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This is what you don’t understand. Left to its own devices humanity as a whole is motivated by prestige which is acquired through power and force.
It is only through grace that higher understanding can minimize the need for prestige makiing a free society possible. There is nothing good or bad about this. It is just human nature. I believe John Adams understood it.
Got you! And you’re of course implying that “we should not be left to our own devices…” but instead, endorse subscribe to and submit ourselves to…..yours?
“Humanism was not wrong in thinking that truth, beauty, liberty, and equality are of infinite value, but in thinking that man can get them for himself without grace.” ~ Simone Weil
This is what you don’t understand. Left to its own devices humanity as a whole is motivated by prestige which is acquired through power and force.
It is only through grace that higher understanding can minimize the need for prestige makiing a free society possible. There is nothing good or bad about this. It is just human nature. I believe John Adams understood it.
First, Nick, regarding your Simone Weil quote, she’s wrong. Period. One doesn’t require a god to have truth, beauty, liberty, and equality. In fact, truth , liberty, and equality are 3 things that the religious have demonstrated to be AGAINST.
Religion is not concerned with truth. It is a lie first conceived by man to answer questions he did not understand and later perpetrated to control others with that lie. Science is concerned with truth.
Liberty is itself denied in religion as it requires you to believe you are subservient to the will of another being.
As for equality, well, it’s just a joke that religion has any concern about equality. No religion has ever taught equality. True equality of human beings is a concept that can only be attributed to humanism as each religion teaches itself to be superior to others, and that doesn’t even get into the prejudices within each religion’s own teachings such as the hatred of homosexuals, the innate inferiority of women or other races, etc…
As for your view on humanity, I don’t believe humanity is motivated by prestige at all. If it were, I think we’d be in a better place than we are. It is, however, all to often driven by greed and a lust for power (different from prestige, I feel). These are traits shared by humans religious or not. However, to believe that religion is the way to reach a better society has already been proven wrong. For centuries religion WAS the government. It did not lead us to enlightenment, it led us into ignorance and violence. It is only since one country dared have a government based on truth, liberty, and equality and NOT religion that we have started to rise above the foolishness of religious belief and actually care about humanity. That country, coincidentally, is the United States. Therefore, I would say that it is decidedly American to fight against religion and its ignorant tyranny.
And no, I have not forgotten beauty…
Beauty can be found by anyone. It doesn’t take a god to do that (since there isn’t one).
As for John Adams, I think he understood all too well the damage religion has on government:
“The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.”
It is my “game” to ask how is it not ignorant and ungrateful to want to abolish religion now, after it has produced so many brave and selfless people who have given us so much through their sacrifice?
It is no “game”, just the way it is.
You atheists are ignorant when your attacks on the dark side of religion spill over into ALL RELIGION.
What human organization doesn’t have a dark side?
All secularism is good?
Give me a break.
You have danced around my post with the skill of a tribe of baboons, for any mundane thinker can see your weak attempts at hiding this grevious error in your militant atheism against religion.
Dennis, you should be apologizing to me for keeping bringing this discussion down to a personal level. I know you had no other choice because of atheism’s lies and stupidity, but this time it was YOU who went on the personal attack instead of remaining a man of reason. And, like the ass-kisser of men you are, you then apologized to your bobble-headed “friends” when I defended my posts against the likes of you.
Again, what a bunch of phonies and liars.
And, in the case of American (mostly Christian) soldiers sacrificing themselves without hesitation, what a bunch of ungrateful fools.
No attack here…just pure, unadulterated observation.
And, as I warned PR—Andrew has left it the hands of Mr. Whoever-He-Is.
Mario, this is an example of why you aren’t worth having a discussion with. You ask a question, we present you with a reasonable discussion, then you complain about it because it doesn’t support you rather than continue the discussion.
Also, your insults tend to make people not even want to have the discussion with you in the first place. You do understand that you can make an honest observation and disagree with someone without insulting them, don’t you? You and Nick are both guilty of that.(Well, Nick just becomes condescending, you’re flat out rude.)
Of course, we should expect nothing less from you. Your faith has taken away your ability to reason. Don’t feel bad. It’s happened to billions of people.
In the war on gays thread, where Tony C. was ultimately banned for abusive language and ideologies against this minority of reason’s children, Answerer used the reality of being American as something that should inherently give gays the full regalia of rights.
Now, gays certainly have made great contributions to fashion and such, and are, after all, human beings.
But what about religious folk, what contributions have they made and what rights should they have?
I mean, I have heard the call on Project Reason for the abolishment of all religion in some pretty abusive language about the minds and lifestyles of religious people.
However, as an American, I can’t help (I mean, when I use my “reason” and read a history book) but see the great debt I owe to soldiers, from George Washington to the last grunt to die in the middle east, who have sacrificed so much for America to become a great nation and remain a great nation.
And, when I use my “reason” further, I can’t help but realize that these men and women sacrificed themselves through much more than a simple political agenda.
The great majority, in “fact”, had religious faith and conviction (especially in the Revolutionary and two world wars) that they would live on after a bullet entered their brains.
So, is not the War On Religion that some atheists spend so much “reason” on in such “abusive language” downright ignorant, ungrateful, and un-American?
I agree that the denial of the value of religion is the war against religion that atheism and secularism is waging and un-American as it relates to a free country based on the Constitution and rule of law.
“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
John Adams (The Works of John Adams, ed. C. F. Adams, Boston: Little, Brown Co., 1851, 4:31)
That’s the point. The constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. The freedoms it supports are only possible for such people. The destruction of these principles assures the decline of America and the loss of freedom
So “free country” means religion can force its ignorance and superstitions on everyone else and anyone one who resists is un-American? Then to and insult to injury you quote someone whose view of the constitution is pretty miserably and equates being moral with being religious like their quote means something?
“Humanism was not wrong in thinking that truth, beauty, liberty, and equality are of infinite value, but in thinking that man can get them for himself without grace.” ~ Simone Weil
This is what you don’t understand. Left to its own devices humanity as a whole is motivated by prestige which is acquired through power and force.
It is only through grace that higher understanding can minimize the need for prestige makiing a free society possible. There is nothing good or bad about this. It is just human nature. I believe John Adams understood it.
First, Nick, regarding your Simone Weil quote, she’s wrong. Period. One doesn’t require a god to have truth, beauty, liberty, and equality. In fact, truth , liberty, and equality are 3 things that the religious have demonstrated to be AGAINST.
Religion is not concerned with truth. It is a lie first conceived by man to answer questions he did not understand and later perpetrated to control others with that lie. Science is concerned with truth.
Liberty is itself denied in religion as it requires you to believe you are subservient to the will of another being.
As for equality, well, it’s just a joke that religion has any concern about equality. No religion has ever taught equality. True equality of human beings is a concept that can only be attributed to humanism as each religion teaches itself to be superior to others, and that doesn’t even get into the prejudices within each religion’s own teachings such as the hatred of homosexuals, the innate inferiority of women or other races, etc…
As for your view on humanity, I don’t believe humanity is motivated by prestige at all. If it were, I think we’d be in a better place than we are. It is, however, all to often driven by greed and a lust for power (different from prestige, I feel). These are traits shared by humans religious or not. However, to believe that religion is the way to reach a better society has already been proven wrong. For centuries religion WAS the government. It did not lead us to enlightenment, it led us into ignorance and violence. It is only since one country dared have a government based on truth, liberty, and equality and NOT religion that we have started to rise above the foolishness of religious belief and actually care about humanity. That country, coincidentally, is the United States. Therefore, I would say that it is decidedly American to fight against religion and its ignorant tyranny.
And no, I have not forgotten beauty…
Beauty can be found by anyone. It doesn’t take a god to do that (since there isn’t one).
As for John Adams, I think he understood all too well the damage religion has on government:
“The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.”
“Humanism was not wrong in thinking that truth, beauty, liberty, and equality are of infinite value, but in thinking that man can get them for himself without grace.” ~ Simone Weil
This is what you don’t understand. Left to its own devices humanity as a whole is motivated by prestige which is acquired through power and force.
It is only through grace that higher understanding can minimize the need for prestige makiing a free society possible. There is nothing good or bad about this. It is just human nature. I believe John Adams understood it.
First, Nick, regarding your Simone Weil quote, she’s wrong. Period. One doesn’t require a god to have truth, beauty, liberty, and equality. In fact, truth , liberty, and equality are 3 things that the religious have demonstrated to be AGAINST.
Religion is not concerned with truth. It is a lie first conceived by man to answer questions he did not understand and later perpetrated to control others with that lie. Science is concerned with truth.
Liberty is itself denied in religion as it requires you to believe you are subservient to the will of another being.
As for equality, well, it’s just a joke that religion has any concern about equality. No religion has ever taught equality. True equality of human beings is a concept that can only be attributed to humanism as each religion teaches itself to be superior to others, and that doesn’t even get into the prejudices within each religion’s own teachings such as the hatred of homosexuals, the innate inferiority of women or other races, etc…
As for your view on humanity, I don’t believe humanity is motivated by prestige at all. If it were, I think we’d be in a better place than we are. It is, however, all to often driven by greed and a lust for power (different from prestige, I feel). These are traits shared by humans religious or not. However, to believe that religion is the way to reach a better society has already been proven wrong. For centuries religion WAS the government. It did not lead us to enlightenment, it led us into ignorance and violence. It is only since one country dared have a government based on truth, liberty, and equality and NOT religion that we have started to rise above the foolishness of religious belief and actually care about humanity. That country, coincidentally, is the United States. Therefore, I would say that it is decidedly American to fight against religion and its ignorant tyranny.
And no, I have not forgotten beauty…
Beauty can be found by anyone. It doesn’t take a god to do that (since there isn’t one).
As for John Adams, I think he understood all too well the damage religion has on government:
“The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.”
Sciguy, first of all there is a difference between the concept of religion and that of grace. Jesus’ arguments with the Pharisees centered on their hypocrisy that is normal for cave life. They sought prestige that is normal for secularized religion but were not open to grace. They couldn’t “feel” the truth of what they were preaching
Consider grace to be a quality of nourishment for our being. It is like sunlight for a plant. With little sunlight the plant is only fed by the soil. It makes for an unhealthy plant.
A human being that is psychologically fed by a healthy culture and by the light of grace acquires a human perspective that connects the ground with the source of grace.
I’m not discussing what secularized religion is against but rather the awakening influence of the light of grace.
As for equality, well, it’s just a joke that religion has any concern about equality. No religion has ever taught equality. True equality of human beings is a concept that can only be attributed to humanism as each religion teaches itself to be superior to others, and that doesn’t even get into the prejudices within each religion’s own teachings such as the hatred of homosexuals, the innate inferiority of women or other races, etc…
Simone Weil provides a good description of equality and what is necessary for it to flourish. It requires what we are incapable of because of the denial of grace.
“Equality is the public recognition, effectively expressed in institutions and manners, of the principle that an equal degree of attention is due to the needs of all human beings.”
Obviously this is impossible since equality would deny prestige. Political correctness for example is just a means for creating inequality for the sake of the need for prestige.
What need in us does greed and power serve? What do we gain by it? I see them serving the need for prestige: self importance.. What need do you see it serving.
Secularized religion expression is just the religion of Plato’s cave. In this way it is like any other secular institution like politics for example. I think you would agree that politics is double sided. It is capable of both beneficial and harmful results. It is the same with secularized religion. Both are normal for the hypocrisy of cave life.
Beauty can be found by anyone but why do we experience it? what does it represent. A dog doesn’t need the experience of beauty. Yet man is gratified by it. If it is unnecessary for earthly life, why are we capable of the experience of beauty?
John Adams seems to be open to the value of grace and people able to be open to it but wary of secularized religious expression that serves prestige . Makes sense to me.
This is what you don’t understand. Left to its own devices humanity as a whole is motivated by prestige which is acquired through power and force.
It is only through grace that higher understanding can minimize the need for prestige makiing a free society possible. There is nothing good or bad about this. It is just human nature. I believe John Adams understood it.
Got you! And you’re of course implying that “we should not be left to our own devices…” but instead, endorse subscribe to and submit ourselves to…..yours?
“our own devices” simply means the normal results for the human condition without mthe awakening nourishment of grace.
You are just closed to the distinction between believing and becoming open. that’s why you never understood the Question for Atheists thread.
Simone Weil provides a good description of equality and what is necessary for it to flourish. It requires what we are incapable of because of the denial of grace.
“Equality is the public recognition, effectively expressed in institutions and manners, of the principle that an equal degree of attention is due to the needs of all human beings.”
Obviously this is impossible since equality would deny prestige. Political correctness for example is just a means for creating inequality for the sake of the need for prestige.
What need in us does greed and power serve? What do we gain by it? I see them serving the need for prestige: self importance.. What need do you see it serving.
Look, Simone Weil was brilliant and really had her mind right…when she was an atheist. Other than that, quote her all you like, it’s not impressive.
As to what you said, who cares if it denies prestige? Deny it. Humans CAN rise above their weaknesses. We do it all the time. If we hadn’t, we’d still be living in caves (REAL ones, not Plato’s like you keep spouting off about).
As for greed and power, they don’t gain you anything themselves, they are the desire for gain. Gain of riches and influence over others. Depending on your definition of “prestige” I don’t totally disagree with you that it is an influence, but I still say greed and a desire for power are more influential.
Simone Weil provides a good description of equality and what is necessary for it to flourish. It requires what we are incapable of because of the denial of grace.
“Equality is the public recognition, effectively expressed in institutions and manners, of the principle that an equal degree of attention is due to the needs of all human beings.”
Obviously this is impossible since equality would deny prestige. Political correctness for example is just a means for creating inequality for the sake of the need for prestige.
What need in us does greed and power serve? What do we gain by it? I see them serving the need for prestige: self importance.. What need do you see it serving.
Look, Simone Weil was brilliant and really had her mind right…when she was an atheist. Other than that, quote her all you like, it’s not impressive.
As to what you said, who cares if it denies prestige? Deny it. Humans CAN rise above their weaknesses. We do it all the time. If we hadn’t, we’d still be living in caves (REAL ones, not Plato’s like you keep spouting off about).
As for greed and power, they don’t gain you anything themselves, they are the desire for gain. Gain of riches and influence over others. Depending on your definition of “prestige” I don’t totally disagree with you that it is an influence, but I still say greed and a desire for power are more influential.
Individual may rise above human weakness but society cannot. it lacks the consciousness necessary for it which is why Plato called it the Beast. Where individuals can develop their being, society must remain as it is.
It is like a pillow. You may push down on one side but the other side rises up. nothing really changes. Only a society nourished by grace can collectively rise above human weakness.
My guess is that it is no longer possible and America as we know it must perish from its own spiritual weakness that stresses the demand for rights over voluntary obligations. Freedom cannot be sustained with such a collective secular attitude.
Individual may rise above human weakness but society cannot. it lacks the consciousness necessary for it which is why Plato called it the Beast. Where individuals can develop their being, society must remain as it is.
Nick, you’re still just plainly wrong. History demonstrates it. Society not only can, but has risen above its weaknesses time and time again, and always because of humanistic enlightenment. There simply isn’t an argument you can make against it because the facts of history are there. Do we still have violence, hatred, bigotry, etc? Yes, but not near to the degree of the past, largely because we at least try to learn from our mistakes.
Honestly, some days, I can almost agree with you. Human society is dismal at times. However, when you compare it to the past, we have improved and will continue to do so as long as we don’t destroy ourselves, which is a real concern. If that occurs, however, it won’t be the fault of all of human society, but rather of a small group of people who wield too much power.
Individual may rise above human weakness but society cannot. it lacks the consciousness necessary for it which is why Plato called it the Beast. Where individuals can develop their being, society must remain as it is.
Nick, you’re still just plainly wrong. History demonstrates it. Society not only can, but has risen above its weaknesses time and time again, and always because of humanistic enlightenment. There simply isn’t an argument you can make against it because the facts of history are there. Do we still have violence, hatred, bigotry, etc? Yes, but not near to the degree of the past, largely because we at least try to learn from our mistakes.
Honestly, some days, I can almost agree with you. Human society is dismal at times. However, when you compare it to the past, we have improved and will continue to do so as long as we don’t destroy ourselves, which is a real concern. If that occurs, however, it won’t be the fault of all of human society, but rather of a small group of people who wield too much power.
Nothing changes. Watch what happens to all your humanism when life becomes worse in the United Sates and people are fighting for food. Nothing cutsey pooh here. It is easy to express humanistic thoughts when things are going well. However when the cultural cycle begins its decline, then the collective attitude changes. it is the nature of the Beast.
Individual may rise above human weakness but society cannot. it lacks the consciousness necessary for it which is why Plato called it the Beast. Where individuals can develop their being, society must remain as it is.
Nick, you’re still just plainly wrong. History demonstrates it. Society not only can, but has risen above its weaknesses time and time again, and always because of humanistic enlightenment. There simply isn’t an argument you can make against it because the facts of history are there. Do we still have violence, hatred, bigotry, etc? Yes, but not near to the degree of the past, largely because we at least try to learn from our mistakes.
Honestly, some days, I can almost agree with you. Human society is dismal at times. However, when you compare it to the past, we have improved and will continue to do so as long as we don’t destroy ourselves, which is a real concern. If that occurs, however, it won’t be the fault of all of human society, but rather of a small group of people who wield too much power.
Nothing changes. Watch what happens to all your humanism when life becomes worse in the United Sates and people are fighting for food. Nothing cutsey pooh here. It is easy to express humanistic thoughts when things are going well. However when the cultural cycle begins its decline, then the collective attitude changes. it is the nature of the Beast.
It’s humanistic beliefs that tries to prevent life from getting that bad by trying to see to it that everyone has food. Stop being such a pessimist. You sound like one of those angry atheist people.
