Posted on 05/11/2005 6:39:25 PM PDT by neverdem
Edited on 05/11/2005 8:46:27 PM PDT by Sidebar Moderator. [history]
On occasion, your rants can cause fractures of the glass on computer monitors around the world, 'tis true.
Unfortunately this criticism cannot just be limited to those who get labeled as "liberal".
That would be me and I'll only have two words to say about it. JIM CROW!
You know I love ya waspman.
Not sure I agree with that - "secularism" born in the Renaissance, that is, at least as "secularism" manifests itself today. I see the birth of the modern Left specifically in the blood of the French Revolution, not in the Renaissance. There's nothing incompatible with Christianity and a -passive- secular approach to government - indeed, Christianity basically invented it. It's the French Revolution that gave birth to radical, aggressive secular humanism.
The difference is distinct and easily demarcated. The Renaissance gave birth to the idea that government should maintain an agnostic attitude toward religion. The French Revolution gave birth to the idea of an atheist state actively hostile to religion. Big difference.
Qwinn
Huh???
When we reminisce about the past, each of us sees our own past, and not that of others.
I have to agree. The concept is based in levitical practices; a priest could not be king, nor could the king be a priest. Neither your government nor your church can save you; that was the work of the Lord. Benignly secular government does not interfere with our lives.
One leads eventually to the other. The cause of the French Revolution was still the Renaissance. As I posted in another thread a few days ago; the rise of statism goes back to the Renaissance with its glorification of ancient pagan Rome. Remember that it was from ancient Rome that the Humanists hit upon the old justification the Roman lawyers used, that authority comes from the people. This they argued is irrespective of God. Of course that was a partial misunderstanding on the part of the Humanists, for the ancient Romans did in fact deify the spirit of Rome and its people as a collective.
And again that happens these days too, the deification of the spirit of one's nation can be found to one degree or another in every democracy. It was glaringly obvious in Republican France, and the end result was a marriage between the goddess anima civicarum (note: the state is always a goddess) and a new Caesar.
Separation of the estates is Christian, and goes back long before the Renaissance. The deification of the state itself however isn't. And that was a product of the Renaissance.
"One thing a conservative isn't is a blind follower."
Well said. :)
No, the deification of the state is among the oldest of practices. Nimrod, and subsequently his harlot wife, being the oldest example that comes to mind. But Rome practiced the same from centuries before Christ, until it's fall.
Is that a Wisconsin thing? My wife, who is a Beloit alum, holds similar views :o)
Well, we ARE The Dairy State. No milk, no chocolate. ;)
All your cows are belong to us. (She can use my tagline, gratis.)
Oh no, my wife is a purist; only fine dark chocolate is allowed; none of that english stuff!
And then was resurrected by the Renaissance... Read the context of the discussion if you want to get involved (especially my post to Qwinn #64).
I like dark chocolate too, but if Dear Wife limits herself to The Dark Side, she is seriously missing 50% of Life in the Land O'Chocolate! And don't forget those creamy whites!
Unless she's strictly a red wine drinker? Nothing is better than some rich, deep, dark chocolate and a glass of red wine.
Now, get bizzy, Editor. I've given you the inside track to spice up your marriage, LOL!
Correction, Qwinn's post was # 64... mine response was # 68.
"One leads eventually to the other."
If by this you would imply that the American experiment is an inevitable failure because the precepts it was founded on make the current atheist secular attack on religion inevitable, I have to disagree. The country did just fine as an agnostic state for 140 years, and Hugo Black's judicial activism was hardly inevitable.
"The cause of the French Revolution was still the Renaissance."
Again, I disagree as to a direct causal relationship. The road from religious faith to atheism is not at all dependent upon some interim agnostic state. It's entirely possible to go straight from a religious state to a full anti-religious hostile atheism.
Agnosticism is in fact more unlike religious and atheist sentiment than those two are unlike to each other. Both religious and atheist sentiments reach conclusions that are dependent upon faith... agnosticism actively disavows making any conclusion as a result of a lack of faith.
Qwinn
The question on whether there needs to be an agnostic interim between a faith based society and an atheistic one is not my point. What I'm saying is that the Renaissance, casually or not, reintroduced the pagan Roman idea that authority is invested in the people as a whole, who either before this or afterwards will take on the qualities of a deity. The result of this switch in authority from Christian God to agnostic man, is that eventually man (in the form of the collective) must become a deity to replace the one he no longer has faith in. And the more radically democratic a state becomes the more the new god will oppose the old.
Progressive is an interesting term.
Most of the Darwin award winners were progressives.
Progessives have a bandwidth for historical reference going back to the last time they smoked pot.
If repeating mistakes is considered progressive, then being progessive is self destructive and dangerous to yourself and others... which doesn't sound very progressive.
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