What is the legal definition of a religion?
[NOTE: I noticed a recent discussion on the blog about what constitutes a religion. And so I thought it might be apropos to revisit a post from 2017 on that very topic.
Here it is.]
The question of how a religion is defined has come up many times on this blog in relation to Islam and terrorism. One question sometimes asked is why can’t any group simply declare itself to be a religion and have this be legally so, no matter what the group espouses. In other words, what are the limits of the term “religion”? Are there any criteria for a belief system and its practices to be considered a bona fide religion in the legal sense, with the protection of rights that go along with that designation?
There are many reasons why there is a legal interest in defining religion, because religions get many benefits under our legal system. But the law has traditionally had quite a bit of difficulty defining the term:
Complex interests may depend on the classification of a specific belief system or practice: tax exemptions; religious practices in prison or in the military (e.g., assembly for worship services; possession and sacramental use of various religious physical objects; access to religious literature; wearing of religious garments and jewelry; availability of food required by religious tenets); specific rights of workers, etc. The application of some constitutional and federal legal rules compels courts to delineate the boundaries of the concept of religion.
Legal theorists have made serious attempts to provide an adequate definition of what religion is for First Amendment purposes, and the Supreme Court’s and other federal courts’ efforts have been manifested in a string of cases in the context of the First Amendment as well as in statutory interpretation. These efforts should not be seen as entirely fruitless, but they have not provided a generally accepted legal definition of religion.
In other words, it ain’t easy.
It’s not easy to slog through that linked article, either. But the reader who does get through it should achieve some appreciation of how difficult a task it is to create a legal definition of religion. For example:
If one makes religion a subjective phenomenon determined purely by the individual, one comes into conflict with the social experience that religion generally requires social mediating structures on account of its communal aspects. Through these social structures, religion becomes valuable for the individual and the society integrates the individual’s concerns into social activities and a whole communal experience. The natural need for this integration calls for some social, objective standards of religion beyond the individual’s assertions.
The functional definition practically diminishes the boundaries between religious and nonreligious beliefs in a traditional sense. There remains no valid test for the content of a claimed religious belief and any belief may be seen as religious if it performs the required psychic function in the individual’s life. The merging of the religious and nonreligious spheres, in Sanderson’s view, is in itself unconstitutional (Sanderson 1007). Under a functional definition, no identifiable class could be delineated as the recipient of the protection although the Constitution distinguishes a class under the word “religion” from other classes and provides special protection for that class.
So let’s turn to everybody’s favorite institution, the IRS (especially timely right now). The IRS uses these criteria to define churches (and thus, “religion”) for tax purposes, requiring the presence of some but not all of the following:
Distinct legal existence
Recognized creed and form of worship
Definite and distinct ecclesiastical government
Formal code of doctrine and discipline
Distinct religious history
Membership not associated with any other church or denomination
Organization of ordained ministers
Ordained ministers selected after completing prescribed courses of study
Literature of its own
Established places of worship
Regular congregations
Regular religious services
Sunday schools for the religious instruction of the young
Schools for the preparation of its membersThe IRS generally uses a combination of these characteristics, together with other facts and circumstances, to determine whether an organization is considered a church for federal tax purposes
Not all religions meet all the criteria. For example, Quakers don’t have “ordained” ministers who have “completed prescribed courses of study.” They do have pastors, though, who have been “recorded“:
The peculiarly Quaker way of thinking about ministers comes more clearly into focus when one compares the Friends practice of ‘recording’ with the more common practice of ‘ordination.’ In many Christian denominations, one must first be ordained in order to become a minister. To be ordained, the potential minister must first meet a certain set of requirements. Usually, for example, there is a certain level of education one must attain. Some churches also exclude certain categories of people (e.g. women, divorced people, married people) from even entering the process.
As Friends, we reject the idea that some outward trait or experience could qualify someone to be a minister (remember what Fox said about Oxford and Cambridge!). Instead, we believe that anyone may be called to pastoral ministry. Rather than setting human-engineered prerequisites, Quakers have chosen simply to observe those who work as ministers. When it becomes clear that a person is indeed doing pastoral ministry, then we make an official record of what God seems to be doing. That person is “recorded” as a minister among Friends.
And yet I have little doubt that Quakers legally are considered members of a bona fide and protected religion, and their meeting houses are considered as churches in the eyes of the law.
There is something almost intuitive about the definition of a religion, and the societal and legal acceptance of that designation. It is not completely arbitrary. It is not based on just any set of beliefs. Custom and history are part of it. And although there is probably no one element that must always be present for a belief system to be defined as a religion, there are some behaviors that would result in members of a bona fide religion being excluded from protection and even prosecuted for acts that they say are in accord with their religion, but which have been designated by the legal system as criminal.
The classic example is suttee (or sati), a custom among Hindus in India that required a widow to commit suicide by throwing herself on her husband’s funeral pyre. Although initially accepted by the British occupiers, in time they came to criminalize it. Note, though, that the British didn’t declare Hinduism to not be a religion as a result; they demanded that the particular practice of suttee cease. Something similar has occurred in this country regarding Islam and female genital mutilation, a practice which is a federal crime in the US and is criminal under statutes in many states as well.
However, neither suttee nor FMG were or are basic tenets of their respective religions. Their presences in those religions may throw doubt among some people as to the definitions of Hinduism or Islam as religions or churches, but not among most people and not in the legal sense.
[NOTE II: You also might want to take a look at this post of mine from 2016.]
“We are a nation of laws, not of men,” however, “the Constitution is not a suicide pact.”
I think that RICO laws should be used to prosecute terrorist-supporting Islamic organizations; no Muslims should be allowed to enter our country, except temporarily, under strict supervision; and all Muslims who break our laws should be deported. This would cause an outcry, but diversity is not our strength, rather it brings adversity.
I think these measures would also cause a violent response, which would have to be responded to harshly, because the Muslim only respects the “strong horse.”
Someone mentioned Dr. Zudi Jasser on an earlier thread, as someone who is trying to “reform Islam.” I have heard him on the radio, speaking in a flat monotone. I don’t know that his efforts have had any effect. I don’t think Islam can be “reformed,” since it commands its followers to bring Jihad to all “infidels”, and make them submit or die.
I think those principles fit the definition,
its curious how Christianity and Judaism aren’t really deemed worthy of protection but Islam is,
Jasser wants to modernize the religion, but the purist islam the salafi current is
militant in it’s inclinations, even among the milder Sufism that is the basis of the Turkish
zysgy where the Sultan erdogan reigns,
of course, the old Gods are certainly being set up for adoration
A Hindu variant, or a Muslim, may not practice suttee or FMG, because they’re illegal. But he thinks it’s a good idea anyway.
What happens if an opportunity arises because, somehow, a law got changed?
Or if he goes to trial and there are Muslims on the jury who think those are fine ideas?
Rastafari is another Abrahamic Religion, but don’t know if this Abrahamic Religion is legal in America.
Not sure what happened to the Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church—it was big news in Miami years ago…
What thuckery.
Too many criteria means no criterion at all, and for a good reason: defining religion is like defining God.
Measure the Metagalaxy. Drain the Pacific Ocean. Extinguish the volcanoes of Iceland.
All of us have beliefs that are not subject to negotiation. Examples? “Life is better than death”. “Violence harms”. “It’s one’s duty to raise one’s children”. “Rap sucks”. “99.(9)% of free verse written in America isn’t real poetry”.
It’s nobody’s business how and where we picked them up.
We are entitled to our opinions, including the ones that forbid us do certain things, irrespectively of who shares them, or has historically shared them.
All real rights are negative rights, and all negative rights are real rights.
We shouldn’t have to bring our God into the room if we don’t want to bake a cake for a person we don’t like. Freedom of association means that everyone has a right to refuse and no one has the right to coerce. Freedom of association shall not be infringed. As long as it is, we are not a free country. Let’s work on that rather than on carving up special privileges and special exceptions to privileges.
A society that respects human preference needs no legal definition of religion. That’s it.
neither suttee nor FMG were or are basic tenets of their respective religions.
I wonder how one makes this determination for a religion to which one does not belong.
For example, the mainstream LDS church, the Mormons, would say polygamy is not a “basic tenet” of their religion: after all, they gave it up. But more than one group of Mormons broke with the mainstream LDS church because they did indeed consider polygamy a “basic tenet” of their religion and still practice it. The practice of the mainstream LDS church surely isn’t how we determine if this is so or not; if it is then we’re letting the government pick sides on theological questions….
I am sure there are Hindus and Muslims in the analogous position with respect to sati and female “circumcision”, who do indeed consider it a “basic tenet”.
@Karmi: Rastafarianism is perfectly legal in America and to my knowledge always has been. They are not allowed to break the drug laws, however. Likewise it’s perfectly legal in the US to worship Tlaloc but human sacrifice is still not legal.
Rastafarianism HAS been illegal in Jamaica, in that they did arrest people for being Rastafarian at one time, and this wasn’t over cannabis but about allegiance to the King. But the UK has an established religion, of course.
interesting fgm or khald is not in the Koran and it’s obliquely mentioned in the Hadith, it’s a pre-islamic custom, which seems as present in West Africa as the Middle East, as Elizabeth George noted in one of her more recent Lynley mysteries, set in Nigerian dominant NorthEast London
P.S. As of suttee, I don’t think any American jurisdiction criminalizes suicide per se.
Most have protocols in place aimed at preventing it, or resuscitating the perpetrator, but there is no criminal liability (like there was in Nazi Germany).
In other words, I have no objections against this particular custom as long as it does not involve coercion.
Religion is essentially a behavioral protocol or model under God, gods, mortal gods (e.g. political, expert), or personal attribution. Faith is a logical domain of trust. Liberal democracies invariably operate under the Pro-Choice religion (e.g. political congruence, human rites, Diversity) and Twilight faith (“penumbras and emanations”, In Stork They Trust).
LXE. Would be interesting to know how a widow refusing suttee is treated. The prospect might rise to coercion?
faith is the evidence of things not seen, I assume for all faith,
for reasons passing understanding they wI was showing life of brian, part of Python marathon, the film you could not make today in part because Python helped demolish most of the UK’s institutions, and there is the part about the crucifixion where he warbling about the ‘sunny side of life’ which is ironic in two senses, notably the fact that these overcredentialed cretins seem to have ignored Jesus’s message in the pursuit of wry chuckles, which was the redemption of humanity, without which England would not have stood for 1600 years, was Arthur indentifiably Christian, thats left for another day,
the parts aimed at Jews probably would pass muster today,
although probably that would be considered blasphemy by proxy, as the producers of the Noah film found out
I think the American consensus has been that groups may have what beliefs they wish to have, but certain behaviors which may be called for in those belief systems are prohibited here. So, sexual mutilation of little girls, wife-beating, honor killings, and actions which attempt to restrict the legal activities of other individuals or groups are not allowed. As a voter, I am allowed to use my own judgment about religious affiliations of candidates. I would need to know if a Muslim candidate fully accepts the American constitutional framework and would not seek to suppress or commit violence against non-Muslims.
LXE, there may have been Hindu widows who willingly went into the fire, but for the most part they did so drugged, and because a widow had no way to live once her husband was gone.
Nobody expects the
Abrahamic Religion!
Suicide and suttee now that’s an argument. Like addadicktome (and the other trendy butchery) and the age old FGM.
All religions are “unique” in the sense that they have a feature or two that isn’t shared by other religions, so denying that something is a religion is always problematic. Sure, if your religion is sitting around watching television, smoking pot and commenting on the sitcoms, you’ll have trouble convincing people that it’s an actual religion, but anything that’s been around for a millennium is going to qualify as a religion.
@Richard Aubrey
I think
@Kate
answered your question re: whether coercion is involved:
> because a widow had no way to live once her husband was gone
I’ve heard of many obsolete (or labeled-obsolete) customs in America, but in no single occasion I heard about one that would deny a widow her right to remarry, and as far as I understand inheritance laws, in most states she would be entitled to the husband’s estate automatically or next to automatically. Let alone other safety nets in existence.
As of suicide under drugs, it doesn’t seem to be a narrowly religious problem.
Ask Jim Morrison.
@Kate
> certain behaviors which may be called for in those belief systems are prohibited here
Exactly. My approach is as follows: if my belief system called me to a certain action prohibited under the secular legal framework, I would still commit it — and accept the punishment, knowing that my God would reward me a hundredfold. (Rest assured, no “honor killings”, but I would k111 anyone who abuses my wife without remorse, and I think the sentiment is more common than it’s typically admitted.)
However, if my belief system _prohibited_ me from a certain action, I would consider refraining from it an entitlement coming not from a particular belief system, but from a basic human right. I would still accept the punishment (e.g. from evading the draft if my religion forbids going to war), but I would consider it an injustice worth a remedy, and use every lawful way to fight back — not just for myself and my co-believers, but for every person born to be free. Which is, for every person, period.
Re: IRS, religion and Scientology
As it happens, the IRS withdrew Scientology’s religious tax emption in 1967. The IRS didn’t consider Scientology a religion, rather it was an organization operated for the benefit of L. Ron Hubbard and his family. Works for me.
Scientology launched an all-out counter-assault on the IRS. They filed more than 2000 lawsuits against the IRS and individual IRS agents. They even had Scientologists infiltrating the IRS to gather compromising information on IRS officials.
Scientology won. In 1993 the IRS recognized the Church of Scientology as a legitimate religion and restored tax-exempt status to Scientology and its affiliated entities.
The details of the agreement between the IRS and the Church of Scientology were kept confidential.
I’m not sure what the moral of this story is.
Colonial Hindu: “Burning widows is part of our culture.”
Colonial Brit: “Hanging men who burn widows is part of *our* culture!”
@huxley
> I’m not sure what the moral of this story is.
I think the moral is that there should be
(a) no corporate tax exemptions based on whether the government likes/endorses/approves of what the corporation is doing;
(b) no corporate “income” tax at all. If some taxation of added value is inevitable because the “democratic government” cannot sustain itself on border tariffs and postal fees alone, it suffices to have either a uniform personal income tax or a uniform federal sales tax. The latter is preferred.
Tax consumption, not investment. It’s that simple.
LXE:
I wouldn’t mind a rather large and libertarian re-visioning of the IRS’s mission.
However, I do appreciate the contribution Judeo-Christian religions have made to our country and its communities.
Does it make sense to favor those religions with tax policies? I’d say an argument can be made.
However, it gets muddy for any new-fangled, roll-your-own religion. Scientology is an egregious example.
@huxley
> Does it make sense to favor those religions with tax policies? I’d say an argument can be made.
Then make it.
As of myself, I’d gladly hug and bless everyone who recognizes Abraham as a prophet and a forefather, but my allegiance is to my own religion (Eastern Orthodox Christianity) and the United States of America (a secular common-cause).
According to Eastern Orthodox Fathers, God deliberately concealed Himself from direct observation so that faith in Him were a voluntary act. There was, a while ago, a Christian Empire, but it only existed because a polity of like-minded people agreed to believe in God together, so to say.
If the United States becomes such a polity one day, I wouldn’t mind; I just see no indications towards that, and my religious leaders (starting with St. Paul) believe that a secular Republic, or even (in St. Paul’s times) a pagan Republic, has its own value in the world’s history.
The problem with the Christian Roman Empire is that either you buy all of it in its entirety, or you don’t. If you don’t, the sacrifice you pay is of no value. It’s “tombstones of the prophets”.
If you want to keep some pagan customs, better live your pagan ways. It’s less damning than pretending you are Christian when you aren’t.
In addition, new/invented religions mean new challenges to our confession of faith, and that’s a good thing. It makes us 1 Peter 3:15.
That’s my take. I’d love to hear yours.
P.S. @huxley and may God bless you.
L
LXE
You make a point about what your hypothetical religion might demand of you.
Suppose the widow is aware that some in the community feel called to do an honor killing, irrespective of legal consequences.
Such things have happened, and either succeeded or failed in the attempt in European countries and here.
What the perp thinks will happen to him in the afterlife is not a factor in the widow’s decision. Or, perhaps it is extraordinarily relevant. Rewarded a hundred-fold? What wouldn’t somebody do for that?
xe
Are the basic tenets of a purported religion antithetical to the principles upon which the US Constitution rests? If not, there is no foundational conflict. If so, then that religion is essentially an enemy of the Constitution because that religion’s foundational tenets and the foundational principles of the Constitution are irreconcilable.
Islam is the foremost example of this conflict. “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” and Allah’s theological imperative that the whole world must be dominated by Islam cannot ‘coexist’ within the same society.
Nor can Islam be ‘reformed’ because of Muhammad’s most basic claim, that Allah, not he… is the author of the Qur’an. And since Allah is incapable of error, not one comma in the Qur’an can be changed. For to do so would be to implicitly declare that Muhammad was either a liar or deluded. In either case, Islam’s theological foundations would collapse.
It is this foundational issue that Muslim apologist ‘reformers’ like Dr. Zudi Jasser cannot address.
“As a voter, I am allowed to use my own judgment about religious affiliations of candidates. I would need to know if a Muslim candidate fully accepts the American constitutional framework and would not seek to suppress or commit violence against non-Muslims.” Kate
Given that Shia and Sunni Islam both support Taqiyya and Sunni Islam also supports Muruna (allowing deceit of the infidel through engaging in prohibited behavior) upon what basis might one trust that a Muslim candidate is both sincere and would be committed to opposing the actions of devout Muslim fundamentalists? UK London Mayor Sadiq Khan is a real world example of such a Muslim candidate, one who claimed to oppose violence against non-Muslims, but as Mayor has done little to nothing against it.
“How Montreal became the antisemitism capital of North America”
https://nypost.com/2024/11/30/opinion/how-montreal-became-the-antisemitism-capital-of-north-america/
Earlham School Of Religion officers a Certificate in Quaker Studies, which is “encouraged” among many “recorded” pastors.
Earlham School of Religion also offers degrees in “Peace and Justice Studies” which is essentially a program on hating Israel; a Master of Arts of in Theopoetics and Writing; and a degree in “entrepreneurial ministry.”
Shrug.
Interesting that the IRS’s “criteria” don’t seem to mention God, G-d, deity, supreme being, or similar entity/entities. Nor “transcendence”. Mostly they address the social and communal aspects of religion but not the personal, yet it is the individual who pays the tax, not the Church or religious institution on behalf of each individual member/ congregant.
Arguments from evolutionary psychology posit that human religious tendencies evolved, perhaps as part of enhancing an orientation to group cooperation that in turn aided individual and group survival. Some experimenters studying very young children now suggest we are “born believers” oriented to assign anthropormorphic or anima “agency” to help explain unresolved events and observations.
Faith defined as “the evidence of things not seen” strikes me as providing no evidence at all. I understand the Greek word for “faith” derives from the concept of a foundation holding up a wall, such that the foundation is not visible underground, while the wall might be considered “self supporting” when knowledge of the foundation’s supporting role is unknown or ignored. But of course we can dig down and “see” the foundation supporting a wall, thus evidence it it not really “free standing”.
I think GB has the crux of the Islam situation, as incompatible with our Consitutional and DOI principles. But our DOI concepts of “self evident truths” and that “all men are created equal” are really cultural elements derived from our Western Judeo-Christian civilization. Other cultures, such as Islamic or Hindu, do not hold these views about humanity, and are not really compatible with our corresponding constitutional and legal structure. [India of course now has republican/ democratic governance as influenced by the British colonization.] Many other nations now follow those Western ideas that have proven valuable to their prosperity, civility, and are not too incompatible with their prior cultural norms.
Geoffrey Britain: you have stated my position & concerns well.
“Are the basic tenets of a purported religion antithetical to the principles upon which the US Constitution rests? … ”
The basic tenets of Islam scream anti-American Constitution. Plus, the practice of Taqiyva or Muruna are obviously anti-honesty, which is problematic when taking oaths.
I am not pleased to see Muslims in our government, since I don’t know how one can trust what they say.
Our justice system has certainly elevated some particularly special Muslims above the law already — Ilhan Omar, for one.
Also, though I haven’t a good knowledge base on Sharia law, to be honest, I think it has conflicts with our Constitution.
I hate the thought of becoming more like London (among many other places) because we don’t like dealing with such PC issues.
However, as a country, I don’t see us tackling it effectively, headon.
It worries me.
Geoffrey Britain
I remember a sermon from a Christian preacher some 64 years ago that was very similar to that. Was about 14/15 years old, and JFK was a Catholic running for President.
Can’t remember 99% of that sermon, but a major point of it was that Catholics were…were…were something like obliged to Catholicism first, and that they could lie in order to protect the Catholic church. Something along those lines…so to speak of 64 years ago and Abrahamic Religions. A popular preacher who ended up around Dallas, Texas.
In my experience, humans know that there is ‘Something’ inside them—a spark, a spirit, an inner light, a ‘divine essence’, etc. that they feel a need to connect to. Religions get created when that/those human/s can’t connect to ‘IT’ – ‘IT’ being the Self as defined by some, including myself.
ChatGPT – first religion:
Some of my research has shown that monotheism (see 2 above) came before Zoroastrianism – and started first in Egypt. Perhaps close tho…
This difficult question of which practices should be defined as “religion” legally is made more difficult by the arrival, by immigration or by study, of belief systems which are not based in the Hebrew or Christian scriptures or which don’t recognize a divinity at all. Our nation was clearly founded by peoples who accepted, in varying ways, the revelations in the Biblical texts, or at least the broad behavioral prescriptions of those texts (the last six of the Ten Commandments, and the requirement that justice be administered through judges for the community, not by private or family vengeance). Public morality and the cohesion of ourselves as a nation depended upon acceptance of these behavioral norms. Islam, for one, rejects some of the commandments and allows private vengeance.
“difficult question” indeed, Kate.
Let’s take a look at Deism in the United States
Some quotes on Deism:
Then there were the Unitarians John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson was also connected to Unitarians. Unitarianism is a branch of Christianity that rejects the doctrine of the Trinity for starters.
Thomas Paine was a Founding Fathers, and he clearly rejected the “Hebrew or Christian scriptures”. What happened to him was one of the reasons that the Founding Fathers avoided crossing Christians.
Am not going to search thru all my links for which of the Founding Fathers liked Hinduism, and Islam—“Mahometan” – “Mahometan” – “Musselmen” but they were impressed by them.
The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution, The Bill of Rights, etc. were not written with the limitation of just “Hebrew or Christian scriptures,” but were written with a focus on Freedom of Religion, IMHO.
Then make [the argument for religious tax-exemptions, at least for Judeo-Christian religions]…
LXE:
It’s not hard. Consider all the religious charities which pick up the slack for people in trouble — who would either take money from the government or cause trouble which would also require government expenditure.
I can’t speak for Judaism but Christianity is the great religion of second chances. Many people have reformed their lives due to Christianity .
More vaguely, I would argue that organized Christianity and Judaism contribute to greater social cohesion and the moral formation of American citizens.
Which I will grant sounds a bit creepy and I am not an entirely satisfied customer of Christianity.
But I’m only arguing that an argument can be made.
@Richard I side with @Geoffrey. Tenets irreconcilable with the Constitution must be addressed as if foreign military — not of a foreign country, but, this time, of a foreign deity — were present on the American soil.
When Anders Bering Breivik was tried by the Norwegian court, the stance of the defense wasn’t that he was innocent, but rather that he had been acting according to a belief system that he had consciously and voluntarily accepted. The stance of the prosecution was that he was mad. The former meant a prison term; the latter meant a mental health institution. I prayed for the former to prevail, and it did. He was still an enemy of Norway (the state thereof, and, largely, the society too), but they recognized his right to believe as he chose, and be treated accordingly (as a prisoner of war).
(I envy him, of sorts, — who wouldn’t dream of taking out 200 commies in one day and staying in the game afterwards? — but that’s another story.)
@Niketas
> the mainstream LDS church, the Mormons, would say polygamy is not a “basic tenet” of their religion: after all, they gave it up
In a separate news block, the Hmong were allowed (“whitelisted”) to keep their “cultural wives”, which neither the Mormons nor anyone else wasn’t.
Some communities are more equal than others.
@huxley
> contribute to greater social cohesion and the moral formation of American citizens.
Remember when you last interacted with the government. At a public library, checking out your books? At DPS/DMV, renewing your ID? On the road, with a traffic cop? (Quite plausibly) voting at your local precinct?
Imagine those same people (perhaps quite nice as potential drinking partners) judging what contributes to greater social cohesion and what doesn’t.
A government daring to (a) understand those matters and (b) rule according to its understanding would be no less religiously involved than the Eastern Roman Empire. It would enforce the creed along a different set of degrees of freedom — less bothered about the number of natures in Jesus, and more about the transformation of the Mosaic law in the New Testament — but it still would.
Make sure that’s what you want. I mean, it would be fun to have the Basilei back in power, but it would confidently be an end to the American project as we know it, and I thought you were seeing some value in this project.
LXE:
In my comment I believe I was clear that I have reservations.
I am never looking for advice unless I explicitly request it.
LXE:
You write:
First of all, Breivik murdered 8 people with a car bomb in Oslo and 69 by shooting on the island at the summer camp for leftist young people, whom he picked off like fish in a barrel. Not 200.
And unless you’re being sarcastic – which is possible – I think you’re probably the only person here who thinks that Beivik did something that was anything but a nightmare and a terrible horrific crime, and at this point although he’s alive he’s certainly not “in the game”.
Of course, Breivik might be lying here and I wouldn’t trust a word he says, but:
Here are Breivik’s victims. Mostly teens from 15 to 19.
@huxley
It doesn’t sound creepy to me at all. Also, I think you used a metaphor, but to think of oneself as a “customer” of Christianity seems to be missing the point somewhat.
@neo You are either saying what a law or custom obligates you to say or missed my point entirely.
To the best of my knowledge (I never sought news about ABB actively, except in the close aftermath, and only followed what bubbled up on the mainstream media), he decided to pursue a political science degree. In my understanding, this is still an intent to change the world his way, but lawfully.
I am skeptical, though, about his ability to overshadow the advancement of political science that his early acts, however evil and misguided, made possible.
A good first approximation to ABB — better than to say that he’s a terrible man of the modernity — is to say that he neither was nor is a man of the modernity at all.
But how do we define modernity?
Many people — including about 100% of the “expert class” — hold that human behavior that’s detrimental, let alone outright hostile, to the society can be eliminated or put under a tolerable level(*) with the advances of social condition and mental health. The underlying idea is that it’s possible to shame, tempt or heal anyone into being a good citizen, given enough time and given the intervention is early and thorough. That’s the project of the modernity, largely outlined by the French Enlightenment and mostly refined (with regards to the loophole called “mass exclusion”) post-WWII.
(*) if the currently accepted “tolerable level” is impossible to achieve, perhaps it’s simply too low. Can we, in addition, accept a little bit of shoplifting? Drug crime? Street violence? Welcome to California and Minnesota.
Once “the man of the modernity” is examined closer, we see that he (or, on a growing number of occasions, “she”) is still a pre-Nuremberg creature. All he (or, again, “she”) needs in order to transcend his love for a neighbor is either an explicit order or a goal sanctified by the idea of the common good.
Let’s say I agree to factor out supposedly easy cases, such as the “Palestinian nation” bs, Putinversteers, abortion advocacy, migration advocacy, or retroactive whitewashing of some long-gone Genghis Khan. What if I told you that I am fascinated with IZL, and Menachem Begin is my hero? The same Begin who famously said, “I reject placing the terrorist label on Arafat; it’s me who is the real terrorist here, and he is but a gangster?”
(What’s your take on Begin and IZL, by the way?)
What if I told you that I support Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian cities? (I do.)
The chief reason for most (circa 90%? 96%) Western or westernized people to avoid using overt violence (either completely, or other than in an immediate or direct response to aggression) to achieve their goals isn’t that they believe that it’s evil, and evil must be avoided. Had that been the case, the United States would have been solidly pro-life and non-interventionist.
Most Western or westernized people avoid overt violence because they don’t think it would advance their goals. Instead they rely on delegating it to the Responsible People In Charge.
Perhaps the chief unsolved problem of history, from the fall of the Roman Empire to COVID, is that such delegation works until it does not. And when it stops working, it’s more helpful to at least understand the problem than to keep the “crimestop” mental mechanism oiled — however helpful it has been in normal, thoroughly controlled and predictable circumstances.
ABB fell victim to a host of his own blind spots before any victim of his.
Stating it doesn’t absolve it from his sins or crimes however you define them.
It merely adds a context to them that helps us, ourselves, allocate our scarce resources towards changing the world for the better — lawfully, of course, as long as there is law. Not only because it’s kind, but also because it helps.
P.S. Finally, don’t be ageist. Arkadi Golikov was a committed Bolshevik and an acting regiment commander before he turned sixteen. The eligibility age for the Soviet Komsomol was 14 (roughly the 7th grade). Most of those who joined their ranks in order to pursue the “political organizer — political instructor” career did that either in senior high school or in the freshman/sophomore grades of college. And trust me, they knew that they were joining the ruling upper class of a totalitarian society, whether they knew the very word or not.
@huxley when I propose a thought experiment in response to an argument, it’s always contingent upon my opponent’s desire to stand by his argument and/or explore it further. I didn’t know it needs clarification.
Anyone else who picks up your argument can pick up the thought experiment, too.
hes a terrorist, who attacked civilians, that being said, you see how the British Labour Parties privileges some parties like the stockport shooter who turned out to have al Queda ties, and those who protested against the escalating list of injuries to the British people, like the confiscation tax, against the farmers
@neo re: ABB’s flip-flopping, remember that, to the best of his knowledge and belief (the legal standard of truthfulness applied by the US government), he is a PoW (one that started independently of him, but at which he took a side) held captive by a hostile party.
Whatever standard you are holding him to, apply to Friedrich Paulus and John McCain.
When I was at Cornell I audited a course on Constitutional Law taught by one of the only openly conservative professors. Once he was discussing the very question you raise. And how when it came to admitting the state of Utah, the federal government said “we don’t care if your religion says you can do this, you can’t allow polygamy”. His point was that freedom of religion, when it comes to American history, has some limits. Otherwise they would theoretically have to allow anyone to do anything they want in the name of religious freedom.
I don’t disagree, but it still leaves the question you raise, and how those limits are determined.
LXE
Sophistry. Your hero wasn’t a member of an army, wore no uniform, and murdered non combatants.
So you fantasize about murdering defenseless humans?
An ass. At best.
Then there’s the disadvantage of declaring one’s belief a religion or having one’s belief so declared. if
mutilating childrentransgenderism were a religion, it’s be out of schools, denounced, and abandoned as a practice.But declare it “medicine” and “common sense” and we have a victory no religion could win.
@om
If you are answering my question about Menachem Begin, then you should argue with Anwar Sadat, who signed the Camp David Accords with him, and with the US government (specifically, the Carter administration) that mediated the process. And with pretty much half the world leaders of that time (late 1970s-early 1980s).
If you mean ABB, you haven’t read me carefully. Go back and retry.
@Rick67 “Some” is a tricky word. It means “we reserve the right to define the exact scope later”.
I think the burden of defining “some” lies on those who use it.
The earlier, the more to their credit.
@om Also, for reference/context.
For the purpose of my immigration paperwork, the United State government demanded that I disclosed my membership in any totalitarian party or branch thereof since the age of 16 (sixteen).
I was never in the Komsomol, but I was, briefly, a member of the Young Pioneers between 9 and 10 years of age. I still filed an affidavit thereof explaining my reasons to join and my duties as one. So did my wife.
Participation in the Komsomol was encouraged, and joining the Young Pioneers was almost inevitable. This isn’t true about the (currently active) Young Guard of United Russia, former “Our Guys” movement, former “Marching Together”. There is a very obvious sigma against joining the Young Guard. If you do, 9/10 of your neighbors, co-workers or classmates will understand it (correctly) as if you sold your soul to the powers that be. I would deem every YGUR member a legitimate military target — of, for example, a Ukrainian air strike. It doesn’t matter if he is armed or not. He’s chosen his side, and that’s good enough.
In my present understanding, while the Storting bombing was as much a blunder in every respect as the Gunpowder Plot, every single person at the “summer camp” was a member of the Young Guard of the Progress Party. They weren’t random visitors resting at the beach. They were attending a “political organizer — political instructor” workshop of the ruling party waging a real (as observed) and conscious (according to ABB’s belief) war on the Norwegian people and on Europe and obstructing all peaceful and/or democratic ways of challenging its program or discipline in public.
Brexit, the Trump election and other events that followed showed that ABB was wrong in his beliefs and estimates. The democratic way of challenging the “status quo” was still open for everyone courageous enough to pursue it.
Would you, however, have made this statement — in good faith — in 2011?
@om ~s/sigma/stigma/, of course. I am not good at public speaking.
Crickets.
And that’s even before Alexander Marinesco and Hiroo Onoda entered the room.
People who refuse to think their opinions through are exceedingly boring.
@LXE: Most of us here complain about how the legacy media lies to us about everything, and at the same time we believe what that media tells us about, for example, what Anders Breivik did. Partly it’s because we’re old and have a lifelong habit of mostly believing what’s in the news based on our memories of the days when we all thought it could be trusted.
Gell-Mann Amnesia, in other words. So if you want a hearing for an unusual opinion, for example like that you expressed about Breivik, there’s some lifting you have to do to counter the things we already think we know. If you find that too much trouble, then nothing much will come of it.
I think if Breivik’s victims had been attending, say, a Hamas summer camp for budding young intifadists, a lot of folks here would be prepared to view things a little differently–we know that our media continually lies about anything related to Israel and Palestine and we expect there to be a bogus narrative. It would not surprise us to see young Hamas trainees presented as innocent kids innocently attending summer camp.
But I don’t think many of us have enough knowledge of Norwegian politics to have any information of our own that would cause us to suspect the legacy media narrative.
The writers of the constitution were brief about the rights of religion because, based on the state constitutions, the principle need of the first amendment was that no Christian denomination should have preference over any other.
Most of the states had a state supported Christian denomination, and even the ones that didn’t gave preference to Protestant over any other beliefs.
Here’s from the Vermont Constitution, picked at random.
Had they envisioned a future United States like what it has become, they likely would have defined religion as any organization that worships Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences and understanding, regulated by the word of God.
That wouldn’t preclude other worship of foreign gods, but they would not have had the protection of the first amendment.
@Niketas
> I don’t think many of us have enough knowledge of Norwegian politics to have any information of our own that would cause us to suspect the legacy media narrative.
You hit nine pins out of ten. Here’s the tenth.
If my ultimate goal were making a statement (moral or otherwise) about ABB *as a real living person*, I would have at least sought such knowledge, and then pointed my opponents to it if need arose.
I never sought such knowledge. The only *source* I familiarized myself with other than publications of the mainstream media was the “European Declaration of Independence” itself. Since I wasn’t the original recipient, I can’t confirm the authenticity of what I read, and I stopped reading it sequentially after the first 40 or 50 pages. If it was the real thing, I attest that the mainstream media summary of it is accurate. In simple words, it was a compilation of multiple sources on modern and medieval history (mostly accurate) and then an action plan that was 146% nuts and demonstrated illiteracy in social science(s) in every way possible.
I brought up ABB precisely because of the Herostratus the MSM made of him — a character both more widely known and more widely recognized as a “moral alien” than any other historical personality I would readily think about; and also as such a person extensively studied by a committee of experts in mental health. For each of those three reasons his case stands out more, and presents a cleaner “test case” of one’s ability to understand people — and to understand and model others’ understanding of people — than the more nuanced cases of Begin and Onoda.
There is also the extra aspect of one being more easily given a pass by virtue of being backed by a sovereign with an army and a navy — and, independently, by virtue of having won in an actual conflict (further reading: Soviets at the Nuremberg trial), — but if I could factor it out, I would, for it’s the single most boring aspect of the story. There would have been religion even if there were no state, and there was religion when there was no state; thus, bring your God to the match, not your worldly bosses. But not too many people can differentiate between the two, and that’s saddening on a separate count.
@Niketas P.S.
One interesting common trait of ABB and Onoda was that they, while staying medically functional adults and using the sources of information available to everybody else, formed an elaborate and internally coherent understanding of reality so whimsically original and so ripe with “alternative facts” that one wouldn’t be able — or, at the very minimum, I personally wouldn’t dare — judge their behavior on any third-party ethical grounds without taking their belief in those “alternative facts” into consideration.
We all have imperfect understanding and erroneous expectations of things around us — e.g. we think it wouldn’t be raining and go for a hike, and then it does — but it doesn’t preclude us from judging people who lie, cheat or steal, nor does it preclude others from judging us when we do. However, in very special cases, the simple fact that we exist in different worlds cognitively simply can’t be ignored. It most often happens when people have drastically different backgrounds (further reading: “clash of civilizations”), but those special examples show that one needn’t be a “Nancy” (infosec for “nation state”) to fork an alternative universe for him- or herself.
I don’t see how this problem (if one considers it a problem) can be meaningfully addressed in the legal space. Yes we do guarantee a minimum of education to each person we admit into the room as an adult (if only for him or her to understand the law enough to obey it or be held liable), but it’s very obviously not enough to take a donkey to a water to make it drink. And what are we going to do to address the possibility that the public or scientific consensus can be genuinely wrong?
We can, at one point, arrive at the concept of “cognitively sovereign citizens”.
Some of them would be at war with the United States, and others at peace.
LXE throws Menachem Begin and a Norweigan mass murderer
(A B Breivik) into the same rhetorical bucket to ‘splain’ his fantasy of murdering 200 young commies.
And neo shouldn’t be ageist.
A long winded ass defending(?) a neo-Nazi.
@om
Defending on what count? For that’s what matters.
God judges us as indivisible/atomic beings, but we can only judge individual acts and inferences of each other (“the sin, and not the sinner”).
Unless, of course, you are yourself God in your own religion.
It would help if you disclose whether you think you are.
P.S. Call me any name you want as long as it helps your reasoning ability. I understand that people need labels to satisfy their religious beliefs and motivate themselves to function. (Myths and religious beliefs are essential to motivation.)
LXE bring a mass murderer into a thread about the definition of religion and it doesn’t lead to edification (IMO), but to many long following posts. Eastern Orthodox he says he is, takes all kinds to make a Church, and I know little of LXE or of his heart. Seems dark though, the Russian (?) soul. And as another postscript is rich for LXE to lecture about God.
@om Very sorry, I have a hard time parsing your English. Are you Ukrainian? Or Serbian?
None of the points I made about God is alien to any denomination that recognizes the Gospel as the Scripture — Protestant, Roman Catholic, Orthodox (“World” or “True”, if you know the difference), Monophysite, Monophelite, Nestorian, or even New Age. As I said, if you want to argue with me on the religious grounds, bring your God to the match. Is He the Allah of Quran?
People killed in the name of religion, or in the name of their nation, or in the name of liberty, numerous times in history. If you want to make one case specal, bring your specific reasons. It’s OK if they are “a priori” axioms, just share them as such. I promise to understand. What I can’t promise to understand is something that supposedly needs no proof, but isn’t recognized as a religious _dogma_ either. Choose one or the other.
(P.S. @om May God bless you in all of your undertakings, whether you believe in the One I do or not.)
LXE seems to assume that other Christians aren’t passing familiar with the basic tenants of the
faith, because he is Eastern Orthodox, but he brought ABB he to the dance and now is dancing around that, and of killing young commies.
Nope not Sebian, Ukrainian, Moldovan, Georgian, Latvian, Estonian, Lithuanuan, Polish or of other eastern European extraction. Nor Moslem. Certainly not Eastern Orthodox, but not to fault all of that faith by one example. Not like the current Eastern Orthodox Patriarch who is toots fine with Vladdy and his Special Military Operation.
Getting “tomeish,” enough is too much, LXE.
@om Can’t parse. Seriously. Not because I want to ridicule you or make fun of you, but because I genuinely can’t parse what you mean, which is what matters.
I definitely don’t support the “Special Military Operation”, and can make my case on my religious grounds. (If ABB supported it, I reserve the right to prove he was wrong, including from his own stated axioms.)
It would help if you @om disclose what nation or dialect is your mother’s. I promise not to use this knowledge against you, in the US or otherwise.
“Thomeish” suggests a Roman Catholic background (“Thomas Aquinas”), but I am not holding my breath. Either you want to eventually get on the same page or you don’t.
(I’m Russian by my upbringing for all practical purposes, if it helps.)
LXE
Why would you think that ‘God’ would behave like a human?
@LXE:I don’t see how this problem (if one considers it a problem) can be meaningfully addressed in the legal space… We can, at one point, arrive at the concept of “cognitively sovereign citizens”. Some of them would be at war with the United States, and others at peace.
Not sure if you’ve read Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England, but I think he has the best practical description of how this works, legally, in Chapter Two: Of the Nature of Laws in General combined with Chapter Seven: Of the King’s Prerogative. Paraphrasing his eighteenth century English, and leaving out a bunch of stuff on other topics, I would summarize his thinking as this:
Blackstone’s Commentaries are free on Gutenberg and well worth your time, as he has practical wisdom and knowledge of a wide variety of topics, though the book is ostensibly and primarily concerned with law.
Applying this thinking to the “what’s legally a religion” problem, it’s “whatever the government says it is today”, and there really can’t be another legal answer. If you don’t like what the government says today, you can make the choice to reject the government you live under, if you think the consequences of doing so are worse for you than accepting. There’s positive examples, like early Christian martyrs, and negative ones like Islamic terrorists.
Related X post from Shaun Maguire, who says “If you think of wokeism as a religion then we’re imposing that religion on people above all other religions It’s not right.”
https://x.com/shaunmmaguire/status/1864028777669669174
I linked to this post & thread in a comment there.
Shaun Maguire donated $300K to Trump back in May; I think this was a significant event in the movement toward Trump.
Turns out that his family had previously been stiffed for $300K in rent by Hunter Biden–I imagine the identical amount of these amounts wasn’t a coincidence.
@Karmi
> Why would you think that ‘God’ would behave like a human?
I don’t need that conjecture as a foundation for anything I believe in. I simply rely on Acts 10:42. There is more to that (in the writings of the saints), but it should be enough for you in the scope of your particular question.
What matters for me right now is that I can’t form my opinion of any real person, living or dead, unless he was glorified or condemned by the Church. St. Isaac of Syria said “hate the sin but be gracious to the sinner”. This is in line with John 8:7-10.
We can argue with a particular decision as the person in question reasons it, but not with the disposition of a human soul in question, for the soul is both infinitely indivisible and infinitely complex.
We can pray for anyone, just not necessarily in a church assembly (for in the latter circumstance we’ll need to make his or her case).
@Niketas
> Applying this thinking to the “what’s legally a religion” problem, it’s “whatever the government says it is today”, and there really can’t be another legal answer.
Fair enough. Then I have no other choice than reject everything any civil authority says on religion, and then gradually adopt individual observations if they make sense. Anything short of that demands of me that I placed a particular authority between me and my God, and it’s not the Church of God as He established.
If it means that I am a bad citizen or resident of the United States, or otherwise a poor subject of a certain worldly Caesar, let him summon me for trial and torture me as he pleases. By doing so, he is preparing me (sinner as I am) a throne in the Kingdom without earning anything for himself, which may or may not be wise.
Suggest an alternative epistemology and I promise to consider it.
LXE
It is your belief that ‘God‘ behaves as humans do, e.g., Judging. Interesting – Anthropomorphism:
@Karmi
> It is your belief that ‘God‘ behaves as humans do, e.g., Judging
Non sequitur.
I can swim as ducks do, but I am not a duck. I can fly as birds do (by using any of the invented aircraft), but I am not a bird, and will never be. On many occasions, the Scripture attributes certain values or emotions to God, but in no occasion the Church calls it a human feeling or emotion overtaking God. All of the anthropomorphism is in the description.
I am not really interested in explaining this in the context of the “civics and religion” topics, but you are welcome to learn any of the Bible interpretation traditions within a denomination you favor most.
At some point we are either recognized as worthy of the Eternity or not.
This is the judgment I mean. Deciding a binary problem to “yes” or “no” doesn’t imply anthropomorphism by itself unless you deem any binary “yes” or “no” a hint of anthropomorphism.
I deem basic logic independent of the human nature. You are free to infer the rest.
LXE
You believe in a Judgmental & Punishing ‘God‘ — thanks for the explanation/s and reply…
@LXE:If it means that I am a bad citizen or resident of the United States, or otherwise a poor subject of a certain worldly Caesar, let him summon me for trial and torture me as he pleases. By doing so, he is preparing me (sinner as I am) a throne in the Kingdom without earning anything for himself, which may or may not be wise.
Suggest an alternative epistemology and I promise to consider it.
Can’t think of one, I think that’s the best we’ve got. I think it’s also consistent with this:
“You believe in a Judgmental & Punishing ‘God‘” -Karmi
The verse in Acts 10:42 LXE referred to points out that Jesus is appointed by God to be the “judge of the living and the dead”, and the verse following tell us, “To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name”.
So the same God that requires we all give an answer for what we’ve done, offers a solution– salvation through Jesus.
Brian E
Thanks, and I have read it before. However, I don’t know what is beyond Self – but if Self is an example then that ‘God‘ or Higher Power isn’t about being Judgmental, Punishing, or Merciful…
LXE:
Tome – a large scholarly book.
If I a getting ” tomeish,” a poor play on words, I am getting overly verbose, but few or none would say I’m a scholar.
As to my linguistic ancestry; it’s English, Scots-Irish, and Swedish.
You might want to pray about that mass murder fantasy.
@om
> As to my linguistic ancestry; it’s English, Scots-Irish, and Swedish.
Got it. Then neither you nor your ancestors faced your country, your memory, your family and your freedom of worship (let alone your worldly possessions) taken from you by a totalitarian cult.
Americans seem to have averted it less than a month ago, but it’s yet to be seen.
There is no single family in Russia without a granddad or two whom his surviving descendants learned not to even mention, out of an abundance of caution.
The body count of communism (circa 100M in the XX century alone) is rivaled only by that of abortion. Nazism and Islam “smoke by the roadside in despair”, as Russians say.
Now go talk about fantasies. And mass murders.
@Niketas
> Then give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.
The interesting question here is whether our reasoning ability belongs to God or to the Caesar.
On one hand, each of our primitive abilities (the ones we are born with) belongs and is duly attributed to God.
On the other hand, Caesars of the present world have been busily stocking up knowledge since times immemorial, and God prefers to “wear sunglasses”, as some German poet said (I forgot the name, shame on me).
I think it’s fine to attribute the signals to Caesar and the ability to connect them and make sense of them to God.
In the context of “cognitively sovereign citizens” it’s back to square one, but I don’t expect all of the human problems being solved before the end of times, so I am okay with it.
@om P.S. With all due respect to the American Blacks, slavery didn’t include arbitrary and indiscriminate k111ing. Communism did.
Reason is god given, certainly not Caesars doing, of course misunderstand the two, is part of the problem,
Putin may be a cynic but he does give lip service at least to the Diety, because this is what Russians have come to understand, in the greater scheme of things,
the WEIRD confederation that is the West, in large part seems to venerate Scientism, and not even Science, Soul less Technocracy as the Goal
the presumption that God is dead, is how we got to this wretched place, where
‘the center cannot hold’ Solzhenitsyn, spoke a great many truths which many in the West were unwilling to hear,
his dissappointment with the post Soviet era, was in line with the license not liberty, it seemed to unleash in small ways and large
the rise of the OLigarch and the Siloviki in nearly equal measure,
in a state of nature, which was what Russia had devolved into, it was the Rule by the Strong, not merely the Rule of Law
LXE is now playing the victim game (my ancestors had it much worse than yours, stomp feet!) and you pampered Americans.
You are free to leave this decadent country you know.
Sad, LXE, sad.
PS – Don’t let your fantasy get to ideation.
@om The record of communism would have been the same even if I were born Irish, Spanish, Martian or not born at all.
The degree of my familiarity with it, however, would have been different.
“This decadent country” is just another proof that you aren’t (as TOEFL calls it) reading for full understanding.
@miguel cervantes
Agree on the reason part.
As of Putin — lip service aside, his “United Russia” and the Democrats are birds of a feather; an unholy union of the _nomenklatura_ as the new Second Estate and the activists as the new First.
The single greatest book about the most prevalent form of government today is “The Old Regime and the Revolution” by Alexis de Tocqueville. It’s very enlightening reading. Also, it’s more concise than the “European Declaration of Independence”.-)
Now, in 2024, I think it’s possible to say that the islands of resistance (Farage, Trump, Netanyahu, Orban, Milei) rest on a very reliable continental shelf. Extinguish one of them, and it will re-emerge; extinguish all of them, and another one will arise where no one could have expected.
But it wasn’t at all obvious fifteen or even ten years ago. The pre-Trump world looked pretty much a doomed place where the only freedom we were going to have was talking to each other in the kitchen hoping that none of us is a snitch.
I’d not go back to 2011 or 2014 even if they promised me eternal youth.
P.S. @om
American Democrats are serving my “fantasies” to me on a golden plate.
Just look at the blue city crime stats.
Beware ideation
@om you sound as if you feared the thinking process itself.
Not a big surprise to me after reading all of your comments, but maybe you should work it through with your therapist.
Somebody scared you. It must have been a while ago, so it most likely wasn’t me. But now you have a trauma associated with intellectual activity, and you are building psychological defenses against it. One of them is labeling it as foreign activity beyond one’s agency; there may be others.
As of myself, I side with Vyacheslav Butusov; “my ideals can’t hurt me, for I am the only crew they have”.
P.S. @miguel
> Rule by the Strong, not [merely] the Rule of Law
Exactly.
The GCD (greatest common denominator) of the pro-choice and “Z” ideologies.
LXE practices projection.
Sad, truly sad.
Enjoy (?) your fantasies. Or better yet, try prayer.
Try not to be “tomeish.” Counting angels dancing on pinheads has been tried.
@om You will be more successful promoting your ideas and finding friends once you learn to address the present parties in the second person rather than the third.
Also, you would sound more convincing once you begin arguing in good faith, but I am repeating myself.
May God bless and welcome you. (If it sounds like a direct quote, it’s because it is.)
LXE;
Homicidal ideation isn’t a good thing.
Try prayer.
Another professor, who knew?
@om I can’t parse your English. Perhaps I am not proficient enough in Swedish, Scottish or Irish Gaelic.
If you mean that certain people’s contribution to the common welfare is negative, can’t agree more.
LXE:
To be
consider that the idea of mass murder of unarmed political opponents isn’t a good idea.
Just a thought you might consider.
@om
What you just described is not a good idea, first and foremost, because it’s not an idea. It’s an action directed at achieving a goal. Such things are called “plans”.
By contrast, a proposed reason *why* such a plan is good or bad may be an idea worthy of discussion, particularly in the context of the cognitive, legal and social aspects of religion.
You can, of course, say that the terribility of this plan needs no proof; that it is, so to say, axiomatically terrible. Declaring so is a right you are entitled to.
It would mean, however, that your views on morality lack any depth. Someone whose chief argument regarding the good and the evil is “I feel so and so” can’t meaningfully object to people who feel differently — unless, of course, he uses other means to make himself a noticeable example to follow.
I invite you to make your case and explain why *you* — you specifically — deem politically motivated violence wrong.
I am moving my king’s pawn from e2 to e4. Politics (as opposed to business) is proxy for legalized violence. Any political statement, other than “such and such law should be repealed”, aims at establishing new sufficient causes (some would say — new excuses) for violent confrontations. How would you challenge that?
LXE:
Oh, now you get to decide what is or isn’t an idea. Something about
Heard of that LEX? What comes before a plan LXE? An idea? You do know about sophistry?
You seem to be a person in love with his own words who doesn’t want to concede that murdering defenseless young people in mass for political (or any reason) is reprehensible.
Your seem to have a very deep dark sense of what is morally justified.
Making omelets and using eggs, LXE? Oh, that was another Russian. Uncle Joe was Georgian, so he doesn’t count?
@om I do know about sophistry, and you are employing quite a lot of it.
Uncle Joe began as a gangster and ended as a larger-scale gangster. His chief reason to use violence was to satisfy his hunger for power. His next, to get rid of people whom he considered a threat to his power. His third, to advance a cause he pledged loyalty to (by Lenin’s coffin) — to enrich the poor by expropriating and annihilating the rich, and to spread the Soviet power worldwide.
Needless to say that I endorse none of the three.
The problem is, none of the three applies to ABB. You haven’t addressed his case at the slightest by invoking Stalin’s.
Do you have a better argument? Or, at least, more relevant to the case?
Look, it’s not as if I challenged you to prove Fermat’s Grand Theorem. I am challenging you to prove a point you deem absolutely obvious, and of great importance to you.
Are you _that_ helpless?