According to early Roman and Jewish scholars Jesus' real father was a roman soldier named Pantera. Although this could be framed as Roman and Jewish smear of an undesirable religion, I would say that this is a much more likely scenario than the Christian theory, which is that Jesus was born of a God fucking a woman.
I feel like if this were true, this would explain a LOT about Jesus' politics, specifically his desire to incorporate non-Jewish people into the Jewish religion. If he was in fact half-Roman, half-Jewish, and a bastard no less, maybe he wouldn't feel at home with either Roman or Jewish society and would thus feel a desire to merge the two, of course under his own control.
Food for thought.
I thought his name was Diccus Biggus.
Quote from: jorgammon on July 21, 2023, 11:12:57 AM...this could be framed as Roman and Jewish smear of an undesirable religion, ...
Too bad it didn't work.
QuoteI feel like if this were true, this would explain a LOT about Jesus' politics, specifically his desire to incorporate non-Jewish people into the Jewish religion. If he was in fact half-Roman, half-Jewish, and a bastard no less, maybe he wouldn't feel at home with either Roman or Jewish society and would thus feel a desire to merge the two, of course under his own control.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like how Adolph Hitler was part Jewish and famously tried to incorporate the Jewish people into German society.
Quote from: jorgammon on July 21, 2023, 11:12:57 AMAccording to early Roman and Jewish scholars Jesus' real father was a roman soldier named Pantera. Although this could be framed as Roman and Jewish smear of an undesirable religion, I would say that this is a much more likely scenario than the Christian theory, which is that Jesus was born of a God fucking a woman.
I feel like if this were true, this would explain a LOT about Jesus' politics, specifically his desire to incorporate non-Jewish people into the Jewish religion. If he was in fact half-Roman, half-Jewish, and a bastard no less, maybe he wouldn't feel at home with either Roman or Jewish society and would thus feel a desire to merge the two, of course under his own control.
Food for thought.
the christian Jesus is a character fabricated for propaganda purposes. Not real. So, the story of his father being a Roman soldier is not anything to do with Jesus, but the creator of the story; what was the crafter of the stories point? The pursuit of the the history of jesus is like trying to determine the 'real' origin of Bugs Bunny--neither are factual.
Never heard such a theory. Link?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiberius_Julius_Abdes_Pantera
Very little from that age is reliable information.
Quote from: jorgammon on July 21, 2023, 11:12:57 AMAccording to early Roman and Jewish scholars Jesus' real father was a roman soldier named Pantera.
According to early metal scholars, he was also a Cowboy From Hell.
Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on July 21, 2023, 04:04:08 PMVery little from that age is reliable information.
No more than the 1900 years that have followed.
QuoteWas Jesus' father a Roman soldier named Pantera?
It wouldn't change the story either way, so... does it matter? Not really.
Impossible to know; might as well speculate on if the denari that rolled from Caesar's toga was heads or laurels.
Quote from: Shiranu on July 21, 2023, 10:59:29 PMNo more than the 1900 years that have followed.
Not even close. We know that Jesus was pure fiction. The Council of Niacea is well-documented.
Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on July 23, 2023, 10:11:15 AMNot even close. We know that Jesus was pure fiction. The Council of Niacea is well-documented.
The Council of Nicaea is well documented; it's purpose was largely to deal with the disciples of Arian questioning the metaphysical issues of God the Son being the same and/or different from God the Father and to unify the various branches of Christianity under one umbrella - importantly, the umbrella held by Constantine and the political aristocracy so that the church stopped fighting for better treatment of slaves and less corruption in government.
Likewise we have various regional non-Christian groups, such as Zoroastrians and Manichaeists, as well as Hellenistic, Babylonian, Jewish, Syrian, etc. Gnostics who recognized Jesus as a prophet (but not necessarily a savior figure) by the 100s AD - 200 years before Nicaea.
Very concise answers to questions I didn't ask.
Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on July 23, 2023, 05:26:49 PMVery concise answers to questions I didn't ask.
So then what was the purpose of bringing up the Council of Nicaea - what about it is supporting evidence of Jesus being made-up?
The gospel was written in the figurative, allegorical style of the day and is a reframing of the Jewish scriptures, incorporating pagan traditions as a Greco-Roman mystery cult.
If it wasn't that pile of BS, it would be some other pile of BS. Are there any cultures anywhere in the world without a tradition of "spiritual" nonsense?
Okay?
The Illiad was written in Homeric epic, with the gods taking physical action in the world - does that mean Hector, Achilles and Agamemnon didn't exist or that the war for Troy is fantastic?
We have secular sources of his existence, we have Christian writings outside the Bible, and we have non-Christians interacting with them all within the first century A.D. .
"Did Jesus exist" is not a spiritual question, it's a secular one - and when answering secular questions we cant let our biases get in the way and pigeon hole us into intentionally changing history to fit our own agendas. There is too much of that as it is, and I'm tired of having to sort through centuries of spiritual and secular leaders and their zombies doing exactly that and erasing the details of countless millions of people's existence from history.
Quote from: Shiranu on July 23, 2023, 06:06:00 PMSo then what was the purpose of bringing up the Council of Nicaea - what about it is supporting evidence of Jesus being made-up?
One was documented, one was not.
Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on July 23, 2023, 10:00:04 PMOne was documented, one was not.
We have the contemporary works of Jewish slave Josephus and highly regarded historian Tacitus, several Roman officials, as well as references to his sect of Jews in Rabbinic literature all citing his existence within his disciples lifetime; and the lifetimes of anyone who would have witnessed such events - they mention him only in passing, as one of those, "Oh yeah... I heard about that weirdo. Strange people." sort of ways, or out right hostilely in some of the rabbinic responses to what they saw as heretical apocalyptic and Gentiles cosplaying as Jews. I doubt Jewish Rabbis and slaves were in on the Roman plot to fabricate him from nothing.
Of course an event held by the emperor of the largest and most prestigious empire in the world (even during the end of collapse/reincarnation) with the intention to seize control once-and-for-all of Christendom for the himself and future Roman emperors would be more well recorded than a prophet in a somewhat rural backwater of the empire as it was just starting to collapse - the region literally was full of cults like Christianity at this time, as it was a fertile meeting ground of cultures and a some-what convenient stop in the Egypt leg of the international Eruo-Asian trade routes.
So again - to say one is documented, one was not is simply incorrect.
quibble
It is incredible how not one shred of hard evidence points to the existence of anything spiritual (aka "the supernatural) even though we have so many differing religious texts and so many people that believe they are true. People also believe the earth is flat, Donald Trump is still the acting president, and Covid vaccines have microchips. Belief is nothing to truth. And yet here we are with hundreds of stories about how gods, angels and demons interact with the physical world.
Just because scriptures can't avoid name-dropping real places and people, this does not mean we can trust any of it. These were never intended to be historical records. And finally, now that 100% of all Biblical scholars are not faithful, we are finding out about the many later-dated forgeries and the real nature of these texts. They are ideological documents that have political goals and can only be used to tell us about the psychology of the creators.
Hard science has blown all that bullshit off a century and a half ago. Not even worth seriously studying. Peoples' heads are full of shit. I mean how hard is it to figure out Putin, Trump, and Musk are complete assholes. Yet they are literally worshiped my millions of disgusting human beings. Often the same ones who believe in Noah's Ark, Zombie Jesus and "Try that in a small town".
"Hard science is hard, people are soft." It won't get any better, as people advance the brightest minds will still be well ahead of the mob. My IQ is 128 but I felt like a moron around some of the people at Purdue. ("Home of the Astronaut!")
Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on July 24, 2023, 05:27:12 AMquibble
Yes, evidence he was a historical figure is utterly trivial to the question of if he was a historical figure.
Quote from: Shiranu on July 24, 2023, 12:54:54 PMYes, evidence he was a historical figure is utterly trivial to the question of if he was a historical figure.
LOL
QuoteIt is incredible how not one shred of hard evidence points to the existence of anything spiritual (aka "the supernatural) even though we have so many differing religious texts and so many people that believe they are true.
We have plenty of evidence, you simply use the wrong tools and graphs for studying and interpreting it.
Sit down, focus on your breathing; relax and notice as the air rides across the curves of your nostril, as it makes it way into the tunnels that lead to your lungs. Hold it. Release, at a slow and steady pace through your nostrils, feeling your exhale.
Do this for 5 minutes - study a text like a poem or paragraph you enjoy, an article you were reading. Envision it.
Quote People also believe the earth is flat, Donald Trump is still the acting president, and Covid vaccines have microchips. Belief is nothing to truth. And yet here we are with hundreds of stories about how gods, angels and demons interact with the physical world.
People also believe that evolution is justification for eugenics, Neil Degrasse Tyson is still telling uni students that philosophy and history are a waste, and rampant scientific progress has brought us to the edge of complete extinction.
We have billions of oil pumps, cars, coal factories, heavy metal industry, toxic chemicals interacting with our physical world in the name of progress; interacting in a way that destroys everything beautiful in the world for our comfort. We have Nazi and Japanese scientists who were just "experimenting" when they flash-froze body parts to test how grenades damaged frozen flesh or how a child's flesh responds to a bayonet.
Let's not pretend that science has some moral high-ground over *any* other field.
QuoteHard science has blown all that bullshit off a century and a half ago.
It really didn't, and way too much harm has been done in science and "progresses" name since we convinced ourselves it did.
Quote from: Shiranu on July 24, 2023, 05:53:13 PMGrow up.
Why? It's lonely up there with nobody around. Haven't you been getting the reports?
No reason, have at it.
We have plenty of evidence, you simply use the wrong tools and graphs for studying and interpreting it.
Sit down, focus on your breathing; relax and notice as the air rides across the curves of your nostril, as it makes it way into the tunnels that lead to your lungs. Hold it. Release, at a slow and steady pace through your nostrils, feeling your exhale.
Do this for 5 minutes - study a text like a poem or paragraph you enjoy, an article you were reading. Envision it.
Beauty, art, music and meditation have nothing to do with anything supernatural. The psychological effect is based on symmetry/asymmetry, frequencies and their harmonics, tension and resolution and our perception. Religions have usurped the power of art and music and misused them as tools. Get someone in an altered state it is easier to sell them nonsense.
People also believe that evolution is justification for eugenics, Neil Degrasse Tyson is still telling uni students that philosophy and history are a waste, and rampant scientific progress has brought us to the edge of complete extinction.
Homo Sapiens in a physically incapable species. No fangs, no claws, no armor, no wings. We would have been extinct long ago if not for technological mastery. We are so successful in fact that we are exceeding the capabilities of our planet to support us. Crying won't help and praying won't do you no good. Philosophical ideologies, like religions often just lead to war. Face it, history and philosophy fail, we keep making the same mistakes.
We have billions of oil pumps, cars, coal factories, heavy metal industry, toxic chemicals interacting with our physical world in the name of progress; interacting in a way that destroys everything beautiful in the world for our comfort. We have Nazi and Japanese scientists who were just "experimenting" when they flash-froze body parts to test how grenades damaged frozen flesh or how a child's flesh responds to a bayonet.
Again, a product of our success. None of this is directly attributable to science. But we will need it to find solutions. BTW, the Japanese with a baby on their bayonet believed their emperor was a god and the Nazis had "Gott mit uns" on their belt buckles.
Let's not pretend that science has some moral high-ground over *any* other field.
Are you saying that the scriptures are a better source for morality than rational analysis? The scriptures have been used to justify the whole gamut of human atrocities. We know they are atrocities because we can analyze them. And it says we are "evil" from the get-go. What a fine thing to teach children.
QuoteBeauty, art, music and meditation have nothing to do with anything supernatural. The psychological effect is based on symmetry/asymmetry, frequencies and their harmonics, tension and resolution and our perception.
They may not have anything to do with the supernatural, but they have everything to do with the spiritual as you originally claimed; case in point, everything you mentioned.
I would likewise contend that you have only proven that they work within the realm of the supernatural, because the psychological effects of beauty & meditation still operate within a system we do not fundamentally understand; the consciousness.
We understand very important aspects of it, certainly; how physical stimuli can change it's perception of reality - but understanding the tides does not illuminate the sea.
QuoteHomo Sapiens in a physically incapable species. No fangs, no claws, no armor, no wings. We would have been extinct long ago if not for technological mastery. We are so successful in fact that we are exceeding the capabilities of our planet to support us. Crying won't help and praying won't do you no good. Philosophical ideologies, like religions often just lead to war. Face it, history and philosophy fail, we keep making the same mistakes.
Technological mastery is fine; there is plenty of technology that we truly have mastered, especially in the fields of machinery - I am criticizing toddlers being given jackhammers and blowtorches.
What you call success I call our ultimate failure; the ability to drive full speed into oblivion is not a metric of "success" by any metric I am comfortable with.
QuoteAgain, a product of our success. None of this is directly attributable to science.
A tool is not responsible for the crimes committed by its user's improper use?
QuoteAre you saying that the scriptures are a better source for morality than rational analysis? The scriptures have been used to justify the whole gamut of human atrocities. We know they are atrocities because we can analyze them. And it says we are "evil" from the get-go. What a fine thing to teach children.
Firstly, I'll get the most obvious out of the way...
*
Science has been used to justify the whole gamut of human atrocities, I can't believe we are going to sit here and with a straight face pretend that "it made people do evil things" is a valid argument.*Perhaps *you* can rationally analyze morality, but the simple truth is people are fucking stupid and cant - we have to look at 0.00000001 seconds of social media to realize this is reality.
How do you "rationally analyze" any given situation as being moral?
For example...
QuoteI am walking in the woods - along my path I see a stranger with his wallet; it is bulging with $100 bills. He is oblivious to me, and I am capable of silently approaching him, slitting his throat and hiding his body where it will never be found.
I do not care about his family, I do not care about his friends, I don't know him, I'll be 50 miles away by sunset - I just want easy money. There is 0% risk and 100% reward.
What "rationally" makes my action evil? Because I will feel bad? I'm a psychopath, baby, I don't feel that. Does that make me evil? Because I was born different than you? Is that rational?
And before you scoff at this "ridiculous scenario," we both know damn well there are more than a few youth (and adults...) who legitimately do think this way... and it seems to be a growing crowd.
Whatever benefits "rationalism" provides, in it's modern form it is falling into the exact same pit that religion fell into - and behaving the exact same as it falls. It is a joke of what it use to stand for and is largely as dogmatic as the theistic institutions it claims to be so fundamentally opposed to.
We are along way away from the Enlightened Philosophers, Men of Science, and Gentlemen of Europe - the last Golden Age of scientists we had was largely Jewish and Christian minorities of African/Hispanic descent in the 1960s-1980s and of Catholic scientific thought in the late 1800s-very early 1900s... both, again, lead overwhelmingly by scientists who kept their cultural theism as a point of pride amongst themselves, not of conflict.
Quote from: Shiranu on July 25, 2023, 01:57:40 AMA tool is not responsible for the crimes committed by its user's improper use?
If a woman drowns her child in a bathtub, who should go to prison? The water or the bathtub?
Quote from: Shiranu on July 25, 2023, 01:57:40 AMWe are along way away from the Enlightened Philosophers, Men of Science, and Gentlemen of Europe - the last Golden Age of scientists we had was largely Jewish and Christian minorities of African/Hispanic descent in the 1960s-1980s and of Catholic scientific thought in the late 1800s-very early 1900s... both, again, lead overwhelmingly by scientists who kept their cultural theism as a point of pride amongst themselves, not of conflict.
And yet the enlightenment itself was spurred on by shedding the religiosity of the Dark Ages. The leading thinkers, many who were deists or atheists, risked their very lives or jail. Only took the Catholic Church 350 years too apologize to Galileo who was forced to recant his own scientific findings as "abjured, cursed and detested," a renunciation that caused him great personal anguish but which saved him from being burned at the stake.
If you don't mind, I have a question: Do you believe any of the claims made in the various religious texts concerning direct and specific interaction of our physical world with the supernatural are true? Did Mohammed fly to heaven on a winged horse? Did Hanuman the monkey god receive some sacred pudding to be shared by his three wives, leading to the births of Rama, Lakshmana, Bharata and Shatrughna. Did the Jewish/Canaanite god part the Red Sea for Moses? If you do believe, the next logical question would be what is your criteria for belief in these interactions?
If you don't believe and just defending or selecting one of the hundreds of varying cultures of deluded ancients over an attempted rational method of determining the best path forward, as flawed as it may be, well then, I don't understand that. Women and slaves as property, god-sanctioned genocides, persecution of homosexuals, passing one's moral responsibility onto a human sacrifice, and birth into mortal sin are not things I think we should hang on to. Are these your values?
Quote from: the_antithesis on July 25, 2023, 11:33:23 AMIf a woman drowns her child in a bathtub, who should go to prison? The water or the bathtub?
If a man shoots his wife with a gun, who should be punished? The gun or the man?
QuoteAnd yet the enlightenment itself was spurred on by shedding the religiosity of the Dark Ages.
The Enlightenment was in large part a response to the French "Wars of Religion" - that is to say, the French mass persecution of religious and ethnic minorities + political institutions that did not pay taxes to the crown or HRE such as the Knights Templar; as you said, it had been fueled by the violence of the Late Middle Ages/Renaissance as the Papal Authority, HRE and the French Crown asserted it's dominance over thousands of various fiefdoms that had been only nominally paying lip service for the past several centuries.
Men like Rosseau, Thomas Hobbes, Descartes and several more of the Swiss and French Enlightened Thinkers both heavily cited and were outright born or raised into a very turbulent Protestant upbringing; Rosseau's families were French Reformers forced into hiding in Switzerland during the Wars of Religion (he would convert back to Calvinism in his later life) and Descartes was raised and educated in Protestant-majority Poitou, where he would study at a Jesuit university.
Sir Issac Newton's Christianity is well document, and his theological works are more numerous than his scientific works; and that's not even getting into the alchemy that these men often practiced - alchemy deeply rooted in esotericism of Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Babylonian, Egyptian, Platonic and other assorted indigenous witchcrafts that early scientists practiced.
And essentially every one of the Enlightened Thinkers advocated for a society that was tolerant of all faiths - or lack thereof; not a society where the theological or political beliefs of one group would be asserted upon any other - after all, they had literally just lived through a hundred years of the French Crown and Catholic Church doing exactly that to many of their own family.
Anti-theism to the Enlightened philosopher and scientist alike would likely be nearly as reprehensible as the monarchical abuses of power and religious fanaticism they themselves witnessed first hand - both as theists themselves and as humanists.
Quoterampant scientific progress has brought us to the edge of complete extinction
I feel like there are some other very important factors also at play which were left out.
It's not scientific progress ---> extinction
It's more like scientific progress ---> rampant over-exploitation ---> ecological degradation and/or war ---> corruption/stalled reforms ---> ??? (possible extinction)
Quote from: Shiranu on July 25, 2023, 03:07:51 PMAnti-theism to the Enlightened philosopher and scientist alike would likely be nearly as reprehensible as the monarchical abuses of power and religious fanaticism they themselves witnessed first hand - both as theists themselves and as humanists.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baron_d%27Holbach
Off the top of my head.
Quote from: Hydra009 on July 25, 2023, 09:40:10 PMI feel like there are some other very important factors also at play which were left out.
It's not scientific progress ---> extinction
It's more like scientific progress ---> rampant over-exploitation ---> ecological degradation and/or war ---> corruption/stalled reforms ---> ??? (possible extinction)
Given that the end-users of science are fucking idiots there's no other way this would go. BUT it would be that way if the "science" was just a better way of killing each other.
Quote from: Hydra009 on July 25, 2023, 09:40:10 PMI feel like there are some other very important factors also at play which were left out.
It's not scientific progress ---> extinction
It's more like scientific progress ---> rampant over-exploitation ---> ecological degradation and/or war ---> corruption/stalled reforms ---> ??? (possible extinction)
That over-exploitation would not be possible without unchecked scientific progress; the fruits of that progress inherently crave *more* by their very natures. Their entire design principle dictates it.
Even "clean" energy requires a dirtier means of generation - it's possible science can still fix that mistake, but I'm not holding my breath on it; at least not for the masses like us.
Quotehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baron_d%27Holbach
Off the top of my head.
Per your link...
QuoteThe deistic Voltaire, denying authorship of the work, made known his aversion to d'Holbach's philosophy, writing that "[the work] is entirely opposed to my principles. This book leads to an atheistic philosophy that I detest."
This is a view I would wager money on that Voltaire's fellow deists such as Franklin & Paine might share; or Christians like Rousseau or Newton.
Perhaps I shouldn't speak for them, but I just truly do not see a group who were largely composed of theists being particularly favorable to an anti-theist ideology.
To argue that somehow religion contributed to science and to other obviously secular and humanist endeavors, when the church and compliant governments ruled with the iron fist is a meaningless conclusion to me. Who knows what the brilliant minds really thought, as persecution for atheism would snuff out their life's work or themselves?
The christian persecution complex is laughable. Slaughtering Jews and Muslims for centuries. How many inter-faith wars have christians had? And of course, Jews are killing Muslims and Muslims are killing Jews today. How enlightened. Seems like banging one's head against a wall or kneeling in a certain direction does little good. Call it cultural, sure. That's wonderful. Sitting in a church droning the same chants and incantations for centuries is so inspiring.
This is 2023 yet look how we run in this supposedly secular country. Can you even imagine the uproar about a law that prohibits a Baptist from holding office?
Arkansas
Article 19, Section 1
"No person who denies the being of a God shall hold any office in the civil departments of this State, nor be competent to testify as a witness in any Court."
Maryland
Article 37
"That no religious test ought ever to be required as a qualification for any office of profit or trust in this State, other than a declaration of belief in the existence of God; nor shall the Legislature prescribe any other oath of office than the oath prescribed by this Constitution."
Mississippi
Article 14, Section 265
"No person who denies the existence of a Supreme Being shall hold any office in this state."
North Carolina
Article 6, Section 8
"The following persons shall be disqualified for office: First, any person who shall deny the being of Almighty God."[115]
South Carolina
Article 17, Section 4
"No person who denies the existence of a Supreme Being shall hold any office under this Constitution."
Tennessee
Article 9, Section 2
"No person who denies the being of God, or a future state of rewards and punishments, shall hold any office in the civil department of this state."[117]
Texas
Article 1, Section 4
"No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office, or public trust, in this State; nor shall any one be excluded from holding office on account of his religious sentiments, provided he acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being."
The vast majority of humans are useless, and incapable of survival if left to their own devices. We have to be shown how. The first person who weaved a basket was a genius. But all she had to do was show the others how to do it.
People don't know how to use a hammer until shown. We have forgotten so much due to technology and simple improvements in even farming, we have become dependent on a food supply and most would die of starvation simply because we do not teach that the forests and fields have an abundance of edible highly nutritious plants that our ancestors ate all the time. Absolutely free! Dandelions, edible and nutritious, cattails, the whole plant is edible, tons of weeds are completely edible, nutritious, tasty and...most of all, completely free.
There are at least 400 common plants, weeds and tubers, unknown to todays people because we have become accustomed to being served our food and we willingly pay for the convenience of delivery.
Humans are led by a few, they need that, they cannot think for themselves, survive by themselves, hell they depend on being told what to do, what is right and wrong. Religion filled the void of ignorance by simply replacing one ignorance with another but this one had guidance, an all important ingredient to keeping the masses in line, alive, and even better, willing to do the work of the churches main plan, mass indoctrination, make the leaders wealthy and powerful and keep the masses stupid. Highly successful, and now we can't even think for ourselves about something so obviously insane that common sense is now recognized as believing in the absurd as the default of knowledge. Egads.
QuoteTo argue that somehow religion contributed to science and to other obviously secular and humanist endeavors, when the church and compliant governments ruled with the iron fist is a meaningless conclusion to me.
Once again, the reason it seems so "meaningless" to you is because it comes from an incomplete view of history; an incomplete view of history written by the very same church that oppressed and the kingdoms/nation states that evolved from those kingdoms and wanted legitimacy to continue ruling over it's vassals.
Europe leading up to the Enlightenment was fractured into literally thousands of minor dukes, counts, lords and other minor fiefdoms; on top of that you had free cities across Western Europe and the North Atlantic - free cities that often practiced various forms of democracy and even some early communist systems.
On top of that you had guilds and orders which owned and operated villages and mills; for example, just in Loudun in the 1570s-1690s (my area of study) the Knights Templar owned 42 buildings in the town and a handful of mills, mines and production villages; villages and workers that the Knights Templar "ruled" over with 4 bailiffs that enforced laws passed by the 4 city leaders and 72 elected community men - and townsfolk/peasants that they didn't extract taxes from.
This is a story repeated across those thousands of minor rulerships; life could be horrible, but it also could be - in all frankness - better than life today. It all depended on how rural you were, what the natural terrain around you was, or how much wealth your city had and if it could defy the king's wishes: and it's the world that the Enlightenment was born from - outliers aside.
To be frank, the fact that this is even an argument shows that the humanism of the Enlightenment died ages ago; the "Post-Modern" movement of science is a spit in the face to everything the majority of the enlightened thinkers advocated - ideology over reality, and if reality conflicts with ideology then we just erase reality and make a new one.
Quote from: Shiranu on July 26, 2023, 02:22:13 AMThat over-exploitation would not be possible without unchecked scientific progress; the fruits of that progress inherently crave *more* by their very natures. Their entire design principle dictates it.
The very fact that concrete was invented doesn't necessitate that the Earth be covered in parking lots. You are conflating the acquisition of knowledge with its implementation. Over-exploitation was a deliberate choice, and not one decided by scientists themselves. The main problem isn't science - it's the people calling the shots. Specifically, economic/political systems that demand over-exploitation.
QuoteEven "clean" energy requires a dirtier means of generation
This statement bizarrely expects me to take your word for it when I know for a fact that this is untrue. It's simply a fact that solar energy (or hydro or wind) is less dirty than coal. That's pretty much the point.
QuoteThis is a view I would wager money on that Voltaire's fellow deists such as Franklin & Paine might share; or Christians like Rousseau or Newton.
Perhaps I shouldn't speak for them, but I just truly do not see a group who were largely composed of theists being particularly favorable to an anti-theist ideology.
You're right, they were not. But you claimed that anti-theism would be some reprehensible, nearly unthinkable thing to an Enlightenment philosopher, yet I have provided an example of one who not only did not see antitheism as reprehensible, but championed it himself (a risky move, given attitudes then). The claim is thus falsified.
And here's an interesting food for thought about Deism during the Enlightenment. We forget sometimes that pre-Enlightenment Europe was not a bastion of religious tolerance or freedom of belief. Outright atheism often carried a death sentence and certainly there were also extra-judicial pressures on people to keep the faith.
So it is rather convenient that new thinkers emerged that were critical of the conventional organized religion, did not congregate at church like nearly everyone else, espoused the virtues of reason and pushed bold reforms (for the time), especially in disentangling church from state. Some, like Paine, vehemently disagreed with Christianity. Jefferson famous literally cut out the miracles out of the Bible. See where I'm going with this?
The orthodox people at the time certainly suspected so and said as much on polemics against deism. Of course, the deists of that time swore publicly that they did in fact believe in a God, just not a personal God, and that was enough to save them from any religious mobs. And I must also take them at their word. But I do wonder at the sorts of things they might've said in private - or in public, if they were allowed to talk completely freely. I also wonder about such things today. I cannot prove anything of course, but I strongly suspect that people's truly honest thoughts are much less in line with orthodoxy than what they profess.
Quote from: Shiranu on July 26, 2023, 03:37:01 PMTo be frank, the fact that this is even an argument shows that the humanism of the Enlightenment died ages ago; the "Post-Modern" movement of science is a spit in the face to everything the majority of the enlightened thinkers advocated - ideology over reality, and if reality conflicts with ideology then we just erase reality and make a new one.
The Enlightenment was a necessary stepping-stone to get away from the religious mind poisoning. It is not the undeniable ultimate goal of secular humanism which favors no religion, culture or race when charting morality or aspirations for a better life. It does not require some fake, supernatural, authoritarian, morality dictator.
You can see they were headed there, looking at the so-called Jefferson Bible as an example. A reframed Jesus, an enlightened man and not the iron-age slave of god.
....cutting and pasting with a razor and glue numerous sections from the New Testament as extractions of the doctrine of Jesus. Jefferson's condensed composition excludes all miracles by Jesus and most mentions of the supernatural, including sections of the four gospels that contain the Resurrection and most other miracles, and passages that portray Jesus as divineWe "learn" to believe a particular sect's scriptures and diatribes only because of the geo-political time and place we were born. Well, that was my very first clue. The Yanomami tribe living on the meandering rivers on the border between Brazil and Venezuela have no use or need to be subjugated by the folklore of ancient Mesopotamia.
QuoteThe Enlightenment was a necessary stepping-stone to get away from the religious mind poisoning.
And yet it's most influential names were all deeply spiritual and religious men - yet again, the idea that men who held to a deep place of conviction in their faith would also hold anti-religious views is just insane to me.
I understand where you and others are coming from, but the simple truth is that the idea that the Enlightenment was an "anti-religious" movement died out in historical circles decades ago; it simply is not accurate to the historical truth nor the ideals expressed by leading Enlightenment thinkers, and it unfortunately fuels modern anti-theism with a noxious mix of historical illiteracy and ideological orthodoxy.
John Locke -
Quote" "The Bible is one of the greatest blessings bestowed by God on the children of men. It has God for its Author, salvation for its end, and truth without any mixture for its matter. It is all pure, all sincere; nothing too much; nothing wanting!" "
Voltaire -
Quote The moral man who seeks a support point in virtue must admit the existence of a Being as fair as He is supreme. So God is necessary to the world in every way, and we can say together with the author of the Epistle to the scribbler of a vulgar book on the Three Impostors, "If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent Him".
Jean-Jacques Rosseau -
QuoteI perceive God everywhere in His works. I sense Him in me; I see Him all around me. When my reason is afloat, my faith cannot long remain in suspense, and I believe in God as firmly as in any other truth whatever.
Immanuel Kant -
Quote "Pure religious faith alone can found a universal church; for only [such] rational faith can be believed in and shared by everyone ... Yet, by reason of a peculiar weakness of human nature, pure faith can never be relied on as much as it deserves, that is, a church cannot be established on it alone."
Adam Smith -
Quote "We may admire the wisdom and goodness of God even in the weakness and folly of man."
Thomas Hobbes -
Quote [size=-1]Whether men will or not, they must be subject always to the Divine Power. By denying the existence or providence of God, men may shake off their ease, but not their yoke.[/size]
QuoteFaith is a gift of God, which man can neither give nor take away by promise of rewards or menace of torture.
Issac Newton -
Quote He who thinks half-heartedly will not believe in God; but he who really thinks has to believe in God.
I have provided multiple historical contexts, direct quotation from contemporary figures being directly references; if the anti-theist ideology is more important than reality, that is yall's business - but to continue to hold onto the post-modern belief that the Enlightenment was largely a anti-theistic movement, or that anti-theism was even remotely "the norm" of the thinkers, is to intentionally hold onto false history just to maintain ideological "truth" and is frankly uncomfortable to see when one goes as far to troll for that ideology earlier.
It's pathetic when theists do it, and it's perhaps more-so when the "rational, holier-than-thou" atheist does it as well.