freecounterpoint: A Pope Leavens Spengler's Gloom

Monday, September 18, 2006

A Pope Leavens Spengler's Gloom

So many "bigots" for Pepe to tilt at. Now he and his trusted Sacko Pansies now have the Singaporean Admiral Doom to contend with.

24 comments:

The Darkroom said...: it honors a god who suffers no constraints on his caprice, unlike the Judeo-Christian god, who is limited by love.
Are we witnessing the beginning of a great "my god is better than thine" pissing contest?

The premise here is that the christian idol is all about love, in spite of 2000 years of evidence to the contrary, including the crusades, the reformation, the inquisition, Pius XII and the child-buggering Boston clergy?

If I spread this much love, I'd be in St Quentin (Angola, LA actually) strapped to a gurney!; 9/18/2006 10:48 AM
Mr roT said...: Let's just compare the New Testament to the Koran, Pepe. Nowhere does the New Testament suggest the Crusades, but it's right smack in the Koran that the alternative to conversion to Islam is the sword.
There's nothing to argue. There are documents to simply check.
Here is a searchable Koran. Have fun. Search for 'infidel' and 'war' and so on. You will have no more excuses for posts like this afterwards.; 9/18/2006 12:09 PM
Mr roT said...: I am talking about the New Testament, but I invite you to provide the relevant quotes from (obviously) the Old.; 9/18/2006 12:52 PM
Mr roT said...: Here's a searchable Bible.; 9/18/2006 12:57 PM
The Darkroom said...: Gladly - Leviticus is a delight of christian tolerance.

20:10 - And the man that committeth adultery with another man's wife, even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.

24:16: And he that blasphemeth the name of the LORD, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him: as well the stranger, as he that is born in the land, when he blasphemeth the name of the Lord, shall be put to death.

Deuteronomy - 7
1. When the LORD thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou;
And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them:
Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son.
For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the LORD be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly.
But thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire.

you want more ?; 9/18/2006 1:26 PM
The Darkroom said...: Deuteronomy 21:18-21
If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them:
Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place;
And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard.
And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.; 9/18/2006 1:31 PM
The Darkroom said...: unlike the Judeo-Christian god, who is limited by love.

Psalm 137-9: Happy shall he be, who takes and dashes your little ones against the rock.; 9/18/2006 1:37 PM
The Darkroom said...: Ezekiel 9:5
As I listened, he said to the others, "Follow him through the city and kill, without showing pity or compassion. 6 Slaughter old men, young men and maidens, women and children, but do not touch anyone who has the mark. Begin at my sanctuary." So they began with the elders who were in front of the temple.

Need more data ?; 9/18/2006 1:39 PM
Mr roT said...: None of that is from the New Testament.; 9/18/2006 2:05 PM
The Darkroom said...: right. this is about the loving judeo-christian god referenced in the initial post.; 9/18/2006 3:55 PM
Tecumseh said...: AA: Very good find with this Spengler article. Used to read this guy quite a lot a couple of years ago, but he fell off my radar screen. Should bookmark him.

JJ: For once, we agree on biblical stuff. Your admonition to go to the original sources, instead of blowing wind, was well taken, while Pepe's digging himself deeper and deeper in a hole by citing from the text you said he shouldn't quote is a classic example of why that saying ("when in a hole, stop diggin') was invented in the first place. (BTW, can that saying be found in the Bible, perhaps in an oblique way, or is it a moder creation? I have to confess, it's one of the few sayings I had not heard as a kid, I learned it around here somewhere.)

Finally, to get back on topic, here is a sentence in Spengler's article that I have doubts about:

No more can one assume now that Europe will slide meekly into dhimmitude.

Hmmmm... This reminds me of "Une hirondelle ne fait pas le printemps" -- not sure there is an English equivalent. But certainly Spengler is getting downright exhuberantly optimistic here. How possibly could the Pope singlehandedly stop the downward spiral into nihilistic emptiness, the slow slide down the slippery slope of the Old Continent? It would be a great story, devoutly to be wished, of course, but for once, count me skeptical.; 9/18/2006 5:32 PM
The Darkroom said...: yeah - silly Pepe quoting the Old Testament to make a point about Judeo-Christian rationale. Think you'll find much about judeism in the New Testament, AI ?; 9/18/2006 5:36 PM
The Darkroom said...: Pepe's digging himself deeper and deeper in a hole by citing from the text you said he shouldn't quote

Initialy I was only authorized to quote from Mother Goose but JJ later cut me some slack.; 9/18/2006 5:47 PM
Mr roT said...: My Christian upbringing got you that indulgence. If I had gone for the muslim approach you would be blind, handless, footless and more dickless than ever!; 9/18/2006 6:05 PM
Tecumseh said...: And singing line a canari?

Kelly's vocals had a very specific style, where she screamed to the limit and it sounded quite painful. This led to her damaging her vocal cords and the band was unable to continue.

You see, The Lord works in mysterious ways...; 9/18/2006 9:05 PM
The Darkroom said...: So can we now agree that the scriptures show the Judeo-christian idol is just as blood-thirsty as its muslim counterpart or is this another false start ??; 9/18/2006 9:15 PM
Arelcao Akleos said...: Pepe, I thought you approved of the Boston Clergy's right to express love in their own special way. Why should Nambla Operators be denied their right to integrate? Have you checked the fine print on your UberPC contract?
The Crusades were a counterattack by Europe against the 400 years worth of attacks from Islam. Ya saying christians have no right to self defense? [Christ probably would say that, but then he took his religion far too seriously]. You, at the time, would recommend fo sho the old delights of being dhimmi, but then if they had listened to you there never would have been a Versailles for you to hold as the center of all things.
This Pope Pius XII thing is getting old. The chap was scared shitless by the Nazis, did not even try to save many Polish Catholics, never mind Jews. Did you even bother to read the article JJ linked to the Jewish Encyclopedia [name?]. He showed more guts, however, than almost all Frenchmen. Care to measure yours to his?
The reformation and counter-reformation led to some very bloody wars, and these wars are the "low' point of Christianity's history in a moral sense [although, with JJ and Gibbon, I curse the tender mindedness the religion inflicted on Rome. Besides I am not christian]. The one in particular, though of course wedded with all sorts of purely political interests, was the 30 years war. But, ya know, Pepe, in all those wars, and in all the statements from Pope or Prince or Preacher, I have never read a single one which based their call to action on the New Testament, on anything Jesus said, at all, and if you read the extant criticisms of these conflicts, and they were many, they often make explicit reference to the sinfullness of the bloodletting by quoting directly from the New Testament. Simply put, the killers had to find a reason to kill other than what Jesus said. In Islam that is not now, nor ever has been, a problem killers face. In that religion, the onus is on the peacemakers to try and find ulterior reason as to why the calls to war/jihad should be disregarded in the particular context. In christianity, you have to be essentially sinful, a hypocrite, to kill. In Islam, all that blood just greases the chute to paradise.
By the way, the Inquisition killed very very few people compared to those "civil wars" of the 16th, and particularly 17th, centuries. In fact, given the length of time the Inquisition lasted, it killed very few people, period. Torquemada was a piker even to Tito. And of course Tito was a rank amateur compared to many magnificent mass killers that hewed and hacked in the name of Socialism throughout the 20th century. [By the way, Pepe if your admiration for Fidel stays true and bleu after 100,000 dead, exactly what is the basis for your peculiar horror at the 3,,000 or so poor souls who perished in the over 200 years of inquisitorial life?]
Come to think of it, fewer people died in the Inquisition in two centuries than Jihad killed just this last year alone.....It seems the Crescent is much sharper than the Cross.; 9/18/2006 9:26 PM
Arelcao Akleos said...: Pepe, Jesus was the basis of Christianity. You keep wanting to throw in Torah and early Talmud. What, ya can't tell the difference between sons of apes and pigs and bible thumpers? Your fabled powers of nuance and sophistication are dying, bro.
Now some christians throw in the old testament, with varying amounts of weighting, and some throw in post-Jesusry, with varying amounts of clarity as to how it is all supposed to work. But, for all christians, it is Jesus who is the heart of the game. After all, if you don't buy his gig, then you are not a Christian. But you can diss anyone else, be he Moses or be he Peter, and still be a Christian. After all, if you are gonna be a Christian you've got to buy into Jesus being "Son of God". And that is some damn fine holy stuff, if you believe. That is even more weight given to the dude than to Mohammed, who is merely the second hand Fed Ex guy [God to Gabriel to Mohammed to Poor Blighters being the way the shit flowed down hill]. And if Islam can say with a straight face that the Quran is Perfect and Complete and utterly true, and the Haditha and Sunna are taken as the equivalent of the differing accounts of Jesus in the New Testament, then surely you should recognize the fact that Christianity is all about Jesus, if it is about anything, when the less exalted status of Mohmy is yet sufficient to make Islam all about him, if it is about anything.
This, of course, goes back to the point I made yesterday. Pepe knows for a fact that Christianity is far milder than Islam. He just doesn't want to bother thinking through the implications of that for what passes for his "worldview". He proves he knows this for a fact by his actions, if not his words. AI, for example, is a committed Christian. And Pepe feels unfearful of slagging christians to kingdom come, he in fact has no fear that AI will himself, or encourage others, to hunt him down like a rabid dog and hang his gutted body on a bridge for the greater glory of God. But he fears Islam. If AI was a committed muslim, I do not think Pepe would be showing the "bravery" he believes he is exhibiting before us.
Oh, by the way, although Torah and early Talmud are full of nasty tribal injunctions and obvious discomfort with our contemporary sense of joie de vivre, you see no trace in history of a Jewish equivalent of Jihad [unless Pepe equates the desire for a Jewish state with the desire to conquer the world for Allah]. You see, Pepe the Nuanced and Sophisticated, there is another way religions differ, on the way the believer is to view the sacred writings. In Judaism, the main current, from the earliest days, was on interpretation of the word of God, of probing and questioning what is meant. Not of blind and total submission to some "Complete Truth". So, for example, even with Abraham and Moses, but fulsomely with Job, you have men directionally questioning not just the meaning of the "word of God", but questioning God himself. This critical spirit is not the frame of mind that leads to the easy bending of men to mob action or unquestioned authority.
Simply put, the nasty stuff in the old testament has very little carrying power, not in Judaism, never mind Christianity. Which is why those who do so try to make it carry have an endlessly frustrating time of it within these religions.
In Islam, it is all so very different. Even Mr. Third on the Shit List Himself, Mohmy, has to be taken as unquestioned, has to be obeyed. He was "the best of all possible Muslims". He killed and raped. So killing and raping, in the context of Jihad, or "honor", or "submitting to Allah" must be just fine. To question that is to be a very very bad Muslim indeed....
All else flows from this.
But, hey, Pepe, don't let me stop you from your ambition of living and dying as Caricature Man.; 9/18/2006 9:53 PM
Arelcao Akleos said...: AI, I agree with you about Spengler's unjustified optimism about Europe and dhimmitude. I think that he has been in the dark depths of Castle Despair for so long that even the glow of a firefly strikes his eyes as the radiance of Hope.; 9/18/2006 10:03 PM
Mr roT said...: Al Qaeda blows something up big in Europe maybe they come around. A bunch of stupid commuters in Madrid the Europeans don't care about. Who does? You need a symbol.
Eiffel, anyone? St Pete's? Hope Benny 16 got those Patriot missiles.; 9/18/2006 10:54 PM
Tecumseh said...: AA: Interesting theological discussion you got there, complete with comparative religions. We should pursue this topic, it's fascinating to me. We need some good reference texts, besides the primary sources, which we all know about. But time does not permit reading the whole nine yards -- is there a reasonable shortcut?

JJ: Do I detect just a smidgen of nervousness behind your usual bravura, when it comes to jihadi threats to the Eternal City? Hmmmm.... Danger seems to concentrate a man's mind, doesn't it? Seriously now, with Berlusconi gone, is anyone minding the store there, or did Prodi & Co go the Zapatero route?

And finally, why do you say nobody cares about those "stupid commuters" in Madrid? I for one do. And they were not just commuters, by the way. There were also a few méteques among those dead.; 9/19/2006 3:16 AM
The Darkroom said...: aa- Jihad injures reason, for it honors a god who suffers no constraints on his caprice, unlike the Judeo-Christian god, who is limited by love. is the quote in the article. What does the "judeo" in "judeo-christian" mean to you ? There is no reference to sweet baby jesus here (the staement is not that the son of god is unlimited by love) - so the Old Testament is the proper reference to debunk the absurdity of the statement that while the Koran invites left & right to violence, the Judeo-Christianity reference does likewise.

I take note of the fact that you believe the OT isn't to be considered a christian reference.

But (sincere) thanks for the historical thread.; 9/19/2006 9:14 AM
Mr roT said...: AI, my saying that no one cares about a few commuters means that the European elites don't. They will not see the 'light' that jihad is a threat beyond just a public order thing like Pepe sees it until a symbol of theirs is defaced or destroyed.
I certainly don't want harm to come to the Rome that I love or even the parts I detest. I just wonder if the Europeans ever got their 9/11 whether they would continue to try to appease.
They have chosen dishonor. They will get war. Will they fight?
The Europeans have dishoneastly labelled the Madrid train attack and the London tube bombings their 9/11s and have intimated that Germany has avoided her 9/11 by good police work (and probably some rough interrogations). But their scope was as Pepe would say public order, crime-level.; 9/19/2006 1:49 PM
The Darkroom said...: They have chosen dishonor. They will get war.
oh cool - sounds like the three fucking musketeers all over again.; 9/19/2006 9:52 PM