Two Revolutions, Two Views of Man

Conservative Underground | July 6, 2010 | Jean F. Drew

[kosta50]

All I know is that a whole lot of people who "lobbied" the publishers of psychiatric diagnostic manuals to expunge all references to homosexuality as a "diseased" or "deviant" condition [back in the 1970s] are still highly paid and highly regarded "experts" today

So, why did they succeed?

Nowadays, if it ain't about money, it's about power.

And in the past it was different? One of the biggest obstacles the Framers encountered as regards abolition of slavery was the financial burden on the states compensating the slave owners. Money talks...

You can't defend yourself against such social predators if you have no truth to stand on

Still there are people who evidently believe that if you tell a lie often enough, it acquires a semblance of truth by virtue of sheer repetition.

You mean like talking donkeys?

Do you believe this, kosta?

Not I, betty boop.

[kosta50]

The quote is at the bottom four lines of p. 304 in the facsimile at your link, and carries over to page 305...o look again.

I see it. Thank you.

Anyhoot, what's your point? Are you suggesting that I "cheat" WRT my sources???

No, everyone can make a mistake.

As to the people Voegelin is addressing in this piece, well I'd opine: Any person interested in preserving his reason and his sanity, in the bedlam of an age that's lost its moorings....

Rubbish, he is asking these questions of Auguste Comte and Karl Marx. Are these the people you liken me to, since you made it very obvious that his questions are applicable to me? Like I said, your lablel-maker never stops. And you call yourself a Christian?

[Quix]

Thanks for all your pings.

[kosta50]

A social system is a complex system; a TV set is a simple system. Why/how do you find any direct comparison between them for your present purposes?

The analogy is perfectly valid in this case because I said one doesn't have to know how something works in order to know that it works.

[kosta50]

No, Donald Duck doesn't "exist in natural reality as a cosmic Platonic hypostasis." Donald Duck exists as a fictional creation of Walt Disney's mind (a spiritual entity), based to some extent (but not too much) on a naturalistic model or example of "duck," an actual observable creature often found in barnyards or on bodies of water...

And pink unicorns...or mulit-headed, fire-spitting dragons? LOL!

[Alamo-Girl]

No amount of rational discourse changes this truth. It is true because God has said it is true. This is the stumbling stone against which rationalists crash and burn. Dialog among believers strengthens faith and encourages understanding. Because knowledge of (the existence of) God does not come through rational effort is is meaningless to argue the merits of belief on rational grounds.

God exists because He who is within me says He exists. I stake my life and my soul upon that knowledge.

Amen!!!

Thank you so much for sharing your testimony, dear YHAOS, and thank you for your insights!

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so very much for this illuminating sidebar, dearest sister in Christ!

And if the standard of judgment is to be your "Good = beneficial and Evil = injurious," you instantly fall into a quagmire of moral relativism. For "one man's good is another man's evil." [E.g., the "might (physical power) = right (to oppress weaker others)" argument of Plato's Gorgias.] Who/what can adjudicate competing claims of this type? Do the weaker others have a right not to be tyrannized, or do they not?

Indeed!

[Louis Foxwell]

I am happy, with you, to credit YHAOS with these words. He is heroic.

[Alamo-Girl]

I'm so sorry, dear brother in Christ, my bad.

[Alamo-Girl]

Piercing questions. Thank you for sharing that excerpt, dearest sister in Christ!

[Alamo-Girl]

Doxa is not Logos.

Precisely so.

[Alamo-Girl]

Nowadays, if it ain't about money, it's about power. And "power" has a magical way of transforming into pecuniary gain for power seekers. Always at other people's expense.

You can't defend yourself against such social predators if you have no truth to stand on. They create "second realities," by which to eclipse the world in which I actually live. But I cannot live in a second reality! For it has no Truth.

Still there are people who evidently believe that if you tell a lie often enough, it acquires a semblance of truth by virtue of sheer repetition.

That is exactly what they do. "Yes, we can" when no, they can't. It's all about "sex, sex, sex" when it was really about perjury and obstruction of justice. It's a "fetus" when it's an unborn child. It's "choice" when it's murder. It's an "alternate lifestyle" when it's an abomination.

Thank you so much for sharing your insights, dearest sister in Christ!

[Dr. Eckleburg]

You can't defend yourself against such social predators if you have no truth to stand on. They create "second realities," by which to eclipse the world in which I actually live. But I cannot live in a second reality! For it has no Truth.

Those are four great sentences. Thanks, BB.

[Dr. Eckleburg]

8~)

[betty boop]

I know God not as a result of any intellectual effort on my or anyone’s part but because He has made Himself known to me. The revelation of God to His followers, and others, is the a priori of reformation. No amount of rational discourse changes this truth. It is true because God has said it is true. This is the stumbling stone against which rationalists crash and burn.

So beautifully, beautifully said, dear Amos! And so very, very true.

Why rationalists crash and burn on the "God problem" is a mystery to me. For it seems to me that reason itself absolutely depends for its own proper function on a single, non-phenomenal, that is universal principle, or Logos. And they claim to use reason all the time — even after they've utterly uprooted it from its ground in Truth.

Cicero had a name for this phenomenon: aspernatio rationis, meaning "contempt for reason."

But that's not the most important point you raised. It seems that would be: "God exists because He who is within me says He exists. I stake my life and my soul upon that knowledge."

And I think you are right that "the Framers premised their efforts at creating a nation upon precisely this knowledge. In this very particular sense our nation is founded upon revelation."

Thank you so very much for your so deeply affecting, beautiful, and insightful essay/post, dear Amos!

[Louis Foxwell]

Thank you Betty Boop for catching the sense of my words. I came late to this thread and reviewed the more than 500 posts before responding. My comments at post 520 are based on a problem that is manifest in fully 90% of those posts.
Your original essay stands as a seminal insight into the struggle that is upon us. Your thesis is in no way controversial but is essential to understanding the truth of our circumstances as a nation. Yet, a morass of controversy ensued from the beginning that effectively waylaid any real grappling with your thesis. This has been the device of those who oppose the truth as you so brilliantly revealed it. Debate, assault, rancor, all done with an air of intellectual superiority have, to this point, effectively prevented a careful development of your work.
Your thesis stands as one of 2 recent articles that are clarion calls for those who believe in the vital importance of preserving our Constitution. The other is the magnificent treatise on America's Ruling Class published in the American Spectator. These interlinking articles form a tour de force for the Framers vision.
With whatever time remains on this thread before crickets chirp I want to raise up your essay as a vital call to arms for the protection and renewal of our Constitution and our way of life.
As was the cause of our Founders, we stand for the triumph of God over the chaos of hubris and anarchy. Those who debate and oppose us in this effort are no less than our enemies and deserve no other treatment than as enemy.
Enough with rancor. We have a war to win.

[Louis Foxwell]

please read post 556.

[betty boop]

Dear Amos, brother in Christ, thank you ever so much for your kind words!

Yes, this thread has been side-tracked from time to time. Still, there have been some wonderful contributions from KC Burke, YHAOS, Diamond, Alamo-Girl, spirited irish, and many other writers. It's been a learning experience!

I just visited your home page, Amos, and found this wonderful piece from a few years back by FReeper wagglebee:

...For the past 150 years, the intent of futurists/socialists and those who favor the central authority of government in society has been to remove the authority of cultural tradition and religion from the public sector. Arguments for the privacy of religion and for multiculturism have been thinly veiled campaigns to relegate knowledge and experience from the past to a curio shop of cultural oddities.

This campaign (designed by Marx, Freud, Dewey, Spinoza, Darwin, Emerson and many others) has designed social structures oriented to a utopian future by breaking radically with the past. The viewpoint of each of these philosophers has been based in a belief that the evolution of society and the individual are hopelessly restricted by the influence of all that has gone before, especially by religion.

The central theme of cultural tradition and its concomitant, religion, is morality based on natural law. Our Constitution is the quintessential example of this. Futurists believe fervently in the absolute authority of government over all aspects of personal and social behavior. It is vital, therefor, for them to overcome the founding principles of the Constitution.

In an attempt to do this the Founders are denegrated as white, racists, slaveholders, capitalists and bigots to a man. Their appeals to the Creator and Natural Law are viewed by futurists as attempts to confine society to a narrow, provincial and wholly backward political system.

The reliance of the Constitution and its historical antecedents on morality are major stumbling blocks to the New World so fervently sought by socialists. This is precisely why it is critical for those who wish government to dominate society to root out all vestiges of religion and morality. They, then, can have a free hand to redisign man and society in their own image. This is the precise struggle in which we are engaged. It is a war for the continued existence of mankind centered on God. We are far along this path with no clear way back.... [emphasis added]

Oh, wagglebee, so beautifully and truly said!

Thank you ever so much for writing, dear Amos, and for your excellent insights!

[betty boop]

Oh thank you so very much, dear sister in Christ, for your kind words of support!

God is Truth — He Is the Rock on which we stand! Beware of false gods.... They pose a real danger, the problem of our age.

I find it rather amusing that recently so much air time has been devoted to the question of whether 0bama is a Muslim or a Christian. Since obviously he is a "progressive," I'm pretty sure he is neither.

Thank you so much for writing, dear Dr. E!

[Alamo-Girl]

I very strongly agree with you on the importance and relevance of betty boop's outstanding article!

With whatever time remains on this thread before crickets chirp I want to raise up your essay as a vital call to arms for the protection and renewal of our Constitution and our way of life.

As was the cause of our Founders, we stand for the triumph of God over the chaos of hubris and anarchy. Those who debate and oppose us in this effort are no less than our enemies and deserve no other treatment than as enemy.

Enough with rancor. We have a war to win.

Indeed. Thank you so very much for sharing your insights, dear Amos the Prophet!