. Where the contradiction clearly isn’t just a theoretical issue although there is effort to displace his emphasis at times in a haphazard way. But it develops into real contradictions which we most certainly experience in the calamity of capitalist production.

So it seems less just a law of thinking as considered as ones internal dialogue or writing but contradictions which represent human relations and activity. We act in ways which contradict other parts and not always in a direct and entire negation but in w complimentary way like a gear meshing with another one. Where the lacking of one becomes the reciprocal relationship of another thing. So the worker and capitalist coexist and define one another in a relation where one posses what another lacks. Without it there is no drive to come into contact. However that is a unity of opposites which doesn’t seem quite like the earlier contradictions.

Regardless there is certainly something to Marxist contradiction and isn’t reducible to that which is simply an error in ones reasoning but part of the development of understanding and actions to resolve it. Where leaving it in theory means we understand a problem but are yet to actually resolve it.

I only have contours in my mind but not a real grasp of contradiction. I have experienced the way some Marxists have analyzed things and resolved a dichotomy and advanced a science. Somwthing which can’t be done without actually understanding the subject matter in great detail and investigating as opposed to some magical predictive power of dialectical reasoning as it is always limited by the empirical knowledge of the subject. To go any further is to simply dream things up and not really confront problems which we currently face.

It always seems that the solution isn’t an eclectic mishmash of things but always establishing the truth of things by finding their absolute limits. Through their relative quality one finds a qualified and absolute truth and yet it propels our relative understanding towards the absolute.
#15184302
Wellsy wrote:Something weird about contradiction or the unity of opposites in Marxist thinkers I’ve seen is its taken to be a product of reality. But some examples given are ambiguous in the extent to which is is very objective as dialectics tends to emphasize a shifting back and forth in activity. Like its easy to think of Lev Vygotskys example of Language and thought with two schools of thought being language and thought develop independent of one another and another where they’re treated as identical is easy to interpet as a contradiction of the mind. Especially as Marxists emphasize the resolution of the contradiction in identifying a unifying fact that properly explains the limits of the earlier dichotomous ways of seeing an issue. But Hegel is ahainst Kants sense of treating it only as a property of an individual mind and purely subjective but emphasizes the objectivity of the contradiction. Similarly in Marx I see the same sort of resolution where he distinguishes labor from labour power and thus resolves how equal exchange is compatible with exploited labor and its derived surplus value. It seems a theoretical overcoming of Ricardo in political economics. So the answer existed but mankind did not know. But then Marx goes on to analyze capita based on the contradiction of a commodity as both use and exchange value. Where the contradiction clearly isn’t just a theoretical issue although there is effort to displace his emphasis at times in a haphazard way. But it develops into real contradictions which we most certainly experience in the calamity of capitalist production.

So it seems less just a law of thinking as considered as ones internal dialogue or writing but contradictions which represent human relations and activity. We act in ways which contradict other parts and not always in a direct and entire negation but in w complimentary way like a gear meshing with another one. Where the lacking of one becomes the reciprocal relationship of another thing. So the worker and capitalist coexist and define one another in a relation where one posses what another lacks. Without it there is no drive to come into contact. However that is a unity of opposites which doesn’t seem quite like the earlier contradictions.

Regardless there is certainly something to Marxist contradiction and isn’t reducible to that which is simply an error in ones reasoning but part of the development of understanding and actions to resolve it. Where leaving it in theory means we understand a problem but are yet to actually resolve it.

I only have contours in my mind but not a real grasp of contradiction. I have experienced the way some Marxists have analyzed things and resolved a dichotomy and advanced a science. Somwthing which can’t be done without actually understanding the subject matter in great detail and investigating as opposed to some magical predictive power of dialectical reasoning as it is always limited by the empirical knowledge of the subject. To go any further is to simply dream things up and not really confront problems which we currently face.

It always seems that the solution isn’t an eclectic mishmash of things but always establishing the truth of things by finding their absolute limits. Through their relative quality one finds a qualified and absolute truth and yet it propels our relative understanding towards the absolute.


@Wellsy , I myself might still be considered a ''Socialist'', although probably not one who derives my thinking from Marx or his epigones.

Still, one thing I do know is reality, conflict and the resolution of conflict, contradictions and their unfolding resolution. I'm not sure that Reason plays a prominent part in the resolution of things,but I do know that Force does. Not blind force, but force guided by wisdom.
#15184388
@Wellsy , Hello, I felt like I owed you a better explanation of my position in relation to your own, so here it goes;

Something weird about contradiction or the unity of opposites in Marxist thinkers I’ve seen is its taken to be a product of reality. But some examples given are ambiguous in the extent to which is is very objective as dialectics tends to emphasize a shifting back and forth in activity.


As with my earlier reply, I think that the interplay of contrasting forces and contradictions is pretty real, but not being a doctrinaire Marxist, I cannot bring myself to call Marxism in it's various forms an exact ''Science'', because the causation of such an interplay of forces lies beyond the finite mind's ability to describe it in a Scientific fashion, at least not honestly, without leaving out a considerable amount of the variables.

Like its easy to think of Lev Vygotskys example of Language and thought with two schools of thought being language and thought develop independent of one another and another where they’re treated as identical is easy to interpet as a contradiction of the mind. Especially as Marxists emphasize the resolution of the contradiction in identifying a unifying fact that properly explains the limits of the earlier dichotomous ways of seeing an issue.


I don't think they're too wrong in wanting to see a synthetic solution to contradictions, just that such solutions in this life are highly provisional and contingent and necessarily one-sided.


But Hegel is ahainst Kants sense of treating it only as a property of an individual mind and purely subjective but emphasizes the objectivity of the contradiction. Similarly in Marx I see the same sort of resolution where he distinguishes labor from labour power and thus resolves how equal exchange is compatible with exploited labor and its derived surplus value. It seems a theoretical overcoming of Ricardo in political economics. So the answer existed but mankind did not know. But then Marx goes on to analyze capita based on the contradiction of a commodity as both use and exchange value. Where the contradiction clearly isn’t just a theoretical issue although there is effort to displace his emphasis at times in a haphazard way. But it develops into real contradictions which we most certainly experience in the calamity of capitalist production.


For someone who is resolutely against the pretentious over-extension of rationalism, I'm however not one to grumble too much if someone happens upon some regular mechanism of human activity that is realistic and expresses the known facts fairly well; under capitalism, we really do perceive commodities as having both exchange and use value, labor really does seem to provide value, the surplus value of which really does seem to be stolen in a profound way, and so forth.

So it seems less just a law of thinking as considered as ones internal dialogue or writing but contradictions which represent human relations and activity. We act in ways which contradict other parts and not always in a direct and entire negation but in w complimentary way like a gear meshing with another one. Where the lacking of one becomes the reciprocal relationship of another thing. So the worker and capitalist coexist and define one another in a relation where one posses what another lacks. Without it there is no drive to come into contact. However that is a unity of opposites which doesn’t seem quite like the earlier contradictions.


If there is a possibility for such contradictory opposites to work together, I'd be all for it, but present human nature seems to suggest that cooperation often gives way to conflict.

Regardless there is certainly something to Marxist contradiction and isn’t reducible to that which is simply an error in ones reasoning but part of the development of understanding and actions to resolve it. Where leaving it in theory means we understand a problem but are yet to actually resolve it.


It could be beyond the means of mere mortals, which is something I know is not popular to hear in some circles. But then, both those who identify the problem and sympathize with those who work on finding a solution, are seen as enemies by reactionary thought. The people like Ludovici and Nietzsche, Ayn Rand and others.

I only have contours in my mind but not a real grasp of contradiction. I have experienced the way some Marxists have analyzed things and resolved a dichotomy and advanced a science. Somwthing which can’t be done without actually understanding the subject matter in great detail and investigating as opposed to some magical predictive power of dialectical reasoning as it is always limited by the empirical knowledge of the subject. To go any further is to simply dream things up and not really confront problems which we currently face.


That's why I come at the problem from another angle, of looking at it from the perspective of love and the common good, of saying; ''what does my inner voice or conscience say about the problem? Is it capable of an personal solution on a individual or collective issue?

It always seems that the solution isn’t an eclectic mishmash of things but always establishing the truth of things by finding their absolute limits. Through their relative quality one finds a qualified and absolute truth and yet it propels our relative understanding towards the absolute.


That's what can be said, and has been,for some time anyway. Not that there's a Kantian ''categorical imperative'' residing within me, but that such truths as you describe imply a conditional response based on the specific circumstances involved, a situational ethics without loaded words like ''action'' or ''duty''. Again,I'm taking a more personalist view of things.
#15184649
Defeat in Afghanistan is the beginning of the end of the Revolution and of Modernism, of the Western World as we know It.

Everybody with a heart and intellect knows this, if it had not been Afghanistan and the Taliban but some other place and actors involved, this would be instantly and obviously recognized as a fact.

But the ''How?'' of the defeat cannot yet be admitted in Western World. I've been discussing the ''How?'' and ''Why?'' for almost 45 pages on this thread alone.

But the Muslims will see themselves as trampling upon the Cross. No, the same people who sacked Constantinople also were defeated at Stalingrad, the same people who conquered the New World and Grenada too also landed on the Moon and bombed Hiroshima, it's all connected and bears relation more to Thor and Luthor, Achilles and Alexander, than Jesus Christ.

But specifically I want to turn to Afghanistan. I warned them after 9-11, the American people and government, as a patriotic citizen and Christian, that their response in the manner in which they did would only sow the Dragon's teeth. 20 years later, and I can see the outcome in the near future; Afghanistan as the epicenter of Jihad that will engulf all it's neighbors, including China.

Because they won against the greatest Pagan Empire that has ever been, America, which failed because It is Pagan, and thus mired in ignorance, and because It is Civilized against a more healthy Barbarism. And so ambitions will grow to take on the entire world from a Bastion that cannot be occupied for long.
#15184985
But it was a Shia revolution that inspired a Sunni response, militancy inspiring militancy, that perhaps as i've written before is more of a lasting phenomenon among the Shia. That the Iranian Islamic Revolution is more powerful of a geopolitical earthquake than the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, which it parallels in interesting ways.

Materialism and Secularized Revolution doesn't inspire militants like this does;



Even to this day;



Or ''the Army of the Imam Mahdi'';



This is not truly understood as well as I think it should be.
#15186063
In the season of the Dormition Fast in the Orthodox Christian Faith, today is the feast day of the ''Seven Sleepers of Ephesus'', the youths even being mentioned in the Koran as a proof-miracle of God;



The Seven Youths of Ephesus: Maximilian, Iamblichus, Martinian, John, Dionysius, Eksacustodianus (Constantine) and Antoninus

Commemorated on August 4, October 22

The Seven Youths of Ephesus: Maximilian, Iamblichus, Martinian, John, Dionysius, Eksacustodianus (Constantine) and Antoninus, lived in the III Century. Saint Maximilian was the son of the Ephesus city administrator, and the other six youths – were sons of other illustrious Ephesus citizens. The youths were friends from childhood, and all were together in military service. When the emperor Decius (249-251) arrived in Ephesus, he commanded all the citizenry to appear for offering sacrifice to the pagan gods; torture and death by execution awaited the recalcitrant. By denunciation from those currying the emperor's favour, the seven youths of Ephesus were summoned to reply to the charges. Standing before the emperor, the seven youths confessed their faith in Christ. Their illustrious military decorations – the military sashes – were quickly taken from them. Decius however set them at liberty, hoping, that they would change their minds while he was away on military campaign. The youths fled from the city and hid in a cave on Mount Okhlonos, where they passed the time at prayer, preparing for the deed of martyrdom. The very youngest of them – Saint Iamblichus, having clothed himself in beggar's attire, went into the city and bought bread. In one of these journeys into the city he heard, that the emperor had returned and sought them, so as to bring them to trial. Saint Maximilian exhorted his companions to come out of the cave and bravely appear at trial. Having learned where the lads were hidden, the emperor gave orders to seal the entrance of the cave with stones, so that the lads would perish in it from hunger and thirst. Two of the dignitaries, coming before the walled-up entrance to the cave, were secret christians. Wanting to preserve the memory of the saints, they set in among the stones a sealed container, in which were located two tin sheaves. On them were inscribed the names of the seven youths and the details of their suffering and death.


But the Lord brought upon the youths a miraculous sleep, continuing almost two centuries. During this while the persecutions against Christians had ceased, although during the reign of the holy nobleborn emperor Theodosius the Younger (408-450) there had appeared heretics who rejected the belief in the Resurrection of the Dead at the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Some of them said: "How can there be a resurrection of the dead, when there would be neither soul, nor body, since they are disintegrated?" Others affirmed: "Only the souls alone would have a restoration, since it would be impossible for bodies to arise and live after a thousand years, when even the dust from them would not remain". The Lord therefore revealed the mystery of the awaited Resurrection of the Dead and of the Future Life also through His seven youths.
The master of that region of land, on which Mount Okhlonos was situated, discovered the stone construction, and his workers opened up the entrance to the cave. The Lord had kept alive the youths, and they as it were awoke from their habitual sleep, not suspecting, that almost 200 years had elapsed. Their bodies and clothing were completely undecayed. Preparing to accept torture, the youths entrusted to Saint Iamblichus yet once again to buy bread for them in the city to keep up their strength. Going towards the city, the youth was astonished, seeing the holy cross on the gates. And hearing the freely uttered Name of Jesus Christ, he began to doubt that he was approaching his own city. Praying for the bread, the youth gave the merchant money with the image of the emperor Decius on it, and he was detained, as one possibly concealing an horde of old money. They took Saint Iamblichus to the city administrator, who at this time happened to be the bishop of Ephesus. Hearing the bewildering answers of the youth, the bishop perceived, that God was revealing through him some sort of mystery, and set out himself with other people to the cave. At the entrance to the cave the bishop took out the sealed container and opened it. He read upon the tin sheaves the names of the seven youths and the details of the sealing-up of the cave on the orders of the emperor Decius. Going into the cave and seeing the youths alive, everyone rejoiced and perceived that the Lord, through their awakening from long sleep, was disclosing to the Church the mystery of the Resurrection of the Dead. Soon the emperor himself arrived in Ephesus and conversed with the youths in the cave. Then the holy youths in view of everyone lay down their heads upon the ground and again fell asleep, this time until the General Resurrection. The emperor wanted to place each of the youths into a jeweled coffin, but appearing to him in a dream, the holy youths said, that their bodies were to be left in the cave upon the ground. In the XII Century the Russian pilgrim the hegumen Daniel saw in the cave these holy remains of the seven youths.
A second commemoration of the seven youths is celebrated on 22 October. (By one tradition, which entered into the Russian Prologue [of Saints Lives], the youths a second time fell asleep on this day; according to the notes of the Greek Menaion of 1870, they fell asleep first on 4 August, and woke up on 22 October. The holy youths are mentioned also in the service of the Church New Year – 1 September).


Moderns can be skeptical, but if God Is God, why not? Cicadas can hibernate 17 hears, seven young men can sleep almost two centuries in a cave and then be revealed, Glory to God in all things!

Like Dostyoevsky and Shestov said, nothing is impossible to God, all things are thus quite possible.

Modern Western Civilization is therefore the saying that miracles can't happen, except those coming from ''Science'' and the Machines....That if God exists at all, He yields to Nature, to the Necessity which He ordained when He designed the Cosmos. Atheists of a more honest sort will dispense with the ''god of philosophers'' that winds up the Universe and then retires altogether.

How freeing then it is, to reject Athens and seek for Jerusalem!
#15186249


“It’s our belief that one day, mujahedin will have victory, and Islamic law will come not to just Afghanistan, but all over the world. We are not in a hurry. We believe it will come one day. Jihad will not end until the last day.”

They have a certain spiritual belief, and it sustains them until they win. Modernity only has freakishness, nausea, and anxiety of life to offer in it's place.
#15186258
@annatar1914

Law of Nature is God's creation. It is absurd to suggest God yields to His creation.

I believe God respects the Law of Nature in a manner similar to mortals upholding Rule of Law.

And it certainly does not mean that miracles do not happen. For example, evildoers getting their just desserts without anyone else's intentional intervention is certainly God's arrangement and, thus, a miracle.
#15186355
@Patrickov , you said;

Law of Nature is God's creation. It is absurd to suggest God yields to His creation.


Right. And He decides what exceptions He can make to what may be ordinary nature at a particular time and place, in my opinion.

I believe God respects the Law of Nature in a manner similar to mortals upholding Rule of Law.


Like I said, I don't think the ''rules'' are eternally ''set in stone''. In fact, religions like Christianity are predicated upon them not being so.

And it certainly does not mean that miracles do not happen. For example, evildoers getting their just desserts without anyone else's intentional intervention is certainly God's arrangement and, thus, a miracle.


Sure, that might be considered a ''miracle'' to some, but I was thinking more of God or one of His Prophets or the like raising someone from the dead, something like that outside the bounds of what is believed to be ''natural''.

In the West, the Scholastics argued about things like; ''can God unmake as being real something that has already happened, go back and remove an event after it occurred?'' Most said ''No'', by the way.
#15186820
The West is being primed for a turn on every level to the political Far Right, in reaction to recent events, or so I once thought.

But I think it's much more than that, I think we're seeing the end of the political altogether, with the associated ends of Ideology and Modernity.

Everywhere there is a Neo-Feudal Elite being generated, lording it over a mass of servants and tradespeople, technicians, and artisans. The State and it's functions as we know it is being privatized, while the Oligarchs of the private businesses uphold one man who arbitrates their rule and manages the frictions between the Oligarchy and the People. Private and Semi-Private militaries.

Look at the Taliban, they have taken over the functions of the State, but the State never existed in the concrete there in Afghanistan in the first place. They are a private non-state organization.

What if Afghanistan is actually the future?
#15186931
annatar1914 wrote:The West is being primed for a turn on every level to the political Far Right, in reaction to recent events, or so I once thought.

But I think it's much more than that, I think we're seeing the end of the political altogether, with the associated ends of Ideology and Modernity.

Everywhere there is a Neo-Feudal Elite being generated, lording it over a mass of servants and tradespeople, technicians, and artisans. The State and it's functions as we know it is being privatized, while the Oligarchs of the private businesses uphold one man who arbitrates their rule and manages the frictions between the Oligarchy and the People. Private and Semi-Private militaries.

Look at the Taliban, they have taken over the functions of the State, but the State never existed in the concrete there in Afghanistan in the first place. They are a private non-state organization.

What if Afghanistan is actually the future?


If Afghanistan under the Taliban again is a sign of the future, the breakdown of Modernism, it is also a sign of the affirmation of what a particular society regards as the ''sacred'' as opposed to the secular. It may not even be something peculiar to Islam or Islamists per se.

Using my bowdlerized version of Oswald Spengler and his insights suggests a possible clue as to what's going on. It is a rebirth of the Magian Civilization of Monotheism, which I extend further than Spengler, incorporating Russia and the other Slavic Orthodox peoples, and the Islamic world, along with the growing traditional Rabbinical Judaism of Israel.

Doesn't mean anyone within this Magian cluster of Monotheistic cultures and spirituality gets along, oh no, but that everywhere else is reverting to a Gentile Paganism of some sort, under the impact of Pagan Philosophy to one measure or other.

So we have the return of God, and of the ''gods''. And yet the continuation of Aristocracy versus the People...
  • 1
  • 42
  • 43
  • 44
  • 45
  • 46
  • 91

@annatar1914 do not despair. Again, el amor pu[…]

I think we really have to ask ourselves what t[…]

I dont know if you recall, but la loca MTG at one[…]

How about Russia uses a battle field nuclear we[…]