Posted on 08/06/2010 6:04:18 PM PDT by WesternCulture
Too few school children of today grow up knowing what Gustavus Adolphus - the Lion of the North - accomplished in his lifetime.
Northern Europe, especially Scandinavia, of today is nothing like "Trainspotting".
Northern Germany, Scandinavia, the Netherlands and Britain of today disposes of more industrial plants, more of well reputed universities and more of well educated workers than any other comparable part of the planet.
Why?
In one word:
Protestantism.
Regardless of the differences between the largest Lutheranist church on Earth, the Church of Sweden, and the Church of England which understands itself to be both Catholic and Reformed, Non-Catholic Christian tradition has conquered the planet.
As a nation, The United States of America of course bows down to no other power, but no one could deny that the US in many ways is a product of Protestantism.
So what to do with it?
My country, tiny Sweden, has proved Russia is defeatable (we took Moscow unlike Hitler and Napoleon managed to) and we also managed to lay siege to Germany (in the 17th century) for 15 years.
This, indeed, is a cornerstone of Western history:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwKYqSyoopw
These simple historical facts few obedient, servant teachers in the ugly regimes of China, Venezuela and Russia today acknowledge in their daily missions.
Chavez & Co. don't scare me much, neither does China and Russia.
But they are hinders in our way and we Protestants should take their mismanagement of society into account.
What is my point?
Despite two world wars laying Europe in ruins two times within a century, Western Civilization did not stop.
It will go on and Americans ought not to be surprised if countries like Sweden and Denmark etc continue to send troops to Afghanistan.
We Westerners quarell a lot internally, yes, but we don't let each other down when it really counts.
As all of Europe watched the horror of the WTC-attacks on our TV screens, we too felt like being attacked.
To all of America:
America is not alone.
Now, let's organize ourselves like Gustavus Adolphus once organized his people and do what is eternally right.
There is no other way ahead.
I’m popping the popcorn as we speak....
LOL
Better make a lot.
That's my major problem with talk radio.
Without knowing me, they (and you) make the assumption that I am ignorant.
I'll tell you what I tell them.
Bugger off you arrogant bastard.
Secondly, that if the Danes conveniently kill off a big chunk of your historic aristocracy, and you hire on new aristocrats who are rich, or smart, or aggressive, you can whip late Medieval Europeans like a cheap Persian carpet!
The later discovery of the nickel meteorite at Nikel Oblast was maybe a third thing, but the Russians got into that place to a greater degree than did the Swedes.
Interesting take ... expect to have a lot of arrogant Catholics attacking you.
I’m popping the popcorn as we speak....
- How feeble, yet poetically lamish..
Popcorn.
I’m protestant and I think he’s an arrogant steaming pile of eurotrash.
“steaming pile of eurotrash”.
- You really wish to take part in creating a spirit of concord within the Western World, don’t you?
“My country, tiny Sweden, has proved Russia is defeatable (we took Moscow unlike Hitler and Napoleon managed to) and we also managed to lay siege to Germany (in the 17th century) for 15 years.”
So that’s why Russia speaks Swedish and French. I did not know...
Too bad for the rest of them; nobody ever had a better idea, don’t see one coming yet.
“Interesting take ... expect to have a lot of arrogant Catholics attacking you”
- I once had an Italian girlfriend, I know how to deal with such people.
Interesting take ... expect to have a lot of arrogant Catholics attacking you.
Having the church subservient to the state, and the state and those directing the state focused on temporal benefits will lead to certain rewards in this world. That it benefits the church is not evident. Anglicanism and Lutheranism, especially in their European forms, hardly seem bulwarks of historic Christianity as they prepare to enter their sixth centuries. As to counting on the Swedes to aid the U.S.—I expect that they will stand by us at least as well as they stood by Norway in WW II—if they do not contracept and abort themselves out of existence before they have the chance.
“So that’s why Russia speaks Swedish and French. I did not know...”
- Swedish is the mother tongue of most inhabitats of the southern shores of Finland.
The people of Kronstadt just outside of St. Petersburg speak it too.
Sweden and Russia will continue to struggle over the Baltic Sea and there will be more of encounters despite your rosy image of it.
allow=around
It suited 19th century Swedish nationalism to build the tale that righteous Gustavus swooped down from the North to rescue his Protestant brethren from the Catholic emperor.
However, Gustavus spent the first twelve years of the war either directly attacking his fellow Protestants in Denmark or ignoring the struggles of his Protestant brethren as he pursued expensive warfare against the Orthodox who were not otherwise involved.
He only intervened after Catholic France offered him an extremely lucrative alliance for his help in defeating their rival, the Emperor. History shows that Gustavus was supremely indifferent to the cause until he found out that there was vast wealth to be made from intervening. His priority, first, last and always was conquering valuable land.
Oh come on now! Doesn’t anyone read cheap pulp science fiction books anymore?
Everyone knows that Mike Stearns and Grantville saved Captain Gars in 1632!
So many grumpy serious people. Protestants suck the joy out of life. (That last comment was for the schmuck waiting for arrogant Catholics to show up.)
(Eric Flint...not the quote thing, he is the author of the series. You can find the and read some of them free online at baen.com. Free science fiction books. Come on, you know you can waste the time.)
Western Civilization is the fruit of Christian civilization. As people lose hold of the very thing that made this civilization possible, their basic faith in God, the moral underpinnings of the culture, the whole thing begins to lose its way. The cultural edifice we refer to as Western Civilization is not guaranteed except as we continue to embrace the principles that make civilization possible and the God who is the author of those principles.
I look at the West and I see people who are losing their understanding of who they are and why they are on this earth. We say that liberty is God-given because what we call liberty can not survive in the absense of the principles that make it possible.
“This post is more than a little silly. The myth of Gustavus Adolphus..”
- Honestly speaking, you got off to a very good start.
But you didn’t stop there.
Denying the fact that Gustavus Adolphus changed European history all around is futile.
You ought to feel lucky I’m not an tatoo artist working on your forehead.
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