Those were not a Nazi innovation. That inscription on the buckles was a German Army tradition that went back to before Germany existed as a unified state.
The (self inflicted) Death of Europe
- Thread starter Emperor Tippy
- Start date
Those were not a Nazi innovation. That inscription on the buckles was a German Army tradition that went back to before Germany existed as a unified state.
LordsFire
Internet Wizard
This is why I have specified western/materialistic atheism in a number of my posts. What Buddhism/Confucianism teach is very different.
And I'm quite familiar with how Nietzsche deconstructed attempts at morality without God. That's part of my point.
Everyone has faith in something and atheism doesn't make you any smarter or more enlightened or superior.
Massacre of priests and the cultural revolution of Mao. Directly tied to their atheism and desire to see society as atheists. If you want to say something like the crusades are tied to christianity you have to say that is tied to atheism.
You are joking, right?
Secular ethics - Wikipedia
en.m.wikipedia.org
Religion is not only not essential to morality, it actively hinders it, seeing as it relies on fear of punishment rather than cultivation of genuine empathy in order to instill adherence to its moral code.
For every atheistic regime that perpetrated an atrocity I can give you ten religious ones that did worse.
The percentage of atheists in prison is much, much lower than their share of the population in every country that doesn't criminalize atheism itself.
For every prosperous country that has a theocratic or semi-theocratic component I can give you ten similar countries that fail horribly and ten secular countries that prosper.
Sounds to me like these religious ethical frameworks are another case of "should work in theory" but crash horribly in practice. Like communism.
LordsFire
Internet Wizard
You are joking, right?
Secular ethics - Wikipedia
Religion is not only not essential to morality, it actively hinders it, seeing as it relies on fear of punishment rather than cultivation of genuine empathy in order to instill adherence to its moral code.
For every atheistic regime that perpetrated an atrocity I can give you ten religious ones that did worse.
The percentage of atheists in prison is much, much lower than their share of the population in every country that doesn't criminalize atheism itself.
For every prosperous country that has a theocratic or semi-theocratic component I can give you ten similar countries that fail horribly and ten secular countries that prosper.
Sounds to me like these religious ethical frameworks are another case of "should work in theory" but crash horribly in practice. Like communism.
You are either horribly misinformed, or playing games with meanings.
1. You completely fail to understand Christian morality. Doing what is right out of fear of the law, is the realm of those who have already failed morally. In Christian morality, what should be done, is that you Love others, because God Loved you, and in experiencing that Love, you are changed. The idea that Christian morality is based on fear, is an old and tired strawman.
2. Nazi Germany, Communist China, The USSR. Name a Christian nation that did anything anywhere near as horrifying as those three. Note, I specify Christian, because I'm a Christian, not a 'every religion other than atheist-ian.' I have no need to defend other belief systems.
3. I have repeatedly directly addressed the fact that many religious nations, both with and without established state religions, do horrible things. Christian ones too. When a purportedly christian nation fails to meet the moral standards of God though, they can logically be called out for such.
4. I'm not talking about established theocracies versus other nations. I'm not going to try to argue that. I'm arguing about the dominant cultural values.
5. Most importantly, linking a thing doesn't count as making an argument. I had a brief look at the page you linked, and it has a number of problems:
1: Linking a page is not presenting an argument, unless that page's contents are an argument. It does not actually present any arguments, just discusses some positions held, not the rationality thereof.
2: Nietsche predicted atheism would lead to the bloody 20th century, Kant failed at bringing forth a purely rational moral framework, and the Wikipedia page doesn't address either of those things.
3: I have yet to see the other presented philsophers' arguments manage to actually build a moral framework.
TL;DR You haven't actually presented an argument.
That's complete nonsense. You are spouting exactly the lines as communists who failed utterly in this regard.
That's not actually possible. In terms of sheer numbers of dead I believe Mao ekes out a win and relative to the nation size Democratic Kampuchea takes the win in terms of numbers dead relative to the population and sheer senseless cruelty in their slaughter.
D
Deleted member
Guest
Religion doesn't rely on fear, anyway. It simply teaches you how the Cosmos works and explains the way to you that you can act in your own best interest and that of people you care about by following the universal design.
Which atheism does as well. What atheists largely don't realize is that they too have religious beliefs.
D
Deleted member
Guest
It actually dates back to the Swedes in the 30 Years War; Brandenburg copied it from its patron and ally.
Their beliefs are based on negation, however, which is the real reason they are not long-lasting; atheists can be virtuous but a society cannot long sustain that virtue on atheism alone, the same with Republics, it relies on personal rather than systemic virtue.
Terthna
Professional Lurker
Trust me, everyone thinks they've come to their conclusions rationally; and oftentimes, they're right, from their perspective at least. However you notice how I made a claim, that at least one moral precept of Judaism and Christianity (the Golden Rule), was actually taken from a preceding culture, ancient Mesopotamia, instead of "direct divine revelation"? And what was the reaction to that?
I'm not questioning what got you to this point, but how you react to conflicting data. With immediate rejection, as pretty much everyone does when it's something they care deeply about.
Edgeplay_cgo
Well-known member
Nope. But people did come before you, and I believe there was revelation to them. Jesus gave us the perfect edition of revelation.
Terthna
Professional Lurker
I think a distinction needs to be made here between personal religion, and organized religion; and it's the latter that tends to run into such issues as GoldRanger pointed out, as it tends to involve giving a lot of power to a handful of people over the spiritual well-being of others.
Actually, the same distinction could be made between personal atheism, and organized atheism; so really, it's organizations and their propensity to be corrupted to serve the will of a select few at the top that is the real issue at hand.
CarlManvers2019
Writers Blocked Douchebag
The Priest Caste that will be ot has been born even amongst atheists
The Church kf Ryback/The Saints/The Cadezvan Empire from David Weber&John Ringo’s Prince Roger/Empire of Man series
Instead of preaching about Environmentalism and building castles in the nicer parts of the wilderness, they are preaching Socialism whilst living in gated communities
LordsFire
Internet Wizard
You're again making unmerited assumptions on my behalf, one which fails to understand the worldview I'm operating from.
My argument wasn't 'other people didn't think such things before,' it was 'the reason other people thought this before, was because they recognized part of how God designed them to operate.'
Yes, the Judeo-Christian expression of the concept may have come later, but divine revelation of Truth through Jesus was not the creation of that concept, it was, as the term indicates, a revelation of the concept.
Claiming that my rejection is nothing but an emotional response is insulting, and given how little you know me, quite unfounded.
Terthna
Professional Lurker
I suppose I can see where you're coming from with that position; but it only holds under said worldview, which I do not share. From my perspective, you're just completely delusional.
40thousandninjas
Active member
Europe's biggest problem isn't that it's irreligious so much as it's the general capacity for self delusion.
In the post war world, they set up an economic system that maintains a high standard of living and a collection of political systems that bend unwavering to the people. Europe entered the 21st century that they had solved all of their problems, that their version of liberalism would spread across the world like a wildfire. With the death of communism, Europe's standard of living would rise dramatically as the world gleefully rode across the wave of free trade and liberalism.
Yeah... No.
European citizens are finding it hard to accept that their model has some serious problems, not the least is serious strategic dependence on the United States. Their armies are used for political porkbarreling not for fighting serious wars and as their leeching as aggravated the United States, they seem unwilling to accept that we might just walk away making their problem far worse.
Europe tied their economic fates to each other in an attempt to make another war impossible. Instead the clear lack of vision has made the EU an indecisive, bloated disaster that cannot function properly. European nations are dependent on each other but their fundamental geopolitical interests have not gone away, so instead fuck with each other.
Finally, European nations are held hostage by the fickle whims of a frankly uninformed and delusional electorate. Europeans like free stuff provided by their governments which means instead of building an army to protect their borders, they spend billions of Euros on their own citizens and give the rest to Turkey to keep the migrants away (nevermind that Turkey can go full Vader and alter the deal at any time).
Europe has no leader and the countries don't trust each other to actually fall behind one of them.
In the post war world, they set up an economic system that maintains a high standard of living and a collection of political systems that bend unwavering to the people. Europe entered the 21st century that they had solved all of their problems, that their version of liberalism would spread across the world like a wildfire. With the death of communism, Europe's standard of living would rise dramatically as the world gleefully rode across the wave of free trade and liberalism.
Yeah... No.
European citizens are finding it hard to accept that their model has some serious problems, not the least is serious strategic dependence on the United States. Their armies are used for political porkbarreling not for fighting serious wars and as their leeching as aggravated the United States, they seem unwilling to accept that we might just walk away making their problem far worse.
Europe tied their economic fates to each other in an attempt to make another war impossible. Instead the clear lack of vision has made the EU an indecisive, bloated disaster that cannot function properly. European nations are dependent on each other but their fundamental geopolitical interests have not gone away, so instead fuck with each other.
Finally, European nations are held hostage by the fickle whims of a frankly uninformed and delusional electorate. Europeans like free stuff provided by their governments which means instead of building an army to protect their borders, they spend billions of Euros on their own citizens and give the rest to Turkey to keep the migrants away (nevermind that Turkey can go full Vader and alter the deal at any time).
Europe has no leader and the countries don't trust each other to actually fall behind one of them.
LordsFire
Internet Wizard
I'm glad we understand each other then. It's important to recognize when your conception of the world is fundamentally different from that of another person's. Frankly, it's necessary to have a useful discourse at the deepest level.
I think that people who persistently deny the existence of God are delusional. Not as an insult, but as a factual descriptor; the evidence is there, they just reject it.
Looping this back around to the subject of the thread, I think that this is the foundational problem of Europe. They've rejected the fundamental truth of reality, and are playing games with various pleasant fantasies in how they try to make their cultures, economies, and governments operate. As these fantasies don't actually correspond to reality, it's causing them no end of grief.
And like most people voluntarily living in a fantasy, they react forcefully to people trying to point out that the fantasy is not, in fact, real, and act like the problems caused by the clash with reality are the fault of the people pointing it out, rather than their refusal to accept facts of life.
Terthna
Professional Lurker
Meanwhile, as an agnostic theist, my thoughts are that there's probably some sort of higher power out there, but I thoroughly reject the notion that anyone on this earth has ever known what that higher power is or wants. I mean sure, from a philosophical perspective, there is a lot of value that can be gleaned from the various religions; but the same could be said of any other work of fiction.
Just because the sun is not dragged across the sky by a guy in a chariot, does not mean that the sun does not exist; conversely, just because the sun exists, it does not then follow that we should all be worshiping Apollo.
I'm sorry, but Europe's problems have nothing to do with religion.
CarlManvers2019
Writers Blocked Douchebag
Wait, what? I thought it was agreed here that a rise in Sharia Law or Islamic Theocratic Values of the “Holy Shit, even our ancestors are creeped out” kind that will ban lots of things like women getting to walk outside without burqas or being attracted to the same sex
It’s not the organized crime and the terrorists I’d be really worried about in the long term, it will be the transformation of society to something that will make it hell for those of other religions, sexual orientations and a desire to have some harmless fun that just so happens to have books wherein the characters are unveiled
The European Comicbook industry for one, will be heavily censored and not allowed to sell much of its old albums