Re: Parris on the effects of christianity

On Wed, 31 Dec 2008 17:28:32 -0000, "DVH" <dvh@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


"abelard" <abelard3@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:ub9nl4hhf8bpvho7pvle2trbop2h5n5otd@xxxxxxxxxx
On Wed, 31 Dec 2008 15:31:21 -0000, "DVH" <dvh@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Christianity makes a man of you.

"In the city we had working for us Africans who had converted and were
strong believers. The Christians were always different. Far from having
cowed or confined its converts, their faith appeared to have liberated and
relaxed them. There was a liveliness, a curiosity, an engagement with the
world - a directness in their dealings with others - that seemed to be
missing in traditional African life. They stood tall.

Whenever we entered a territory worked by missionaries, we had to
acknowledge that something changed in the faces of the people we passed
and
spoke to: something in their eyes, the way they approached you direct,
man-to-man, without looking down or away. They had not become more
deferential towards strangers - in some ways less so - but more open."

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/matthew_parris/article5400568.ece

it is always good to see someone talking sense....
i shall use it!

the church of rome has long been a prime bulwark against
the dire and dangerous killer cult of socialism....
the more modern society comes to understand the nature
of that mental disease, the better...

from a jesuit...
"Religion has its own work, which is to educate people who are too
dull to understand philosophy, or too untutored to be amenable to its
teaching. This is why religion is necessary, for what it preaches is
fundamentally the same as what philosophy teaches, and, unless common
men believed what it preaches, they would behave like beasts. But
theologians should preach, not teach, just as philosophers should
teach, not preach. Theologians should not attempt to demonstrate,
because they cannot do it, and philosophers must be careful not to get
belief mixed up with what they prove, because then they can no longer
prove anything. Now, to preach creation is just a handy way to make
people feel that God is their Master, which is true even though, as is
well known by those who truly philosophize, nothing of the sort ever
happened."
Etienne Gilson [1884 - 1978], Being and Some Philosophers, p. 52


one of the best structured articles i've yet to see from parris...
i see not one real slip-up....he is probably continuing to improve
...if he goes on developing like this he'll be a seriously useful
contributor to improving this sad little planet!

He knows people really think things, which is rare.

it's getting to the stage that wish he'd produce a serious book
or two....

yak note...
recommended read...

Schop. A German, so you won't like him!

"Where you have masses of people of crude susceptibilities and clumsy
intelligence, sordid in their pursuits and sunk in drudgery, religion
provides the only means of proclaiming and making them feel the hight import
of life. For the average man takes an interest, primarily, in nothing but
what will satisfy his physical needs and hankerings, and beyond this, give
him a little amusement and pastime. Founders of religion and philosophers
come into the world to rouse him from his stupor and point to the lofty
meaning of existence; philosophers for the few, the emancipated, founders of
religion for the many, for humanity at large. For, as your friend Plato has
said, the multitude can't be philosophers, and you shouldn't forget that.
Religion is the metaphysics of the masses; by all means let them keep it:
let it therefore command external respect, for to discredit it is to take it
away. Just as they have popular poetry, and the popular wisdom of proverbs,
so they must have popular metaphysics too: for mankind absolutely needs an
interpretation of life; and this, again, must be suited to popular
comprehension. Consequently, this interpretation is always an allegorical
investiture of the truth: and in practical life and in its effects on the
feelings, that is to say, as a rule of action and as a comfort and
consolation in suffering and death, it accomplishes perhaps just as much as
the truth itself could achieve if we possessed it. Don't take offense at its
unkempt, grotesque and apparently absurd form; for with your education and
learning, you have no idea of the roundabout ways by which people in their
crude state have to receive their knowledge of deep truths. The various
religions are only various forms in which the truth, which taken by itself
is above their comprehension, is grasped and realized by the masses; and
truth becomes inseparable from these forms."

that looks pretty damned sound to me :-)

it's the interminable nature of their writings i abhor....
60 pages where 2 would do....bit like dickens!

and the terrible lack of real humour....

is he the composer? surely not....more data requested

regards

--
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