I say we stop all foreign aid to the entire Middle East immediately, and let them hate us for free.

> the real problem is that there may be
> "moderate Muslims," but there is no such
> thing as "moderate Islam."

Is there any such thing as "moderate Christianity"?

If Islam were practiced as timidly as is contemporary American Baptist or Lutheran or Methodist faith, would you have any reason to be concerned about it?

I'll never understand the thrill you get from pretending there's something new about Islam.

It's like —

Well, sure... In the 19th century, the only way to get around was on horses. Horses were noisy animals that needed to be (expensively) fed, even when they weren't taking you anywhere. They were expensive to break, train, house and groom, and they were subject to disease... Their bodily wastes and parasites brought an enormous amount of sickness to human society. And when they died their corpses were a tremendous health hazard. And every now and then, they'd kick someone in the head and kill them.

But let's admit it... They were better than modern cars, which have to be waxed!

It's really disheartening what has happened over the last 12 years. Two mindnumbingly numbskull presidents elected. Is this because of the electorate, or the system itself?

Crid,

Just for you from the excellent Iowahawk:

http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2006/02/seething_midwes.html

We still have a First Amendment. If Posner doesn't like it he can move or have it repealed.

He's an academic, proving that half of everyone is below average.

> The Quran is to be taken literally as the
> work of god.

You keep saying that. It's weird. It's like you're desperate to be desperate about this. You just want to hold your breath until you panic. You want to believe in it more than do most Muslims...

As if there'd never been a religion without absolutist tenets, and absolutist adherents.

Wanna see a fascinating piece of magic? Wanna see a real-life special effect on the internet? Here it is!—

No matter how closely she looks at the monitor, Amy cannot read these words:

Christianity has been tamed.

There's nothing quite as droolingly, masturbatorially futile as disbelievers telling adherents what their religion is supposed to mean to them.

But within 48 hours, Amy will be whining about the Christians again, and how the Bible condemns the gays or the meat-eaters or people he who eat TV dinners, and she'll marvel at the wretchedness of some southern preacher. Even has she applies the forces which contain militant Christianity, she wants to pretend that Christianity's deepest character is different than Islam's... That by nature, it's more tolerant and fluffy and well-meaning.

It's hokey.

> Just for you from the excellent Iowahawk:

I guess just don't see what you're getting at. Yeah; fundamentalist Islam is radically practiced by isolated hillbillies.

Hey, wait a minute... That's my argument, too!

Or am I missing some nuance in your position?

I think Crid is spot on about Christianity being tamed, and eventually Islam will as well. It's in their best interests, it's in our best interests, but it's going to be a messy process. Hopefully the internet will make it a quicker transition, but usually humans have to be dragged kicking and screaming for social progress to occur.

I was watching a report from Iraq the other day. The fastest growing industry there right now is fast food, much of it western fare like burgers and pizza.

...and eventually Islam will as well.

Which may take a few hundred (more) years, as did Christianity. I don't think we have that kind of time.

It's in their best interests,...

Yeah, but they're NOT getting that yet.

... but it's going to be a messy process.

What you mean is, it is CONTINUING to be a "messy process" and it is NOT abating any time soon.

Hopefully the internet will make it a quicker transition, but usually humans have to be dragged kicking and screaming for social progress to occur.

I rest my case. These people are still barbarians and they don't give a shit about the internet or anything else right now, except as a means to further their cause. Which is the eradication of the infidel and the establishing of the New Caliphate. I don't get how you and Crid can be so blase about this. This is some serious shit and it's NOT getting any better. Just look at what's gone on over there in the past couple of weeks.

Crid, you've got me confused, not the first time and surely (not shirley) not the last.

I may have had the misfortune to have had an excellent education from Dominican Nuns and Marianist Priests and Brothers, but I was never taught about the time when the Christians were tamed in my twelve years with them. If it happened, I am not surprised I was not taught about it in my religion or history classes. I was taught to always question, search for truth and continue learning (which gave me the ability to become a non-believer) and I am curious of which taming you speak. Please direct me to a place where I may learn about what you speak.

It may help me tame Islam before I die.

A large part of the taming of Christianity was done by Christians.

After you and your ancestors have torn your world apart in a few hundred religious wars, Crusades, pogroms, etc., you start questioning the logic of settling dogmatic differences with weaponry.

Unlike the old gnostic sects, the new sects survived dungeon, fire, and sword - much like the early Christians (there was even a song about it) - and even grew despite the beheadings, rackings, and hangings. The new sects showed a few disgruntled princes a handy way to throw off their Church overlords and gained a state or two from which to propagate their views in relative safety (barring the occasional Armada or Crusade).

Throw in a few dozen scientific discoveries that contradict the prevailing religious dogma, more than few corrupt priests and married popes, and an emerging universal literacy and you've got a solid foundation for the decline of universal religion and the rise of secular humanism.

German principalities were traded between barons and kinglets like baseball cards - with people forced to be Lutheran at lunch and Catholic by supper.

French Huguenots, English Puritans, Irish Catholics, and others, displaced or exiled by whomever was in charge of the homeland that week, wandered Europe like a horde of unemployed in-laws seeking their next crash pad and free meal - until dispatched with all haste to Florida, Massachusetts, Canada, or slaughtered in various colonial wars (the new, non-religous reason Europeans devised in order to exhaust their economies and reduce their populations).

Morally and economically exhausted (and having an outlet in the New World to dispose of those pesky religious zealots), Europe finally had enough.

Islam has not riven itself in the quest for orthodox purity. Islamic anger at non-coforming religious views has been mostly outwardly directed.

Shia and Sunni may disagree and even consider each other apostates, but neither has been organized sufficiently to engage in the widespread violence toward the other that characterized early orthodox Christianity's response to its own rebellious offspring.

And Islam has had no diaspora to scatter its people and show them their system's inadequacies as a mechanism for governing a modern state.

um, Eric Christianity was 'tamed' in the same period of time that Islam has not been. About a THOUSAND years. BOTH religions marched down that same history together... yet somehow nothing changed for them.

What makes you believe that they will change that now?

Importantly what allowed Christianity to change was the very fabric of the religion. Christ himself came to fulfill the requirements of the Old Testament... that changes a lot of the point and tenor of things. Most of the wars and such of the dark ages/crusade were more political with religious backdrop than purely religious. As Christian views and political structures changed, the need for that kind of war became less, and it wasn't written in to the scripture.

For Islam, the basis of the ongoing war IS written in their scripture... there is no person place or thing that will fulfill that requirement, unless they establish a global caliphate.

so that is what they are doing.

Also? It is not a requirement for us to align our thought processes with the rest of the old world. We left it for a reason.

> I don't think we have that kind of time.

I don't think we have anything better to do. We're not being asked, exactly. Our participation is not elective.

> I don't get how you and Crid can be so
> blase about this.

Who's being blase?

I just think it's silly and really, really strange to try to convince yourself (or anyone else) that no one has ever had to deal with this kind of thing before.

This has been going on for thousands of years. It essentially defines human progress.




> I was never taught about the time when the
> Christians were tamed in my twelve years
> with them.

They're ashamed. Who can blame them? They say the Japanese aren't taught about the Rape of Nanking, either.

> I was taught to always question, search
> for truth and continue learning

Yeah? In which century did this education take place?

> Please direct me to a place where I may
> learn about what you speak.

A popular example. Magnify that across two (or five or twenty) millenia on every corner of the globe into which the church dared to peek.

> A large part of the taming of Christianity
> was done by Christians.

Oh, puh-leeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeze... Yeah, the Christians just happened to surrender their administrative and financial control of Western Civ to other forces, because they were humble. Sure. Right.

What did it mean to you when the Archbishop of Canterbury condemned Salman Rushdie for writing the Satanic Verses?

"The vile anti-Muslim video..."

No, it's Mohammed who was a vile, thieving, mass-murdering kiddie-rapist and founder of a cult of death. And people in a free country need to be free to say that loud and clear, no matter how badly their videos lack production values.

The connection between this:

"Having undertaken, for the Glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith and honor of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the Northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents, solemnly and mutually in the presence of God, and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic; for our better ordering, and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience"

and this:

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America"

is as clear as crystal. The Mayflower Compact was written 400 years ago by practitioners of American Christianity in its most primitive, untamed form. The Taliban will never come up with anything like it. Not in a thousand years, not in a million years.

The seeds of liberty were sown in Puritan soil. That's a fact, Crid. Deal with it.

Yes, Christianity also had its fundamentalist insane dogmatic must-be-taken-literally phase with its witch-hunts, inquisitions, genocides of native peoples and what not. But then it had reformation and enlightment. And those things didn't happen in a couple decades.

The problem with Islam isn't that it doesn't have the potential to become "tamed" if you will, it is that too much of it isn't yet.

And it'll take a while for it to happen.

And if you let too many fundamentalists into your country, they won't assimilate. If you want them to assimilate, the numbers have to be small enough to force it.

Crid, if I may be so bold, you are confusing man being man with man being Christ-like. If I am like Christ, and how he supposedly taught, I do not do the things you claim needed to be tamed. Have people messed up, horribly, being Christian notwithstanding. Aren't you the one that brought up Vatican II awhile back?

Comparing Islam to Christianity is defective in all manners that one claims they are similar - i.e. see Martin at 10:25am above. I do not like Amy's attacks on believers in God as you often have critized her for, but I agree with her that if you are Mohammed-like (unlike being Christ-like) you are one dangerous fuck.

Man has a brutal history - we agree. Blaming that on Christianity is absurd. Blaming it on Christians (misguided as men can be, and often) is often appropriate. As Amy often points out, Islam as a religion is brutal, it is as it teaches.

> The seeds of liberty were sown in Puritan soil.

Against all odds, Motherfucker.

> That's a fact, Crid. Deal with it.

Blow me. Sheezus Fuck you people are pompous. This is RECIDIVISM. This is the Islamic radical impulse that still beats in your hearts... Our work to tame Christianity continues.

Martin may be a zombie, but it's Dave B at September 26, 2012 8:35 AM who really captures the mood. Look that comment over...

He's sincere. He oozes sincerity. He really believes that the Christian Church is the author of it's own decency. Like Amy (but perhaps for more obvious reasons), he doesn't want to acknowledge that the reason the average Christian has become such likable fellow is that rational thinkers put a pistol to the Christian temple and promised to blow the skull open if he did not.

This will be precisely the technique we apply to Islam. If you don't behave, if you try to tell us how to fuck or what to eat or what books to read or how to pray, we'll kill you.

Everybody cool with that?

OK then.

PLEASE don't fuck with me on mornings when I have to go to the dentist. This is a bad hour to have to deal with thick people.

...the Christians just happened to surrender their administrative and financial control of Western Civ to other forces, because they were humble.

I never said it was because they were humble.

I said it was because they had exhausted themselves.

What did it mean to you when the Archbishop of Canterbury condemned Salman Rushdie for writing The Satanic Verses?

Has he also condemned the authors and creators of similar works insulting other religions (you know, the ones that don't react like two-year-olds denied a favorite toy)?

Or was he practicing Europe's disgraceful habit of appeasing any and all entities that could force them to cancel the month-long vacation, put aside the comforts of the nanny state, and actually participate in the world?

This appeasement habit is a relatively recent one for Europe. As late as 1945, the US viewed Europe as a collection of warmongering states that needed to be controlled lest they plunge the world yet again into an international war. Europe's centuries-long near-constant state of war was the main impetus for setting up the UN.

The fact that Europe has been mostly peaceful for the past 70+ years is a function of US hegemony and not Europe's innate inclination toward peace.

With the decline of US willingness to maintain order, the world is about to become an ugly place ... again.

"he doesn't want to acknowledge that the reason the average Christian has become such likable fellow is that rational thinkers put a pistol to the Christian temple and promised to blow the skull open if he did not."

Wow. Just wow. I did not know I did that. My sincerest appologies, doing my best to ooze sincerity. Perhaps you've started the dental drugs early.

Next you are going to tell me that all capitalists practice capitalism. Jebus.

The seeds of liberty were sown in Puritan soil. That's a fact, Crid. Deal with it.

Mostly against the wishes of the Puritans residing on that soil.

The Restoration of Charles II caused friction between the Crown and the Cromwell-supporting Puritans, causing the Massachusetts Bay Company's charter to be revoked in 1684.

James II adopted a more conciliatory attitude, allowing the colony to operate mostly independently under the Dominion of New England.

That detente fell apart after the Glorious Revolution in 1688 deposed James for the sin of wanting to raise his heir as a Catholic. William and Mary, although Protestant, were not sympathetic to the Puritans' anti-monarchy tendencies.

In 1692, the Massachusetts Bay Company's charter was revoked for the second and final time and the colony was combined with the Plymouth Colony and several several royal holdings into a single Crown colony with a royally-appointed governor.

That meant, the Puritans were no longer in charge of their own government. Formal admittance to a Puritan church was no longer required to be eligible for public office.

Religious liberty was forced on Puritan Massachusetts.

In that revocation of the Puritan charter was sown the seeds of colonial Boston's hostility to the English monarchy.

I need to further explain - by trying to be brief I was too brief. I was taught that many things done in the past, in the name of God, were wrong and sinful and did not follow the teachings of Christ. Burning "witches" - wrong. "Holy" Wars - wrong. Men, if you say needing to be tamed, needed to be Christ-like. Looking back, we don't say Christianity needed to be tamed, it needed to be followed.

This has been a difficult morning for me. All this talk about religion is difficult to recall. I became an atheist in 1966. I have no hard feelings and I received an outstanding education. My college administrators were shocked that their new athletic recruit did not need to take bonehead english or math.

"But there is another possible response. This is that Americans need to learn that the rest of the world--and not just Muslims--see no sense in the First Amendment."

which is their problem in life, or one of them. And the professor is wrong; we already are quite aware of this backwardness.

Lots of comments over at Slate demanding that Posner's article be taken down because it is offensive. The irony has totally escaped Slate's editors.

From Bertrand Russell (I first found this in Sam Harris' book "the End of Faith"):

"The Spaniards in Mexico and Peru used to baptize Indian infants and then immediately dash their brains out: by this means they secured that these infants went to Heaven. No orthodox Christian can find any logical reason for condemning their action, although all nowadays do so."

I have to say, I don't understand this, given the commandment "thou shalt not kill."

I mean, I DO know that for centuries, in the Western world at least, killing children under 7 or so was not legally considered murder, but was that based on Orthodox Christianity, and if so, how? If not, then why is there "no logical reason for condemning their action"?

Does anyone know?

"moderate" Muslims

There are two types of "moderate" Muslims:

1. the ones who haven't found their jihadi calling yet
2. the ones that will be judged as apostates and killed

> I said it was because they had
> exhausted themselves.

And that was a goofy thing to say... So goofy it didn't register. No, what "exhausted" them – often violently – was a competitive marketplace of cosmologies. People came to recognize that your Christianity didn't accurately describe the world or how to move through it in a rewarding, productive, charitable and decent manner.

> Has he also condemned the authors and creators
> of similar works insulting other religions

I DON'T CARE. No one should. He's not my authority, and he shouldn't be yours. Your points-keeping and gamesmanship in the Imaginary Friend Sweepstakes is less interesting to me than the NFL referee lockout. At least the scuffle between Gates & Jennings in the Seattle endzone on Monday night was about something real— Your monstrous Archbishop complains only that the Iranians cited the wrong angel-on-the-head-of-a-pin when sentencing Rushdie to death. Y'know, Ayatollah Hassan Saneii upped the anti for Salman's fallow scalp to $3.3 million just last week... September 2012. Are you proud of that? Proud to be on that side of the argument? Just as all the players and coaches and refs works for the same sports league, all these religious mobsters are in the same business, too... I don't know why you think I'd be impressed with their quibbles over uniforms.

> you know, the ones that don't react like
> two-year-olds denied a favorite toy)?

Well, you're the ones squabbling over playthings... You needn't tell me those other people are childish as you stand alongside them to condemn, and perhaps quietly to cluck in harmony when their murderers strike the blasphemous. And don't ask me to affirm that one of you is better at the toy-quarrel than the other. If you think the issue is books or movies, it's safe to presume that you aspire to threaten as do the criminals governing Iran.

I mean, you know how the rest of us should be living, right? SureYaDoo... It's in that book of yours, that ONE book, the one you'd insist that we read if only you (still) had the power.

> Looking back, we don't say Christianity
> needed to be tamed, it needed to be
> followed.

First of all... Shit fuck. You're saying Christianity didn't need to be held accountable by the rest of civilization for its evils. "We don't say Christianity needed to be tamed..." What the Hell does that even MEAN?

Setting aside the fascism of your wording, and I'm not sure that possible, YES... Christianity desperately needed to be tamed. But for fuck's sake, your wording is repugnant. This is what comes from a life of secret-decoder-ring epistemology and unchallenged condescension.

AND I CAN'T TELL ANY OF YOU GUYS APART. No, really... I recognize a bunch of the names from comments going back several years now, but none with the spark or spirit to identify a meaningfully-distinguished personality. Serious about this!: Amy has had some housewifey types float through here over the years, and some were wrong about stuff... But I knew their writings by their principles, or at least their obsessions, rather than just their names. I've seriously believed that some of them were on drugs... Mood meds, etc... But they weren't so timid in their demeanor as to deny what they recognized as right & wrong.

But here, suddenly, we're getting passive-aggressive compositions like this, in an aroma of centuries of trans-generational mind-fucking:

Looking back, we don't say Christianity needed to be tamed, it needed to be followed.

I was thinking about it this afternoon while driving back through the floodplain from Westchester. Amy's miscalibration has been aiding and abetting the very people she loathes. (Even when she loathes them for the wrong reasons.) She throws her volleys at Islam with both hands, an overhead toss, and you guys all applaud politely but arrhythmical, with your eyes darting right and left. Your gentle handclaps are secret signals to each other, not a response to her righteous dislike of Islam. She's confused about this, and you're OK with that. I can't identify your immortal souls because you're not even taking part.

From the Reagan administration and probably years before, Christians have been doing dog-whistle politics, parsing these discussions like an IBM supercomputer in real time: 'You bet, Amy Alkon! Them Muslims, their text is unimprovable! You go, Girl!'

Blechhhh.

Blechh ptooooie.

> Spaniards in Mexico and Peru used to baptize
> Indian infants and then immediately dash
> their brains out: by this means they secured
> that these infants went to Heaven.

Hitchens, at least, was kidding.

I miss that guy. His death brought us the most concise death notice of my lifetime.

"You're saying Christianity didn't need to be held accountable by the rest of civilization for its evils."

Yup. Just as I say America is not responsible for slavery and should not be held accountable by the rest of civilization for slavery and its other supposed evils.

"Looking back, we don't say Christianity
needed to be tamed, it needed to be
followed."

Ahem. Poorly written. I should not have used "we" when what I meant was that is what I was taught. It would have been absurd for them to teach me a religion that needed to be tamed. They blamed the individuals applying the religion in the past needed to be corrected. I see, and saw, there point. You apparently do not. I was taught that had Christ's teachings been followed those things that everyone uses to condemn Christianity would not have happened.

"We don't say Christianity needed to be tamed..." What the Hell does that even MEAN?

You still on drugs? How would you tame Christianity? Maybe I am being too Randian, but I think you can tame individuals but I fail to see how you tame Christianity. Perhaps you also believe that corporations are not people.

"I was thinking about it this afternoon while driving back through the floodplain from Westchester. Amy's miscalibration has been aiding and abetting the very people she loathes. (Even when she loathes them for the wrong reasons.) She throws her volleys at Islam with both hands, an overhead toss, and you guys all applaud politely but arrhythmical, with your eyes darting right and left. Your gentle handclaps are secret signals to each other, not a response to her righteous dislike of Islam. She's confused about this, and you're OK with that. I can't identify your immortal souls because you're not even taking part."

Pure, unadulterated Cridspeak. I have no idea what your point is in that paragraph. On a side note, when did Westchester get a floodplain?

"From the Reagan administration and probably years before, Christians have been doing dog-whistle politics, parsing these discussions like an IBM supercomputer in real time: 'You bet, Amy Alkon! Them Muslims, their text is unimprovable! You go, Girl!'"

You are more of an expert on Christians than I am. I am not aware of dog-whistle politics. Is that like racial code words we hear about but can't hear?

"Them Muslims, their text is unimprovable!"

See my 10:56 am comment. You blame Christianity, I blame Christians. Are you equating the bible with "their text?" You were probably a Christian longer than I was, so I understand you may have a bitter feeling towards them.

> Just as I say America is not responsible for
> slavery

Distraction. Systems of belief can be judged by their consequences.

> Ahem. Poorly written.

Naw, you said what you wanted to say... Impenetrably coded passages like that don't just come to mind.

> How would you tame Christianity?

By showing Christians that I don't care how they feel about my cosmology, sexuality, diet, charitable giving, etc.... But I don't need to do that so often anymore. They already know. I'm 850 feet from a Baptist sanctuary, and we get along just fabulous. THEY'VE BEEN TAMED.

(I go there to vote on election day. They're all hospitable-like.)

> I have no idea what your point is in
> that paragraph

It's... Yep, it's still there. Read it again.

> I am not aware of dog-whistle politics.

Fish don't know they're wet.

> You blame Christianity, I blame Christians.

The distinction matters that much? I remember when the Germanys got back together, and Dennis Miller said it felt like a Lewis & Martin reunion... He'd not admired their earlier work and was not eager for new product.

Ballona.

Stand by for Posner's next article about how the world doesn't favor allowing women to dress that way.

"Distraction. Systems of belief can be judged by their consequences."

Dude. Systems of belief, WTF. Evidently we are talking past each other. That "system of belief" you so abhor was not Christlike. Christ, I think, not know, would not have approved with what they did. Am I not being clear?

"Impenetrably coded passages like that don't just come to mind."

Wow. I am being controlled. Such power those brainwashing fucks. I left, in my mind, the Catholic Religion in the 5th Grade when the Nun teacher told me my Dad was going to hell because he was not a Catholic. It didn't compute, the code that is. I discovered the non existence of God on a long ship ride when I was 19. I do have remaining difficulties but that relates mostly to girls and sex.

"By showing Christians that I don't care how they feel about my cosmology, sexuality, diet, charitable giving, etc.... But I don't need to do that so often anymore. They already know. I'm 850 feet from a Baptist sanctuary, and we get along just fabulous. THEY'VE BEEN TAMED"

Thanks for acknowledging my point. You showed Christians, not Christianity. Am I being too Randian?

"It's... Yep, it's still there. Read it again."

Still don't get it. Read it again yourself, you're no boss of me. Wanted to say that for a long time.

"Fish don't know they're wet."

That dog don't hunt.

"The distinction matters that much?"

Yup. Christianity is. Christians are people. Did we beat the nazis or did we beat Nazism?

"Ballona."

Ahem. Not wanting to play lujlp..., but you said floodplain not wetland. I know you know the difference, but you did have me confused (like I said, not the first time).

Much of LA is a floodplain. Specifically, see pink at lower left... That'll get you within wading distance. Note also the tonguelike projection of Tsunami hazard licking up towards Uncle Cridmo's rolling sexmobile on the PCH. When apocalypse comes, I have scuba gear.

Bitter, inappropriate literalism, frequent confusion... But you say you're not Luj?

> Stand by for Posner's next article about how the
> world doesn't favor allowing women to dress that
> way.

Dood.... The Saudis are already offering cites for him.

"Bitter, inappropriate"

Nope. Just wonderin. When I was a kid, only Torrance was considered a floodplain because it flooded whenever it sprinkled. It never rained in the old days. I didn't own an umbrella and raincoat til I moved to Texas in the late 70s. Now Texas, that's where I learned about floodplains. Pshaw, LA's no floodplain - Houston, now there's a floodplain.

I "believe" God is going to show such rath that Cali is going to sink so fast scuba gear will be as much help as a helicopter with no blades.

> Evidently we are talking past each other.

No, it's cool... You're mistaken. I see this all the time.

> That "system of belief" you so abhor
> was not Christlike.

Don't care; "Christlike" isn't a metric in my toolkit. The people who composed it called themselves "Christians." This is like Amy trying to certify the authenticity of Muslims by their adherence to this tenet or that one. Why bother? Who GAF?

> Wow. I am being controlled.

Those patterns weren't installed by people with your virtue in mind. Sucks, right?

> You showed Christians, not Christianity.
> Am I being too Randian?

Well, you're being obnoxiously precious and smug, so I'd say yes. Your distinction doesn't apply.

> Still don't get it

> That dog don't hunt.

This is conversation with Dave B.? There are people who recognize this?

> Did we beat the nazis or did we
> beat Nazism?

Both, or neither, who cares? Don't answer unless it's interesting!

"This is like Amy trying to certify the authenticity of Muslims by their adherence to this tenet or that one. Why bother? Who GAF?"

I'm going to read this again in the morning. Maybe it'll make sense then - maybe not. Bedtime here.

Crid you are entertaining while you are being a prick. That's some talent.

Prickitude is pretending that wordplay about the faults of Christians versus the faults of Christianity is going to lead us to better character.

There was a guy here years ago who described "William Lane Craig" as a "rock star" of a religious figure. I'd never heard the name anywhere else... But a few weeks ago I listened to his debate with Hitchens. The whole thing. Even HITCHENS was bored with him, and he had a book to sell.

That's all the modern Christian has got... Trivial little distinctions and darling little wordsets for which they'll fight to death. Amongst each other, these things must seem terribly exciting. But for the rest of us, their condescension is much more indicative of the meaning Christianity holds in their lives. Nothing's more condescending than to bore.

But again, we aren't troubled by it too often in our daily lives. There's a REASON that Christians don't offer their precious Christian selves to the rest of us that often.

Tamed.

"Prickitude is pretending that wordplay about the faults of Christians versus the faults of Christianity is going to lead us to better character."

Says Crid.

Prickitude is pretending that wordplay about the faults of Muslims versus the faults of Islam is going to lead us to a peaceful coexistence because we tamed the Christians. Says me.

"Don't answer unless it's interesting!"

You are not the boss of me. Twice in one thread, on a roll. Also, I would never presume to be interesting, that wouldn't be Christ-like.

"> Did we beat the nazis or did we
> beat Nazism?

Both, or neither, who cares?"

Many people care, but apparently not you. Many nazis did not understand Nazism but the economy was better so they joined. Some other dude made trains run on time, so making whoopie and joining his group was the rule of the day. Some other group religiously believed in their Supreme Leader so much they'd hop in an airplane and crash it to commit the most damage and death possible. You can't beat Nazism. You can only beat the nazi. Some will always believe, thus true believers. Sunlight, exposure and explaination are the only tools man has to defeat the "isms." You cannot kill it. You can only kill the "ist." I could be wrong (being humble - i.e. Christ-like) but I assume Amy is trying to enlighten people. You may disagree with how she does it, but the question is (how many bullets did he fire) are you trying to help her convey a message or are you trying to shut her up?

"Don't care; "Christlike" isn't a metric in my toolkit."

Should a woman care if the man she is meeting is Christlike or Mohammedlike? Just askin.

> Says Crid.

That whole 'dialectic' thing is really starting to gel for you!

> Prickitude is pretending that wordplay about the
> faults of Muslims versus the faults of Islam is
> going to lead us to a peaceful coexistence

I said nothing of the kind. See the link to which I sent Flynne the other day. I didn't say talking nice will let us all get along; I said we kill the ones who won't stay out of our way, and those who remain will pursue their faith so tepidly that we needn't be concerned... Today's Christians annoy in blog comments and almost nowhere else. (Well, there are a few little ruptures in the tax code, but we've never been so motivated to patch those leaks.)

> You are not the boss of me.

Yes... Yes I am. I'm your towering superior in matters moral, ethical, procedural, rhetorical, dietary and musical... And Good Lord knows I'm better lookin'.

> Many people care, but apparently not you.
> Many nazis did not understand...

The metaphor is dim because the point is mundane.

> Should a woman care if the man she is meeting
> is Christlike or Mohammedlike? Just askin.

Your question calls to mind a scene from "Stand By Me," an otherwise uninteresting movie—

Vern: You think Mighty Mouse could beat up Superman?

Teddy: What, are you cracked?

Vern: Why not?! I saw the other day he was carrying five elephants in one hand.

Teddy: Boy, you don't know nothing. Mighty Mouse is a cartoon. Superman is a real guy. No way a cartoon could beat up a real guy.

Vern: Yeah, maybe you're right. Would be a good fight, 'though.

Several years ago, Prager and Hitchens did a few rounds on the larger point... But I don't think you're equipped to deal with that yet.

Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa.

Uh, crid, I wasn't siding with the Archbishop. I was asking if he was consistent in his condemnations (or disguising his appeasement of violent thugs in the mantle of moral indignation).

Not that consistency matters the Archbishop's complicity in the call for the murder of a human being.

One would hope his congregants, being "civlized" people, would call for his ouster or, failing that, remove themselves from his stewardship.

I became disillusioned with and separated myself from organized religion as a young lad (longer ago than I care to divulge) when it became obvious to me that it was little more than a business that wanted my time and money in exchange for vague promises and illusory comforts.

Ensuring the revenue stream seemed to matter more than ensuring the salvation of souls. We were urged to give generously more often and with greater fervor than we were urged to live piously.

While that may not be true for individual celebrants, it was true for the organization as a whole - as it probably had to be in order for the organization to survive.

I'm with Criddo-as I usually am.

This is what is happening in Muslim countries. Poor kids are too poor to go to school for various reasons. Fundie Muslims are willing to give them free education/food. Children are then indoctrinated like crazy, memorizing the Koran in Arabic. All they do is repeat the Koran in a language they don't understand all day long.

Imagine if you were too poor to attend school and fundie Xtian/Jew offered you a school + food. You'd be a fundie too!

Anyways I've known several moderate Muslims, they're pretty cool. One told me he told his sister not to wear the hijab cuz it was "lame"

> I wasn't siding with the Archbishop.

No? Oh.

…Sorry.









Hey..... Wait a minute!

> I was asking if he was consistent in his
> condemnations

Consistent how? He condemned Salman Rushdie for writing a novel. You want more of that?

Seriously, Coney, gonna need an answer here. How on Earth could his response to Rushdie's crisis be defended? For that alone, he should burn in Hell for an eternity. As you review the sex-abuse nightmares administered by that office in the subsequent quarter-century, don't you think he had better things to worry about?

(Moments later...)

2:16 PM looks like a watery retraction of 1:47 PM.

Tsk-tsk, Dude. The 'survival' of that 'organization' has nothing to do with me or with anyone else on the planet who wants to say what they think.

Dave B, here's the thing: There's an argument to be made about the guys emerging from a typically lukewarm Christian church on Sunday morning. They're in a mellow mood and all dressed up for their wives and daughters and mothers-in-law (but still hoping to catch the eye of that candy-sweet Piece of Ass Sherry, with the tits, who works at the Peckerblossom Hiway branch of the Boogersville National Bank and usually sits in the left-hand pews so she can try to blend in with the choir). They're very well-behaved! In that moment, you might argue that they're more reliably decent than the average guys you'd have met coming out of any bar in the world 12 hours earlier.

But that's not the argument you made. (You'd probably have lost the argument anyway.)

Christianity versus Islam is not on the radar of decent people. You're asking busy folks to take a consolation far game more seriously than it deserves to be taken.

game far, not far game.

Long day at work. You wouldn't believe.

His piece on Slate is headlined "The World Doesn't Love the First Amendment: The vile anti-Muslim video shows that the U.S. overvalues free speech."

Left unexplained: Why should the US give the tiniest damn what the rest of the world thinks of the First Amendment.

Some speeches at the UN today by the usual crowd of Islam's blowhards urge the UN to criminalize "blasphemous" speech.

The day that happens is the day that the US needs to tell the UN to pack up and leave. Where, we don't care, just so long as the cesspool of scum and villiany gets OUT.

[crid:] she wants to pretend that Christianity's deepest character is different than Islam's... That by nature, it's more tolerant and fluffy and well-meaning.

Anabaptists. Anybody remember them?

Let's say Christianity's and Islam's deepest characters are identical. What explains the 400 year head start that Christianity has over Islam in coming to terms with the failure of its foundational text to describe the world as it is? Something has to be different, doesn't it?

Perhaps one of those differences is St Augustine. He insisted that investigating the natural world would reveal the hand of God. Okay, he assumed that the god such an investigation would reveal would be the Catholic God, but is there any corollary in the Islamic world?

[Dave B:] … I was never taught about the time when the Christians were tamed in my twelve years with them.

The taming probably starts with the Treaty of Westphalia (available at a Wikipedia near you). I'm surprised your Nuns, Priests, and Brothers left that out. (They probably didn't, but it is asking a hel* of a lot out of a high school student to sit up an pay attention to that sort of thing.)

"The vile anti-Muslim video..."

Why is it that every time I hear about this video, it is about the production values? What the heck does the thing say ? What makes it vile?

Consistent how? He condemned Salman Rushdie for writing a novel.

Is his moral indignation reserved for appeasing violent thugs ... or is he at least consistent in "condemning" other artists, novelists, moviemakers, et al who insult religions not noted for violent reactions to the slightest insult.

I suspect the former.

You want more of that?

Of course not. What a silly question.

The 'survival' of that 'organization' has nothing to do with me or with anyone else on the planet who wants to say what they think.

Not relating its survival to you or anyone else. I was simply pointing out that even an organization covering itself in the sanction of a "higher power" or "greater purpose" quickly becomes (or always was) an earthbound organization dedicated to its own growth and survival (see Parkinson's Law).

Witness the Catholic Church's reaction to the abhorrent behavior of its pedophile priests - before and after the scandal went public. The reaction was to throw some folks under the bus in order to ensure the continued survival of the organization and its management team. The victims were an afterthought, if even that.

Kinda like what went on at Penn State.

In reality, there's only a degree of difference between the money-grubbing evangelist-led cults of personality and the respected tithe-collecting religions that can claim a longer pedigree but still require extensive financing for their operations and the lifestyles of their leadership.

Why is it that every time I hear about this video, it is about the production values? What the heck does the thing say ? What makes it vile?

What makes it vile?

The mad scramble by the multi-culturalists to show how open-minded they are to the primitive sensibilities of illiterate adherents of a death cult masquerading as a "religion of peace" - as if condemning the video will make the mob pause in its rampage and skip their house when the long knives come out.

Notice that none of them called Piss Christ or Dung Virgin "vile."

But then, the secular governments of Western "Christian" nations rarely condone and often punish the violence of even the most pious of Christian adherents.

And many among those Christians join in condemning violence committed in the name of their religion, while too many Muslims publicly side with the mob and sanction the violence.

As a result, the open-minded multiculturalists feel safe in mocking the indignation of Christians, but seek to dissociate themselves from any insult to Islam.

Some have even gone so far as to suggest that Muslims in the US should be allowed to live under a separate legal system (Sharia) that sanctions their violence, hoping that violence will not be visited on them.

Like the outraged Archbishop, their "moral indignation" is often little more than a thin disguise for appeasement.

2:16 PM looks like a watery retraction of 1:47 PM.

Nope.

Just a reflection upon my youthful realization about the nature of organized religion.

I'd had issues with the nature of religious dogma for longer than that - probably what motivated me to finally look upon organized religion with a jaundiced eye.

Some things just didn't add up. That and I like my free will.

> What explains the 400 year head start that
> Christianity has over Islam in coming to
> terms with the failure of its foundational
> text to describe the world as it is?

[Here's a wild stab at an answer, and if it's wrong, I'd prefer that nobody say so—]

Per Diamond, Christianity was along for the ride as the politically contentious, cheek-by-jowl nations of the Europe fought, fucked, and traded their way into modernity's global domination. (I'm no religious historian, but IIRC, the Christian faith was for a time held in the West only the by an absolutely batshit tribe of the Irish.)

Here's a deeply-condensed version that cheats some of the biology (specifically, the European grain stocks traveled nicely across longitudes, and Europeans themselves caught, were decimated by, and survived every infectious disease the planet had to offer).

It's my belief that Christianity was a passenger on this journey, but as we see in this thread, believers tend to have a different perspective. Augustine look prescient in retrospect, but is perhaps best admired in the rear-view mirror. Any number of clerics did their best to keep the lid on for the next ten centuries. Or fifteen or sixteen.

But anyway, tribal isolation continues in much of Islam to this day, only to be interrupted by more ambitious clerics working just a channel click away from the new Britney video.

> What makes it vile?

I dunno, I think Jeff's nose has detected something important about the furor. Far too many people commented about the artlessness of the piece, as if they'd all been reading their oeuvres of Kael and Ebert every night before bed.

A cynic might suspect they were looking for an excuse to hate the film in some conversational sympathy to Islamic fundies...

And the arrest of the filmmaker by federal authorities this afternoon, for "parole violations," has the same odor.

Also, "organized religion" is one word too many. It's ALL organized.

Also, Jeff, I want to answer your latest comments here, but I'm all typed out and will do so tomorrow.

Also, does Britney still make slutty-schoolgirl videos? Do people still watch them?

Also, "organized religion" is one word too many. It's ALL organized.

Ha ha! Fair enough. I've yet to encounter a disorganized religion.

"...the Christian faith was for a time held in the West only by an absolutely batshit tribe of the Irish"

Pure fantasy. From the day Constantine issued the Edict of Milan in 313, the number of Christians in the West kept growing by leaps and bounds. Within 900 years, even the raping & pillaging Vikings had converted. The very last pagans in Europe were the Sami (Lapps) herding reindeer in the Arctic. They held out until the early 18th century.

"Christianity was along for the ride..."

You trotted out Copernicus in an earlier comment. Nicolaus Copernicus wasn't just a devout Catholic, he was a canon, a member of the Church hierarchy. The Copernican Revolution & the Scientific Revolution were not sparked by rationalists battering the Church from without, but by faithful scholars who lit a fire that burned down the Church from within (even if that wasn't their original intent). Why deny this?

"...as we see in this thread, believers tend to have a different perspective"

To clarify, I'm not a religious believer and never have been. I'm giving credit where credit is due. You don't need to be a Catholic to recognize that the Church did a great deal to keep the lamp of knowledge lit after the collapse of the Roman Empire, just as you don't need to be a Fascist to note that Mussolini made the trains run on time.

"But anyway, tribal isolation continues in much of Islam to this day..."

That can't explain why Islam was already in deep decline and far behind the West in every area of human endeavor 400 years ago. The Middle East got its name because it was between the West and the East (India & China), and traded extensively in both directions. Think Sinbad the Sailor...For quite some time there, the Islamic world was the center of the world, not isolated at all. That didn't stop it from falling into terminal decline. Something other than geography is destiny as per Diamond must have been at work.

Well, I see no one's answered my question yet.

In the meantime, I have another. In what century did people stop executing each other for working on the Sabbath, as ordered in the Old Testament - and on what religious grounds?

I am curious lenona. Are you a troll?

I don't know alot about religion, or the questions you ask, but I do know a little about tax law. When people ask me questins like yours relating to tax law not making sense, I simply tell them not to look for logic in tax law. There is little and if you find any it was probably unintentional.

Just because Bertrand Russell said so doesn't make it so, Lenona. I'm guessing his logic was that if infants were baptized & then murdered, they would never be able to grow up and commit any sins, and so would be guaranteed a spot in heaven, which made killing them OK. JC himself puts the kibosh to that notion:

"But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea"

And no Christian denomination ever imposed the death penalty for working on the Sabbath, and often there was no penalty at all:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabbath_in_Christianity

Something other than geography is destiny as per Diamond must have been at work.

Part of the issue has to do with the reach of religious law.

Islamic law and custom regulates almost every aspect of human behavior. Tbese laws and customs do not change with modernization.

For example, food preparation rules were designed initially for a desert people with little to no food preservation capabilities. So, eating pork was disallowed because it could be preserved with existing technology and was easily left undercooked which can cause problems. Yet, with the advent of meat thermometers, salting, refrigeration, etc., those rules did not change - they couldn't change - they were God's immutable laws. So, a poor people miss out on a relatively cheap protein supply.

Early Judaism had many of the same problems. Mosaic Law had a deep reach into the average Jew's life. The Diaspora spread Jews all over the world with the result that Mosaic Law did not have the force of law in their new countries. From that, Mosaic Law became little more than Jewish religious tradition. Hence, Israel is a modern country with modern laws.

Early Chrisitans disputed among themselves how much of Mosaic Law should be applied to their new religion (and in many cases the debate was whether Christianity was actually a new, non-Jewish religion or a sect of Judaism). Western Christians modeled their religious practices on both Jewish and Roman ones, creating an entirely new set of religious customs. And, because Chrisitanity was intially banned by Roman authorities, Christian practices were never enforced by civil authorities as law. The ritualized anchor to the past was dropped by Western Christianity, a move that would have far-reaching implications within only a few centuries.

By the time Western Christianity had gained widespread acceptance in Rome, it was one of several religions allowed and subject to civil authority.

With the fall of the Roman Empire, civil and religous authority remained separate as kings vied with popes over who had authority over a country's churches. While the Pope retained the authority to appoint Bishops and dictate orthodoxy, kings retained veto power over bishopric appointments and claimed the authority to tax Church holdings.

In those few places in Europe where religious custom supplanted or superceded all civil law, modernity atrophied (Ireland, Spain, etc.)

Following the Reconquista and the triumph of Chrisitianity, Spain had some of the finest universities in Europe and was the center of intellectual and cultural life on the continent. However, only a few centuries later, when Italian universities were debating man's place in the universe, Spanish universities were still arguing about how many angels would dance on the head of a pin.

Islamic Law, like early Mosaic Law, is inseperable from civil law and, thus impractical for running a modern country. So, in face of conflict with the modern world, the purveyors of Islamic Law blame modernity rather than change the Law. If the Law says insults to Islam are punishable by death and that one must live exactly like the Prophet did (in 700 AD), than any argument in favor of modernity is an argument against the Prophet and Islam and is punishable by death.

CORRECTION: So, eating pork was disallowed because it could NOT be preserved with existing technology....

Hmmph. Interesing. I'll do some research and see what I can find out.

I'd always read and been told it was trichynosis concerns with undercooked or spoiled pork. Northern Europe, with its harsh winters, was able to preserve pork by freezing through the winter, so did not ban its consumption.

Its true about pigs, I had few on a small corner of my land close to ten yrs ago. Nothing grows there to this day

Well, that was interesting.

While no one seems to know definitively why this ancient desert society prohibited eating pork, a few interesting possibilities cropped up in doing research.

====================

One is that the ancient Egyptians had a festival honoring one of their gods at which they ate pork. The Israelites were forbidden from eating pork to prevent them from celebrating Egyptian gods.

It's possible, but that seems a unlikely considering the ban on pork is probably older than Exodus and was also practiced by several non-Jewish societies.

====================

This guy has an interesting write-up:

http://framingbusiness.net/archives/109

====================

I kinda doubt Harris' view since simple economics alone would have restricted the raising of pigs or priced pork as a luxury food.

====================

Middle Eastern societies used pigs as garbage disposals (some still do) - pigs will eat almost anything.

The disgust factor could have led to a prohibition on eating pork.

However, encoding such a prohibition into law would have been unnecessary for the disgust factor alone. Custom would have dictated avoiding pork - much like upper class antebellum Southerners avoided catfish since it's a scavenger fish.

====================

Another possibility is that Jewish dietary laws prohibit the consumption of blood - which is why only herbivores are considered kosher animals.

Pigs will eat anything, even the remains of other animals. So, a pig will eat blood and eating an animal that eats blood would violate the dietary restriction.

====================

None of this explains the other dietary restrictions:
- shellfish
- fish without scales or fins (e.g., catfish)
- fruit from the first 3 years after planting
- newly grown grain
- meat and milk mixed together (mac & cheese)
- plants grown together

More tonight! You're going to love this!

Just because Bertrand Russell said so doesn't make it so, Lenona. I'm guessing his logic was that if infants were baptized & then murdered, they would never be able to grow up and commit any sins, and so would be guaranteed a spot in heaven, which made killing them OK.
____________________________

"His" logic? How do you know it wasn't "their" logic?

And given that the sacrifice of innocent people from one's own community used to be relatively common, whether for the sake of a harvest or something else, why wouldn't priests do that within their countries of origin? One child per family, maybe, so that at least one family member was guaranteed a place in heaven?
___________________________

JC himself puts the kibosh to that notion:

"But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea"
___________________________

Except that infants don't believe in much of anything they can't see. Being baptized a Christian at birth doesn't mean you believe anything about Christianity - at any age.
___________________________

And no Christian denomination ever imposed the death penalty for working on the Sabbath, and often there was no penalty at all:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabbath_in_Christianity

Posted by: Martin at September 28, 2012 10:24 AM
____________________________

Um, I didn't say anything about Christians being the ones to execute such "criminals." Maybe I should have said Jews? But I thought that was obvious.

[Gonad the Ballbarian:] (Just kidding. Couldn't resist.) For example, food preparation rules were designed initially for a desert people with little to no food preservation capabilities.

But that applies equally well to all kinds of food, doesn't it?

The most effective dietary restriction would have been stopping infants from drinking any water that hadn't been boiled first, or anything that hadn't been washed in boiled water.

Oddly, no religion's god managed to pass that memo. Took humans to figure it out.

> Pure fantasy.

Eh, maybe something less than a daydream... It was a thing I read. Somewhere. The illusions of antiquity aren't enchanting enough for study, especially when their contemporary castings have been so unsatisfactory.

> The very last pagans in Europe were the Sami
> (Lapps) herding reindeer in the Arctic.

This is too often presented as a sports contest, as if the rest of us should aspire to support a winning squad, even with respect to championships of yore: 'If you're smart, you'll be a Bears fan... 'Cause, man, nobody was ever going to stop Chicago from becoming Super Bowl champs in '85....'

> wasn't just a devout Catholic, he was a canon,
> a member of the Church hierarchy.

And look what it got 'im.

> not sparked by rationalists battering the
> Church from without, but by faithful scholars
> who lit a fire that burned down the Church
> from within (even if that wasn't their original
> intent).

Yeah?

"[T]hat wasn't their original intent..."

One more time!

"[T]hat wasn't their original intent..."

This is perverse.... It was all of a piece. The church has never been about discovering truth. They've got ONE book to sell, and they don't do new editions, no matter how much new material is available. (In my lifetime —and remember, I'm still alert, swift, and brimming with sexual allure— but in my lifetime, the theory of continental drift has mopped away the ancient ideas about divinely punitive floods... But in the Bible, Noah sails ever-onward.)

It's gobsmackingly weird, and tellingly inappropriate, that your reflection on those discoveries is twice phrased as assault upon the church rather than glorious liberation from it, and that you still find space (in a single sentence!) to imagine that the poor dears were most concerned with offending the See.

> To clarify, I'm not a religious believer and never
> have been

Yeah? Really? So what are we to make of this:

> Something other than geography is destiny
> as per Diamond must have been at work.

Glib & curt both at once! You shortchange Diamond, who's written one of the best books of his generation on a topic of interest to essentially everyone everywhere.

And if your conclusion wasn't an actual invocation, it was a nonetheless a call to foggy mysticism.

I hate those.

But that applies equally well to all kinds of food, doesn't it?

Of course it does.

In fact, all food preparation rules were initially designed for a desert people. Which explains why there are so many recipes for halal polar bear steaks.

"And look what it got 'im"

A very cushy life by medieval standards. Starving peasants don't contribute to science. Without the comfort & security provided by his position with the Church, he wouldn't have had the leisure or the opportunity to develop his notions of heliocentrism.

"...never been about discovering truth...ONE book to sell..."

Scholars like Copernicus, working under the auspices of the church, contributed greatly to mankind's knowledge. The spittle you're spewing here won't change that fact.

"...invocation...foggy mysticism"

Oh fuck off. I've read my copy of Guns Germs & Steel many times over the past 13 years. The first Crusaders noticed that the Saracens were more advanced in science, technology, medicine & mathematics than the folks back home in Christendom. Yet just about 100 years later, the contributions of the Muslim world to the knowledge & progress of mankind had ground to a halt. Revolutionary treatises on optics gave way to fatwas on the proper Islamic way to fuck your neighbor's goat. If you want to understand why this is so, Diamond doesn't have the answer.

"And given that the sacrifice of innocent people from one's own community used to be relatively common..."

The point I was making is that the claim that no Orthodox Christian can find any logical reason for condemning their action isn't true.

Regarding Judaism, as far as I know no rabbinical court has sentenced anyone to death for 2000 years or so. Wiki says the religious death penalty was effectively abolished by 30 AD:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_and_corporal_punishment_in_Judaism

"And look what it got 'im"

> A very cushy life by medieval standards.

Maybe he made out better than Galileo, but it wasn't a clean casino. Specifically...

> Starving peasants don't contribute to science.

No? Whose toil do you think was providing the church's "leisure"? The "comfort & security provided by his position with the Church" describes submission to the inquiry-stomping bureaucracies you imagine to have been his liberators.

This is like a sick joke. Either you're feigning atheism in a pose of sophistication —itself a sin— or you're freaking demented.

> Scholars like Copernicus, working under
> the auspices of the church, contributed
> greatly to mankind's knowledge.

The cruelty of this posture is despicable. There's just nothing to admire in that kind of reasoning. "working under the auspices of the church." Similarly, we might admire the lash on the back of slaves from Africa which prepared generations of American families to suffer through winters without heat in the inner city.

> I've read my copy of Guns Germs & Steel
> many times over the past 13 years.

Booklarnin' seems to have given you no grasp of logic. Or decency.

Also... Those slaves who built the pyramids? They should have been grateful! They were able to contribute to something magnificent! If they'd been allowed to live gentle lives as farmers with their families, we wouldn't even have known about them! Instead, they had the privilege of risking, shortening, and sacrificing their lives in brutal labor to fulfill the idiot ambitions of some syphilitic potentate....

There is no clear archeological evidence that proves the pyramid builders were slaves

You're so hysterical and so sanctimonious you've lost your grip on reality.

Whose toil do you think provided Thomas Jefferson's and James Madison's leisure? The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were written in the blood of slaves just as surely as De Revolutionibus was written in the blood of peasants. Copernicus was born into a brutal medieval society run by feudal lords and the Church. What the fuck was he supposed to do? What were his alternatives? He was able to make his contribution to mankind because he was supported by the institutions of feudalism. Jefferson and Madison were able to make their contributions to mankind because they were supported by the institution of plantation slavery. Pointing this out does not signify blindness to the evil of feudalism or slavery.

Except to fools like you, that is.

And you're wrong about the pyramids:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2010/01/11/egypt-finds-tombs-of-pyramid-builders-and-more-evidence-they-were-free-men

Luj, you're all about the evidence, right?

> Pointing this out does not signify
> blindness to the evil of feudalism
> or slavery.

When you "point it out" repeatedly, with your hand in pants, stroking a boner, that's exactly what it signifies.

You're making a plain mistake. Your (crippled) posture is one the religious assume all the time, and inevitably when resisting Darwin: That the way things happened is the only way they could have happened. Rather than hate the church for choking free thought (and commerce and suffrage and exploration and all the rest) throughout the middle ages, you'll pretend the eventual rupture of their suppression was their gift to us. Instead of acknowledging that modern history proves that farming could be profitable without slavery, you'll argue that we couldn't have had the Constitution without it:

> The Declaration of Independence and
> the Constitution were written in the
> blood of slaves

"Written in blood." This is why shabby chatter (see "organized religion," above) is to be avoided: Clichés morph into tropes and then tumble into straight-up stupidities. (Remember when I was bludgeoning Kristin a couple of weeks ago for reciting all those auto-pilot catchphrases about divorce? Same problem.)

The Founders did great things, but the stain of slaveholding is not trivial or perhaps even forgivable. I'm still not sure it's reparable.

> wrong about the pyramids

That very link includes several competing ideas, and a number of "to be sure" escape clauses, complete with page links. More to the point....

One cute press-release citation from "Discover™" magazine (Look for it on newsstands everywhere!) describing the proximity of graves doesn't convince me that those pyramids went up at competitive prices... Especially when the source for that presumption is Zahi Hawass. Take a look at his Wiki page:

His views and links to business ventures and the Mubarak regime have engendered controversy. In connection with the awarding of a gift shop contract at the Egyptian Museum and alleged smuggling of antiquities, he was sentenced to a prison term, which was later lifted.

In essence, Hawass was putting bread on the table. Of course, that also involved painting a picture of Egypt that was tourist-friendly and glossed over some of the country's brutal realities. Hawass' Egypt was the pyramids and the pharoahs, not social, political and economic inequities on the streets of Cairo. Recruiting Western enthusiasts like assistants on his great dig, Hawass steered some of those same Westerners away from a deeper understanding of the tectonic shifts in Egyptian society that ultimately surfaced in Tahrir.

I think you're bullshitting. If Egyptian labor had been paid fair prices over the decades required to erect pyramids, we'd know. So far as I can tell, Hawass and his sidekick are the recent and most prominent champions of the "no slavery" hypothesis... Which we might well regard as a PR ploy to keep the billions from the United States flowing into Mubarak's accounts without distraction by troubling metaphors.

In any case, there's little in ancient Egyptian life that you'd have recognized as freedom: You ought not therefore affirm that it was required if we were to enjoy this day.

Yer a Canadian fuckball.

It's only Wikipedia, so I don't mind quoting the passage in its entirety. No one's pretending this is original research, right?

Clothing line

Hawass has lent his name to a line of men's apparel, described by The New York Times as "a line of rugged khakis, denim shirts and carefully worn leather jackets that are meant, according to the catalog copy, to hark 'back to Egypt’s golden age of discovery in the early 20th century.'" The clothing was first sold at Harrods department store in London in April 2011.[52]

Critics say the Hawass clothing commercializes Egyptian history and there were accusations, which proved incorrect, that models had sat on or scuffed ancient artifacts during a photo shoot for advertisements. Hawass already sells a line of hats similar to the ones he wears, which mimic the ones worn by Harrison Ford in the Indiana Jones movies .[52]

Seriously, Martin... Why do you have to be so cute about it? If, as a non-believer, you think Christianity has "the answer" to move civilization forward, why don't you tell us what it is?

As a non-believer.

"That the way things happened is the only way they could have happened"

Nope, that's the way things DID happen, and there's no point pretending otherwise. You're a sad wet fart of a man if you have to pretend you have psychic powers and put thoughts into people's heads and words into their mouths just so you can feel more righteous about yourself.

It's fun to indulge in daydreams about how the West would have turned out if the Roman Empire hadn't fallen and the Dark Ages had never been, or how America would have turned out if it had never occurred to the colonists to enslave Africans. But that can get rather pointless. It would have been nice if Communists hadn't taken over Czechoslovakia. But they did. And after the entire Warsaw Pact invaded to end Prague Spring and life kept getting worse and worse, my family had to confront reality - history the way it was, not the way it could have been, or the way we wished it would have been. And we made the choice to escape to a free country. Which is how I eventually found myself here on this blog, arguing with some lardass video producer from West LA who never experienced a day of tyranny in his life, but presumes he can give me a lesson about the tragedy of history.

His clothing line notwithstanding, Hawass was an inescapable presence in Egyptology for decades because of his position as chief archaeologist. Evidence contrary to the Hollywood notion of starving Jewish slaves building the pyramids under the lash has been accumulating for some time:

http://harvardmagazine.com/2003/07/who-built-the-pyramids-html?page=all

Excavation details here:

http://www.aeraweb.org/projects/lost-city/

"...you think Christianity has "the answer" to move civilization forward..."

Never said that, never implied it. Christian civilization DID move forward. Islamic civilization has not. No point pretending otherwise.

"His clothing line notwithstanding" has to be the best-ever defense of an anthropologist.

> that's the way things DID happen, and there's
> no point pretending otherwise.

Well, both Christianity and Islam are still around. Christianity didn't get nice on its own, and we shouldn't expect Islam will either.

> It's fun to indulge in daydreams about how the
> West would have turned out if the Roman Empire
> hadn't fallen and the Dark Ages had never been,
> or how America would have turned out if it had
> never occurred to the colonists to enslave
> Africans. But that can get rather pointless.

In 2004, a friend of Amy's from the Los Angeles Press Association made a few calls to the Blogger.com offices, which had only recently been purchased by Google. They had a lot of genius floating around in those days, bright people who hadn't yet been assigned to more permanent projects within the exploding Google empire. They'd developed some flexible new metric software, really advanced stuff, allowing people to extract all sorts of useful information about blogs from previously impenetrable data. The friend was able have them do some work as a favor. In an analysis of this blog, it was determined that 92.17% of all commenters using the word "rather" in the sense that you just did were total dorks.

There's nothing "pointless" about reviewing the growth of virtue and decency in civilization, and speaking clearly about its sources and its burdens, the latter being how I regard unfettered Christianity. So when guys start saying things like this—

> It would have been nice if Communists hadn't
> taken over Czechoslovakia.

—we wonder why church enthusiasts are always trying to compare this purported font of decency to other world monstrosities. The effect is like kids bickering in the back seat on a trip to Gramma's:

Dad, Molly broke my racecar game!

But Billy stepped on my dress!

Well, we work with what you give us, which is difficult when we're deliberately given obscurities:

> Something other than geography is destiny
> as per Diamond must have been at work.

> If you want to understand why this is so,
> Diamond doesn't have the answer.

Now, is there something you want to share with the group, Martin? We won't ask again.


> Christian civilization DID move forward.

That's the second offering of nearly identical wording in the same volley, and it answers an argument nobody's making, which makes me think the water's rising for you over there.

But perhaps 'Civilization moved past Christianity' is what you want to say, and that's my point; once we'd cast off the authority of people mired in supernatural thinking, ANY supernatural thinking, things got better for everyone. The process continues, and it's my theme for this whole exchange:

Christianity has been tamed.

I could sum it up as State, Science, and Sex. Christianity allowed for the separation of Church and State without violating its own doctrine (render unto Caesar...). Even in the Dark Ages, church and state were not synonymous. Charlemagne & Pope Stephen III had separate spheres of authority, even if they were in conflict. In orthodox Islam, spiritual and temporary authority rest in one man, the Caliph, and Islam IS the state. Conan expands on this in his excellent comment of September 28 @ 10:31.

Newton was convinced that his laws of motion and gravitation were God's laws, which men could discover through reason and observation. In orthodox Islam, the notion of Allah being bound by laws that can be discovered by men is an obscene blasphemy. Everything is Allah's will. If an apple falls from a tree, it's because of Allah's will, not gravity. Once this concept took a firm grip on the lands conquered by Islam, further scientific progress became almost impossible.

Christ presented loving monogamy as the ideal relation between men and women. Mohammed presented the possession of multiple wives as the ideal situation for Muslim men, and he added a six year old girl to his own personal collection. Even in medieval times, women like Christine de Pizan were making the case for feminine dignity like no other women in any other civilization were doing:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_the_City_of_Ladies

Appreciating these things does not require belief in talking snakes. All of them made Christianity less resistant to enlightenment and modernity, and easier to tame, than Islam.

> made Christianity less resistant to
> enlightenment and modernity, and
> easier to tame

Heyzeus Christbun Shitdog Fartfuck. So you agree with me.

Why? Why all the prancing around in your panties? What was the point?

No, Diamond explains a LOT more of this than you do. I can't imagine what tightly-compressed psychological freight weighs on you such that you need to gloss the terrors of a failed orthodoxy with such personal verve—

> To clarify, I'm not a religious believer

But it's pretty obvious that—

> Christ presented loving monogamy

You've still got some cosmological thankin' to do, some cipherin'. Y'know, scented candles, walks on the beach, journal entries, QUIET stuff. Classical music on an Ipod, walking alone in distant cities. Stuff that doesn't pester other people, even on blogs.

Also, sex with coarse women and scuba diving.

Amazing how many words you need to say nothing of substance.

I never said Christianity wasn't tamed. That would be denying the reality of history, and the only one doing that on this thread is you.

You were engrossed: Don't be bitter.

The three elements I identified - a separation of Church and State, an acceptance of scientific investigation of the natural world, the possibility of dignity for women - are prerequisites for progress towards modernity, not products of it. Because Christendom possessed all three, it was able to progress through the Dark Ages, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance to the point at which the Age of Enlightenment became possible.

Afghanistan under the Taliban possessed none of these elements. So every last bit of progress has been forced upon it by a vastly superior and more powerful civilization. And because this progress has been imposed upon Afghans by a foreign army, there is no guarantee any of it will persist after that army withdraws.

There was no superior civilization around to impose any advancement on late Medieval Europe, because it was already the world's number one civilization. It had to progress on its own to the point at which men became enlightened enough to put the Church in its place.

Right-- Afghanistan was and remains a hellhole, of interest to nobody but millionaire Saudi sons-of-construction-magnates who are looking for a place to chill while facilitating assault on superpowers.

But I mean - that's the point - you're being circuitous.

And the way you phrase those three blessings is too generous:

• "a separation of Church and State" is one word too long. They dominated everywhere they could as long as they could, no?

• "an acceptance of scientific investigation of
the natural world" also has an extra word at the top, and hardly describes the position of Christianity throughout the world throughout the centuries (and certainly not in all sects).

• "the possibility of dignity for women" is just plain stingy.

You're just working too hard to be flattering to Christianity. At this hour, as we face this next enemy, we should know what we know about how to respond to primitive cultures who put their faith in the supernatural.

And we have a lot more to offer the Muslim sisters than "the possibility of dignity."

These weak phrasings MEAN something, ok?

Christianity was never leading our progress, it was retarding it. It happened to be the faith in place for the cultures that lead the world in navigation and seamanship and distant trade and diplomacy and double-entry bookkeeping and all the rest... The conditions that would require separation of Church and State, scientific investigation of the natural world, and dignity for women. Only when the need for those things was apparent did the church feign hospitality for them, hence your qualified descriptions of them even today.

First to submit to the inevitable doesn't constitute leadership.

In other words, this:

> The three elements I identified - a separation of
> Church and State, an acceptance of scientific
> investigation of the natural world, the possibility
> of dignity for women - are prerequisites for
> progress towards modernity, not products of it.

…is flatly wrong, and even if it weren't, they were unwelcome burdens for the Church, not its cheery gifts to us.