Posted on 03/07/2011 9:00:56 AM PST by Eurotwit
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtx3LRNs22U
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God is certainly not any more through with China than He is the USA . . .
The need for remedial discipline has accrued, however.
Excellent points.
Certainly the evil globalists have been busy undermining both the church and the State every way they could.
Too often, power-mongers and wolves in sheep’s clothing have been busy in the church neutering and corrupting both the message and its application.
Witness this thread:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/2684511/posts
I learned about Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome in school, as well as Mesopotamia and Egypt, and the three ancient cities also centered what I have taught in a “core” course in college. Rome was important too—for carrying on Greek thought, and for the rule of law. And until the fall of Byzantium, the Eastern Empire thought of itself as Roman as well as Greek.
Good points.
I believe that ONE of the reasons God set up the USA beyond protecting Israel and propagating the Gospel
was to DEMONSTRATE
that even a great—the greatest form of government; even with religious freedoms
APART FROM GOD IN EVERY LEVEL AND POSITION AND HEART
WOULD STILL FAIL AS AN EVIL CORRUPT MESS.
Culture is based on religion, as Spengler argued in The Decline of the West. Without religion, culture loses its basis.
Romanticism has been called “spilt religion.” Religion leaves its influence for decades and centuries, but unless renewed, the culture will gradually fail. The Cultural Revolution of the 60s was based on, really, nothing. So unless we get some sort of Christian revival, I think western civilization is cooked.
I hadn’t heard about that book, Fortunate Sons, but I can well believe it.
One of Kiplling’s most astute observations
was the one about how a westerner
would rarely to never
out-fox; out-negotiate; out-haggle the typical oriental.
I forget the exact wording.
I haven’t seen that one, but it’s on the mark. The Chinese invented gunpower and many other things, but they never really went anywhere with these discoveries, and they vanished.
Similarly, Rome invented the water wheel, the first and most important industrial machine, before the steam engine, but never really did anything with it.
Lynn Thorndike has several excellent books on the rise of science in the middle ages. Yes, it happened earlier than most historians of science will admit.
But the best single book is Understanding Europe, by Christopher Dawson. His other books are all well worth reading, too, but I think that one gets to the heart of it.
Bump
Thanks. I used to see the instructions here on FR. Where are they now?
It seems you are confounding capitalism with Western Civilization. Capitalism grew out of Western Civilization, it didn't create it.
The conditions necessary for the industrial capitalism of the 19th century were laid by the mercantile capitalism of 14th century Italy which was laid by the 11th century Holy Roman Empire which was born by a the common ethos and kinship of Christianity and common international language of Latin laid down earlier by the Romans.
It was a series of incremental steps. Each step was enabled by the Cristian tenant of the individual relationship between man and his Creator. Hence, individual rights vs group rights. Private property vs community property. Free will vs predestination.
While you’re at it, which Catholic country led the Industrial Revolution and the rapid, historical drift toward representative democracy?
You want a very narrow answer? It was a pagan country that led that "drift" -- it was the Romans who first used a Representative form of government. The Founders of this country emulated their model, not the English parliamentary monarchy model nor the Greek democratic model. The United States became a Republic, like Rome, not a monarchy like England.
That trust...
I guess that’s why America is full of lawyers..
;-)
In general, homogeniety of culture allows others to trust each other and prosper,
some cultures, of course, can trust each other to be untrustworthy, and obviously wouldn’t be as successful.
This trust is one of the major reasons that Jews get the reputation of being “good bankers”, ie, of hoarding money.
They could trust and be trusted, and their subculture would flourish wherever they landed. And the other cultures despised them for it, and still do.
Well said. I’ve always thought Nietzsche’s writings to be chillingly prophetic and very much in line with Revelation’s account of the rise of the AntiChrist. Best Wishes on your book.
Cheers!
Still is for some of us. :)
The only Church that’s been doing it’s job since 1935 is the Catholic church.
Weber talks about pre-contraception protestant work ethic. Two very different things, today and yesterday.
.
From where I observe . . . it appears MORE LIKELY that the Vatican has been dooming more people to hell than it's been strengthening their relationship to God or introducing to God.
It seems like the closer the individuals get to the Vatican Cult, the more addicted they become to idolatry:
1. Idolatry of the INSTITUTION
2. Idolatry of the dogma--as convoluted and contradictory as it is.
3. Idolatry of the hierarchy
4. MASSIVE AND INTENSE IDOLATRY OF MARY regardless of the weasel words to the contrary.
Individuals become affixed in very chornically immature states to THE INSTITUTION and all it's clap-trap--far more often than they are matured into a deepening relationship with Jesus and His Word. The statistics posted hereon over the last month or so brazenly testify to that.
I don't know that contraception has made the most dramatic difference. Would have to study and reflect on that. I can argue both sides of that, to some degree. .
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