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 : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dennis O'Bell who wrote (91052)	4/7/2003 9:48:13 PM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 281500

Christianity had simply no chance against the rational certainties of science, as a prevailing explanation of the world we live in. And when I say "rational certainty" I mean just that. The scientific knowledge the modern world rests on is based on verifiable observations, not wishful thinking. Newtonian mechanics is not "false", it is a first approximation that breaks down when gravitational fields are intense, or speeds approach the speed of light, or when the quantum of action is significant in the very small. This is not like the dogma once held by the Church that the earth was the center of the universe, which is simply, patently, false. I believe this also, Dennis. But we have a lot of people in Western Civ that don't. The explosion of the Evangelical movement shows it. The rise of Muslim fundamentalism, as a reaction to Western Civ, is another example. The Islamic Philsopher, Sayyid Qutb, is at the root of this Muslim rage. What do they both have in common? A rejection of "Materialism." Which, at it's root, is a rejection of reason. As a side issue, they both reject the open sexuality in Westen civ also. The Muslims more than the Evangelicals, because the Muslims have less use for women as people who have rights. Christianity adopted the mind/body split from the Greeks. Islam did not. But both are rejecting reason as the way to happiness.

To: Dennis O'Bell who wrote (91052)	4/7/2003 10:21:30 PM
From: Sun Tzu	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

> I still see Jihad versus McWorld to be largely luddites versus progress. This argument is often presented in the middle east where these two forces are in close proximity. The former Shah of Iran for example referred to his enemies as the Reds and the Black. The Reds being the communists and the Blacks the mullahs which he called the dark forces of anti-progress. From a technological perspective you are right. McWorld is more materially advanced. From a social perspective, it is not so simple. Mass consumerism is devoid of most values. It's followers live lonely lives (excluding suicide bombers, suicide is very rare in the JWorld but is progressively common where McWorld rules supreme). Jihad for all its shortcomings, does offer a strong sense of morality and cohesion to its followers. As the article pointed out, there are social advantages to McWorld. Among them are a minimum guarantee of freedom and a drive for a stable war free world. But the social good stops right there. Beyond that freedom becomes a hindrance. What I've tried to do in previous discussions (before I posted the McWorld vs. Jihad article) is that there are many cross currents. And the success of Jihad mentality is to a great extent because of the failure of other approaches. If they had managed to show a way out, then the so called Jihad World would have been inhibited by only few rural extremists. But it is not limited to them; it cuts across social classes in a big way. The people who laid the precursor to the current JWorld were not just ignorant luddites. They were sociologists like Dr. Shariati. Literary scholars like Jalal Al Ahmad. Aerospace professors like Dr. Chamran. MBAs like Bani Sadr. Engineers like Bazargan. Human rights activists and so on. Almost every one of them was educated in the best European and American universities. Many of them spent many years in the West. This is hardly a bunch of luddites. There were (and still are) of course those among them who really were anti-progress. There is certainly a faction who is immensely anti-anything-western. But the luddites are not the majority. Everybody wants to have better life. Every human being wants freedom. And there, like here, the only reason people willingly give up their freedom is because they feel some leader is going to deliver them from a greater danger. If you go back to the very start of this discussion, you see that I started out by saying "Jihad" is a defense mechanism that says "I am going to eat poison to make myself too distasteful for you. Once I am sure you cannot eat me, I will eat vitamins to make myself feel better". Unless we can appreciate this movement for what it is and how it came to be, we cannot deal with it effectively. I stand by that analysis. Sun Tzu

To: Dennis O'Bell who wrote (91052)	4/7/2003 11:21:23 PM
From: Sig	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Do we really regret the loss of that life style ? It has been enough generations now that people in the West, and certainly the US have forgotten how much time it took to just do day to day things, and how much of that drudge work was done by women. Is this shift something to mourn? Paganism in Europe had no chance when Christianity spread the continent. In the same manner, Christianity had simply no chance against the rational certainties of science, as a prevailing explanation of the world we live in. And when I say "rational certainty" I mean just that. The scientific knowledge the modern world rests on is based on verifiable observations, not wishful thinking. Newtonian mechanics is not "false", it is a first approximation that breaks down when gravitational fields are intense, or speeds approach the speed of light, or when the quantum of action is significant in the very small. This is not like the dogma once held by the Church that the earth was the center of the universe, which is simply, patently, false.>>> Now thats what I consider a great piece of writing . And I have not forgotton how long it took to how corn or milk cows. In younger days, one did not ask "why am I doing this", since elders were in charge an it seemed the 'natural' thing to do . And later in the Service, I did not ask " why am I doing this" because the answer was very simple - we could learn to learn to fight or else die. This entire operation from the beginning of shipping equipment overseas to dropping of cement bombs from 30000 feet while traveling 600 mph above the clouds and have it land on a precisely located square yard of soil in a country 1/2 a world away is a demonstration involving nearly every element of science learned to date. I will stop here as 4 bunker busters seem to have come down on Saddams head which would be a turning point for both the War and the head. Keep up the good work Sig@waitingforhisnextpublicapperance.com

To: Dennis O'Bell who wrote (91052)	4/8/2003 12:36:54 AM
From: Sun Tzu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Paganism in Europe had no chance when Christianity spread the continent. You think so? That depends on how you look at it. In many ways Christianity is closer to Mithraism than to what most people believe to be its roots, Judaism. Here is some bits and pieces from previous discussions I've had on the topic. Aside from their possible historical interest, the point is that Christianity was successful in part because it incorporated so much of Mithraism in it. You can almost consider Christianity an off-shoot of it. here we go... ST Early Christianity was considerably more concerned with Mithraism than anything else. Mithraism was wining the hearts and minds of the aristocrats. Being rooted in Persian empire, Mithraism was a great threat to Constantine's domain. The decision to make Christianity the "official" religion was an astute political maneuver. On one hand it put a stop to Persia's influence among the upper class. On the other it made the emperor dear among the lower class. However, as a compromise, so much of Mithraism was incorporated into Christianity that in effect Christianity became an off-shoot of Mithraism. I know that today we think of Christianity as perhaps an off-shoot of Judaism. But at the time the Jews were not important enough to be included in creation of the official state religion. I would wager that Constantine's Sword suffers from survival bias; it looks at the past through what has survived to be important to us today but ignores what was important at the time but is no longer a concern. ... Christianity did not uproot paganism for a very big portion of the remaining time (I think almost till 1300s). ... Emperor Diocletian also a worshipper of Mithra, the Sun God, burned much of the Christian scriptures in 307 A.D. This enabled Emperor Constantine to merge the cult of Mithra with that of Christianity that was developing much. In other words, a very big part (most?) of Christianity is not from Judaism to begin with. Therefore there was never a need to be divisive between Christianity and Judaism because they were never much alike to begin with. And many actions that could be considered as being done to make Christianity distinct from Judaism (eg. change of Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday) are better explained by the influences of Mithraism rather than an effort to be un-Jewish. Quite to the contrary, being pro-Jewish was the better choice as it increased the chances of squashing the many pagan religions. Now at some point in time the Church did advocate anti-Jewish doctrines. And this would be about the time that they were secure that paganism was no longer an issue. And therefore they would prefer to stop the remaining threats to spread of Christianity, namely Judaism and Islam. But that was at a much later date and cannot be considered "fundamental" to Christianity, even though that by the virtue of its recency effect this view would be more dominant in our psyche. ST ... There is absolutely no denying that "paganism" was a considerably bigger threat to Christianity than Judaism. So why in the world would Christianity choose to put the bigger differentiation on Judaism than Pagan religions. Consider how much Christianity has in common with Mithraism: - Belief in being born again. "Spirit of Spirit, if it be your will, give me over to immortal birth so that I may be born again - and the sacred spirit may breathe in me." -- Prayer to Mithraism - Heaven and Hell (note, Romans did not believe in Heaven; everyone went to Hell) All the wicked, the rejected and unbaptised would be destroyed by Mithra by fire, and those accepted into Paradise would live with Mithra forever with eternal life. - and later Purgatory - Belief in the Judgment Day: The faithful to the Mithra believed they would live in bliss after death until the Judgment of mankind. Mithra would then unlock Paradise for the faithful and come to Earth and kill all the unbaptised. All the dead would return from their graves to be judged. - The persona of Mary is almost identical to that of Anahita - Baptism - Virgin Birth - taking the wine and the bread at mass - The calendar (before the changes by decree. October means the 8th month and not the 10th) - Using songs and hymns as a method of prayer - Sunday as the Sabbath (the day of honoring the Sun god) - December 25th was declared the birthday of Mithra I Could go on and on. Please read this passage carefully: "During the 1st century BC, a cult of Mithra, made much progress in Rome, after enduring persecution, when some Emperors adopted the religion... Mithra became very popular among the Roman legionaries and later even among the Emperors. The worship of Mithra was first recognized by Emperor Aurelian and he instituted the cult of "Sol Invictus" or the Invincible Sun. Emperor Diocletian also a worshipper of Mithra, the Sun God, burned much of the Christian scriptures in 307 A.D. This enabled Emperor Constantine to merge the cult of Mithra with that of Christianity that was developing much. He declared himself a Christian but at the same time maintained his ties to the Mithra cult. He retained the title "Pontifus Maximus" the high priest. On his coins were inscribed: "Sol Invicto comiti" which means, committed to the invincible sun. This new blend of the two faiths, he officially proclaimed as Christianity. Christianity spread all over the Roman empire and Eastern Europe by massive persecution and brought and end to a variety of religions that flourished there. ...In 313 A.D., Emperor Constantine declared December 25th to be the birthday of Jesus (December 25th was prescribed earlier as the birthday of Mithra, by emperor Aurelian). Sabbath day, which is literally Saturday (as the Jews still maintain), became Sunday as it was the day of the Sun, another element from the Mithra worship. Until the fourth century, Mithra and Christianity were distinct but after Constantine, the two cults were blended to form the new faith that was to conquer most of the world." ... "Paul mistook the Jewish "Messiah" to mean the Hellenistic "Christ". This happened before anything was written down; it happened during Paul's conversations with people as he was working through what had happened. A messiah is a person who is a great leader who leads your people to freedom. The title was taken by Jews from Persian culture. A christ is a god-king who dies as an offering to some divine being as a sacrifice in return for prosperity, especially agricultural prosperity. Both are anointed with oil as a mystical, sexual rite." and also note that: The archaeological evidence for Mithraism, consisting mostly of monuments, inscribed dedications, and the remains of mithraea, indicates that the cult was most popular among the legions stationed in frontier areas. The Danube and Rhine river frontier has the highest concentration of evidence, but a significant quantity of evidence amply demonstrates that Mithraism was also popular among the troops stationed in the province of Numidia in North Africa and along Hadrian's wall in England. The inscriptions on dedications found in all these areas support Cumont's assertion that Mithraism was most popular among legionaries (of all ranks), and the members of the more marginal social groups who were not Roman citizens: freedmen, slaves, and merchants from various provinces (see above). The area where the concentration of evidence for Mithraism is the most dense is the capital, Rome, and her port city, Ostia. There are eight extant mithraea in Rome of as many as seven hundred (Coarelli 1979) and eighteen in Ostia. In addition to the actual mithraea, there are approximately three hundred other mithraic monuments from Rome and about one hundred from Ostia. This body of evidence reveals that Mithraism in Rome and Ostia originally appealed to the same social strata as it did in the frontier regions. The evidence also indicates that at least some inhabitants knew about Mithraism as early as the late first century CE, but that the cult did not enjoy a wide membership in either location until the middle of the second century CE. The bottom line is that Christianity was much more concerned with Mithraism than Judaism. For obvious reasons the Church would prefer to make everyone believe that Christianity is born out of Judaism rather than to admit its extremely close ties to a pagan religion. This means that the official Church politics had 3 distinct phases: (1) incorporation of Mithraism into Christianity thereby increasing the chances of its success. (2) Distancing the Church from paganism and bringing Christianity closer to Judaism which after all would be the lesser threat (and more "respectable") and finally (3) Distancing the Church from Judaism to regain the distinctiveness that they lost in phase 2...now after centuries, you will have researchers that dedicate themselves to either over emphasizing Judaism (and the reaction of Christianity to it) or alternatively trying to diminish the influence of a pagan religion on what they believe to be God's gospel. Sun Tzu

To: Dennis O'Bell who wrote (91052)	4/8/2003 6:49:14 AM
From: Ilaine	Respond to of 281500

>>Paganism in Europe had no chance when Christianity spread the continent.<< Well, the Christians did declare death to the Pagan infidels, so I don't think it was as inevitable as you make it out to be. Elements of paganism still survive - burning colored candles, incense, statues of the gods, tarot decks, crystal balls, Halloween, Christmas, it's still around. It is precisely this incorporation of paganism into Christianity, as well as the doctrine of the Trinity, that causes the Muslims to call Christians polytheists, and I believe their point is well taken. I would counter that going to Mecca to kiss a rock and walk three circles around it is also paganism.