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2006-10-30 Britain

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Posted by 3dc 2006-10-30 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11131 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 The modern western world is inseparable from the idea of secularisation. From Socrates's refusal to acknowledge the Greek gods to Copernicus's heretical idea that the earth revolved around the sun to the French revolution's overthrow of religious authority, the path of modernity seemed to lead away from the claims of religion.

It occurs to me that this sounds like an attempt by the materialists to claim Socrates and Copernicus as their own; you'd think they could be bothered to find out that Socrates felt differently, at least as far as Plato relates:

The Apology of Socrates.

Copernicus, I think, was a Polish monk...

A lot of the real freedom the author of the piece enjoyed growing up, I am beginning to think, was due to people who actually believed in right and wrong, if not in the definitions thereof during the times they lived, and not people who didn't believe in right-and-wrong at all.

Posted by Abdominal Snowman 2006-10-30 01:18|| 2006-10-30 01:18|| Front Page Top

#2 The modern western world is inseparable from the idea of secularisation

What is the point of reading morons, posing as intellectuals, who set as their premise a statement so void of historical knowledge that it is laughable. Go back to Jr. High school, twit and come back when you have a clue.

Posted by Clkethel OHlkdj 2006-10-30 05:37|| 2006-10-30 05:37|| Front Page Top

#3 I agree with you AB. The notion that modernism equals results from or equals secularism is just invented history.

I won't bore you with a lecture on the history of ideas, but IMO the modern world originated with the Reformation which was about how you worship God being your own business. Many modernizers were deeply religous, Darwin and Mendel come to mind.

Many of the social issues we take for granted today, from emancipation of slaves through to enfranchisment of women were pioneered by deeply religous people/groups. As I said, invented history.

Otherwise the author's demographic explanation of the rise of religions is valid. And note the implied argument that secularisation is a more important/potent force than demographics and hence the secularized non-breeders have nothing to worry about.

Disclaimer: I'm an athiest.

Posted by phil_b 2006-10-30 05:54|| 2006-10-30 05:54|| Front Page Top

#4 to the French revolution's overthrow of religious authority

"religious authority", IE catholicism and christianity was soon replaced by the cult of the State, the first in a long line ending (?) up with the nazis, and the bolsheviks and their later spawns all over the world... and this cult perdures even now in the official secular religion of the french Republic.
And that overthrow was sealed in blood with the first modern genocide, when the french revolutionaries killed at least 120 000 (from historians going through churches records, mostly women, children and elderly people) out of 800 000 vendéens in a true war of extermination.

And AFAIK, the occasions when this overthrow was re-enacted by the very same mix of free-thinkers/free-masons and socialists were as bloody, the cristeros uprising, and the spanish civil war.

Posted by anonymous5089 2006-10-30 06:13|| 2006-10-30 06:13|| Front Page Top

#5 Whenever I read tributes like this to anarchy and stupidity and other such spewings of leftist cant , my eyes glaze over.

The French Revolution isn't over. Rousseau taught us that immaturity and primitivism were the pure source of life, of the hip, of the cool. The French revolutionaries glorified the "grunge" and "inner city" dress and culture of their time, the sans cullotte, and we continue that tradition.

That revolution is the ancestor of communism, Naziism, and Islamic fascism.

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2006-10-30 11:13|| 2006-10-30 11:13|| Front Page Top

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