Heidegger

Well, glad to hear from you.

1 Thessalonians 5:21 says that a Christian has to research EVERYTHING and to
stick to what’s good. Therefore, for a Christian, the voodoo stuff is
fascinating. How else could we know what we shouldn’t do?

The dilemma of Christianity and politics is that if Christianity becomes
political it becomes oppressive, and that’s not what Christ meant. If it
does not become political, it will give an image of a feeble and ultimately
irrelevant faith, which is doomed to extinction. Happily, there is a word
from Christ, give Caesar’s Caesar’s and God’s God’s.

How the Christians should do it, depends on the circumstances. In the
ancient Rome, slaves were proselytised as Christians, but told to remain
obedient to their masters. The Roman masters could have happily exploited
this slavish naiveté, since it enforced the obedience of their slaves.
Eventually, the Romans lost their temper, and they got infuriated by
Christians’ moral superiority, and the masters sought to blame the
Christians for burning Rome, and so on.

Later, the Christians adopted the Paulinic organization system, which turned
them into the best organized faction of the Roman Empire. That’s why a never
baptized emperor who killed his wife legalized Christianity and claimed to
be a Christian convert. He could therefore control the best organized
faction.

Later, paganism was prohibited, the Christian church organized further, it
gained power, Pope was oiled as the head of the church, some schism
happened, because of a debate about the origin of the Holy Spirit.

Still later, there was Inquistion, a movement meant to rescue the souls of
the believers from damnation due to the teachings of the heretics, and even
the souls of the heretics themselves, even at the price of their own
(heretics’) lives.

The priests went very abusive, and some people were tired of their abuses,
so they listened to a reformer who produced another schism.

Then, the Enlightenment came, with the Machiavellian project of educating
and forming the advisors of kings and recruit some of the kings and high
officials in its service. In order to gain the upper hand, the Enlightenment
had to tame the Christianity, and make it tolerate its enemies. Eventually,
the tolerance won, so the enemies of Christianity could win over
Christianity, producing the laymen regimes we know nowadays.

The priests enjoyed many of the liberties of the democratic times, and this
made their believers think they have a license to do everything they want.
Every society must have some morals, so that people could know who is their
friend and who is their foe. The democratic order, which puts the individual
above the morals, usurped the shared morals. Society remained without its
backbone, and individualism went rampant.

Now, the priests were not unhappy with this situation. They knew that people
will get tired of debauchery, and they soon be hungry again for some sort of
soul salvation. This allows the church to intervene with force in society,
i.e. in politics. And, mutatis mutandi, this is what George Bush does: tries
to restore the backbone of the society, by making an alliance with the
promoter of morals, the church.

Now, Pagans could have had it easier for themselves by making a compromise
with the morals of the democratic petty bourgeois. Now, they undermined the
system which allowed them the freedom of belief, and this freedom tends to
be questioned politically.

Neither the Nazis were successful, and they were those who sought to turn
Europe into a pagan state.

Unless another religion revives the faith of the Westerners, thing which I
find improbable, Christianity and the West are like horse and carriage.

In Europe, even the dissatisfied atheists define their identity as
Westerners, i.e. as those who had once a Christian tradition.

Since politics is an answer to the dilemmas of collective action, politics
is about coercion, and the level of coercion may vary and the orientation of
coercion may vary, but politics cannot turn into absolute tolerance, since
this would mean absolutely no coercion, i.e. anarchy and this would turn
soon to real chaos, being either the end of society or some Weimar-like
invitation for the coming Hitler.

So, some have to lead and others to cheerfully be coerced, that’s the way
things are. And it seems that Christianity aims again at being the religion
of those who are leading, not just of those who are coerced. And, unlike the
Roman masters, present leaders understand it is best to accept Christianity
as a real force in society.

Eventually, we may hope that the neo-conservatives still care about assuring
some basic rights for their citizens, and the fury of their actions must
have some justification in the fact that this is not the time for talks but
the time for deeds, in order to preserve American supremacy. It is now or
never, they catch the last train or they are finished. That’s what makes
them so radical.

Greetings,

Tudor

> —–Original Message—–
> From: heidegger-bounces at soca.ecu.edu.au [mailto:heidegger-
> bounces at soca.ecu.edu.au] On Behalf Of Kenneth Johnson
> Sent: 31 juli 2006 maandag 1:27
> To: Discussions pertaining to the philosophy of Martin Heidegger
> Subject: RE: Aristotle on suicide [was Heidegger Email List?]
>
> >> since Kenneth strongly implied that the condemnation of suicide was
> only a
> >> “wacko godder” concept.
> >
> >Both Plato and Aristotle believed in God, and they could be considered
> >Christians avant la lettre. Nietzsche did that by calling Christianity as
> >Platonism for the masses.
> >
> >Greetings,
> >
> >Tudor
>
> Hello Tudor, perhaps its strange to say but I’m pleased to hear your
> written voice here again, it’s so much more, how to say, ‘mature’ than
> when
> I recall our sparring bouts of several years back when you were in to
> witches and all manner of lesser voodoo driven mentalities of questionable
> presentation.
>
> So well maybe “Wacko godder” was a bit silly, I just simply don’t want
> Wacko religionists to make laws to force me to suffer needlessly to no
> purpose of theirs except their own beliefs.
>
> My subscribe is to Nietzsche’s:
>
> “Able to say a holy “NO” when the time for yes has passed.”
>
>
> I wouldn’t want to bound you to some yes that has passed. Why would you
> want to force me to suffer?? To usurp my free will with arbitrary
> sanctions of your own beliefs??
>
> Greetings back,
>
> Kenneth
>
>
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>
>
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Posted on Thursday, August 10th, 2006 at 12:45 am
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