OT Re: [oclug] 16-year-old technology obsolete while 916-year-old tech lives on

[Francis J. A. Pinteric]

On Mon, 04 Mar 2002 15:33:11 -0500
Pat <gilliland at sympatico.ca> wrote:

>>  Rights
> > impose on man that notion of the `greater good' that mere 'biological
> > imperative' denies.
> >
> 
> No not at all.  As a species our main survival tool is the acquisition,
> retention and dissemination of knowledge.  Stephen Hawking to use a much
> overused example, is very fit to live in our society and may well have
> excellent genes to contribute.   "Fittest" for humans does not
> necessarily mean physical prowess or Wayne Gretzky would be running
> Microsoft not Bill Gates.  Co-operation and helping the weak actually
> might improve our species overall.

You're jumping from the biological to the social. Stephen Hawking, as the
overused example, is a prime example of why the "biological imperative" is
irrelavent to the socialogicall order. (Although why he is an example that
is overused you will need to expalin to me -- he proves that genius is
inspired not bred). There is such a thing as the "social imperative" also
known as the "greater good" which the biological aspect of our nature
works against. I suggest you spend some time studying the "lower classes"
and a reading of the life and works of Maslov at this point.

/* SOME MAY FIND THE FOLLWING OBJECTIONABLE -- TOO BAD */
There are certain social theories, however, that take as their inspiration
the biological order and perverting them. Social Darwinists insist that
the rich are better people by virtue of their wealth  and therefore are
entitled to the best education and the best jobs, even at the expense of
the poor (which flies in the face of their abhorence of new money). Nazism
created a form of religion on the basis of a supposed superiority of the
German people which they presumed to be Aryan (which in point of fact they
are not). One hundred years ago, even the concept of race was much
different than it is today.  Then, culture and locality also factored into
our understanding of race. Today our understanding of race is mostly based
on physical characteristics, except where politically expedient (like the
Jews and Palestinians, or the Islamic and Hindi Punjabi). It is also
interesting to note that even our modern understanding of race is based on
Nazi research -- perhaps something we should be undoing?/* I FORGET HOW TO
USE LINT */

Some humans are driven not only by biology. Some of us also possess the
spark of the divine, and that drives those of us possessed of it even
further. Some are driven to prove their divine natures, others are driven
to categorically deny it and rank themselves as no better than their
animal neighbours. The truth, as usual, is somewhere in between.


> Farmers provide food for academics who do research to allow us to grow
> more food and so on.
> 

Mixing sociology and biology again. Farmers exist because of sociology not
biology.

>
> 
> First word of the sentence thus capitalized.  Henry and Luther and a few
> others (including my late grandfather) would strongly disagree on the
> One True Church.....

And thus your strongly humanist opinions. Indeed, Luther would rank as a
humanist if he did not strongly believe in God. Luther, in the end, was a
strong believer in God and His law. The problem lay in that Luther assumed
that he was a man not only capable of sinning and indulging it, but that
it was in his very nature ... that man himself was evil. From the absolute
corruption of mankind we move to a whole host of Protestant doctrine that
took decades to invent, all of which stands in contrast to true Catholic
doctrine.

But Luther's big problem was Luther himself. Luther started out arguing  a
novel concept of "salvation by faith alone." When the Church showed him
his error, rather than accepting that he was wrong, he clung to his
opinion and tried to prove it from another angle. (How many of us in our
younger years have done the same?) Now, salvation was indeed accomplished
by faith "alone" because the Bible itself proclaimed it, and that if one
ignores the opinions of all the fathers of the Church and accepted the
authority of the Bible alone, he would be vindicated. Well, the Church
took him up on his offer and proved him wrong yet again, and showed that
his own particular view of salvation by faith alone was false even on his
own terms.  (2 Maccabees 12:42-46 was usually quoted in this regard).

After that, he started tampering with the Bible itself. He was convinced
that he was right and the Church was wrong and in order to do so started
writing all sorts of invectives against not only the Church but the Bible
itself. Luther would want half the Bible removed, and declared that
salvation was accomplished by his doctrine alone, and even the angels
could not judge him (citations available on requrest). 

Protestants eventually rejected 7 books from the Bible, and parts of two
others in order to justify their two new novel theories never before found
in Christian theology: salvation by faith alone, and the concept that the
Bible alone was the sole rule of faith. (For those interested, by that
point the Bible was over 1100 years old -- if you want to know what it was
originally look for the "Catholic Ediition" when looking for Bibles in
your local bookstore). 

By then, it was decades later, growing into centuries with wars and
insurrections. As time wore on, animosities and hatreds developed and
Luther and his errors developed into a religion of hatred against
Catholicism. Christ's religion of love became a hatred of Catholics. 

But I find myself becoming too partisan and a different forum would be
better suited to a diatribe on the evils of Protestantism.

>>>--fja->

P.S.  While there are a great deal of terrible things that Catholics did
in the name of their religion, Protestants have used those things as an
excuse for their own behaviour. When we hear of the Inquisition, the
Spanish Inquisition comes to mind. But never do the Inquisitions that the
Protestants themselves created in central Europe, even by Luther himself,
or Calvin or Zwingli, or that it far outdid  the wort of the excesses of
the Crusades (which was the result, not of the Church, but of greed). And
the Witch-hunts in the new world were all carried out by Protestants. Did
you know that many victims of these Protestants Inquisitions moved south 
and into the protection of Catholic Maryland?

In fact it seems that ancient religious excesses of every variety are to
being blamed on the Catholic Church, especially those of Protestants
anxious to ignore their own history. Especially the Fundamentalists who
claim no history at all, except by invention.

There is a great deal of mis- and even dis-information that all sides of
the anti-Catholic crusade have instigated.  I would be prepared to debate
all of it with members, off line of course.

-- 
Imagination is the eye of the soul.
 -- Joubert.