"...Jews in the hope of the Promised Land and their freedom from bondage by the Pharaoh, and Christians from the freedom of the bondage of sin and death."
What utter nonsense do I read here, akin to people walking the face of this earth with chloroform-soaked rags tied around their mouths and noses?
1) The 'promised land' of the Jews has proved to be just another shtetl, ruled by the typical Polish judenrat that lives from picking the rich pockets of the modern Roman Empire, and that sells out its own people to stay in power; a promised land surrounded by enemies to whom the people are expected to make concessions for a peace that shall never come, and watch their children being murdered by these enemies on a regular basis. True, there is no more Pharoah, because the most recent and notable one died in Moscow in 1953 and none has arisen to replace him. But history does not end in a mere 50 years. He will be back, because humankind is weak, foolish and disorganized.
2) Freedom of the bondage of sin and death? There is no sin; only mistakes that screw up your life and those of people close to you. Death? Who among you is so stupid to imagine you shall escape or even evade the single permanent aspect of all life, which is its irrevocable end? Who among you imagines that -- unless you have accomplished something truly noteworthy, for good or for ill -- that any except the remnants of your direct descendants will even know that you ever lived, some 60 years after your passing? Accept the finality of death gracefully and you shall learn the meaning of a contentment you can never achieve by lying to yourselves about an immortality that is granted to no living thing, from the simplest plant or single-celled animal, up to the greatest of all humans.
The shame is not that modern and educated humankind has long begun to shuck off the tales from the crypt of yours and other supposedly divine saviors.
What shame applies here is that people can still be found who systematically warp the minds of their innocent children. Exposing them to the blandishments of perverted pedophile priests (the PPP of the hopefully expiring Holy Roman Empire). Treating as truth the assorted translations of mistranslations of the delusions of ancient, uneducated, bigoted ignoramuses, who, if they were made to stand up before judges today in a modern courtroom, would act and sound at one with the smelly, dirty old goat who two years ago kidnapped a 14-year-old girl from her Utah home and dragged her up to a hidden animal-lair on the side of a mountain; all in response to his 'visions' of what the lord ordered him to do.
Would that the world should at last be rid of all this nonsense. Then we would not be fighting this very day with the armed followers of a vile madman in Sadr City, the very essence of the hashashin of the master-killer al Rukn of some 800 years ago.
Can you not understand that these crazy visions are exactly, precisely the engine that has begun driving once again the wars that threaten not only the freedom of the West, but possibly the extinction of life on this planet?
Can you not understand that when these crazy visions disappear, ignored by a more enlightened human race, that the very fact of the permanence of each individual's death -- no heaven, no hell, no resurrections, no holy or unholy ghosts, no floating souls, nothing at all except life and what we make of it -- that when this is all clearly understood, that then and only then can we proceed with the enrichment of freedom, with productivity, with exploration of our solar system and our universe, with the fulfillment of the potential of the use of our rationality in the betterment of ourselves, our world, our cosmos? Because until then, we will have only the sad spectacle of civilizations at clash and sometimes at war with one another, mostly over little more than arguments about whose god or whose prophet holds superiority or supremacy.
I for one think that the relatively short time frame of our individual lives is worthy of much better than that.
"Can you not understand that when these crazy visions disappear, ignored by a more enlightened human race, that the very fact of the permanence of each individual's death -- no heaven, no hell, no resurrections, no holy or unholy ghosts, no floating souls, nothing at all except life and what we make of it"
But we have that its called China, North Korea old Russia, etc
But China, North Korea, old Russia, etc were and are mere dictatorships of the body, with a circle of compliance that extends only to within reach of the dictator and his secret police agents.
The tyrannies based on the perversions of religion, on the other hand, fasten themselves like leeches upon the brains of each of the population who reside under their power or influence, enslaving without visible chains, turning billions of otherwise normal people into potential manchurian candidates; human time bombs energized to self-destruct for the greater glory of whatever divinity or its agents offer the most promising allure of 72 virgins in the heavenly paradise to follow earthly death.
Islam in the present day, like Roman Catholicism in its earthly continent-wide dictatorship over western Europe in the middle ages, is far more threatening than any socialist regime. And most of the latter fall apart in time because of the inherent inner contradications of their economic and social systems which fly in the face not only of rationalism but also of the entirety of human experience. None has long survived the passing of its great dictator.
Your points are well taken. The institutional church (religion) systems have deplorable historical records nor for that matter has the british crown in regard to individual religious liberty. Yet, I am of the view that the first amendment needs to remain intact.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."
And religious institutions needs to recognize formally that its members are not simply the herd and need to BE HEARD.
Not only the 1st amendment, but the entirety of the constitution of the United States has to be taken seriously. But all too often in the daily management of American government, that document is sanctified more than it is observed.
But I see you fully understand that without absolute separation of religion and government, mankind ends up in just another form of tyranny, And all too frequently, self-imposed tyranny, at that.
That was a real blessing. Thanks, Dean, for the link.
Yes Dean, that was a very nice of you. It is really for everyone IMHO.
"...Jews in the hope of the Promised Land and their freedom from bondage by the Pharaoh, and Christians from the freedom of the bondage of sin and death."
What utter nonsense do I read here, akin to people walking the face of this earth with chloroform-soaked rags tied around their mouths and noses?
1) The 'promised land' of the Jews has proved to be just another shtetl, ruled by the typical Polish judenrat that lives from picking the rich pockets of the modern Roman Empire, and that sells out its own people to stay in power; a promised land surrounded by enemies to whom the people are expected to make concessions for a peace that shall never come, and watch their children being murdered by these enemies on a regular basis. True, there is no more Pharoah, because the most recent and notable one died in Moscow in 1953 and none has arisen to replace him. But history does not end in a mere 50 years. He will be back, because humankind is weak, foolish and disorganized.
2) Freedom of the bondage of sin and death? There is no sin; only mistakes that screw up your life and those of people close to you. Death? Who among you is so stupid to imagine you shall escape or even evade the single permanent aspect of all life, which is its irrevocable end? Who among you imagines that -- unless you have accomplished something truly noteworthy, for good or for ill -- that any except the remnants of your direct descendants will even know that you ever lived, some 60 years after your passing? Accept the finality of death gracefully and you shall learn the meaning of a contentment you can never achieve by lying to yourselves about an immortality that is granted to no living thing, from the simplest plant or single-celled animal, up to the greatest of all humans.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
"“I came in the name of my Father but you do not accept me; yet If another comes in his own name, you will accept him.”
What a shame.
jesu xpi passio
Catch 22,
The shame is not that modern and educated humankind has long begun to shuck off the tales from the crypt of yours and other supposedly divine saviors.
What shame applies here is that people can still be found who systematically warp the minds of their innocent children. Exposing them to the blandishments of perverted pedophile priests (the PPP of the hopefully expiring Holy Roman Empire). Treating as truth the assorted translations of mistranslations of the delusions of ancient, uneducated, bigoted ignoramuses, who, if they were made to stand up before judges today in a modern courtroom, would act and sound at one with the smelly, dirty old goat who two years ago kidnapped a 14-year-old girl from her Utah home and dragged her up to a hidden animal-lair on the side of a mountain; all in response to his 'visions' of what the lord ordered him to do.
Would that the world should at last be rid of all this nonsense. Then we would not be fighting this very day with the armed followers of a vile madman in Sadr City, the very essence of the hashashin of the master-killer al Rukn of some 800 years ago.
Can you not understand that these crazy visions are exactly, precisely the engine that has begun driving once again the wars that threaten not only the freedom of the West, but possibly the extinction of life on this planet?
Can you not understand that when these crazy visions disappear, ignored by a more enlightened human race, that the very fact of the permanence of each individual's death -- no heaven, no hell, no resurrections, no holy or unholy ghosts, no floating souls, nothing at all except life and what we make of it -- that when this is all clearly understood, that then and only then can we proceed with the enrichment of freedom, with productivity, with exploration of our solar system and our universe, with the fulfillment of the potential of the use of our rationality in the betterment of ourselves, our world, our cosmos? Because until then, we will have only the sad spectacle of civilizations at clash and sometimes at war with one another, mostly over little more than arguments about whose god or whose prophet holds superiority or supremacy.
I for one think that the relatively short time frame of our individual lives is worthy of much better than that.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
"Can you not understand that when these crazy visions disappear, ignored by a more enlightened human race, that the very fact of the permanence of each individual's death -- no heaven, no hell, no resurrections, no holy or unholy ghosts, no floating souls, nothing at all except life and what we make of it"
But we have that its called China, North Korea old Russia, etc
But China, North Korea, old Russia, etc were and are mere dictatorships of the body, with a circle of compliance that extends only to within reach of the dictator and his secret police agents.
The tyrannies based on the perversions of religion, on the other hand, fasten themselves like leeches upon the brains of each of the population who reside under their power or influence, enslaving without visible chains, turning billions of otherwise normal people into potential manchurian candidates; human time bombs energized to self-destruct for the greater glory of whatever divinity or its agents offer the most promising allure of 72 virgins in the heavenly paradise to follow earthly death.
Islam in the present day, like Roman Catholicism in its earthly continent-wide dictatorship over western Europe in the middle ages, is far more threatening than any socialist regime. And most of the latter fall apart in time because of the inherent inner contradications of their economic and social systems which fly in the face not only of rationalism but also of the entirety of human experience. None has long survived the passing of its great dictator.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Your points are well taken. The institutional church (religion) systems have deplorable historical records nor for that matter has the british crown in regard to individual religious liberty. Yet, I am of the view that the first amendment needs to remain intact.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..."
And religious institutions needs to recognize formally that its members are not simply the herd and need to BE HEARD.
Catch-22,
Not only the 1st amendment, but the entirety of the constitution of the United States has to be taken seriously. But all too often in the daily management of American government, that document is sanctified more than it is observed.
But I see you fully understand that without absolute separation of religion and government, mankind ends up in just another form of tyranny, And all too frequently, self-imposed tyranny, at that.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI