Modern Paganism is not the same as ancient Paganism. Unlike monotheistic religions, with their holy writ, Paganism can freely evolve.
While morally repugnant, I would not compare abortion clinics with Nazi exrermination camps. That sort of thinking gets us nowhere.
The technology to print guns will develop apace with the technology to stop it. One can easily imagine a technology in the future that can detect when certain programmes are running somewhere, and jam them.
No, you can ruggedize electronics, prevent external detection, and we got plenty of 3D programs floating around bootleg on CD.
And ancient Paganism often was allowed to freely evolve, just as Christianity usually has. There are significant theological and philosophical approaches, for example, between the Catholic and Greek Orthodox Church in acceptance of Aristotle. Its to the point whenever I visit a Greek monastery I can’t mention any Orthodox theologian or Philosopher who wrote on Aristotle, as they see it threatening to their position on Gregory Palamas. I suspect you’d be interested in Gregory, given his influence on visual, Zen like meditation of seeing internal light patterns in the mind. It gets more complicated once you spread farther into the other holy sees, and even within the Catholic church you have radically different, competing schools. Same with Protestants… we actively induct foreign philosophies like Buddhism and Taoism into Christianity too now, be it Thomas Merton, a Catholic, or Seraphim Rose, Orthodox. The Orthodox are the slowest to change, but they are also the most aggressive in adopting eastern philosophies. These are the mainstream churches of Christianity. Its hardly stagnant. We are the ones who developed the big bang.
And comparing abortion clinics to nazi death camps is spot on. Its not a matter if political acceptance, but finding the correlates that drive people to violence… you gotta find the equivalent points in yourself. I’m not Muslim, I’m opposed to Jihad, but I try to figure our the mindset they act on, read their ideologies, why they say they are motivated. Its irresponsible not to investigate if your a philosopher, or act like it’s incomprehensible… they are human, so am I, so are you, it’s within reach. There really isn’t any difference whatsoever between a abortion clinic and a death camp… similar results, a structure dedicated to killing. Same for the sacrificial alters and burning of babies in the ancient world.
A question seemingly unrelated, but I was pondering… did they ever teach you the stars in the constellations, or did you learn how to make up astrological charts from scratch, or geometry?
I know Didymus the Blind was a accomplished writer on geometry… just, your emphasis on Paganism… usually it’s accompanied by a knowledge of geometry and the stars. How aware of you of this? I know you can’t just look up and see them, but you know how to draw them, their rough spacing? Can you put together a natal chart?
If not, I don’t think it be that hard for a friend to get some laminate paper with a design printed on it, cut it for you so you can get used to the format, run string through it to make a natal chart. You can learn basics of astronomy that way. Your approach to paganism has to always be in opposition to Christianity, but I figure if you learn more, you can rest your faith in it’s merits more, rather than opposition. I’m a Christian, but don’t have to bomb pagans, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists every time I mention my faith. I’ve rarely seen you mention your religion without doing the Father Ted “I hear your a racist” dace the British woman does in the background screaming about Greek immigrants:
m.youtube.com/watch?v=6zkL91LzCMc
Basically, the Cather does a childish impression of Chinese people, and is seen doing so through the window by a Chinese couple… he panics, runs outside to explain, but everyone already heard he was a racist… to his shock and horror. Then the lady in the background goes crazy, kicking and hollering, shopping bags all over the place. I take your rants against Christianity in a similar light… if you learned more about some areas outside mere texts, such as astronomy, maybe you can balance your emotional scope a bit, not feel so threatened?
This is really a question of “how much control do you want over your own life?”
You can get some benefits by ceding control to others. For example, constant police presence and surveillance will probably reduce violence and crime… but is that a good trade-off?
And the followup question is "if you accept that giving up control now is good, how do you know that it will still be good when the system evolves? ". Maybe it will deteriorate into something that you do not want. Is it worth the risk?
We’re talking about future technology here, with the ability to detect whenever a certain type of programme is being run in a given vicinity. I’m not sure this is so beyond the realms of possibility.
I wasn’t saying that Christianity doesn’t evolve, it clearly does. But it does so within the straightjacket of the Bible, and like all monotheisms tends to regard other branches of itself as heresy and, given the chance, will try to violently stamp them out. Paganism, however, is free to evolve in any direction without restraint, and to become anything at all, without having any problem with recognising other branches of Paganism as equally valid. This is the fundamental difference in mindset. Monotheism, with its belief in one god, has to also believe it is the one true way.
I agree that it’s a good idea to understand why people think that way, but this does not imply any sort of agreement. Abortion clinics are different to Nazi death camps in a number of ways. Firstly, and primarily, is the motive behind it. Secondly, the babies are not deliberately worked to death as slaves before being killed. And thirdly, abortion clinics are not staffed with sadistic guards who like torturing people.
I have never personally put together a natal chart but the maths is surely not beyond me. Natal charts do not require a visual diagram and can be read and interpreted just as easily as a list of numbers. Say that your Pluto was in 29 degrees Virgo, for example. I don’t need a diagram to show me this, as I’ve just said it. If you’re asking, however, if I can visualise or imagine what the sky looks like, the answer is no. I can’t visualise or imagine what anything looks like. I do, however, have a very good awareness of spacial geometry, but I’m not really sure why this should be relevant to Paganism.
Right, we should trust shitty people who overthrow democratically elected governments and the same people who got feminists to promote smoking cigarettes for young women. We should trust bad people with our lives and guns, the same corrupt people who fund oil interests overseas and approve of toxins in our foods…right…
We should become like britain, who produce tv shows even more inane and retarded than the us of a…shows like this…
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcVrm2dCf0s[/youtube]
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An ai promoting natural beauty, what a farce. The same people who obsess over “natural” beauty probably eat junk food everyday.
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Why not add china and retarded african nations in to the mix as well, so they can degrade our quality of life and remove our rights even further.
It’s possible. But it’s certainly not desirable unless you accept that you should only be allowed to do what “the government” approves.
I can’t see where a pagan would not be extremely skeptical about a one world government. Paganism has always been attacked by hierachial religions and cultures. That is,ones that are more hierarchical than pagan societies and groups. Paganism in general is more resistant to hierarchy than monotheisms. These religions are not about control and restriction in the way monotheisms tend to be and thus are problematic for control orientied, hierarchical cultures, whether corporate - which a one world government would surely be - or governmental. Once a giant bureaucratic monstrosity is in place they have absolutely no reason to pretend they give a shit about what you consider valuable. Just as they are losing interest now, after years of seeming cultivating individual freedom, they do not need Westerners anymore to be happy or thinking they are free. The have globalized their businesses and the West is slowly being ignored and there are less freedoms, more surveillance and more central control.
How could a pagan not be wary of this? It is precisely the opposite of a pagan culture where power is generally always temporary and earned. Some huge, cold machinelike corporation running the world. NO, thank you.
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I can imagine a pagan not being sure this is a bad idea. But a pagan who is not extremely wary, that is a hobbyist, who just wants her tarot cards and social media contacts around disconnected rituals. A kind of suburban playing around,while working some 9to5 office cubicle soul destroying job or living on disability and who does not really have to out there in the real world. When that one world government decides that blind people are less effective cogs in the machine and her ‘representatives’ are across an ocean and could give a shit about her opinions since they answer the the boards of directors of an oligarchy, she may find herself out on the street, selling her body, just as third world women, who never thought they would have to chose that option found themselves doing in when their US or USSR coached oligarchies took over the economy.
Why does a one world government have to be dictatorial? Why can’t it be federal, like the EU, which makes it a policy to devolve powers to the smallest local unit that can efficiently carry them out? Surely this is better than the current situation, in which states can go to war against each other? Why is it that half the world is on the breadline and the other lives quite well? It’s because of capitalism, and its channelling of resources into things like war and other useless pursuits, and the inherent inefficiency and waste in the system it creates.
History isn’t linear, it’s cyclical.
Smaller groups converge into larger ones based on share interests and later diverge into smaller ones due to internal conflicts.
There are indeed attempts to connect the world not only technologically, but memetically also - imposing the same memes (ideas) upon all politically governable entities (humans) by appealing to a common denominator they all share - humanity, thus humanism, but everybody who isn’t an imbecile and has a more profound sense of self that goes beyond such base categories as species would reject such a shallow identity imposed upon them.
Sure. As soon as police, military, and all government law enforcement agencies disarm themselves.
Or are you saying that guns should be banned for one group of people and not for the other group, and not only that, but the other group can also possess weapons as destructive as nuclear bombs which can level entire cities?
Do I really have to point out what’s wrong with that?
Indeed. Socialism is a sign that the country’s previous political/economic system was too successful so the country accumulated resources that it can spare… it is an indication of the country’s downfall.
EDIT: Maia is not a pagan, or did paganism become a new trendy, popular thing that wanna be rebels adopt in order to sound edgy, akin to emo and goth culture?
The twin scapegoats for everything … capitalism and Christianity.
Don’t other economic and political systems waste resources, have useless pursuits and engage in war?
She doesn’t like capitalism, but she wants a one world government, which will probably be run by America, which already owns most of the world. She must not know that America is capitalistic. Brilliant.
Interesting discussion from my POV. I have been thinking along the same lines since long.
I more or less agree with Maia that sooner or later humans would have no option but to form some sort of world government.
Having said that, I disagree with her presumption of Christianity/ monotheism having no role in that future order. I think that just like administration, political and economical issues, the issue of religion/faith will also be sorted out one day by some gives and takes within all major religions.
All religions would also have no options but to converge at same point one day. And also, the new world order is not possible without happening that in the first place either. That is a necessary precondition/event, which will pave the way of unification of the world in all other aspects.
And also, that may happen much earlier than we are assuming.
With love,
Sanjay
Why cant we just make a dna machine so people will stop being retards and clinging to their polidicks, religion, stupid tv programmes and weekly world news. We wont even need a world government, there will be no need for war if people stop being stupid baboons.
Instead of the dna machine we get walking vaginas who say the new world order is good. Shoot me now
Given the time spent , in this forum, and elsewhere, on rapidly escalating technology, it’s considerable, that the new politically viable programs are being analyzed by strategic computerized game theory, as much as any game theory which was used during the days of the Cold War and beyond. These theories opt for the best possible scenario, and it’s equally probable that , in this instance technology would trump popular opinion.
This was foreshadowed even as early as, 50+ years ago, in a little known French film ‘Alphaville’ where the scientific community were bound to programs regarding security issues. I disagree, whether the ethical notion regarding the coming world order, is open in the way it is thought to be. It may already have passed that stage.
What people fail to realize that the one and only purpose of human race is make the perfect dna producing machine.
That is the work in progess already. It started millions of years ago and will continue also. But, it is so slow that we humans, who are in the game by default, are unable to realize it.
with love,
sanjay
I am sure we will do this, whoever this hypothetical we is. But this hypothetical we will be corporate run. So this means the same kinds of people who make stupid tv programs will make people. Since the making of humans is vastly more complex than making tv programs, there will also be side effects, like, say Monsantos little horrendous boos boos with roundup soy and it wife herbicides. Hubris will play out much uglier with GM humans that even daytime soap operas.
Not really…humanity doesnt strive for perfect, it strives for barely functional. Geniuses tend to be transsexuals or hermits who think women are either too good for them, or too beneath them to reproduce, or both.’
Currently we are devolving due to modern degeneracy, inbreeding and lack of natural selection, so a dna machine must be made to remedy this.
Knowing the corporate faggotry, they will probably use the DNA machine to turn everyone into homosexual males, super soldiers with low iqs, and increase our genetic desire to eat junk food and smoke cigarettes. This is precisely why the DNA machine is needed, so this fate does not happen.
