The Enlightenment: the virus of Jesus in secular form

[Conservationist]

Let's look at that The Enlightenment:

One of the primary elements of the cultural interpretation of the Enlightenment is the rise of the public sphere in Europe. Jürgen Habermas has influenced thinking on the public sphere more than any other, though his model is increasingly called into question. The essential problem that Habermas attempted to answer concerned the conditions necessary for “rational, critical, and genuinely open discussion of public issues”.

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Habermas credits the creation of the bourgeois public sphere to two long-term historical trends: the rise of the modern nation state and the rise of capitalism.

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Enlightenment was a desire for human affairs to be guided by rationality rather than by faith, superstition, or revelation; a belief in the power of human reason to change society and liberate the individual from the restraints of custom or arbitrary authority; all backed up by a world view increasingly validated by science rather than by religion or tradition.

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Like the French Revolution, the Enlightenment has long been hailed as the foundation of modern Western political and intellectual culture..[83]  It has been frequently linked to the French Revolution of 1789. However, as Roger Chartier points out, it was perhaps the Revolution that “invented the Enlightenment by attempting to root its legitimacy in a corpus of texts and founding authors reconciled and united ... by their preparation of a rupture with the old world”.[84]  In other words, the revolutionaries elevated to heroic status those philosophers, such as Voltaire and Rousseau, who could be used to justify their radical break with the Old Regime. In any case, two nineteenth-century historians of the Enlightenment, Hippolyte Taine and Alexis de Tocqueville, did much to solidify this link of Enlightenment causing revolution and the intellectual perception of the Enlightenment itself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenment

Christianity: assume nature/natural selection/social Darwinism are arbitrary, and hand over rule to those who are most popular with God.

Enlightenment: assume kings and religious orders are arbitrary, and hand over rule to those who are most popular with the people.

Basic ideas:

• Every person is equal
• Hierarchy is arbitrary
• We can use reason to undo the past
• Morality > natural selection and biological ability
• Nurture not nature

Seems like they run in parallel, with one replacing God with Popularity Contests.

[Nimbostratus]

Seems like they run in parallel, with one replacing God with Popularity Contests.

No.

Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. For he is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God's servants, who give their full time to governing. Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.

Romans 13

Arbitrary? Popular? I don't think so.

• Nurture not nature

Let's see

The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.

Psalm 58:3

Enlightenment was full of cherry pickers that would make Hinduism look humanist (some people do it right now). The fact is that the enlightenment was a rejection of the medieval _christian_ past.

[istaros]

Indeed - the medieval church was, possibly outside of Sparta, the closest the world has seen to a "metal" culture. This man was no humanist. It's no coincidence that metal in its most extreme form continues to obsess with imagery related to it - of course there's the Nietzschian anti-crowdist-religion aspect, but metal itself is religious (ceremonial, focused, unapologetic) in nature. Euronymous understood this and verbalized the philosophical association very well on a few occasions.

[Conservationist]

Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. For he is God's servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God's servants, who give their full time to governing. Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.

Romans 13

Not sure I can agree here. Christianity as a basic philosophy is practiced by people who will see Romans 13 as a detail in a book full of contradictory ones. They're only going to understand as much of it as you can put in a paragraph.

And that paragraph is: Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. It's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter heaven. Do what is morally right, and you go to heaven. Do what is bad, and you go to hell, even if in this life you are rich. The next life is what matters. Moral right is what matters, not moral alertness or pragmatic success. Worship God and you'll be immortal.

That's how Christianity is constructed as a virus.

You and I know that Christianity is like a Sears Catalogue -- ten million different things mixed together, including the complete spiritual inheritance of Babylon, Greece, India, Phoenicia, Rome, Hittites, Egypt, Sumeria, Zoroastrianism, etc. In fact, they used to view Christianity as Zoroastrianism 2.0 in academia, before that became troublesome. Gnostic, transcendental idealist Christianity is in there, but much as with Judaism, it's hidden among the crap because the basic idea behind those who "owned" and may have "created" (compiled) Christianity is that of control. Wrest control from the state and transfer it to the religion.

And thus a disaster culminating in 1,000 years of fratricidal European wars is launched.

[Nimbostratus]

Not sure I can agree here. Christianity as a basic philosophy is practiced by people who will see Romans 13 as a detail in a book full of contradictory ones. They're only going to understand as much of it as you can put in a paragraph.

Well, Romans is a very important book, it is a quick summary of Christianity for non Christians, and specially for non-Jews. It's not a lost paragraph in a lost book.

Also, I can't recall any part of the Bible praising anarchy or, as the Enlightenment proposed, social reality just as a social contract.

And that paragraph is: Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. It's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter heaven. Do what is morally right, and you go to heaven. Do what is bad, and you go to hell, even if in this life you are rich. The next life is what matters. Moral right is what matters, not moral alertness or pragmatic success. Worship God and you'll be immortal.

That's how Christianity is constructed as a virus.

Beyond the paraphrasing, the same could be said about the Baghavad Gita: Do what is morally right, and you go to heaven. Do what is bad, and you go to hell, even if in this life you are rich. The next life is what matters. Moral right is what matters, not moral alertness or pragmatic success. Worship God and you'll be immortal.

You and I know that Christianity is like a Sears Catalogue -- ten million different things mixed together, including the complete spiritual inheritance of Babylon, Greece, India, Phoenicia, Rome, Hittites, Egypt, Sumeria, Zoroastrianism, etc. In fact, they used to view Christianity as Zoroastrianism 2.0 in academia, before that became troublesome. Gnostic, transcendental idealist Christianity is in there, but much as with Judaism, it's hidden among the crap because the basic idea behind those who "owned" and may have "created" (compiled) Christianity is that of control. Wrest control from the state and transfer it to the religion.

And thus a disaster culminating in 1,000 years of fratricidal European wars is launched.

So is syncretism in History, not big deal. Nonetheless, I would give more opportunity to gnostic Christianity, even when some of it was very weird and incoherent, and less "editing".

I can certainly tell, that in this day, you can find any religion in the Sears Catalogue, if by that comparison you're referring to our contemporariness.

I don't understand your last argument, are you saying that Europeans needed Christianity to slay themselves among nations and tribes and feuds?