Are you faithful? Are you blameless? Are you pure?

A bit more shrewdness...

I define theocracy as rule by a god. — Waya

If it's good enough for Humpty Dumpty, it's good enough for you. But just be aware that the rest of us use theocracy to mean rule by priests.

Humans are far too corrupted to act in place of God, — Waya

The god who tried to hide his errors by drowning everyone except the family of a blindly obedient old man? Who demanded obedience even to the point of sacrificing a son? Who permits tsetse fly, thelazia gulosa, the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and the Holocaust?

so they are not really accurate in demonstrating what God wants. — Waya

Which amongst us knows what god wants? Are you putting up your hand as his representative? See the definition of theocracy above.

True capitalism has never existed except in theory... — Waya

Same goes for True Scotsmen...

...being that it is the complete absence of governmental restrictions on trade. — Waya

More Humpty Dumpty.

So until they can prove the existence and authority of their god, then they don't serve any god, but man. — Waya

Come on, then... show us your proof.

The god who tried to hide his errors by drowning everyone except the family of a blindly obedient old man? — Banno

How are they "His errors" if human beings have free will?

Who demanded obedience even to the point of sacrificing a son? Who permits tsetse fly, thelazia gulosa, the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and the Holocaust? — Banno

Yeah, the problem of evil has been dealt with so many times already. You can head to the sources which deal with it.

Nope. Human nature is corruptible. Hence the reason no human can possibly understand God completely.

How are they "His errors" if human beings have free will? — Agustino

How does free will excuse mass murder? Was it A Good Thing to drown all those evil two-month old babies?

Take the myth seriously, and it is an abomination.

If it's good enough for Humpty Dumpty, it's good enough for you. But just be aware that the rest of us use theocracy to mean rule by priests. — Banno

Yup. And I disagree. :halo:

The god who tried to hide his errors by drowning everyone except the family of a blindly obedient old man? Who demanded obedience even to the point of sacrificing a son? Who permits tsetse fly, thelazia gulosa, the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and the Holocaust? — Banno

What errors did he try to hide with the deluge? All I know is that MAN became corrupt and refused to repent. They were warned 120 years before it was going to happen. As far as I know, only God sacrificed his own son. Because humans sin, the world falls short of perfection, hence disasters are going to occur because of OUR sin.

Which amongst us knows what god wants? Are you putting up your hand as his representative? See the definition of theocracy above — Banno

The way we can truly know what God wants is by reading the Scripture, not by interpreting things any which way we please.

Come on, then... show us your proof. — Banno

Proof of what?

How does free will excuse mass murder? — Banno

Because humanity used its free will in order to build a corrupt society, where abomination reigned in the social, moral, and religious spheres. The children born in that environment would have become corrupted, and the only way to save Creation was to restart it.

Christianity, in the beginning, was the called the religion of the slaves. Early Christianity was the original religion of human rights. It gave dignity and hope to the most repressed people in ancient society. It gave slave dignity so they could think of themselves as more than a slave.

These ideas of God given human rights, made Christianity very dangerous to the powers to be, since the slaves were a needed majority, and if they started to think and hope too much, it could upset the country club status quo of the ruling classes. The Romans and all the various religions of prestige, persecuted, tortured and killed the Christians hoping to snuff out the movement. Christianity, however, was hard to kill, since slaves have it hard, and they have little to lose and much to gain.

As the centuries passed, the hope, persistence and gentle lawfulness of the Christians made then more and more socially acceptable. Christianity never taught anarchy, with Jesus teaching to render onto Caesar was Caesar's.

By the 4th century, the Christian soldiers who fought for Rome, had become the best armies of the empire. They were fearless in battle. Though they walked in the shadow of the valley of death there was no fear. The Emperor Constantine, who was very grateful, rewarded the Christians for their service by making Christianity the official religion of Rome. He was also hoping that their ways would rub off on the rest of his armies by elevating them.

This is where Christianity changes. It became one of the religions of prestige and power. The original became a hybrid of Roman and Christian ways, with Rome the over dog. It was still the religion of love but with a large sword and empire; Roman Catholic. It became a paradox of faith and knowledge, war and peace, due to the merger of two different cultures.

This hybrid lasted about a 1000 years and underwent another transition starting the 14th century, where the two aspects of the hybrid began to separate like two daughter cells. Rome and Christianity started to become distinct again. Nazi Germany was a Christian nation that was very heavy on the Rome side of the hybrid split. The Catholic Church, which had been the seat of power became more and more a figure head, going back to the basics of human rights.

The idea of human rights being anti-christian depends on where we look in terms of the evolution of the church and which aspect of the hybrid you focus on.

The way we can truly know what God wants is by reading the Scripture, not by interpreting things any which way we please. — Waya

Scriptures...? :o Good luck with that, here's a list of maybe 50 of them.

And [for] their saying, "Indeed, we have killed the Messiah, Jesus, the son of Mary, the messenger of Allah." And they did not kill him, nor did they crucify him; but [another] was made to resemble him to them. And indeed, those who differ over it are in doubt about it. They have no knowledge of it except the following of assumption. And they did not kill him, for certain. — Quran 4:157

The Bible alone has tediously long lists of problems. But, hey, ambiguities and inconsistencies do have a sort of strength to them. When one verse is inconvenient, just find another, or interpret in whatever presently convenient way. Which has happened.

Adam, Eve, and Jesus don't figure in the Vedas. Can't have been that important I guess.

Certifiably non-authoritative.

Past theocracies has indeed been run by clergy. Deities neither evident nor necessary in the first place, just humans. If some such deity wants something in particular, then it should be a walk in the park to let everyone in on that. Meanwhile I'll do the talking on the one really true deity's behalf. Good with you?

The Right To Free Speech is the Right To Lie
The Right To Bear Arms is the Right To Kill
The Right To Freedom is the Right To Oppress Others
The Right To Property is the Right To Theft
The Right To Freedom of Worship is the Right To Idolatry — Agustino

The commandment isn't specifically against lying, but is in the prohibition against bearing false witness against one's neighbor (i.e. perjury).

The proscription against killing is actually against murder, not self-defense.

I'm not sure what commandment you reference when you say there is a proscription against oppressing others.

The Western right to property does not include the right to theft. The biblical proscription against theft assumes a right to own property, else there'd be nothing to steal.

The Western right to freedom of worship is a restriction against state enforced religion. It provides no commentary on the righteousness of idolatry.

The Decalogue has no positive content but is merely negative. — Agustino

This isn't true. The first commandment states you should believe in God. You are also told to keep the Sabbath holy and to honor your parents. Those commandments are not in the negative.

Take the right to free speech for instance. This right sets the truth and the lie on equal footing. It gives one authority to lie and be protected for lying - indeed, lying itself becomes a virtue, as the necessary result of the exertion of one's inalienable rights. — Agustino

That's not what the right to free speech is. The right to freedom of speech relates to the limitations on the government in regulating speech, although the crime of perjury and the torts of libel and slander continue to exist.

Yeah, the problem of evil has been dealt with so many times already. You can head to the sources which deal with it. — Agustino

Most everything we talk about on this site has been dealt with for 1000s of years, so this response could be a universal response to most every post.

I define theocracy as rule by a god — Waya

That's like rule by Santa. Do you have a realistic political theory to put forward for consideration?

Yeah, we established quite early on that Agustino has got it wrong, and that he doesn't know what he's talking about.

the only way to save Creation was to restart it. — Agustino

Yes, and with the same creatures with the same free will that led to the corruption requiring the destruction of Creation the first time around. There's certainly no error in that. Clever fellow, God.

Scriptures...? :o Good luck with that, here's a list of maybe 50 of them. — jorndoe

Most of those are fairy tales...

The Bible alone has tediously long lists of problems. But, hey, ambiguities and inconsistencies do have a sort of strength to them. When one verse is inconvenient, just find another, or interpret in whatever presently convenient way. Which has happened. — jorndoe

1) You quoted from the Quran, which I find tons of problems in those texts. They are illogical. I don't think I've ever heard the Quran be referred to as the Bible...

2) Interpretations have to be made in the context of the entire Scripture, according to historical basis, and grammar, so the "just find another verse" excuse doesn't work, neither does the "change the interpretation" excuse.

Adam, Eve, and Jesus don't figure in the Vedas. Can't have been that important I guess. — jorndoe

Probably because it isn't historically accurate?

Past theocracies has indeed been run by clergy. Deities neither evident nor necessary in the first place, just humans. If some such deity wants something in particular, then it should be a walk in the park to let everyone in on that. Meanwhile I'll do the talking on the one really true deity's behalf. Good with you? — jorndoe

Past claimed theocracies have been run by clergy. But in the case of the Roman Catholic, they, in fact, were quite far away from following their own Scripture. They were not a theocracy, but merely a claimed one. The Crusades, for example, were some of the most unchristian wars ever fought. The site you linked needs to research many things better, as most of it is inaccurate. However, if you want to talk about death by governments, then I think that the Soviet Union should be addressed, as that secular atheistic government murdered more people than all the "Christian" governments combined. Maybe a fake theocracy isn't so bad after all... :chin:

That's like rule by Santa. Do you have a realistic political theory to put forward for consideration? — Sapientia

That's why I said it isn't realistic, dearest Sappy... a true theocracy does not exist today. :flower:

That's why I said it isn't realistic, dearest Sappy... a true theocracy does not exist today. — Waya

Or ever has, to the best of our knowledge. (According to your definition, that is).

Exactly. It is questionable.

If you think this was a good plan, then you are not a moral person.

The way we can truly know what God wants is by reading the Scripture, not by interpreting things any which way we please. — Waya

That ought to work. Scripture is so clear and uncontroversial.

Human nature is corruptible — Waya

How does that work? God presumably set up human nature. Why make it corruptible? Yeah, all the stories of free will. A get-out-of-jail-free card for the Good Lord.


All of which take too much faith for my critical mind.

What a nice myth.

No faith needed really. I figured that out when I was agnostic...

what then, simple credulity?

Nah. A good deal of the time though, things are not what they seem. :wink:

Well, this was a waste of time.

How does that work? God presumably set up human nature. Why make it corruptible? Yeah, all the stories of free will. A get-out-of-jail-free card for the Good Lord.
All of which take too much faith for my critical mind. — Banno

The bible tells us how this occurred, in the book of Genesis. It has to do with eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. That tree is a symbol and symbolizes laws of good and evil. Law teaches us how to differentiate good and evil. Natural human nature is morally neutral. Law, which was a choice, polarized the mind and corrupted natural human nature.

The age old problem with law or knowledge of good and evil is connected to how the brain is naturally wired. Law creates a problem in the natural wiring of the brain, which amplifies sin or evil behavior. It is not natural for human nature to do evil, since it is morally neutral, but rather law causes evil to appear by changing neutrality.

When the brain writes to memory, an emotional tag is added by the aspects of the limbic system in the core of the brain. Our memory is a combination of sensory content plus this emotional tagging. Law is a unique form of memory in the sense that by defining both good and evil behavior in one thing, a law memory needs two conflicting emotional tags; fear of evil and rest for the good.

With natural instinct, a food might be liked or disliked. It can be either, depending on the person. But it is not ambiguous. With law you get an ambiguous affect, where like and dislike are part of one thing called law. The law induces mixed feelings due to the writing process, which can paralyze the person in terms of action. A law feels right and wrong.

The way the brain resolves this ambiguity is to store law memories in two separate layers. All the evil and fear side of law is in one layer and all the rest and peace side of law is in another area. Heaven and Hell symbolize this segregation of the law memories.

As an analogy of this affect, is say you had mixed feelings for a person. It is common for some lovers to have a love and hate relationship. These mixed feelings create a state of tension, since you wish to approach and run away from the same person, at the same time. The brain resolves this by having us do an assessment of why we love them and why we hate them, forming two lists. This allows us to focus on the good or the bad as separate things, even though both come from one person. We can then compare. If we decide we really do love them, we may repress the things that bother us about them. But this is still part of them, so it is not erased, only repressed.

If you honestly try to do good, by the law, you essentially need to repress the fear or evil side of the law making it unconscious. However, since this is the other side of the same coin, it does not go away. It is only hidden from consciousness. The result is a shadow side appears in human nature. Like coins, if we collect one hundred coins and place them all heads up; good, although the tails are not seen, we also have 100 hidden evils in the unconscious, to impel and even create new shady behavior.

The way Jesus dealt with this was to teach love your enemy. He attempted to induce one unambiguous tag of love to the writing of memory, in place of the dual tagging of law. Jesus knew-how the brain was wired based on internal meditation.

Yeah. That works.

It's admirable that Catholics don't take Genesis literally. Its a mish-mash of earlier tales.

It's admirable that Catholics don't take Genesis literally. Its a mishmash of earlier tales. — frank

That is one way to look at it. The other way is Genesis tells about how human nature changes during the transition between prehuman and civilizations. In terms of the time table for Genesis, it coordinates with an important invention, which was the invention of written language. Both written language and Genesis occurred about 6000 year ago, based on carbon dating and bible genealogy, respectively. In the beginning was the word and word was God. This tells of this connection.

The beginning chapters of Genesis amounts to the first published theory of cosmology and evolution on human record. Whether you believe it or not, it was the first published theory. It reflected a new beginning for humanity where humans began to ponder, document and study the world around them as they theorize the nature of reality and document it.

Humans 6000 years ago were well aware of the biological nature of birth; animals and humans. Adam and Eve are described as appearing in ways that were not normal biology. Adam was from the dust of the earth and Eve was cloned from on of Adam's rib cells. This departure from known biology, symbolized changes in the human psyche, that was induced by things that were not exactly biological in origin or expected from evolution/genes.

The tree of knowledge of good and evil or law, for example, tricked the writing process of the brain to create an unconscious potential and internal polarization that was not naturally biological, although it impacted biology and changed human nature.

There was other changes in the psyche induced by civilization, itself, since civilization is an environment that is not natural, yet the input data to the brain will be organized by the brain using natural firmware. A departure occurs from natural reality and instinct. Much of the second half of Genesis, describes the unnatural humans that appear. It is interesting to read how the witnesses of those times describe the changes.

The invention of writing was critical to the change. Consider going to school where there are no books, no notes, and no study materials. You hear a lecture and try to remember, with everyone remembering somewhat differently. The final version that everyone will agree to accept will be based on who can pretend to have the most conviction; con artist, or who is the toughest and can force his opinion on everyone. The brain will forget as time goes on, with no good way to refresh the memory. Civilization had many starts and abortions before the first sustainable civilization appear. Those humans could invent, but later generations could not sustain due to an unreliable data stream.

Written language changed all that. It was a way to document things so the data stream was sustainable and reproducible. This was critical to sustainable civilization. The problem for the brain was early humanity did not have all the answers in terms of reality. Therefore writings, such as sacred texts, will perpetuate ideas, that were good for their time, but which may come into conflict with an evolving unconscious perception.

Before writing, the brain was more organic and would forget and invent anew, but after writing, walls and dams appear that altered human nature. Genesis describes the changes. It was a time of the men of renowned, often describe in myths, as well as bestial humans compelled by unconscious potential.

I have the same intuition. Although Genesis was probably written aroynd 600 BC, it echoes stories from around 3000 BC.