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bipolar2
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3 months ago
in Which Language Should I Learn? on Leximo - A World Dictionary
** your expectations won't be met
Exactly - - if I were to "transport" you to the center of the center of Rome, the Piazza Pantheon, you could play tourist just like so many clueless Americans do. Forgot to learn even a smattering of politeness, did they?
In Italy Italian is spoken. Mi capisce? Otherwise you're stuck in a 4-star circle of Hell -- dependent on those who had to learn your so-called world lingua franca. The better to extract euros from fessi (dupes).
Take a class at a community college, a bookstore, find a class with an independent teacher -- that way you find other Italo-nuts or Franco-nuts or Spano-nuts . . .
I’ve been doing the-learn-in-small-groups mode for years. Over time, I’ve got rather good at speaking in Italian. (Otherwise you'll be mistaken for a German tourist! O Dio!)
Next time you’re in Piazza Pantheon, look around I might just be there watching the folks from back home who imagine that English is widely spoken by the "locals."
Exactly - - if I were to "transport" you to the center of the center of Rome, the Piazza Pantheon, you could play tourist just like so many clueless Americans do. Forgot to learn even a smattering of politeness, did they?
In Italy Italian is spoken. Mi capisce? Otherwise you're stuck in a 4-star circle of Hell -- dependent on those who had to learn your so-called world lingua franca. The better to extract euros from fessi (dupes).
Take a class at a community college, a bookstore, find a class with an independent teacher -- that way you find other Italo-nuts or Franco-nuts or Spano-nuts . . .
I’ve been doing the-learn-in-small-groups mode for years. Over time, I’ve got rather good at speaking in Italian. (Otherwise you'll be mistaken for a German tourist! O Dio!)
Next time you’re in Piazza Pantheon, look around I might just be there watching the folks from back home who imagine that English is widely spoken by the "locals."
8 months ago
in Denver archbishop takes swipe at Obama, Biden over abortion rights on The Colorado Independent
** Who cares what any priest says? **
• Pro-life ranters are not pro-life.
They are pro-BIRTH. A dogma once called pro-natalism. It’s an androcentric, completely misogynistic, demand that no impediment whatsoever on births be permitted by law. What happens to mother and child after birth is irrelevant since the “laws” of nature will then cull weak from strong.
No chemical contraception: the pill, spermacides. No barriers to conception: IUD, condoms. No abortions, not even in cases of rape, incest. Pro-natalism is the sexual theory of Ms. Palin, myriad other fundies, Mormons, and the RC church. Enough of ancient paternalistic desert tribal customs which do not belong in any planet-wide ethos.
• Issue one is quality of life, not frequency of birth.
As Marvin Harris made very clear in “Cannibals and Kings”: reproduction will always overtake food production, leading to vast overpopulation, de-facto slavery, degraded environments, and marginal living conditions. Technological intensification of food production makes for only short-term solutions.
But, technological innovation in birth control should already make ancient fears of Doomsday disappear. Why has insane population growth continued, especially in America the wasteful, which added 100 million people in 37 years.
In fact this sick religio-ideology is pro-mass-death: creating disease, poverty, and ignorance worldwide by fostering overpopulation, damning safe non-reproductive sex, and blocking responsible medical research.
• Issue two is social control directed against women and children
Religious authoritarians hate the US. They will not tolerate an open society, a pluralist culture, or a secular state.
Like their muslim brethren, authoritarian xians shudder at a technological world in which mental agility has replaced physical strength as a core measure of economic utility. This reordering of values strips away a core big-3 monotheist lie: god-ordained male supremacy.
Xian ultra-rights, just like Islamic ultra-rights, demand racial “purity,” male dominated social control, subjugation of women, unquestioned acceptance of religious tyranny.
bipolar2 © 2008
• Pro-life ranters are not pro-life.
They are pro-BIRTH. A dogma once called pro-natalism. It’s an androcentric, completely misogynistic, demand that no impediment whatsoever on births be permitted by law. What happens to mother and child after birth is irrelevant since the “laws” of nature will then cull weak from strong.
No chemical contraception: the pill, spermacides. No barriers to conception: IUD, condoms. No abortions, not even in cases of rape, incest. Pro-natalism is the sexual theory of Ms. Palin, myriad other fundies, Mormons, and the RC church. Enough of ancient paternalistic desert tribal customs which do not belong in any planet-wide ethos.
• Issue one is quality of life, not frequency of birth.
As Marvin Harris made very clear in “Cannibals and Kings”: reproduction will always overtake food production, leading to vast overpopulation, de-facto slavery, degraded environments, and marginal living conditions. Technological intensification of food production makes for only short-term solutions.
But, technological innovation in birth control should already make ancient fears of Doomsday disappear. Why has insane population growth continued, especially in America the wasteful, which added 100 million people in 37 years.
In fact this sick religio-ideology is pro-mass-death: creating disease, poverty, and ignorance worldwide by fostering overpopulation, damning safe non-reproductive sex, and blocking responsible medical research.
• Issue two is social control directed against women and children
Religious authoritarians hate the US. They will not tolerate an open society, a pluralist culture, or a secular state.
Like their muslim brethren, authoritarian xians shudder at a technological world in which mental agility has replaced physical strength as a core measure of economic utility. This reordering of values strips away a core big-3 monotheist lie: god-ordained male supremacy.
Xian ultra-rights, just like Islamic ultra-rights, demand racial “purity,” male dominated social control, subjugation of women, unquestioned acceptance of religious tyranny.
bipolar2 © 2008
8 months ago
in Ultra-Right Wing Is Now The New Taliban. on TheAmericanBoy | Thought Arena
** many religious ideologies will do if . . . **
• worldly benefits prove nothing about otherworldly claims
The earliest xians certainly received benefits in the-here-and-now for their faith: physical and psychological comfort, especially a nurturing of hatred.
Of course, xianity still has something to offer as it has for 2,000 years -- but psychological comfort, decent burial of the dead, communal action, pathways for employment, and opportunities for "martyrdom" are irrelevant to any hysterical claim made first by Paul or later writers of Jesus legends, whether accepted into xian orthodoxy or not.
Any member of any sect within islam, xianity, judaism, or zoroastrianism (the big-4 monotheisms) can cite his myths, cultic practices, and endlessly circular commentary to equal effect.
What uplifts me, what comforts me, what I’m willing to die for . . . is no evidence whatsoever that any otherworldly belief is true. (Such reasoning exemplifies ignoratio elenchi -- lack of any logical connection between premises and conclusion.)
• Xian nihilism and its self-righteous inverted elitism arise simultaneously.
No single passage better demonstrates xian anti-intellectualism than Paul's words in 1Cor1:1-28 damning Greek philosophy.
His letter to a xian cell in Corinth, Greece contains Paul's hateful fideistic response to the jews who threw him out of synagogues in Palestine and to the epicurean and stoic philosophers who hooted him off of the Areopagus in Athens.
20 . . . Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 . . . God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22 Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles . . . . 1Cor1:20-23 NIV with omissions.
In short, Paul created a god glorifying his nihilistic values and offering an inverted elitism to all who would believe in absurdities. Paul cheerfully calls himself, "a fool for Christ."
27-But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28-He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are . . . 1Cor1:26-28 NIV
In a delightful line, an early philosophical critic, Celsus enquires, “...Who are we to believe a rabble of [jewish and xian] prophets, or the [Greek] philosophers?” (True Doctrine p.108) It’s a rhetorical question. Any fool can see that.
In his "On the genealogy of morals" (1886), Nietzsche cites Paul’s verses as the non plus ultra of xian resentment giving birth to values completely antithetical to those of Greco-Roman thought. It took 500 years of very lucky breaks and seized opportunities before xianity finally destroyed every vestige of humanism for another 1,000 years.
• get beyond the subjective circle of personal anecdote
A refusal to reason (Paul’s ‘foolishness’) must end in blind, arrogant fideism -- any cult can get away with that -- even large, well-funded, world endangering ones, like xianity and islam.
I suggest that you take a look at the following works which provide evidence against any of the big-4 monotheisms, especially xianity:
Dodds, ER. Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety 1963
Wilkins, R. The Christians as the Romans Saw Them 1984
Celsus. On the True Doctrine, A Discourse Against the Christians (178 CE) trans. Hoffmann 1987
Barnstone, W. (ed.) The Other Bible, Ancient Alternative Scriptures 1984
Onfray, M. Atheist Manifesto. 2006
Also, for the self-righteous xian responders to this post. Do an inventory of your own apologetic stance against the monotheistic cousins of xianity. Why are islam’s metaphysical claims untrue and yours true? Then turn your arguments on your own views. You’ll refute yourself.
bipolar2 ©2008
• worldly benefits prove nothing about otherworldly claims
The earliest xians certainly received benefits in the-here-and-now for their faith: physical and psychological comfort, especially a nurturing of hatred.
Of course, xianity still has something to offer as it has for 2,000 years -- but psychological comfort, decent burial of the dead, communal action, pathways for employment, and opportunities for "martyrdom" are irrelevant to any hysterical claim made first by Paul or later writers of Jesus legends, whether accepted into xian orthodoxy or not.
Any member of any sect within islam, xianity, judaism, or zoroastrianism (the big-4 monotheisms) can cite his myths, cultic practices, and endlessly circular commentary to equal effect.
What uplifts me, what comforts me, what I’m willing to die for . . . is no evidence whatsoever that any otherworldly belief is true. (Such reasoning exemplifies ignoratio elenchi -- lack of any logical connection between premises and conclusion.)
• Xian nihilism and its self-righteous inverted elitism arise simultaneously.
No single passage better demonstrates xian anti-intellectualism than Paul's words in 1Cor1:1-28 damning Greek philosophy.
His letter to a xian cell in Corinth, Greece contains Paul's hateful fideistic response to the jews who threw him out of synagogues in Palestine and to the epicurean and stoic philosophers who hooted him off of the Areopagus in Athens.
20 . . . Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 . . . God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22 Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles . . . . 1Cor1:20-23 NIV with omissions.
In short, Paul created a god glorifying his nihilistic values and offering an inverted elitism to all who would believe in absurdities. Paul cheerfully calls himself, "a fool for Christ."
27-But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28-He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are . . . 1Cor1:26-28 NIV
In a delightful line, an early philosophical critic, Celsus enquires, “...Who are we to believe a rabble of [jewish and xian] prophets, or the [Greek] philosophers?” (True Doctrine p.108) It’s a rhetorical question. Any fool can see that.
In his "On the genealogy of morals" (1886), Nietzsche cites Paul’s verses as the non plus ultra of xian resentment giving birth to values completely antithetical to those of Greco-Roman thought. It took 500 years of very lucky breaks and seized opportunities before xianity finally destroyed every vestige of humanism for another 1,000 years.
• get beyond the subjective circle of personal anecdote
A refusal to reason (Paul’s ‘foolishness’) must end in blind, arrogant fideism -- any cult can get away with that -- even large, well-funded, world endangering ones, like xianity and islam.
I suggest that you take a look at the following works which provide evidence against any of the big-4 monotheisms, especially xianity:
Dodds, ER. Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety 1963
Wilkins, R. The Christians as the Romans Saw Them 1984
Celsus. On the True Doctrine, A Discourse Against the Christians (178 CE) trans. Hoffmann 1987
Barnstone, W. (ed.) The Other Bible, Ancient Alternative Scriptures 1984
Onfray, M. Atheist Manifesto. 2006
Also, for the self-righteous xian responders to this post. Do an inventory of your own apologetic stance against the monotheistic cousins of xianity. Why are islam’s metaphysical claims untrue and yours true? Then turn your arguments on your own views. You’ll refute yourself.
bipolar2 ©2008
9 months ago
in Palin, The Iron-Fist Mayor? on The Washington Independent
The locution is not "tow the line" ; it is "toe the line." A line is scratched in the dirt; bring boot toes to line up to it. Soldiers in line. OK?
