Prisoner, who sued Jamie Foxx and Tyler Perry, guilty of fraud in Portland archdiocese case

The Deserter

Nikolai Berdyaev is your authority? Tread carefully...

Berdyaev became a Marxist and in 1898 was arrested in a student demonstration and expelled from the University....

...In 1920 Berdiaev was made professor of philosophy at the University of Moscow, although he had no academic qualifications. In the same year, he was accused of participating in a conspiracy against the government; he was arrested and jailed. It seems that the feared head of the Cheka, Felix Dzerzhinsky, came in person to interrogate him, and that he (Berdyaev) gave the man a solid dressing-down on the problems with Bolshevism. Berdyaev's prior record of revolutionary activity seems to have saved him from prolonged detention, as his friend Lev Kamenev was present at the interrogation....

...He was a Christian universalist, and he believed that Orthodox Christianity was the true vehicle for that teaching.

Source: Nikolai Berdyaev

Yes, I knew that out of all else I was hoping to convey, you would go after the witness, (even that very link!) while seeming to ignore the testimony of that witness, and all else too, evidenced by absence of discussion of those things...

Also from that link, to show this man was not some dyed in the wool Marxist -- he stood up to them too, even at great risk of his own life (according to Solzhenitsyn);

he firmly professed the moral and religious principles by virtue of which he did not adhere to the party in power

If anything, that additional information which you bring makes the man an even better witness as to communism, and how it fits within framework of (hopefully) greater understandings of what sort of governments should or should not be instituted over and among men, particularly men who can have and hold some autonomy of freedom, which by faith we can have, under Christ, Himself.

That is, unless you now wish to impugn the Orthodox generally also (possibly not to be confused with the Russian Orthodox in this instance). But then again, Romanists hesitate to do such as that only here of relatively late, when for centuries previous --- there wasn't all that much of this theoretical fraternal acceptance as is spoken of more recently.

Meaning --- a large part of the problem was/is the sought after Papocaesarism of the Romanists, when they in past times stretched for even that, much in the same manner they declared themselves rulers of all Christians, everywhere, without exception.

The East-West schism of 1054 wasn't merely over the Filioque, for Rome had other things in mind, and cards they weren't exactly playing, but flopped down as it were, in conjunction with this disagreement, only after the disagreement caused by the then "new" adjustment or inclusion of the Filioque.

You still have yet to openly provide some alternative (unless the previously mentioned Papocaesarism is your preferred alternative -- why don't you just go ahead and say it!?!) while cultural relativism has been around for a very long time.

You previously mentioned Luther and Calvin "doubting the truths" which had "been passed on to them".

The problem with that, is that some of what I need assume you intend to mean as to those "truths" you made mention of, were perversions of truth, which they attempted to rectify, while retaining truth as much as possible under the circumstances...

If all were to have followed what "truths" were spoken of by both Luther & Calvin --- then there would not have been Marxism. It is not a straight line equation, as you seemed to otherwise suggest.

Backing things up further (to borrow your own phrase and even "principle"), if there were not those perversions of truth and attendant abuses perpetrated by the Latin ~~church~~ ecclesiastical community, there would have been no Reformation in the first place. You seem to keep skipping over that step, in all this other blame placing, even as I did attempt to point that out to you early on, in this conversation.

Ideas have consequences? Bad ideas can have blow-back, too. What bad idea do wish to tell me is "truth" now?

See how those few ultra-Romanist comments which you made -- so thoroughly derailed this thread?

This sort of things happens all the time around here. But I'm not going to sit idly by and let you get away with such things as blaming Marxism on "Protestants", for it was c not the theologically "Reform minded" who brought it about. Though on the other hand, it most certainly was the theologically reform-minded who established the Constitution of the United States.

That document itself has is drawbacks, but it did delineate a particular form of government, which if better followed, could still be functioning (better than it is today).

“If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.” ― James Madison, The Federalist Papers

Another founding father (of the United States);

While our country remains untainted with the principles and manners which are now producing desolation in so many parts of the world; while she continues sincere, and incapable of insidious and impious policy, we shall have the strongest reason to rejoice in the local destination assigned us by Providence. But should the people of America once become capable of that deep simulation towards one another, and towards foreign nations, which assumes the language of justice and moderation while it is practising iniquity and extravagance, and displays in the most captivating manner the charming pictures of candor, frankness, and sincerity, while it is rioting in rapine and insolence, this country will be the most miserable habitation in the world; because we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. John Adams [ TO THE OFFICERS OF THE FIRST BRIGADE OF THE THIRD DIVISION OF THE MILITIA OF MASSACHUSETTS. 11 October, 1798.

Yes, I knew that out of all else I was hoping to convey, you would go after the witness, (even that very link!) while seeming to ignore the testimony of that witness, and all else too, evidenced by absence of discussion of those things...

My, my, what a mindreader! If the witness has a questionable philosophy (universalism, among other things), even if he did, indeed, suffer at the hands of the Bolsheviks, why should we pay attention to him?

See how those few ultra-Romanist comments which you made -- so thoroughly derailed this thread?

In case you weren't paying attention, I started this thread! Alex Murphy asked me to explain what I meant by "obscure sects", which is how this whole discussion got started!

But I'm not going to sit idly by and let you get away with such things as blaming Marxism on "Protestants", for it was c not the theologically "Reform minded" who brought it about.

Read more carefully. I wrote, "I believe the 'Reformation' in general was not a reformation, but a revolution — the 1st phase in the Revolution that continues against Christendom. We are currently in the 4th phase — the cultural relativist/hippie phase." I'm blaming the Revolutionary process, which the "Reformation" was only the 1st phase of. As I explained later, it goes back even further to the philosophical errors that popped up earlier.

Philosophical errors? And what were those, exactly?

Not believing in the church of Rome? Isn't that what it boils down to?

Meanwhile, blaming the Reformation for Marxism is quite thin, being as there is more than enough evidence pointing fully another direction. That that direction be not bowing towards papacy -- does not make it into being "philosophical error".

You still have not clearly stated what form of government you see as best, what alternative should be proposed.

I'm waiting...

Philosophical errors? And what were those, exactly?

I've already fleshed it out in post #17. All I got was "Good grief, what a load of blarney", not a valid, reasoned refutation.

Meanwhile, blaming the Reformation for Marxism is quite thin, being as there is more than enough evidence pointing fully another direction.

Intentionally glossing over what I've twice written about the "Reformation" being a phase, not the direct source of blame?

You still have not clearly stated what form of government you see as best

I tend to agree with Pius XI:

Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the State, or a particular form of State, or the depositories of power, or any other fundamental value of the human community - however necessary and honorable be their function in worldly things - whoever raises these notions above their standard value and divinizes them to an idolatrous level, distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God; he is far from the true faith in God and from the concept of life which that faith upholds.
-Mit brennender Sorge, #8

Not a valid refutation???

Well excuse me for not thoroughly enough tackling each and every mistaken assumption and misapplied reasoning in the thesis, but I simply don't have time, though there was enough counterpoint to show the initial thesis more than a bit flawed, if the "blame" for Marxism is laid fully at the feet of the Reformers. What a load that is...

The quote from Pius XI is all but worthless, for it never quite gets to the point, or lines out what the alternative to that which he is criticizing is. What is this "order of a world planned and created by God" which he is talking about?

Is Papocaesarism? Caeseropaism? Something else? Just what? The Romanist had their go at it -- and failed.

The "sympathy" theory, where church and State are in sympathy with each other? But of course the Romanist like to say they are the "only" church, so there's some of that divinizing to idolatrous levels he was speaking against...

It's not that we should be ruled over by kings, now is it? The Jews (it is written) begged to have a king, so they could be like all other nations on earth. They were warned, but insisted anyway.

The prophet Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar both what that king's dream was, and what it meant.

Now where are we? At what stage of that "kingdom of men" process are we at? Do you even know?

Again I must ask -- what part of Christ's kingdom being not of this world, do you not understand?

if the "blame" for Marxism is laid fully at the feet of the Reformers

At this point, this is just trolling. I just wrote (emphasis in John Hancock fashion, to get through the thick skull):

Intentionally glossing over what I've twice written about the "Reformation" being a phase, not the direct source of blame?

Earlier in the thread:

I believe the 'Reformation' in general was not a reformation, but a revolution — the 1st phase in the Revolution that continues against Christendom. We are currently in the 4th phase — the cultural relativist/hippie phase." I'm blaming the Revolutionary process, which the "Reformation" was only the 1st phase of. As I explained later, it goes back even further to the philosophical errors that popped up earlier.

Again I must ask -- what part of Christ's kingdom being not of this world, do you not understand?

Another error that Pius XI correctly called out in an earlier encyclical:

This kingdom is spiritual and is concerned with spiritual things. That this is so the above quotations from Scripture amply prove, and Christ by his own action confirms it....It would be a grave error, on the other hand, to say that Christ has no authority whatever in civil affairs, since, by virtue of the absolute empire over all creatures committed to him by the Father, all things are in his power.

You really are stuck within that thesis, aren't you?

The Reformer's fault (their alleged stage of "philosophical error) was not believing what they had been told?

Well... some of what they had been told was total horse hockey. There goes the "universal truth" claim, right out the window. That blows a hole right through the middle of trying to link up later developing Marxism with "Protestants" not just doing and believing as the Romanist ecclesiastical community told them to do and believe.

I pointed that out to you twice already. Go troll yourself.

You really are stuck within that thesis, aren't you?)

As reading comprehension seems to be an apparent weakness, given the replies I have received. Time for a refresher:

You should check those out yourself.