To: B-Chan; Dr. Eckleburg; the_conscience; Gamecock; HarleyD; wmfights; Dutchboy88
Human beings have the positive and Divine right to daily bread, health care, and other aspects of human dignity. In his Luciferian quest for individual Liberty, however, Western man has destroyed the Divinely-ordained social order under which the Church provided these goods. As a result, the heavy hand of the State will now intrude into every aspect of public life in its futile attempt to build a just society. Ironically, the worship of individual liberty instigated by the "reformers" of the Church and the secular counterparts of the "enlightenment" has destroyed the liberty under God that individuals once enjoyed as organic parts of the Catholic and medieval social order.
This reminds one of Max Weber's thesis about the inner connection between capitalism and Calvinism, between the formation of the economic order and the determining religious idea. Marx's notion seems to be almost inverted: it is not the economy that produces religious notions, but the fundamental religious orientation that decides which economic system can develop. The notion that only Protestantism can bring forth a free economy whereas Catholicism includes no corresponding education to freedom and to the self-discipline necessary to it, favoring authoritarian systems instead is doubtless even today still very widespread, and much in recent history seems to speak for it.
- Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), Market Economy and Ethics, 1985 "...Protestants showed a special tendency to develop economic rationalism; that is, a particular approach to creating wealth that was less focused on the gain of comfort than on the pursuit of profit itself. The particular satisfaction was not in the money extracted to buy things (which had always driven money making in the past), but in wealth creation based on increased productivity and better use of resources."
- Book review: The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, by Max Weber
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55 posted on
11/10/2009 3:16:37 PM PST by
Alex Murphy
("Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him" - Job 13:15)
To: Alex Murphy; B-Chan; Dr. Eckleburg; the_conscience; Gamecock; HarleyD; wmfights; Dutchboy88
...the worship of individual liberty instigated by the "reformers" of the Church and the secular counterparts of the "enlightenment" has destroyed the liberty under God that individuals once enjoyed as organic parts of the Catholic and medieval social order. IIRC, this country was initially settled by people fleeing religious persecution. To their credit they didn't preclude members of churches that had been persecutors from being allowed to come here. Instead they embraced the philosophy of the enlightenment that we could reason together and the truth would be revealed. Of course it requires an educated populace to be able to reason together.
58 posted on
11/10/2009 3:52:09 PM PST by
wmfights
(If you want change support SenateConservatives.com)
To: Alex Murphy; Gamecock; wmfights; HarleyD; the_conscience; Mr Rogers; blue-duncan; Dutchboy88; ...
Great post worth bookmarking, Alex.
B-Chan: Human beings have the positive and Divine right to daily bread, health care, and other aspects of human dignity.
"It may be that today gold has become the exclusive ruler of life, but the time will come when man will again bow down before a higher god." -- Adolf Hitler, "Mein Kampf" (with apologies to Irving)
64 posted on
11/10/2009 4:22:10 PM PST by
Dr. Eckleburg
("I don't think they want my respect; I think they want my submission." - Flemming Rose)
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