One reason you pick out and blame a scapegoat for the sins of the whole people is so that you can be sure you yourself are not among the number of the evil ones who pollute the City, and thus yourself in no danger of ostracism or banishment. This you can do without ever troubling with the beam in your own eye, provided you go along with the mob’s condemnation of the chosen scapegoat. It’s an easy “fix” for your own anxiety about your wickedness.
But it’s not a true fix; it doesn’t remove your inward knowledge of your own impurity, or your awareness that your impurity might be soon found out, so that you were then yourself ostracized. It doesn’t permanently salve your anxiety. All it does is ensure that you are not going to be singled out for punishment this time. It is a temporary reprieve, and no more: so that you remain as it were a condemned man, whose sentence of death has been deferred for one more day.
Easy to take that day, to be sure, for what it is worth. What condemned man turns down another 24 hours? Who wouldn’t?
So ostracist societies are stable, albeit autophagic at the margin (and thus at a reproductive disadvantage in competition with societies that have transcended ostracism). In an ostracist society, everyone but one – the scapegoat – is safe (for the time being, at least). So they are in equilibrium, at least until the routine course of sacrifices – even, in extremis, the sacrifice of the King, or of his spotless child – don’t seem to work to ameliorate social crises, and the number of the holocausts therefore compounds until it explodes in a frenzied pogrom of some sort.
When the sacrifices of the oppressed victim class grow too numerous, you get the oppressed classes inviting Pizarro Cortés in and succoring his attack on their Aztec oppressors.
Christianity forecloses the easy ostracist way out of the sinner’s immediate guilt. On Christianity, ritual impurity vests strictly and absolutely in the sinner himself, vis-à-vis his personal relation to his Saviour, and depending only on his fulfillment of his personal obligations to his God. It should then, to the extent that the people take Christianity seriously, and therefore seriously engage in a lifelong project of personal moral reformation, lead to a higher general standard of holiness: of moral, prudent conduct, and so of general prosperity and peace.
Society works better when everyone in it feels as though he ought to be trying to be saintly, and then goes ahead and does try. In no other way might it work quite well. The more sin, the more noise, poverty and strife; the less, the more peace and plenty.
So the Christian society is bound to crush its ostracist competitors, ceteris paribus.
A pretty clear cut gedanken policy test result, by God.
Not too surprising, then, that the Christians conquered the globe; or that, as they have lately waffled in their Christianity, and so abandoned their former characteristic pursuit of virtue, and have rather sunk into relativism, nihilism, and vice, so their global predominance has withered.
The Orthosphere 
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Cortés?
Duh. Yeah. I’ll fix that. Sheesh. Pathetic. Must be getting old or something.
Thanks.
Interesting.
Does the same principle hold to Chinese, Japanese and Islamic cultures though?
Also, to be more specific, it was “Protestant” Christianity that conquered the globe (politically, economically and socially) and not the other forms of Christianity.
Reading Joseph de Maistre recently we learned that he advised the Tzar’s court to not adopt commerce and science (among other things). One of the consequences of that was that Russia remained a “backward” country. Does this have anything to do with Communism’s later triumph?
True or not, one economist (David Landes or Niall Ferguson) claimed that protestant countries have better economic growth rates (echoing Weber).
We thought you were going to point out that in today’s secular liberal society, there is no way for “sinners” to expiate their guilt.
For example, everyone has probably forgotten this, but when Weinstein was going down he started badmouthing the NRA and wanted to start a campaign the “gun lobby” – didn’t work.
To “redeem” oneself today, what does one have to do?
Yup. The truly holier they are, the better. I.e., the more Christian they are, the better.
The Spanish and Portuguese and French empires were just as expansive as the British. That the British outlasted them is due I think not so much to their strictly religious differences as to other factors, that mostly boiled down to seamanship – and such things as access to big timber for masts.
The Protestantism of the Church of England is in any case pretty weak beer, theologically. It’s the old Sarum Rite, asserting independence from the Roman; not much more. On all the strictly theological matters that mattered, the C of E was at one with Rome. This, right up to the promulgation of the Immaculate Conception.
Maybe. But that’s a different topic.
Perhaps they do. Is that because they are Protestant, or is it due to other factors? Hard to say, without running some more gedanken policy tests. So, again, that’s a different question altogether.
Already did.
Humans can’t redeem themselves. They can however partake of the redemption earned on their behalf and offered to them by God. They can repent, confess, seek absolution; believe the Gospel, and trust in the Lord.
Oh, wait: you asked, not what one can do to redeem oneself, but rather to “redeem” oneself. I.e., in today’s world, what sacerdotal hierarchy can you seek out for their help and guidance in becoming holy? Same one as always: the truly holy one.
But then, hold on: perhaps you meant to ask what sort of ostracism people engage in these days, in order to feel ritually clean for a few minutes. The favorite sort of scapegoat these days is white Christian men, but really anyone who is noticed doing or saying anything politically incorrect will do for a nice mediated two minute hate.
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Do you think technology can even the playing field between cultures with differing birth rates?
Level the playing field with respect to what? Reproductive success? Do you mean to ask whether the technologically advanced country with low total fertility could use its tech to kill lots and lots of enemies, so that it still came out on top, demographically? Sure, I guess so.
But, remember that the gedanken policy test can test for only one variable per test. You take two societies otherwise exactly the same, and vary the policy of interest between them. So, it doesn’t work so well when trying to compare societies that differ in two dimensions, such as technology and fertility rate.
Isolating each of those two variables in its own gedanken test, we get this: ceteris paribus, a technologically advanced country will crush its technologically backward competitor; and, again, ceteris paribus, a fertile country will crush its relatively barren adversaries.
Technology of course has many applications. It lowers the mortality rate with good health care and nutrition. It makes people more efficient so it takes less people to produce the same amount of work or products. And yes, a technologically advanced military will in most cases defeat defeat a less technologically advanced military. I’m sure there are many other advantages that a technologically advanced society would have over a less technologically advanced society that would outweigh a lower birthrate. My point is the gedanken test does not accurately reflect reality.
The gedanken policy test controls for all factors but one. In this, it is like any scientific experiment. Indeed, it is like any act of abstraction by which we pick out one phenomenon from the welter of experience so as to consider it in isolation. Life as it is actually lived is not of course a controlled experiment, not a process of abstract ratiocination. And by definition, our experiments and abstractions could not be adequate to life as lived. They are not intended to be; that is not their purpose. Nevertheless, we engage in such experiments, and in such abstractions, all the time, so as to get on with life intelligently.
Consider:
Those are all gedanken policy tests.
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So basically like the ancient Romans pointed out, christianity converts the wicked, criminal & stupid and uses them as mobs as part of their religious duty to destroy temples.
Mosmaiorum.org/persecution_list.html
Yes; in this Christianity is like other religions.
All religions compete with each other for the predominance in human life. And one of them always comes out on top. There is always an established religion. And persecuting other religions is just what established religions do. It’s the only way they remain established. The same thing is at work with nations. Either they discriminate against other nations, or they die.
Christianity has the added advantage that it changes men, reforms their hearts, and makes them both better and happier. This is what makes the Gospel Good News to the pagans.
Aryaavart, I’m not posting your comment because I couldn’t make head or tail out of it.
So any comment which destroys your christian argument cannot be posted|| Understood, LOL.
Your view of other religions is limited to projecting christianity onto them|| There is more than one model of religious dominance, and only the Mosaic Distinction Abrahamic religions use persecution||
Furthermore, the fact that you use niggers to demonstrate an example destroys your argument entirely, especially for ethno-nationalists||
Don’t post this sanitized version of my argument either,
Christians are like Muslims they must destroy what they cannot understand then claim victomhood||
Oh, snap! You were wrong. LOL!
I’m actually quite happy to post critical comments, so long as they are readily intelligible. Your first attempt at the comment above was no nicer than the one I have just posted, but it was a lot more deranged by the same sort of idiosyncratic syntax and diction that readers will now apprehend still taint the comment I have seen fit to post. As I have remarked to other, far more senior and respected commenters here: if you want readers, it behooves you to make your prose readable.
If your prose is not readily intelligible, and especially if it abuses the conventions of English, everyone who encounters it will write you off as a hopeless crank. From then on, they’ll ignore you; indeed, they’ll avoid you.
Why am I happy to post such comments? Two reasons.
First, responding to challenges – especially when they are thoughtful, well written, in short *good* – sharpens my own understanding, and my polemic; and commenters often teach me something, or by provoking my engaged response trigger new discoveries on my part. And that’s all good. It’s why we talk to each other in the first place.
Second, when challenges are baseless, wrong, foolish, mistaken, or otherwise defective, it is important to demolish them publicly, so that they do not infect other minds with their errors. Which I enjoy. Which I shall now do.
Risibly false, and ridiculously easy to refute. Google the string, “Roman persecution of Christians.” Or the string, “Hindu persecution of Christians.” Report back.
You think that because Christianity improves men it vitiates their nationality? How? Why would it not, in making them more perfectly what they are, rather make them more perfectly national? You think the Germans and the Russians and the British and the Italians are just the same now, on account of their Christianity? Can you see how silly this notion is? Don’t you see how the vicious intra-European wars among Christians utterly demolishes your idea? WWII? Heard of it?
You think only Africans are characterologically improved by Truth? [How could any man fail to be improved by Truth? It’s a silly conceit; Truth is eo ipso an improvement over falsehood. Could any man be characterologically improved by falsehood? Unlikely, at best. Then if any man is improved by some doctrine, is that not a pretty good indication that the doctrine is true?] The ancient Greeks and Romans were, too; their compatriots noticed. Ditto for the Germans. This was one reason the early Church grew so fast. Christianity simply *works.* In a prevalently pagan environment, this is starkly obvious. In ours, steeped as it has been in Christianity for 1500 years, the advantage of Christian life over other sorts is not so apparent.
But it was in the ancient world. In the first and second centuries, it took three years of hard study and renunciation to become qualified for baptism as a Christian layman. The Christian academies and monasteries were swamped with applicants, despite the vicious persecutions of the Romans. Think how much better Christianity must have seemed than the prevalent pagan religions, in order to be that attractive.
We secular moderns ride free on the moral achievements of our Christian forefathers, and think that the laws and liberties and prosperity we enjoy on account of their work and their sacrifice are just givens, and not due to their preponderant righteousness and prudence. We think nothing of jettisoning the Tradition that they gave their lives to enact, and uphold, and defend, of which we are the heirs and beneficiaries.
We err. As is so painfully evident from your comment, we know not what the Hell we do.
Right. That’s why when Christians ruled the *entire planet* they utterly destroyed all those other religions. It’s why Christianity is basically the only religion out there right now. Hinduism? It’s gone. Nobody believes that stuff anymore.
You can do better than this, Aryaavart. I’m sure of it. No one embraces heterodoxy as you have done, without at least a few extraordinary neurons at his disposal. Or, if you find that you can’t, yet, then perhaps you should stick around here, read, and learn some stuff.
After all: orthodox Christianity is today’s most radical heterodoxy. Go ahead, be a revolutionary: think outside the box.
Christianity’s inherent hatred of other religions & tendency to bifurcate communities is what brings a backlash|| In essence, the very nature of christianity’s existence is a form of persecution on these Pagan communities.
You don’t see a problem with a Roman adopting Egyptian Gods for example,
http://sankrant.org/2005/12/the-conversion-war-and-religious-freedom/
Saying Christianity is the ‘truth’ & ‘Truth’ improves men is a baseless argument, it’s circular logic & reasoning.
“Christians ruled the entire planet”
The nature of that rule is not some totalitarian life or death might, as your weak spergy fantasies might seem to believe, it has set up institutions & neo colonial states to slowly convert these populations.
It is a fact that there was basically no christianity on many continents only a few centuries ago & is now growing. Force/coercion whether via Ngos, military, economic etc is its method of expansion||
If you’re a Slav it’s pathetic, if you’re not, you’re a wannabe who will be ruled by RodNovors.
So, when the pagan Romans threw Christians to the lions, it was the Christians who were persecuting the pagan Romans. But when the Christians came to power and persecuted the pagan Romans, it was still the Christians who were persecuting the Romans.
Don’t ever criticize anyone’s arguments on logical grounds, OK? Oh wait, too late:
No, it’s not. Obviously. Here’s the syllogism:
1. Truth improves men.
2. Christianity is true.
3. Christianity improves men.
It’s a valid argument in the form of modus ponens. If the premises are true, so is the conclusion. Only the premises are open to attack. Notice that neither of the premises appears in the conclusion. The argument is not circular.
The Christian rule of the planet could have been totalitarian, if that is what the Christians had wanted it to be. There was no one left to stop them. If they had wanted to, they could have just killed all the Muslims and Hindus. But that’s not what Christians are like; it wasn’t what they wanted.
That fact demolished your suggestion that Christians “must destroy what they cannot understand.” Now you seem to be suggesting that Christians destroy what they cannot understand, not by, you know, *destroying* it, but rather by talking, and giving gifts like indoor plumbing, medicine, literacy, and the rule of law.
So, not to destroy is to destroy, eh? Dude, have you not heard of the Law of Noncontradiction?
Yes. What does that tell you? Like I said: Christianity simply *works.*
1. Taking people away from their communal & ancestral rites is persecuting that ideology. Only Abrahamic Monotheism does this,
2. Christianity is not true, that’s the thing..
3. No, again you have these fantasies of christians ruling directly when they mostly had to hire mercenaries; mercenaries who kicked them out as soon as the paycheques bounced.
Christians did kill everyone whenever they could, but o well now u face complete destruction/absorption by a more perfected Monotheism||
Ur momentum mentality of believing ‘God is on ur side’ & we winning/working is similar to Islam. Upon facing any defeat u become demoralized for centuries, LOL.
4. But yea, u’re unable to recognize the fundamental nature of christian hatred towards Pagans & how that very hatred amounts to persecution, even in the absence of any other action||
Saying all of your traditions, ancestors, etc are false/satanic is itself an act of aggression, that it has frequently led to wholescale genocide, war, destruction of heritage is beside the point; as it is the ideology itself which is responsible & in the interest of human sensibility it will be destroyed along with Islam, Judaism & Marxism||
Ur also not the most radical heterodoxy, we are.
Sharing requires conversion to quote the current Pope. Stealing someone’s soul & giving them material goods in exchange is an imbalanced trade||Your Dharma is priceless & the Blood/Sweat of your ancestors of a value beyond scale,
But of course a pathetic locust believes that it is so great to receive material compensation in addition to ‘salvation’
The same cucks like you will imagine themself as Vedic Aryans|| LOL
May we both meet Death in Battle,
ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖਾਲਸਾ।।
ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫਤਹਿ।।
That’s a foolish, ignorant thing to say. Jainism and Zoroastrianism took people away from Hinduism. Akhenaten’s monotheism took Egyptians away from their ancient polytheism. Buddhism took people away from Hinduism, Taoism, Shang di, and Shinto. Confucianism took people away from Taoism and Shang di. The Ghost Dance took American Plains Indians away from their ancient worship of the Great Spirit. Cargo cults took Melanesians away from their traditional religions. Mithraism took the Roman legions away from their patrimonial cult. Persian Manichaeism took Romans away from polytheism. Atheist secularism takes people away from their patrimonial Christianity. Pagan Rome obliterated the Punic and Phoenician cult of Moloch.
With the exception of Akhenaten’s reforms, and Rome’s destruction of Carthage, *none* of these changes were coerced.
This sort of thing happens all the time. Is it persecution? Only in the event that infidels are persecuted by one side or the other. That happens all the time, too, although there are plenty of exceptions (the Ghost Dancers were not persecuted, nor did they persecute; ditto for the Mithraists).
You don’t know what you are talking about. You are ignorant of religious history.
OK, good: you are challenging the second premise. Now, show your work. Prove that Christianity is false.
My years of experience as a Christian apologist have taught me that most critics of Christianity do not actually understand even the most basic things about Christian doctrine. They labor under grotesque misapprehensions. So they are tilting at windmills. Even when they work, their arguments usually refute something other than Christianity. Given your appalling ignorance of religious history, I doubt you have the slightest idea what it is, exactly, that you are going to be trying to disprove.
So, this should be fun. Knock yourself out, dude! Show us the power of your intellectual muscles!
The British ruled the many tens of millions of the Indian subcontinent with 110K males (according to the 1931 census). They did not leave South Asia because they were kicked out. They left because they thought it the right thing to do, and not worth the trouble of staying on. In other words, they ended up deciding that India was a bad investment of their resources, and that making it worthwhile would involve acts they considered unjust. The decision was not made in India, or by Indians. It was made in Parliament, by Britons.
When the British left, millions died in religious violence. Res ipsa loquitur.
Pathetically easy to refute. Britain and France ruled the former Ottoman Empire after WWI. They had it in their power to kill all the Muslims. They did not.
The Crusaders ruled Outremer for a couple centuries. They could have killed all the Muslims and Jews who lived there. They did not.
Likewise, the US ruled Japan after WWII. The Americans could have killed all the Japanese who had not converted to Christianity. They did not.
I could go on and on with these examples.
Christianity has never been defeated. It is the largest religion in the world. It has experienced setbacks, of course, and always will, until the eschaton.
So in saying that Christianity is false, you are yourself guilty of the crime you impute to Christianity.
Really? What claim does your religion make that is more radical than the Christian claim that the eternal God of all gods is incarnate in a single man, who was crucified and died under Pontius Pilate, and thereby redeemed the entire created order, and then rose from the dead and ascended into Heaven, where he sits at the right hand of God, and will come again to judge the living and the dead?
Yeah, yeah, I know about Krishna and the other avatars. They were only avatars. They were not God himself in the flesh. And they did not untangle the world knot for all creatures.
Face it, the only religion that makes claims anywhere near as far-reaching and radical as Christianity is Buddhism.
I say this with the utmost respect for the Hindu tradition, and for the schools of Vedanta, from which I have learned much.
Amen. Deus vult!
[Ordinarily, this comment would never have passed the threshold of our comments policy, on account of its abuse of English, its insults, and its risible stupidity. But, what the heck. Its appalling barbarity will prove edifying to readers, and show them where they ought not ever let their thoughts go, no matter how dark the night, for fear that their souls should be darkened. Plus, it might be important to some readers that its assertions be properly demolished, so as not to cheat Truth of her due. And, furthermore, that demolition will be … lots of fun. So; here goes:]
Jains & Buddhists still revere their ancestors & consider previous Avatars like Sri Krishna as being forebears of their ideology||
You’re too retarded to understand the nature of the mosaic distinction, which is anything before us or outside of us is false. Other ideologies don’t posit this & so can co-exist; sharing festivals, altars, traditions etc. It’s not uncommon for Buddhists to celebrate Hindu festivals & vice-versa
—
You’re the one claiming christianity is true, without offering any evidence beside o the bible says so||
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They quite literally left when they could not guarantee the loyalty of the army especially due to their own economics crisis (paycheques)
The british themselves had a policy of supporting muslims & gave them positions in the army/police disproportionately after the Sikhs started rebeling post ww1||
That’s why you have Pakistan, a state which they have repeatadly supported since.
You have delusions of grandeur, a poor understanding of military logistics, as well as a poor understanding of the nature of various ideologies; typical christcuck.
A Britain/France without enough money to give their population bread would be able to afford walking around anatolia & the deserts of Mesopotamia hunting insurgents who would also be armed||
Military Insight is not your specialty, you really don’t understand how intensive war is & how difficult it is to conduct||
—
Christianity is no-one’s ancestral tradition, instead it merely sits upon its embers so no.
For one, the Sikhs say All 10 Gurus were Perfect Avatars of the Immortal Being & that the present Day Sikh Khalsa has the proper form of the Creator of the Universe & is also his army meant to destroy ADharma & bring justice to all creation.
Lot more radical than He Came, We Saw Him, He Died|| 😀
An Orthocuck speaking Latin, where does this stop? xD
So do Christians. The words of the Prophets and Patriarchs of Israel are read at every Christian service, all over the world. Many of those writings predate the foundation of Israel, or even of the Hebrews with Abraham: e.g., Job, and the story of the Deluge.
So, big whup.
As I expected, you are totally ignorant of Christian, Jewish and Muslim thought on this topic. All three faiths grappled deeply and respectfully with the thought of their pagan precursors, both in Greece and in Persia. The Church Fathers considered Plato and Aristotle to be gentile Prophets, and that Philo of Alexandria was a Protoevangel. Aquinas quoted the pagan Greeks extensively, as authoritative sources. The Jesuit and Orthodox missionaries to China drank deeply of Taoism and Buddhism.
I myself, and by myself alone, constitute a counterexample to and a refutation of your thesis. I am of the Mosaic dispensation. I read and respect the Taoists, the Vedantists, the pagan Greeks, the Buddhists, and the pagans of other lands.
You’re just wrong.
No, sorry, you won’t get off that easy. I offered a syllogism, demonstrating that my argument was not, as you had foolishly insisted, circular, ergo baseless. I pointed out that if the premises were true, the truth of the conclusion followed. I pointed out further that if the argument was vulnerable at all, therefore, it was vulnerable only in the two premises. If either of them could be proven false, the truth of the conclusion would not have followed (although it could, of course, still be true). You then attacked the second premise, asserting its falsity – which makes sense, for it is the weaker of the two – without however offering any argument to support that assertion. Your attack, so far, is therefore utterly baseless. It’s just some guy raving on the street corner, spittle flying from his mouth. There’s no reason yet to take your attack seriously. Give us such a reason, or go away.
It is not up to me to prove that Christianity is true (although I could, if I had the time). It is up to you to prove that your attack on the second premise is indefeasible. You must demonstrate that Christianity is false. If you can’t, everyone here will know that you are nothing more than a bag of hot putrid air, spewing venomous gases. Everyone will know that you are a fool.
So, you’d better get to work.
Given the appalling crudity and comical incoherence of your thought and diction, I doubt you could argue your way out of a paper bag with a chain saw. But, go ahead, knock yourself out. What doctrine of Christianity is false? Come on; give me just one. Anxious minds await your response. Make it good, so that I don’t embarrass you again.
Do you actually *know* any Christian doctrines? Dollars to dogshit, you do not.
Yay! This will be super fun.
Wow, you’ve read all my stuff, huh? So that you understand my take on “various ideologies”? And you’ve read enough to form an accurate psychological diagnosis of my delusions? Plus, you know all about what I have and have not read of history?
LOL! You can’t have any idea what you are talking about. I have not published a tenth, nay a hundredth, of my stuff.
How utterly pathetic. Sheesh. I feel sorry for you. Go read a thousand books, learn how to reason and write, and then get back to us.
Wow, you really know nothing about this at all. Incredible. Listen: Christianity *is a Hebrew sect.* In the First Century, the Apostles decided that the gentiles who were clamoring to join it could do so. It is the ancestral tradition of the Hebrews, that is now open to any who would join it. In this openness to converts, it is like Islam, Taoism, Hinduism, Rabbinical Judaism, Buddhism, or any other religion in the world whatever (with the *possible* exception of Zoroastrianism). I personally know Sikhs who started out as Protestants.
At this point, Christianity is the ancestral tradition of over 2.2 billion people. A tiny, tiny fraction of those 2.2 billion are recent converts. The rest have inherited Christianity from centuries of forebears.
The Church is 1500 years older than Sikhism. It traces its roots back through Israel, Isaac, and Abraham, through Noah, to Adam. It is the latter day restoration and fulfillment of the religion of Adam, from which all others sprang, and to which they shall all one day return. It is the inheritance of all men.
These wild counterfactual assertions only make you look like an idiot. You should rein them in, and talk like a reasonable person, if you want to be taken seriously. Or, just stop talking for a while, and spend a few years reading seriously and learning from people who know more than you do.
OK; which of those Avatars is God himself, period full stop? Which of them rose from the dead and ascended into Heaven to sit at the right hand of God the Father? Which of them has already redeemed the whole created order? Which of them will Judge all men at the last day?
Do the Sikhs say anything of that sort about the Avatars? No? If not, then their claims for their Avatars are far, far less radical than the Christian claim about Jesus of Nazareth.
The Avatars are angels of the Creator of all things. That is indeed a radical claim. But the Christians proclaim that the Creator of all things is Jesus Christ the Logos, YHWH the only begotten Son of his Father El Elyon, the Most High God.
If the Avatars are angels of the Creator, that puts them – at the very best – in the same league as Saint Michael, or Saint Gabriel. I.e., only angels. Jesus, by contrast, is God himself. The Avatars, then, are messengers of … Jesus.
No disrespect to the Sikhs. Clearly, their religion has much in it of Truth. It is common for Christians to recognize that other religions have much of Truth in them, and to honor them therefor. Heck, it’s right there in the Catechism:
So much for your delusion that Christians think that anything before them or outside of them is false.
You are surprised that orthodox Christians use Latin? What, have you read *nothing at all* about the history of the Church? Or, for that matter, the history of civilization?
Sheesh. Such bottomless ignorance. The mind reels.
I can’t wait to hear from you again, sir. So fun! Whee!
[This comment was deleted on account of its stupidity, its barbarity, its unintelligibility, its abuse of English, and above all on account of its insults to Jesus Christ.]
Disappointed।।Thought you had more in you than to keep claiming barbarity, unintelligibility or insults।।
Every single one of your points was demolished but debate has never been an abrahamic speciality।।
O well,
Try again in a more civilized manner and I’ll post your comment.
The Truth Can Only Be Spoken Once||
ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖਾਲਸਾ।।ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫਤਹਿ।।
Seek not anyone else’s feet but those of Hari, the Guru, and Dwija. That whose name is recited throughout the four ages, against Him by fighting and dying one is carried across|| – Sri Guru Sarbloh Granth Sahib
Don’t talk about race war or genocide till you can bench ur bodyweight||
ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖਾਲਸਾ।।
ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫਤਹਿ।।
Who was talking about race war or genocide?
Don’t talk about anything abstract until you learn logic.
You need to leave comments in moderation to provide the appearance of ‘victory’।।
No, actually I need to leave comments in moderation until I can tell whether they meet the criteria of our comments policy. Longer comments I sometimes don’t get to for a while, especially when they are poorly written. I’m having a busy time in real life.
Note that one reason comments can be deleted is their stupidity:
We don’t chase retreating foes so whatever||
ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖਾਲਸਾ।।ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫਤਹਿ।।
You do a lot of wild swinging at empty air, though.
Heh, you said once NRx will discover God, but now it sounds like you are discovering Gnon. (From: “Who speaks for Neoreaction?” “Nature or Nature’s God.”) Your Test is very much Nick Land-like, history as the history of societies competing with each other, thus their “social technologies” getting tested by natural selection.
This could be turned into a proof for God’s existence. Is it likely that a bunch of not very literate Jewish fishermen came up with the winner “social technology” on their own? Why not someone like Seneca? Why not the Chinese? If it is unlikely that they just made it up themselves, maybe they got inspiration from somewhere else?
That’s a pretty good argument for God’s existence. But I suspect that only those who are already pretty convinced that a Christian social order is optimal are at all likely to be swayed by it, and almost all of them are believers already. Perhaps a relentlessly reiterated application of the Gedanken Policy Test against each of the favored policies of such folks might bring our adversaries close enough to reason in respect to policies that they might, just might, be able to recognize and then – what is much more – admit that the Xian society is better fitted to reality. Only then might we begin to lob your (very cogent) argument in their direction, so as to begin to convert a few hearts.
As to GNON, my 2016 essay on the topic has been included in an anthology of reactionary essays from around our end of the blogosphere.
I have figured out the Christian social order is best the following way. Imagine designing a whole culture from the ground up. One of the big questions would be, should morals be loose or strict? If morals are loose, people are going to harm each other a lot. But if morals are strict, people find a way to weaponize that, too, accuse each other of violating this or that rule. Thus the minimum-harm society would be one where moral ideals are high, but there is forgiveness, it is understood that humans are flawed and will occasionally fail short of them. Thus the optimal society is where people are constantly striving to be good, but it is accepted that they will sometimes fail to be good.
And this forgiveness is a very unique feature of Christianity.
(Of course accepting this flawedness of human nature is a requirement. It can be Original Sin. But it could just as well be Darwin’s killer apes. I find it very interesting that Original Sin in Christianity is transmitted by our parents sex act. It sounds almost like a metaphor for something biological in our genetics.
This is where the political divide is coming from. Basically leftism can be defined as the view that not individuals, but society has some form of original sin.)
Later on at Jim’s blog we analysed this game theoretically. It is well know that one of the simple but excellent ways to maximize gains in an iterated prisoner dilemma is to start cooperative, then do what the other guy does, cooperate if he cooperates, defect if he defects, but if you are stuck in a long defect-defect spiral, occasionally offer an armistice by cooperating. Fine, but this assumes you have perfect information on the cooperation or defection of the other player. And in the real world it is not so. So many conflicts come from misunderstandings.
Thus, in the real world, forgive one, and only one defection. Go one extra mile, not a thousand. Just one. Precisely because a good person will not accept the offer of the extra mile. Basically if someone slaps your face, you do not know for sure that he is a bad person. Maybe someone lied to him and told him you did something bad to him. Misunderstandings can happen. If you offer the other face for a slap, it is basically a test. The other person realizes you do not have bad intent, and if he also does not have bad intent, will not slap but talk. If he does slap the other face, you have now proof that he has bad intent and it is not a misunderstanding. In that case you switch back to Old Testament mode and open a can of kick-butt.
Yes. In an environment of uncertainty such as ours, and in view of the risk of universally defective disaster implicit in Tit for Tat (an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind: feud, vendetta, and so on), Tit for Two Tats makes for more resilient, more stable – more charitable – profection among rational actors with memories and with reputations, provided that a predominantly stable TFT baseline milieu is already operative, so that TFTT can supervene on it rationally (TFTT makes no sense outside a predominantly TFT milieu). TFT is the OT can of whup ass you mention, to which TFTT can fall back in the event of repeated – and, so, one must assume, deliberate, or perhaps characterological (as with mad dogs) – defection of a counterparty.
I discussed tit for two tats in a comment back in 2020, with full props to Jim.