Thou shall not suffer a witch to live

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UPDATED: Monday, December 5, 2022 19:41
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ZAROVE

Thursday, July 30, 2009 12:44 AM

History is a long and fascinating thing, though, and I would certainly recommend a study in it, as well as the Humanities.

Thus you'd see the ties that bind us to our past, and the interlocking threads of ideas into our present, and get a glimpse of where they will lead us in our future.

Its all a very fascinating journey, that Humanity has passed through, and finding the origin of he ideas certainly helps put them into context.

JEWELSTAITEFAN

Thursday, July 30, 2009 5:59 AM

I am beginning to wonder why Dan Brown and his propositions on Christian history have not come up in this thread.

ZAROVE

Thursday, July 30, 2009 6:46 AM

Well, I'm hopeful that, since everyone and his mother noted the flaws, others realise his tosh is not worth considering.

DMAANLILEILTT

Thursday, July 30, 2009 7:39 AM

well, i've come late to the party so ill try to make up for it now...

one. the claim that everyone has a religion because religion is just a persons beliefs goes against the acepted definition that religious academics agree on. which is "A religion is an organised approach to human spirituality which usually encompasses a set of narratives, symbols, beliefs and practices, often with a supernatural or transcendant quality, that give meaning to the practitioner's experiences of life through reference to a higher power, God or gods, or ultimate truth." atheism (or agnosticism) is not organised, it does not have supernatural qualities and it rejects all reverences to a higher power.

two. people killed over religion. the crusades may have not been about religion but the conquistadors in south and central america definately killed, raped and pillaged villages over religion. and the recent terror attacks in new york, bali and mumbai were about religion, people on both sides agree about that.

and three. the whole basis of monarchy is that the monarch is granted power by divine right. now, i know some people are better leaders than others, thats obvious; however, to believe that one family will automatically have the people that should lead a country is naive. also, the royal families of europe have a record of inbreeding and that never ends well.

i like arguing about religion, it makes me think

AGENTROUKA

Thursday, July 30, 2009 8:31 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by ZAROVE:
The Enlightnment began intellectually a decade after the American Revolution, and the French Revolution follwoed suit.

Is that really true?

What about figures like Leibnitz, Kant, Rousseau, Diderot, Voltaire, etc. whose works were created and read much earlier than that? I don't think that saying the Enlightenment began intellectually so late in the 18th century is accurate.

JEWELSTAITEFAN

Thursday, July 30, 2009 8:48 AM

Zarove, have you seen the film "Expelled" by Ben Stein?

I also thought much of the discussion before the American Revolution was based upon Rosseau's works.

ZAROVE

Thursday, July 30, 2009 5:26 PM

Rouka, your right, those writers did eork earlier. I was refering mainly to the idea of enacting revolution to produce a new world, and forming it into a codified movement.

If you want ot extend the Enlighenment to before it was called "The Enlightenment" and focus on the general philosophers hwo lay the grounding for it, then you could argue it started earlier. However, Americas Founders did not share in the Enlightenments ideals fully, and their vision for America was always divergent in that they dd not seek to replace Christianity with what they sqw as "Reason" an did nto seek to reinvent society. Most of their work was based on their understanding of the Bible ( despite modern Atheist claims, this is the work they cited the most) and John Locke, as well as Kant. They got their ideas frm the same place as the Enlightenment ( except the Bible) but did not use all fo the Enlighenmen thinkers, and certainly didn't develop the am sort of menrality as the Enligthenment, aside from Thomas Paine.

Jewel- I do not know. I'll have to look into it. Perhaps Rousseu did. I never liked Rouseu, but then, I never liked Jefferson either.

I also have not seen Expelled.

DMann-

well, i've come late to the party so ill try to make up for it now...

Better late than never. (But better never late.)

one. the claim that everyone has a religion because religion is just a persons beliefs goes against the acepted definition that religious academics agree on.

No, it doesn't. In fact, the definition of Religion I use is the one that is standard in Sociology and axcceptd in Psycology. read Lindbecks "Nature of Dpctrine". Since your using Wikipedia to discern the "Religious academic" definition, you should scroll down, as it gives a summery of what Lindbeck and others say Religion is.

which is "A religion is an organised approach to human spirituality which usually encompasses a set of narratives, symbols, beliefs and practices, often with a supernatural or transcendant quality, that give meaning to the practitioner's experiences of life through reference to a higher power, God or gods, or ultimate truth." atheism (or agnosticism) is not organised, it does not have supernatural qualities and it rejects all reverences to a higher power.

Theism also lacks any ritual, and doesn't require worhsip of a higher power. But no one is ever just sa Theist, and rhey have other beleifs that eventually form a worldvie. Atheists are no different, and no one is just an Atheist.

I never said Atheism was a religion, I said evertyone has a Religion, which will include Atheists. Most Athists in the Western World idenrify themselves as Humanists, and Humanism is a religion. Humanism encompasses a set of beleifs, practices, and rituals, and gives meanign to the adherants live and expernces by referencing an ultimate truth and a reverence for nature and the Human potential.

( Even your brienf paragrpah dons't make theism or supernatural belefs a prerequisite.)

I'd say also that, even if you areno a Humanist, you will eventually find some sort of workable system that will inform you about how the world works and tells youhow best to live. Even a Nihilist has some fundational idea abouut the world and its meaning. ( Saying life is meaningless is asserting a meaning for life.)

So, I'm afraid that even your own definition found on Wikipedia backs me up. Further, if you scroll down you will see Lindbeck and others assert that Relkigion need not beleive in a god, and is simply a communally shared beleif system.

two. people killed over religion. the crusades may have not been about religion but the conquistadors in south and central america definately killed, raped and pillaged villages over religion. and the recent terror attacks in new york, bali and mumbai were about religion, people on both sides agree about that.

And people have killed ocer money. So money is evil. People have killed over Government. People have killed over sneakers.

maybe you shoudl read the thread.

AGENTROUKA

Thursday, July 30, 2009 5:35 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by ZAROVE:
Rouka, your right, those writers did eork earlier. I was refering mainly to the idea of enacting revolution to produce a new world, and forming it into a codified movement.

If you want ot extend the Enlighenment to before it was called "The Enlightenment" and focus on the general philosophers hwo lay the grounding for it, then you could argue it started earlier. However, Americas Founders did not share in the Enlightenments ideals fully, and their vision for America was always divergent in that they dd not seek to replace Christianity with what they sqw as "Reason" an did nto seek to reinvent society. Most of their work was based on their understanding of the Bible ( despite modern Atheist claims, this is the work they cited the most) and John Locke, as well as Kant. They got their ideas frm the same place as the Enlightenment ( except the Bible) but did not use all fo the Enlighenmen thinkers, and certainly didn't develop the am sort of menrality as the Enligthenment, aside from Thomas Paine.

To be honest, your time frame for the Enlightenment is entirely new to me. I have never before seen it defined anywhere as the revolutionary period that in part fed off Enlightenment thought that came before it. Sure, it was a time when people were also busy broadly defining Enlightenment, but that already suggests a certain establishment of its philosophical content and distance enough to see an appreciable difference to what was there before.

Where do you take your time frame from?

ZAROVE

Thursday, July 30, 2009 6:42 PM

I simply place it in the period when it began to actively shape as a coherent, consistent movement with central, clearly defined doctrines and ideals.

Earlier than the 1780's, you had the Enlightenment era Philosophers, but no coherent movement, or unifying ideal. It also wasn't specifically named "The Enlightenment" yet. It was more complimentary Philosophers speaking on a new trend of thought, and a general attitude shift in some quarters of society, before then, and after it became a movement.

Similar to how the Great Awakening was preceded by one of the lowest points in adherents to Christianity. During that same period, many great theologians and thinkers wrote of what woudl be needed to revive the Faith, and others started to think of the Faith in new terms, and move away from the Strict Calvinism that had been popular but was dying. However, you cannot really place the move towards emotionally expressive Christendom and beginning of Evangelicalism until after the Great Awakening. People wrote of the same ideas, but there was no consistent movement until Edwards preached "Sinners In The Hands Of NA Angry God" in 1741.

I do the same with the Enlightenment. Basically, loose theories that somewhat agree and a general attitude formed the basis of the Enlightenment, but not until there was an actual movement was it truly under way.

In fact, had the American Revolution not succeeded, I doubt there would have been an Enlightenment. So the American Revolution can be seen as a Catalyst for the Enlightenment, and they as Proto-Enlightenment thinkers.

But they still diverged form the Enlightenment on several key factors, including an impositional standard rules for society under the new order, the need to repeal all Christian vestiges form society, and the idea of Libertine morality.

AGENTROUKA

Friday, July 31, 2009 9:03 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by ZAROVE:
I simply place it in the period when it began to actively shape as a coherent, consistent movement with central, clearly defined doctrines and ideals.

Hmm. I guess I never saw it as that, either. I saw certain political movements and perhaps a sum of attitude an policy changes that resulted from it, but by and large I consider the Enlightenment more a literary/philosophical phenomenon not directly connected to organized goals, let alone centralized doctrines. The reactions to the new types of thought are, to my mind, too heterogenic to pick out the French Revolution and its ideals - for example - and hold that up as The Political Phase of the Enlightenment.

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