Just a second thought here. . . . before entering into the territory of intentional meaninglessness. . . . well, in some degree if not absolutely. . . . I've been doing more work and getting less acclaim. How absurd is that, that in a sports forum, there is a positive correlation between respect given and content contained. . . .
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Wow, that is so out of touch with history, it boggles the mind. Tyrants have always existed, and were happy to use religion to justify their behavior by saying saying they had God's favor to perform it. Religion is just as valuable a tool for the tyrant as for the benevolent ruler.
PearlWatson
Well-Known Member
you think you know what is true history??? You accept the things you're told by authorities???? What is taught in statist regimes like the United States now is, is propaganda, not history. Some folks have noted that "history" is always written by the winners. . . . usually totalitarian types. . . .
The religion of Jesus started out as a sort of dissident movement against an established state religion tolerated and exploited by the Romans, but only became useful to the tyrants once it became quite prevalent, and achieved state sanction after Constantine.
your are a professed advocate of "secular humanism", and I understand you don't want to see the truth about your religion. You might see some distinctions between Marxism and "Secular Humanism". If you want to discuss the impact of "Secular Humanism" as the hypothetical United States State-sanctioned religon of today, I would appreciate it if you cared to take an hour or so to lay down the foundations of what you believe in this thread. Define "Secular Humanism" to your best ability, and to your actual belief.
Then expect me to respond by showing how various twentieth century despots have invoked these ideas in their statist rule.
I am drawing a distinction here between folks who actually believe there is a "God" whose judgments are relevant, as. . .. say. . . . Benjamin Franklin or George Washington. . . . and folks who believe humans can fare better on their own judgment.
Humans acting on their own judgment, acknowledging no "higher principle", do fall into different groups of political philosophy, and indeed there have been tyrants as well who believed, or pretended to believe, they were acting in the cause of God. I don't think God really thought they were in the right, and I generally don't accept statist religion as valid any more than any other kind of propaganda or delusion. I am speaking of the kind of conscience that acts as a check against doing evil. That is my kind of religion. I think you could possibly construct some arguments of how some people's principles in secular humanism can do as much.
I think it's a worthwhile discussion to have, and it could move us both to a little better ground in our lives. . . .
Totalitarian regimes are a phenomenon of the secular "humanist" age.
A little further comment on this claim. . . .
In the medieval Christian states, there was a complex power structure that involved both "secular" state authorities like Kings and nobles, whose support was essential to the system, as well as church authorities like Pope, Archbishops, and priestly orders who had some angles of influence as well. I would not call those governments, as the Holy Roman Empire or the British Empire "totalitarian", particularly as the in the British case, there was a necessity to settle with the commoners and acknowledge people's rights under the Magna Carta.
Most kings before the Middle ages and even during the Middle Ages had a complex power base that precluded arbitrary decisions that had the character of "totalitarian". Even today, Obama with his pen has to respond to bureaucrats in a myriad of federal agencies. Even the Pharoahs of Egypt and folks like Alexander the Great has a social network power base.
So what do we mean by "totalitarian" and "tyrant". In some respects these words share some meaning. Both are commonly thought to be lacking in feedback/input from the subjects/ruled people I think "tyrant" involves a much smaller decision-making base than a "totalitarian" government, perhaps not necessarily a distinction that always applies. A totalitarian government, like our current politician crop is hell-bent on establishing, has a professional base of specialists, a whole horde of public organizations representing various interests, and a set of financially powerful folks who all weigh in on the determination to use government to rule the little folks with absolute authority. All the people who aspire to be the rulers and relevant guiding lights in this kind of authoritarian/totalitarian state believe themselves to be "secular humanists' with superior insights entitling them to take the lead. Some of the players might think they are "religious" with superior insights as well, as some authoritarian religious organizations, such as those who are members of the World Council of Churches, as well. Even Obama has a lot of folks around who might expect him to listen. . . .but his whole crowd all wants the government to be empowered to do whatever they want it to do. . .
A person with a functional conscience who believes people should be respected in any set of natural or innate rights, perhaps "God-given rights", will shrink back from the brink of taking that step of going along with such totalitarian statism.
We have always had tyrants of all kinds of stripes, but only in the past two centuries have we had statists of this kind. Governments claiming to solve all our problems through overwhelming regulation and codification of human behavior without any actual limit of authority. Prior to this age, people had the common expectation of ownership of their property, transmission of their beliefs to their children, and some other personal rights. . . like choosing their doctor if there were any around. . . . . and there was no "Department of Education" that was so thorough in regimenting acceptable ideas. . . .
A little further comment on this claim. . . .
In the medieval Christian states, there was a complex power structure that involved both "secular" state authorities like Kings and nobles, whose support was essential to the system, as well as church authorities like Pope, Archbishops, and priestly orders who had some angles of influence as well. I would not call those governments, as the Holy Roman Empire or the British Empire "totalitarian", particularly as the in the British case, there was a necessity to settle with the commoners and acknowledge people's rights under the Magna Carta.
Most kings before the Middle ages and even during the Middle Ages had a complex power base that precluded arbitrary decisions that had the character of "totalitarian". Even today, Obama with his pen has to respond to bureaucrats in a myriad of federal agencies. Even the Pharoahs of Egypt and folks like Alexander the Great has a social network power base.
So what do we mean by "totalitarian" and "tyrant". In some respects these words share some meaning. Both are commonly thought to be lacking in feedback/input from the subjects/ruled people I think "tyrant" involves a much smaller decision-making base than a "totalitarian" government, perhaps not necessarily a distinction that always applies. A totalitarian government, like our current politician crop is hell-bent on establishing, has a professional base of specialists, a whole horde of public organizations representing various interests, and a set of financially powerful folks who all weigh in on the determination to use government to rule the little folks with absolute authority. All the people who aspire to be the rulers and relevant guiding lights in this kind of authoritarian/totalitarian state believe themselves to be "secular humanists' with superior insights entitling them to take the lead. Some of the players might think they are "religious" with superior insights as well, as some authoritarian religious organizations, such as those who are members of the World Council of Churches, as well. Even Obama has a lot of folks around who might expect him to listen. . . .but his whole crowd all wants the government to be empowered to do whatever they want it to do. . .
A person with a functional conscience who believes people should be respected in any set of natural or innate rights, perhaps "God-given rights", will shrink back from the brink of taking that step of going along with such totalitarian statism.
We have always had tyrants of all kinds of stripes, but only in the past two centuries have we had statists of this kind. Governments claiming to solve all our problems through overwhelming regulation and codification of human behavior without any actual limit of authority. Prior to this age, people had the common expectation of ownership of their property, transmission of their beliefs to their children, and some other personal rights. . . like choosing their doctor if there were any around. . . . . and there was no "Department of Education" that was so thorough in regimenting acceptable ideas. . . .
PearlWatson
Well-Known Member
PearlWatson
Well-Known Member
I am supposed to be surprised that any ideas could be invoked, sometimes in contradictory fashions, to evil ends? I made no claim that humanistic goals were immune to such use. I only objected to your claim that religious ideals would tend to scale back the excesses of tyranny, when in fact they are often used to support them.
Prior to this age, most people accepted they would never qualify to own their land, and that their transmitted beliefs would be subject to correction if they deviated too greatly from the prevailing religion. The current inability to choose doctors is a feature of private health insurance, not government insurance. Some ideas are in fact mis-education, and deserve to be regimented out.
Clearly, this is a notion of a Secular Humanist that has its corollaries in most other authoritative educational agendas.
It is the justification for all propaganda, all indoctrination, all regimentation, and it presumes, in the heart and mind of the "authorities" a clear claim to being the one who is, ultimately, in the right.
A good educator, in my view, would be content to evaluate different "ideas" using different tools of logic, reason, fact and/or evidence, and leave it to the student to discern the value, the impact, the moral aspects, or utility of the idea. . . . .
And yes, I do believe there are things that are "right" in my views, I have found them essentially on my own, and I realize that anyone else who would understand their rightness, would need to follow a comparable path, a personal journey in their own minds, to come to the same belief. . . .
Socrates was a fine teacher, in my opinion.
I get it that you view the real goal for national health care is the single-payer, government plan. But the ability to choose a doctor requires a supply of doctors marginally in excess of demand for their services, otherwise you can't get an appointment. Most single-payer government health systems don't motivate enough people to become doctors or put up with all the bureaucratic nonsense, or pay them enough to make putting up with their patients a happy thing.
I know it is the intention of our national planners to lay the blame on the big bad private insurers, and nobody really likes them to begin with. They are the illegitimate spawn of bankers anyhow, in the estimation of most folks who are not the owners or employees of those companies. However, the current unaffordable care system is not entirely their fault, though they sat at the table when the legislation was written. If they thought they could really win in the government casino, they were fools for rolling the dice.
Still, I'd rather have the choice of hiring an insurer to manage my risks than do without their service. I would favor less regulation in that market. . . . maybe just legal enforcement of their contracts in the courts, with some good tort lawyers working their rackets.
My only point here is exactly this. . . said better by you than I have done.
In my general theory of human behavior, any convenient raft of ideas will be pressed into service by those who need to work the masses for their own purposes. . . .
I see no sense in making "religion" or a specific notion of "God" out as "proved evil" because it has been used wrongly. I don't blame God for people's notions of "God" generally. . . most likely none of, or few of, us have understood whatever "God" is. . . . well, at least, I would like to understand better, somehow, someday. . . . .
So my claim is, more specifically, that having a belief in a higher authority, some kind of God who will judge our actions, is a check against excesses the believer might otherwise be prone to. Believing in God, if it generates a sense of "conscience" proscribing specified wrong behaviors, in the mind of a tyrant who has no other limiting force operating in his decision-making.
In your system, as a secular humanist, you can choose your own set of values and be guided by them just as well, if you care to.
I've been thinking about Henry VIII as a model of my theory. . . . . hardly a paragon of virtue in the eyes of most of us. . . . he was a tyrant who could and did just run through the people in his life much like Stalin did, for perhaps different reasons. He was willing to burn "heretics" for even having a Bible, and he found it convenient to just assume the ecclesiastical authority over his nation as well. But in viewing some (two) DVD movies on his life and times, I see his actual belief in God acting as a check against his impulses throughout his life. . . . he had to do a lot of mental gymnastics to make his course seem right in his own mind, and I view that "necessity" as an impediment which Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot, Hitler. . . .and a lot of others. . . have lacked, believing as they did that there was no God nor any relevant "Judge" whose views they needed to try to take into account. . . .
At the collegiate level, absolutely. At the elementary level, I disagree strongly. Socrates was a fine teacher of adults.
Health insurance is unlike any other sort of insurance. A truly free market would be unsustainable for anything but catastrophic insurance. This is why you see a much freer market for auto insurance than for health insurance.
I don't see belief in God as being a force for evil, nor a force for good. As a believer, you can still choose your own set of values and be guided by them just as well, if you care to. You just assign them to being what God wants.
Also, I really hope you're not putting serious stock into the depiction of a historical figure portrayed by a media that is itself a product of a highly religious country, with the usual bias of the positive effects of religion.
A truly free market would not be unsustainable for anything but catastrophic insurance. It would certainly create some elite insurance plans. Some would have worse insurance or none at all. It all depends on how much of a catastrophe you think having no/poor health insurance is.
Looking for, and analyzing, the bias in a book or documentary or movie is a bad habit of mine. Usually, after watching anything, even a Disney movie or an episode of Dr. Who, I will ask the kids what kind of worldview they are buying. . . . The belief in magic and the prejudices worked into the stereotypes used in Disney products is not really good for kids, nor is the presumption of superiority in the elitism of the doctor. But then, sometimes I won't ruin the fun, either. . . .
Socrates was a fine teacher, especially for children or youngsters. If you are content to let any mode of public indoctrination go unquestioned, the primary value of education is missing. It's the asking of questions that initiates thought. It might be a gift or an art to inspire questions in the first place, but until you engage that human faculty, hammering facts, data, or a world view into a child is probably a crime in the eyes of God.
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Unless one has the ideological blinders one in favor of government solutions to everything. . . . the reality is dawning on almost everyone that the real catastrophe is the Affordable Care Act.
Employers have, en masse, resorted to evasion of the expenses it imposes on them in a probably vain attempt to remain solvent. They have cut back on the number of employees, and cut the hours of as many employees as they dare to keep them under 30 hours, and the total numbers of employees under the thresholds where mandates apply. They have also cut wages because they can't afford the costs of their labor.
People have chosen, in large numbers, to simply drop out of jobs in order to qualify for government-subsidized "care". Our entire economy is going into a tailspin and we are heading for the levels of prosperity only marxists have achieved, historically. . . .. mass shortages of goods, services, and everything else people can ordinarily produce. . . . even rationed health care that will mean a lot of folks simply won't get any care at all. . . .
To be certain, a lot of production is moving out of our country even while our cartelists are importing virtual slave labor under "Amnesty", as well.
Housing prices, and prices in goods and services in every segment of our economy will also be dropping like lead balloons while people earn less, and pay much much more for the little health care they can afford. . . .
Stock prices will ultimately plummet as well because even the trillions of "economic stimulus" funds being handed out by the Fed and even directly invested by the Fed in various markets, are an unsustainable sort of influence. In the end, it is only actual earnings that can "prop up" investments from whatever source, and there is no way our 'sugared up" markets are not just another "pump and dump" operation courtesy of our economic planners, who are delusional at best.
Any time you include health maintenance in voluntary health insurance, you get into a spiral where those who are healthy are paying to supplement those with chronic conditions. They leave, and the price of insurance increases, and again the most healthy leave, the price increases, etc. You can't gather a large group by marketing to them as individuals. Why buy health insurance to cover things like vaccines, asthma medicine, etc., that you don't use?