Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Should God be replaced? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Solon who wrote (632)	9/2/2000 5:36:34 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 28931

Alas, many people feel the need to kill babies. Once you can see killing as a means to an end, and the end becomes more important than humanity in general, then killing babies is only a small incremental step over killing adults. There was plenty of baby killing in the Balkans, and lots and lots of baby killing in Africa- as well as the maiming of babies/children by cutting their arms and legs off. And one could argue that we in the West don't mind killing babies with our smart weapons (that are not always so very smart) as long as we don't have to SEE the babies. We are only uneasy if it is pushed in our face by the media. I digress a bit from the God replacement theme. I hope you can forgive me. I recently read "Virtual War: Kosovo and Beyond" and war and atrocities have been on my mind ever since. It's a very good book by the way.

To: Solon who wrote (632)	9/4/2000 1:08:33 AM
From: Greg or e	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 28931

Does any of this sound familiar? "Men have tried to turn "revolutionise" from a transitive to an intransitive verb. The Jacobin could tell you not only the system he would rebel against, but (what was more important) the system he would NOT rebel against, the system he would trust. But the new rebel is a Sceptic, and will not entirely trust anything. He has no loyalty; therefore he can never be really a revolutionist. And the fact that he doubts everything really gets in his way when he wants to denounce anything. For all denunciation implies a moral doctrine of some kind; and the modern revolutionist doubts not only the institution he denounces, but the doctrine by which he denounces it. Thus he writes one book complaining that imperial oppression insults the purity of women, and then he writes another book (about the sex problem) in which he insults it himself. He curses the Sultan because Christian girls lose their virginity, and then curses Mrs. Grundy because they keep it. As a politician, he will cry out that war is a waste of life, and then, as a philosopher, that all life is waste of time. A Russian pessimist will denounce a policeman for killing a peasant, and then prove by the highest philosophical principles that the peasant ought to have killed himself. A man denounces marriage as a lie, and then denounces aristocratic profligates for treating it as a lie. He calls a flag a bauble, and then blames the oppressors of Poland or Ireland because they take away that bauble. The man of this school goes first to a political meeting, where he complains that savages are treated as if they were beasts; then he takes his hat and umbrella and goes on to a scientific meeting, where he proves that they practically are beasts. In short, the modern revolutionist, being an infinite sceptic, is always engaged in undermining his own mines. In his book on politics he attacks men for trampling on morality; in his book on ethics he attacks morality for trampling on men. Therefore the modern man in revolt has become practically useless for all purposes of revolt. By rebelling against everything he has lost his right to rebel against anything."(G.K. Chesterton, The suicide of thought From his book ORTHODOXY) "At least, as imperfect beings--some of us have that idea of morality..." Solon, your attempts to discredit the Lord God Almighty, creator and sustainer of the universe, by arguing your own moral superiority is sort of like the man who attempts to disprove magnetism using a compass. Maybe you can enlighten us as to how you arrived at this "morality" since if God does not exist there is no morality. The compass just spins. I await your reply. Have a good day; Greg

To: Solon who wrote (632)	9/4/2000 11:16:16 AM
From: Solon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 28931

Daily Bible Reading --Sept. 4/2000 Today's reading is a delightful tale from Judges, where morality is examined from several angles, through a variety of literary devices--all woven with the threads of complicity, murder, and just all around good times. The bible is an excellent place to discover and internalise a moral code. Although, in fine, it does sometimes require a great number of desperate commentators working long hours... 19:22 Now as they were making their hearts merry, behold, the men of the city, certain sons of Belial, beset the house round about, and beat at the door, and spake to the master of the house, the old man, saying, Bring forth the man that came into thine house, that we may know him. *(they want to know* him!) 19:23 And the man, the master of the house, went out unto them, and said unto them, Nay, my brethren, nay, I pray you, do not so wickedly; seeing that this man is come into mine house, do not this folly. 19:24 Behold, here is my daughter a maiden, and his concubine; them I will bring out now, and humble ye them, and do with them what seemeth good unto you: but unto this man do not so vile a thing. (following the moral example of Lot, he offers them his virgin daughter and concubine for the satisfaction of their lusts.) 19:25 But the men would not hearken to him: so the man took his concubine, and brought her forth unto them; and they knew her, and abused her all the night until the morning: and when the day began to spring, they let her go. (in this instance they choose the concubine and gang rape her continuously until morning when the light of the Lord shone His Glory over the Face of the Earth) 19:26 Then came the woman in the dawning of the day, and fell down at the door of the man's house where her lord was, till it was light. (She drags herself through the streets as the life drains from her body, and she crawls those last desperate inches to the threshold of the house of her master) 19:27 And her lord rose up in the morning, and opened the doors of the house, and went out to go his way: and, behold, the woman his concubine was fallen down at the door of the house, and her hands were upon the threshold. 19:28 And he said unto her, Up, and let us be going. But none answered. Then the man took her up upon an ass, and the man rose up, and gat him unto his place. What are the last words this poor human being hears as she goes to Hell for eternal torture? "Up, and let us be going" "Up, and let us be going" "Up, and let us be going" "Up, and let us be going" "Up, and let us be going" "Up, and let us be going" "Up, and let us be going" "Up, and let us be going" "Up, and let us be going" "Up, and let us be going" (but nobody answered) Just the very thing that all of us would say after such a night. We can assume that if his offering of his daughter had been accepted, his response would have been the same: "Up, and let us be going"! Don't you just love** this book? 19:29 And when he was come into his house, he took a knife, and laid hold on his concubine, and divided her, together with her bones, into twelve pieces, and sent her into all the coasts of Israel. (This delightful tale ususally has the consequence of uplifting the moral nature to a higher and more exalted level. It is often asked, why it is so difficult and contrived to find any good deeds done by God in the bible--He with the power to do all?: Why are mass murders by God and his agents, and the repeated slaughter of innocents, a dime a dozen. Only Christians know the answer to this, and they are only too happy to tell everyone. The truth, however, is that they are TERRIFIED of their capricious God. Who wouldn't be?? 19:30 And it was so, that all that saw it said, There was no such deed done nor seen from the day that the children of Israel came up out of the land of Egypt unto this day: consider of it, take advice, and speak your minds.