Personal Values Influence Law And Vice-Versa

CCNL:

Repeatedly you illustrate how lost you really are.

Given the truth of Christ, and all the knowledge you have of the scriptures, you choose to believe the doubters like Crossan and others.

Tread more lightly, my friend. You are to be judged harshly given the knowledge of the truth you run from.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8158097.stm

"Six puppies cloned from a Canadian-born sniffer dog in late 2007 have
>reported for duty after completing a 16-month training programme."

Begun, the clone wars have it appears.

The Reality of today's three major religions:

What has history, scriptural text reviews and archeology taught us (and the Christian and Jewish Supreme Court justices) about these foundations?

1. Abraham is the reported founder of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Based on all we know now, Abraham was at best a combination of three separate individuals with almost 1.5 million Conservative Jews no longer believing he existed at all. (ditto for all the characters in the OT).

references: National Georgraphic review on Abraham, http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2002/0401torah.asp and http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/joseph_mccabe/religious_controversy/chapter_07.html

2. The founders of Christianity and Islam were both illiterate. i.e. neither one proof read or approved the NT or the Koran so we are taking the word of scribes and embellishers with their own agendas.

references: NT exegetes from the last two hundred years, Karen Armstrong's reviews of Islam and http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/theories.html

3. Christianity is based on the whim of Pilate, the false prophesy of the imminent second coming, and the sword of Constantine.

references: NT exegetes and their conclusions/books from the last two hundred years

For all those posters who have been following decieved intellectuals like blind mice in a maze ( especially those posters with monikers that rhyme with "I'm going to Hell" )

What you believe has no effect on reality. What you give mental ascent to has no effect on ultimate truth.

Jesus is the truth, the life and the way. Jesus is the King of kings, the Lord of lords and will stand as the ultimate judge of the living and the dead. It is appointed man to die once and then the judgment. Unless you repent, you will likewise all perish.

Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way,and the unrighteous man his thoughts;let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him,and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon

As good students, you have read the reiterations of the flaws and errors in the history and theology of the major religions. Therefore the seeds have been planted in rich soil. Go therefore and preach the truth to all nations, reiterating as you go amongst the lost, bred, born and brainwashed souls of Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism as Reality makes its triumphant return all because of you!!!!

Daniel sez:

'Or is he a wise old man on par with Zen masters seeing into students about whether they have had an enlightenment experience?'

Both Jung and Maslow were acquainted with Eastern traditions - and per your example, the goal of enlightenment could indeed be classified as a kind of individuation or self-actualization. However, Jung and Maslow were pushing the experience/process rather than the method. They were not about making final determinations regarding success or failure.

In their practice, they no doubt saw all too many people stopping far short of their potential, or otherwise crippled by neurotic fixations and dead end pre-occupations.

You may enjoy reading the book below at some point - it's still available on the web. Author Robert DeRopp, Abraham Maslow, Timothy Leary, and many other notables were frequent guests/speakers at Esalen Institute in California back when Zen, transpersonal psychology, and other allied meditative traditions were really taking off in the USA - the human potential movement was spearheaded by such individuals leading the way.

These days one can find many similar retreats and meditative oppportunities ranging from Esalen Institute to the Shambala Center in Boulder, Co and on to reknowned author and Trappist monk Thomas Merton's own Abby of Gethsemani outside of Louisville, KY.

It's all about individuation...

http://www.livereal.com/spiritual_arena/spiritual_members/master_game.htm

The last post was for Persiflage. On Jung and "individuation"...I have reservations about his understanding of such. Are people not individuals if they have not passed the "Jung test"? How is that Jung arrogates to himself the right to determine when individuation has occurred? Or is he a wise old man on par with Zen masters seeing into students about whether they have had an enlightenment experience? I have a deep suspicion of psychologists...However I do love reading their work. I like Adler and Rank and Maslow as well as Freud and Jung. I just have reservations about them now being simplistic. After reading so many books in life I just have a better perspective on the "official" (for there are unofficial--many past and present writers) psychologists. but each to his own I suppose....

Nabokov is just another great writer to me--I read plenty of books. Right now I am reading the sociology of Simmel. Sorry if I offended you about Jung. I did like reading him at the time. And I still do like his piece "The development of personality".

More on why the Supreme Court justices are not swayed by their religions:

"The Story Of Religious Controversy
Chapter VII"

by Joseph McCabe (an atheist like one Farnaz)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"The Forgery of the Old Testament

Contents

How We Detect the Forgery
The Priestly Forgers
The Mistakes of Moses
The Mythical History of the Jews
The Truth About the Prophets
Pious Fiction

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How We Detect The Forgery

THE Word of God a forgery! I can understand the bewilderment of a religious reader, but let him consider coolly what the statement means. It does not mean that God forged a book. It means that men forged a book in God's name.

That can be examined dispassionately by anybody. But, you say, they were religious men, and the charge is an insult. My dear friend, Protestant divines and preachers unanimously accuse, not merely religious men, but ministers of the Christian Gospel of hundreds of forgeries.

You never heard of it? Why, they hold -- and quite rightly -- that almost all of the stories of saints and martyrs which are treasured in the Roman Church are forgeries; and there are Roman Catholic scholars who agree with them. They hold -- all the non- Roman historians in the world hold -- that the documents on which the power of Rome is essentially based are sheer forgeries. They hold that from the sixth to the twelfth century Roman priests poured upon Europe a flood of forgeries, very much to their own profit.

The simple question here is whether ancient Jewish priests had done the same thing a thousand years before. But that is different, you say. These supposed forgeries are not lives of saints and decrees of councils, but the Word of God.

Well then, what is a forgery? It is a deliberate falsification or fabrication of documents or of the signature to them. A letter, a poem (like "Ossian's" poems), an historical work (like some "found" recently in Italy), a will, a bank-note, a postage stamp even, may be forged.

Now the far greater part of the more learned clerical authorities on the Bible say that many books of the Old Testament pretend to be written by men who did not write them: that many books were deliberately written as history when the writers knew that they were not history: and that the Old Testament as a whole, as we have it, is a deliberate attempt to convey an historical belief which the writers knew to be false.

But these learned authorities do not like the word forgery. It is crude. Let me give you a few illustrations, from easily accessible and weighty works, of what they do say. It will at least show you the elegance, the subtlety, the resources of diplomatic language."

http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/joseph_mccabe/religious_controversy/chapter_07.html

An interesting article below:

Jung and Pauli - A subtle asymmetry

BEVERLEY ZABRISKIE 1
1 New York

Copyright © 1995 The Society of Analytical Psychology

KEYWORDS
Depth psychology • psychic energy • process • microphysics • quantum • complementarity • symmetry • synchronicity
ABSTRACT

In his early theories of the structure of the psyche, psychic energy and psychodynamics, Jung was influenced by William James's understanding of the complementary insights of depth psychology and the discoveries of subatomic physics, and his concept of field in physics and the study of the subconscious.

In his relationship with Freud, Jung initially struggled with a sexually-based drive theory. But he gradually came to conceive libido as a quantitative concept, a psychic analogue of physical energy.

In their own languages, both C. G. Jung and Nobel physicist Wolfgang Pauli explored the evolution of scientific thought from the naive insights about process in alchemy through Newtonian causality, space-time theories of relativity to quantum mechanics.

Jung had access to thirteen hundred of Pauli's dreams. The first four hundred were basis for his research into alchemical symbolism in a modern psyche.

In a later collaboration, Pauli supported Jung's synchronicity principle as scientific, and Jung fostered Pauli's understanding of the archetypal and collective factors in the psyche.

They each explored the interconnections between the energies of psyche and matter, and the possibilities of acausal order and synchronicity. Pauli's ground-breaking discoveries gave scientific demonstration of alchemical intuitions.

Through him, alchemical and archetypal insights entered the discourse of physics. Through Jung, the apprehensions of microphysics entered our psychological language and thought.

Hi Persiflage,

You are a gentleman and a scholar, for which I envy and admire you.

Actually, I did know about Freud's death, in principle, approve of doctor assisted suicide, but do not think it any easy topic.

James, I am profoundly fond of. Schopenhauer? Dunno. Often, I hope the world is not my representation, not his....

Will read your post to Peter Huff. Have been toying with asking him if it is important that others believe as he does, what he makes of other religions, etc. Probably won't post. I have a soft spot for him, though. Don't really understand why. %0

Farnaz

Farnaz,

I don't mean to diminish Freud's contributions, although I freely admit that I've gravited to Jung over the years because of my own personal interests - finding that they were often in synch with his work ;^)

It is interesting to note in this link on Freud that William James examined the idea of the unconscious and the related views of Schopenhauer and others in his epic work on Psychology long years before.

And I just used a William James link on the Southern Baptist thread in an ongoing 'discussion' with Peter Huff. Another nod to Jung and his perspicacious themes.

And something I didn't know - Freud's assisted suicide by morphine injections at the end of his long and painful bout with cancer. Believe me, that's exactly where I'm at with assisted suicide.....

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

Esteemed Persiflage,

"I maintain that Jung was a much bigger thinker - anyone reading Jung and his ideas would have to agree."

Err...no. :0

The original view that Maslow's model was more "positive" than Freud's has been interrogated, bloodied, but not fully bowed. Again, Freud was moving toward ego psychology toward the end of his life.

Persiflage,

RE: Separation/Individuation

Indded, he had much to say on separatin/indivicuation in his stage model. See my previous posting on ego psychology. Stage models, including Maslow's are all indebted to Freud. No one who has followed in his wake, for instance, Lacan, has denied this.

Daniel - you seem to revere Nabokov all out of proportion to his contributions to humanity - a few books and a few butterflies, brilliant though he may have been.....and an inspiring teacher, they say.

In comparing his impact on mankind to either Freud or Jung, it's fairly inconsequential - his best-known book, Lolita, was all about a grown man's sexual obsession with a 12 year old girl. No balloons or umbrellas there!

Very gritty reading, I will grant you - and not a half-bad movie starring James Mason. Talk about the shadow!! Very dark stuff...

Freud's take on religion, and he wrote plenty, was that it was fundamentally based on neuroses and neurotic complexes that needed curing. Some would of course agree! You seem to have read alot of books by these two, but would did you get out of all that reading? I maintain that Jung was a much bigger thinker - anyone reading Jung and his ideas would have to agree.

For example, Jung proposed the idea of individuation as the natural goal and purpose of each person's life. Taking up this theme, Abraham Maslow, one of the founders of the later school of transpersonal psychology, called this process self-actualization - at the pinnacle of his hierarchy of human needs.

These ideas and end-goals espoused by Jung and Maslow were due in part from exposure to Eastern thought and the practices of Eastern mysticism.

Freud never proposed any such thing, although one of his later students, Victor Frankl, wrote a well-known work entitled 'Man's Search for Meaning'. This was based in part on his experiences as a Holocaust survivor and prisoner in several Nazi concentration camps. A man worth reading, and reading about.

If you look at the individuation link below, you'll see Jung was in good company with this basic idea.

best regards, Persiflege

http://psychology.about.com/od/sigmundfreud/p/freud_religion.htm

http://www.friesian.com/jung.htm

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

Hi Muckenfuss,

Thanks for the post.

Farnaz :

Persiflage,

NO doubt Freud had his limitations, but IMHO he was a bona fide genius attempting to work in a virulently racist atmosphere. Again and again, he was compromised by the EuroChristians, and later by the AmeriChristians.

MOreover, he was a tireless reviser, and, as we know, toward the end of his life, was rethinking the role of the id, the ego, was moving in the direction of ego psychology, which his heirs, including his daughter, would develop.

There may be no discipline that is not, in one way or another, still influenced by Freud. That is not the case with Jung.

HIs limitations, and there were many, are probably most evident in the Case of Dora, a waking nightmare, painful even to think about, as inexcusable as Jung's racism. Still, Freud was walking in near pitch darkness, with Europe's dogs snapping at his heels, most of his light provided by his own mind.

As for Jung, none of this is to disparage his achievements, needless to say. Like you, I'm not an idolater.

Persiflage,

"Freud also suspected Jung of antisemitic tendencies, although the reasons behind this are vague."

Actually, they are not vague at all. About a year ago, I posted a bib with archival references to Jung's very well-known antisemitism, something Jungians have been at pains to deny, explain away, etc., for decades. It has, however, caught up with them, and some are far more forthcoming.

In fact, about four years ago, I was on a panel with two Jungians, dedicated to the them of Jung and race-ism, a theme I've been thinking about revisting.

As for Freud, he brushed aside Jung's bigotry, even when it was mentioned to him by colleagues. Why? Notwithstanding Freud's atheism, for the Euro- and Ameri-Christians, he was a Jew. He had some respect for Jung, of course, but was especially interested in him because he was not Jewish. He added legitimacy to psychoanalyis, the "Jewish Science."

All very interesting--plus ca change, etc. CCNL1, who thinks of Jews as a race, and is a racist, would have been at home in this milieu.

None of this is to say that nothing in Jung was or is worthwhile although it complicates him. The same is true of Black Forest Heidegger, many other racist thinkers.

Persiflage, I read both Freud and Jung--several major works by Freud and I have around eight books by Jung. There is no doubt Jung would not have come up with the whole archetypes thing if not for Freud. It was Freud who pointed out the importance of mythical thinking for modern man--specifically how modern man is more in thrall to mythical thinking than he cares to admit. Precisely mythical thinking is archetypal--and there is a far wider range of archetypal thinking in myth than Jung ever considered. In fact Jung was quite simplistic what with the image of woman, the shadow and wise old man. Essentially the whole Jungian thing is this: boy grows to man, is in thrall to female image (anima) as he simultaneously becomes aware of evil in himself (shadow), and if he perseveres in knowledge (rises to highest noble image of woman) he integrates and understands his evil (shadow) and then he starts walking in the archetypal image of the wise old man and then he becomes whole (mandala). Hell, not only was Jung influenced by Freud but his whole process of becoming whole is nothing new at all. Compare this with the very Christianity which surrounded him: boy grows to manhood, becomes aware of himself as fallen (shadow), is caught between being lustful toward woman and seeing in her a purity which can be captured if only one is free of sin (anima--the whole worship of the virgin Mary bit), then if one is successful one walks in the image of Christ the son of the wise old man (God)--but of course Jesus is also the father, one with him (trinity). There is nothing new about Jung at all. He followed Freud in looking for recurring themes in cultural achievements which have a hold on the psyche of man. And the themes were everywhere--both Jung and Freud really having arrived at their views from artistic and religious achievements left and right. And I believe it was Freud and not Jung who stressed how the artists left and right saw deeply--more deeply than official psychologists. Jung compared to the artists left and right was extremely superficial. While the artists would put together a complex work which works on many levels Jung would reduce all that artistic achievement to mere archetypal thinking--his clumsy and simple archetypal forms. If Nabokov had a problem with Freud being simplistic with literature (reducing it all to a few complexes based on Greek myth), we can only wonder what Nabokov would have thought about Jung. I can see Jung now blithering on to Nabokov about his few archetypes and Nabokov politely listening and then saying something like "you used to play with blocks when you were a boy, right? It seems to me you are still playing with blocks...."

I rest my case.

Other references as to why the Supreme Court Justices pay little attention to their religion:

Using Judaism as an example:

"The Forgery of the Old Testament by

Joseph McCabe

Is the creation story in Genesis nothing more than a botched version of Babylonian myth? Are the Jesuits really educated men? In these three classic essays -- "The Forgery of the Old Testament," "The Myth of Immortality," and "The Lies of Religious Literature" -- Joseph McCabe (1867 - 1955), ex-priest and the "world's greatest scholar," exposes the inconsistencies, absurdities, and outright mendacity that lie behind the most revered texts and "truths" of Christianity. With forcefulness, clarity, and often biting humor, McCabe attacks two millenia of Christian tradition which, he says, must withdraw before the weapons of science and reason."

http://secweb.infidels.org/?kiosk=books&id=766

www.infidels.org/library/historical/joseph_mccabe/religious_controversy/chapter_07.html

Using Christianity as example :

Who is Jesus? by Professors Richard Watts and JD Crossan, an On Faith panelist

http://books.google.com/books?id=AsPHR4-7Wc8C&dq=The+Historical+Jesus+Crossan&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=7-NkSozDA4O0Ntqb0Z8M&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4

“Not the Impossible Faith

Richard Carrier

Book Description

Not the Impossible Faith is a tour de force, dissecting and refuting the oft-repeated claim that Christianity could not have succeeded in the ancient world unless it were true. Dr. Carrier surveys a whole range of topics regarding the origin of Christianity and its cultural context, demonstrating that its success has entirely natural explanations and nothing to do with whether its supernatural claims were true.”

secweb.infidels.org/?kiosk=featuredBooks

Freud's real influence on the emergence of Jungian archetypes, the core of analytical psychology, is dubious at best.

As regards dream analysis, Jung was highly critical of Freud's pre-occupation with sexual themes - saw them as both limiting and distracting.

On the other hand, there is evident a mutual homoerotic attraction between the two men at different phases of their relationship, as well as a web of lies and deception that disguised and concealed the sexual philandering of both.

Freud also suspected Jung of antisemitic tendencies, although the reasons behind this are vague. In 'Memories, Dreams, and Reflections' Jung seems very clear about the significance of Jewish contributions throughout history.

Eventually, Jung was effectively shunned by Freud by being excluded from Freud's innermost circle of followers - mainly because of Jung's tendency toward independent thought and eclectic interests - gnosticism, the occult, alchemy, eastern religions, et al.

All in all, Jung's thought was considerably more far-ranging then that of Freud, who died an extremely painful death from the oral cancer probably caused by one too many cigars.....

http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/freud.htm

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

Daniel12,

This pronouncement is still attributed to Freud: "Sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar."

(The attribution is still unsubstantiated, but I sincerely hope he had a Groucho moment.)
======================
Your remarks on Nabokov remind me of comments by I.B. Singer on his short story, "Gimpel the Fool." He expressed awe at the critics, whose insights he claimed to lack and at the study questions included in anthologies, the answers to which eluded him. :)

On CCNL1's most recent typing:

I do not deny the existence of Etz Hayim, and I did not deny it on this thread. Rather, I called attention to the falsehoods in CCNL1's previous posting regarding a link to a seven-year-old "Times" review. That he does misrepresent is easily confirmed by a reading of the piece.

As for his final paragraph, I have never defended Judaism, but I do correct CCNL1's numerous errors--all due to absolute ignorance of the religion. I oppose CCNL1's anti-Jewish racism, have done so on this thread, oppose his homophobia, have done so on this thread, his anti-Muslim rants, have done so repeatedly, etc. I am not alone in this.

I read Vico's new science by way of Isaiah Berlin--it was good, as was Berlin. Read Jung too--a bunch of books by him. But I have a negative view of Jung now. The whole archetypes thing, he would never have come up with that if not for Freud. It was Freud who stressed the importance of major recurring patterns influencing human thought. And these patterns are nothing special precisely because they influence everyone--they are utterly common. What to do is get out of those patterns--and in fact Freud stressed that more than Jung. Recognize the patterns so as not to be influenced by them--essentially a type of learning from history. I lean more toward Nabokov's view of Freud now (and by extension Jung) although I think he was harsh on Freud--harsh but funny. Nabokov was famously scornful about the Freudian view--and by extension the Jungian. He said it was ridiculous to analyze his books by the psychological method--there is not some pattern at the center which is archetypal or a complex in any way. Essentially in Freud's and to a lesser extent Jung's terms he broke out of being in thrall to archetypes and complexes. Nabokov on Freud and by extension Jung: "I don't want an elderly gentleman from Vienna inflicting his dreams on me. I don't have the dreams he discusses in his books. I don't dream of umbrellas or balloons". More of the amazing Nabokov on Freud: "I am not up to discussing that figure of fun. Let the credulous and the vulgar continue to believe that all mental woes can be cured by a daily application of old Greek myths to their private parts". Harsh but funny. Nabokov had a great sense of humor--the funniest things said in a deadpan, aristocratic manner. "Speak memory", a great book. And what a writer. English not his native language but handled as well as the very best writers in English.

Your Affectionate Uncle,

What happened to your earlier praise of me?

"Sick of it are we all."

Well said.
Posted by: YourAffectionateUncle | July 17, 2009 11:31 PM
==========================
Certes I can never reach your lofty heights of wisdom, but were I you I'd read my own posts a bit more closely, viz:

Most here are windbags, and many are pompous. A significant fraction are creepy by design, or by accident.
Posted by: YourAffectionateUncle | July 17, 2009 11:29 PM
========================
Now, you have already told us that you are affecting to be Lewis, to whom, my dear, you owe profound apologies. But whether your creepiness is by design or no matters little.

You rush in as Lewis's demon to defend a blogger who has vilified gays, calls Jews a race, fouls the air with anti-Islamic cant, misrepresents sources, etc.

Well done, notwithstanding the stylistic deficiencies. Run along, now, back to the lake of fire.

Farnaz

PS. I ain't your daughter, ain't no relative of yours, honey.

Persiflage,

Re: My links

Vico was an eighteenth-century philosopher, etc., anti-dualist, anti-Cartesian, anti-Enlightenment.

He posited a stage model of history (myths, gods and heroes, humanity), with each stage giving rise to certain tropes. Vico influenced many subsequent thinkers including Nietzsche. White took it all significantly further. All three are constructivist, of course, holding that historians make the history they write. The first link to Vicky Rea's skeletal explanation of White contains an assignment that shows how White can be applied by novices, in this case Lehigh students.

Daughter Farnaz:

"CCNL1 is Poe's man who cannot be read. His Nazi antisemitic, anti-Islamic, homophobic filth are contaminants, merely. They are termites, infestation eating away at intelligent thought, civility."

Yes. You are right. Yes, always right.

Wrath, Envy, Pride, Vainglory, Lovely. Such a lovely observation really. You follow the paths of self righteousness with fervor. Many have been consumed along those paths, but you are unusual in how little assistance you require to find your way.

Your welcome is assured.

Thanks Farnaz - I appreciate those links.
You know I'm a link-crazed kind of guy!

Persiflage,

Re: Steiner

Yes, actually, I became acquainted with Steiner's thinking via research some years ago into the Waldorf School. Very impressive fellow, to understate the case.

Persiflage,

Thanks for your last post. I understand--had been locked into another thought mode.

Don't know if this will interest you but have posted some links.

The first goes to an explanation of Vico's thinking on history, myth, language, the second to a summary of Hayden White on history and historiagraphy, the third to White's book, "Metahistory." White is heavily indebted to Vico, Nietzsche, Croce, et al, as he frequently mentions in this and subsequent works. Wikipedia has bios on all.

http://books.google.com/books?id=y7_-eOm5C9YC&pg=PA239&lpg=PA239&dq=croce+tropes&source=bl&ots=DDvVG_08mM&sig=01MxK7T6NXz9A-G-liNmsJ17hIk&hl=en&ei=rrxjSuzUOoqilAeb8Zj9BQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10

http://www.lehigh.edu/~ineng/syll/syll-metahistory.html

http://books.google.com/books?id=v_DqhVZkQ2EC&dq=Hayden+white+metahistory&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=mLpjSp7qIcunlAe4pqj9BQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4

CCNL1 pastes:

Many of the 1.5 million Conservative Jews and many of their rabbis have relegated Abraham to the myth pile along with most if not all the OT.

Current crisis:
Realization that the Jews are not god's chosen people.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F20E1EFE35540C7A8CDDAA0894DA404482
=================================
All false attributions, comme d'habitude for CCNL1. The seven-year-old "New York Times" article to which the link leads says nothing of "Jews' realization that [they] are not the chosen people," whatever that means.

"Many of the 1.5 million Conservative Jews and many of their rabbis have relegated Abraham to the myth pile along with most if not all the OT."
=======
Nothing in the article mentions percentages of Conservative Jews, including rabbis, with respect to what they believe about Abraham and the Tanakh. (There is no "OT" in Judaism.)

As Persiflage notes in his comment, this particular post of CCNL1 has a long, tresome history, used to clutter every thread, since he pasted it repeatedly.

Last on this.

Jeez, here's a very lengthy CCNL double post that I first saw at least two years ago, and countless times since - could this be considered 'blog-hogging' or merely repetitious??

Actually, the diagnosis could easily be mucn worse......

15% of Americans do not believe that we have ever landed a man on the moon.

It would be interesting to know how many of that 15% do believe in virgin birth.

Farnaz - 'specialized' meaning that these particular mandalas have a ritual significance that is limited to Buddhism and perhaps tantric Hinduism.

But according to Jungian analysis, would be exemplars (par exellence) of the universality of archetypal symbols with 'special' local applications and/or interpretations.

As a symbol of completion or wholeness the mandala seems to represent the psyche in it's entirety.

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

Farnaz - thanks for the links and recommendations, in particular Karl Rahner. Unfortunate it is that his vision of religion and the nature of the soul will never pass Vatican muster - a pipe dream, as Rahner himself declares.

He has essentially transcended the supernatural, which is saying something about a devout Catholic that still abides by the magisterium!

Speaking of other great and eclectic German thinkers, do you know of Rudolph Steiner? He was another of the great minds that ended up in Geneva during the Jungian era. A genius and visionary on the order of Swedenborg, far ahead of his time.....

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

http://www.rudolfsteinerweb.com/

Dictionary: ra·cial (rā'shəl)


adj.
Of, relating to, or characteristic of race or races.

racially ra'cial·ly adv.

Farnaz's comments posted as: Farnaz1Mansouri1 | July 18, 2009 7:13 PM are false and very offensive and have been reported to WAPO as such.

Hi Muckenfuss,

Have the puppies bonded closely with one another? They have distinct personalities? Are they all going to different owners? When do they leave? Won't they miss you?

Farnaz wrote:

"How did/do pups respond to medical prodding, poking, needling? How are they in the wake?

Ah, Muckenfuss, my friend, you love precious puppies much. Will't not be most hard, most terrible for you and them to part?"

The pups typically have no reaction to the needles. Anal thermometers usually are met with a perplexed look, which soon passes. They are terribly active and LOVE meeting the vet and his assistants. They get their hyper behavior from father Sebastian, who is a candidate for Ritalin. But they definitely enjoy being alive and exploring the world.

Yes, losing them to new owners is painful, but also strangely joyful and rewarding. I am pretty careful about selecting the people who will get them. I aim for single people, because in single person/single dog households, the dogs tend to form intense bonds with the owner that is good for both of them. I have a close friend who raises golden retrievers...he has a kennel with about 50 adults, and is forever having new litters to deal with. I think he is less picky than am I about who gets his pups, but he also gets attached to each of them, especially to the runts. The runt in my litter is called TTWSY.

Persifalge,

Here's a highly specialized example - looking at the complex, elaborate mandalas to be found in tantric/Tibetan Buddhism, one would not expect to experience or encounter these forms in the psychic sense, unless deeply schooled in their forms and respective meaning, as well as the appropriate meditation techniques that make such encounters possible.
=======================================
But is this a specialized case? Or a different case?

Esteemed Persiflage,

Thank you for the dream links. Onofrio, redoubtable, undoubted, can speak to us on aboriginal dream?

Far flung soul-casting out and about! Was it not Greek dream that led first the Athenians and then the Christians to Soul?

Interesting(!) Christian (Catholic) Soul seekers, Oscar Cullmann, Karl Rahner:

http://www.religion-online.org/showchapter.asp?title=1115&C=1213

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/6743

CCN1 types:
Farnaz's comments posted as: Farnaz1Mansouri1 | July 18, 2009 7:13 PM are false and very offensive and have been reported to WAPO as such.

As noted by many, Farnaz has a significant problem with any criticism of Judaism and considers anyone who dares to note that Judaism, as with other religions, has significant foundational problems as being anti-Semitic and worse. And this from a professed Jewish atheist!!! Very strange!!!

She also typically waits to the weekend to make these false and outlandish statements knowing that the WAPO moderators are not checking comments during this time period.

Posted by: ccnl1 | July 19, 2009 12:03 AM
===================================
CCNL1 types:
Of course, since Judaism is both religious and RACIALLY based, not all Jews are necessarily believers in said god.
====================================
Although CCNL!'s defensive accusations are transparently false, I will reply in hopes that this is the last time any Jew, gay, Muslim, indeed, anyone will have to respond to this benighted blogger.

The final-straw remark posted above is not "critical of Judaism," nor has CCNL1 ever criticized the religin per se, in any substantive way as he is entirely ignorant of it. The racializing of Jews is something wholly different, other. It is racism, nazism, to be precise.

As for the rest of his verbalizing, his posting initial posting was made on Juyly 18th, was responded to. He posted again, and there was a second reply. I did not wait for him to pen sickening comments on gays and Jews, and I daresay that was the case with everyone else. Who would wait for such stuff?

As for reporting him, he has evidently been reported for comments on this thread. Since it was not I who reported him, it was clearly others who did so, as they have done in the past. In and of itself, this happens. Things get heated, folks contentious, etc. That, however, is another matter from endlessly villifying Muslims, gays, Jews, et al, singling out one or two outspoken bloggers, etc.

CCNL has evidently already been banned from this blog, and "unbanned," per his own posting on the previous thread. I don't know how David Waters will react to this most recent offense. CCNL1's endless release of "mutual masturbation," anti-Islamic, antisemitic contaminants are toxic. That they come from a professed Catholic atheist, oxymoronic, an atheistic defender of the faith, is entirely irrelevant. That faith does not need him; if it knew of him, it would not want him.

But it need not know. CCNL1 is Poe's man who cannot be read, evil. He does not exist.

Farnaz's comments posted as: Farnaz1Mansouri1 | July 18, 2009 7:13 PM are false and very offensive and have been reported to WAPO as such.

As noted by many, Farnaz has a significant problem with any criticism of Judaism and considers anyone who dares to note that Judaism, as with other religions, has significant foundational problems as being anti-Semitic and worse. And this from a professed Jewish atheist!!! Very strange!!!

She also typically waits to the weekend to make these false and outlandish statements knowing that the WAPO moderators are not checking comments during this time period.

Persiflage, old boy, you are an old soul, upon whose dreams none dare tread.

Musings: If you haven't read Hayden White, I think he would interest you. His great field is historiography, which he reads "tropically," via tropes, myths. His interest in the wild man is not that of Bly, of course, and I rather simplified it in my last post.

From Hayden White, years ago, I became interested in Vico, whom I then traced back to Yeats, who needed, then, rerading. Q?

Horsemen visionary, mortal or eternal, stop by. They see "siste viator" dreamily inked in air, contrarian fingers in the air. (It's a partly Roman thing.)

Farnaz - Eliade vis 'Myth and Reality' which I have here on hand from the 1960's.

With the redoubtable Onofrio in mind - something worth leaving behind this evening, for those that yearn for a living myth. The last link will provide instructions on how to construct your own dreaming ritual.
-----------------------
HE WISHES FOR THE CLOTHS OF HEAVEN

HAD I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

WB Yeats -

-------------------
-------------------

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

http://www.astronomy.pomona.edu/archeo/australia/jennifer.sumner.aborigines/INDEX.HTM

http://www.paratheatrical.com/dreamingrites.html

Whizz ard ry

Persiflage,

Science gods, genieyoss myths, mathematician detectives, but unhairy, sensitive. Bly weeps? Maybe not. :)

Eli--ade--adieu, Eli (more apologies to Onofrio)

Persiflage writes:

"Mircea Eliade and Claude Levi-Strauss are also excellent resources as regards myth and meaning, and commonly shared archetypal symbology."
================================
Levi-Strauss, yes. I have to think about why I did not think of him, but Jacques methinks factors in. Have you read Derrida, the Anti-Strauss? If so, what do you think, i.e., with respect to this question?

Can you say more on the complex El i ade (apologies to Onofrio)?

Farnaz - good point on inspired modern mythos coupling science with heroic action figures of both genders as they thoroughly populate the multimedia universe e.g. comic book figures, fiction, science fiction, movies, music, TV, computer games, et al. Do heros show more emotion these days, or is it just me?

Some folks take these things seriously, and all this non-stop pumping up of the imagination can apparently be habit forming for some. Still, it's better to be mesmerized for a few hours, compared to an entire lifetime.

On the other hand, great scientists are generally held in thrall for the entirety of their lives! A highly specialized vision quest.......

I think with Jung one has to discriminate between the ideas of the personal and collective unconscious to see how archtypal symbology emerges for an entire society. You're absolutely right about generic mythical themes taking on the distinct and unique coloration of host cultures.

Here's a highly specialized example - looking at the complex, elaborate mandalas to be found in tantric/Tibetan Buddhism, one would not expect to experience or encounter these forms in the psychic sense, unless deeply schooled in their forms and respective meaning, as well as the appropriate meditation techniques that make such encounters possible.

On the other hand, the Tibetan masters declare that these symbols, although profound, are universal and can be experienced by all humans given the right propensity for doing so......

As to the broader role and use of mythology -it's curious to see whether these common archetypes are interpreted so as to have distinctly similar or quite disparate meanings between two independent cultures -perhaps separated in time as well as by geographical space.

Mircea Eliade and Claude Levi-Strauss are also excellent resources as regards myth and meaning, and commonly shared archetypal symbology.

Muckenfuss writes:

"Daughter and dog still admiring each other? I am persona non grata with the pups today...just spend the morning with all of them at the vet, getting exams, wormed, second distemper and rabies shots. Gathering them all in one place at one time is quite an undertaking, and tests one's patience!"

Yes, Plautus and she closely connect, but, then, they have the best in human-canine world--No visits veterinary for delighting duo.

How did/do pups respond to medical prodding, poking, needling? How are they in the wake?

Ah, Muckenfuss, my friend, you love precious puppies much. Will't not be most hard, most terrible for you and them to part? :(

Persiflage,

Continued from previous posting:

"On another note, science seems to have displaced the need for myth in technologically advanced societies, with religion being the last holdout."

On Science, Myth, Metaphor, etc. Primo Levi, "The Periodic Table," Italo Calvino, et al., Donna Harraway, et al. Wild men and women of contemporary film--superheroes, etc.

Importance of Wild Woman, goddess, etc., among female poets, writers.

RACISM
==============================

Does "collective unconscious" as used by Jung not refer to geographically limited collectives? "Races" (per Jung)? Could Campbell explain universals, far flung regional myths that cannot be attributed to cross-fertilization?

Apparently once some folks get their peepee slapped, they have no tolerance for dribblers e.g. continuous dire warnings from CCNL to 'stay on message'.

If only he had taken his own advice all those countless thousands of obnoxious posts ago....but hope springs eternal and Lord knows the nuns would be proud!

I'll never forget sister Ambrosia and her very sharp pointer - but that's another story......

Persiflage,

A lot to think about in your comments--thanks!
Some freely associated responses:

Bly, the Wild Man, etc.: Bly's collectively unconscious Wild Man is a European and American phenomenon, is he not? Have you read much Hayden White? "Tropics of Discourse" and more recent work? White and others see the Wild Man's transformation from terrifying monster to enviable figure emerging in the Middle Ages with the severing of traditional social bonds, developing apace with the Renaissance along with the figure of the deficient king. "Macbeth" may be read as a cautionary tale within this discourse, "Hamlet," "Lear" as variations.

Science

The topic is about Faith and Law (not dogs and their shots). Said Faith and Law evolved from the ancients i.e. Greeks, Romans, Babylonians, Hittites, Canaanites, Jews, Christians et al.

Farnaz wrote:

"Thought this link might interest you."

Thank you, yes it does interest me. I have only glanced at it, but will give fuller attention this weekend.

Daughter and dog still admiring each other? I am persona non grata with the pups today...just spend the morning with all of them at the vet, getting exams, wormed, second distemper and rabies shots. Gathering them all in one place at one time is quite an undertaking, and tests one's patience!

'Thanks for the info. and links. Here is the question: What kind of analysis exists, offered by whom, to explain, for instance, the appearance both in the Tanakh and in Native American oral literature of twins, one good and one evil, fighting in the mother's womb?
The prevalence of flood myths, etc.?'

Farnaz - the short answer is, I don't know.

However if we take Jung and Campbell as expert witnesses, we can infer that both myths and the individual archetypes found in various myths are 'emergent' from the collective unconscious and then become cultural forms. Factors and forces stimulating such emergence must be many.

On another note, science seems to have displaced the need for myth in technologically advanced societies, with religion being the last holdout.

And that's not to void the obvious cross-fertilization and borrowing of traditions that occurs across cultural boundries. If you google 'deluge myths' you'll find dozens listed in Wiki, and the possible functions of myth are many. A good many myths must have evolved independent of outside influences. In my Campbell link I found something that he said quite interesting.

According to Campbell, myths revolve to an inordinate degree around males figures and themes, and in order to find equivilant female figures he had to change cultural venues, and begin exploring fairy tales (folk tales), which to him were categorically different.

In his book 'Celtic Fairy Tales' Evans-Wentz makes the telling remark that fairys, etc. are seldom seen these days, since the beliefs in such creatures have all but disappeared - however, see Findhorn in Scotland.

Hindu mythology that incorporates Kali is a notable exception - the issue of whether a society is patriarchal and matriarchal is yet another factor.

Naturally both myths and fairy tales, legends, etc. originally existed in oral form - the shanachie or story teller is still a viable tradition (e.g. our own Robert Bly) - but stories no doubt evolved and changed in the telling (the bible being a perfect example).

From personal experience, I can say that the unconscious part of our psyche is a quixotic phenomenon and not without a sense of humor - a while back I had a dream in which I was looking up at the classic Christian ichthus symbol that appeared to be hanging from the ceiling of a large cathedral - the fish gave the appearance of gigantic goldfish with huge smiling lips and knowing eyes!

I dug out my copy of Jung's 'Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious' but decided I'd never figure out the meaning of the symbolism. I've had other archetypal dreams with more imposing mythical figures.

Meanwhile, I haven't said anything new!

best regards, Persiflege

http://www.folkstory.com/resources.html

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

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

CCNL1 types:
Of course, since Judaism is both religious and RACIALLY based, not all Jews are necessarily believers in said god.
========================
Well, well, well. So was "Nazi" the wrong attributive? All things in recent and past posts considered, what, then, would be the correct?

The topic is about Faith and Law. Said Faith and Law evolved from the ancients i.e. Greeks, Romans, Babylonians, Hittites, Canaanites, Jews, Christians et al. "Heterosexuality" and Homosexuality to include the sexual conduct of each worms its way through all the laws and rules of said ancients.

The US Supreme Court Justices rely heavily on these laws and rules to make their judgements. One assumes the issue of same-sex unions will reach their hallowed halls someday and it will be interesting to see how the elements of intercourse and "outercoursing and mutual masturbation" are articulated by said court members.

CCNL1 types:
Of course, since Judaism is both religious and RACIALLY based, not all Jews are necessarily believers in said god.
========================
WTF?

CCNL

...said God?

Perhaps I misread your intention. Could you explain further?

What did you say said God said?

I hope you're not saying what I think you said said God said, becaue if you said that, well, then, I think that what you say said God said is not really what said God meant to say.

For the love of God, what did said God say?

Thus saith said God.

TaDa!

Thankyou very much.

YourAffectionateUncle

Yes, I assume he is a bitter and frustrated poor old soul, and yes I assume he is a boy not a girl. In fact I have reasoned proof.

For example, how could he not be a bitter old man? I mean come on.

There! I proved it. TaDa!

Thankyou very much.

Justice.

The Tanakh has NOTHING to say on homosexuality.

Judaism: Homosexuality is a non-issue in Conservative, Reforem, Reconstructionist, and some Judaisms. Some Christian denominations are also indifferent.

What all this could matter to a Catholic atheist is beyond me.

But regardless of what this or that religion may have to say, gays must have the same rights as all citizens.

End, really, of discussion. It will happen. That it is taking so long is reprehensible, but it will happen.

Fin

The Christian and Jewish god according to the "law" books of the associated religions created humankind to include the practitioners of homosexual activies described very accurately by "outercoursing and mutual masturbating" as any Google/Bing search will verify.

This same common god according the Christian and Jewish "law" books also limited sex acts to permanent monogamous duos i.e. the laws of the Christian and Jewish god therefore approves heterosexual marriages and homosexual unions as biologically and physically described by the sex acts of each combination because this god created them as such.

Of course, since Judaism is both religious and racially based, not all Jews are necessarily believers in said god.

Muchenfuss,

Thought this link might interest you.

This project at the University of Wisconsin brings neuroscientists and Buddhist monks together. The work they have done thus far is very exciting. One of their most interesting discoveries thus far is that the "default" state of the brain/mind, i.e., the inactive brain/mind is akin to monkey mind.

There ar numerous articles, pod casts, etc., showing actual brain changes after subjects have meditated. They've carefully introduced variables, replicated a couple of classic social science experiments, etc.
The scientists and monks have enormous respect for each other, and most of the scientists are practitioners.

This is only one of several federally funded grants in meditation, some going to pain relief, others to education, etc.

Laboratory for Affective Neuroscience
http://psyphz.psych.wisc.edu/web/index.html

Farnaz

Lest I again failed to permanently penetrate, as it were, the frictional aspect of straight sex qualifies it in CCNL1's terms as masturbation. By his non-reasoning, straight sex is not marriage sex.

He is advised to take a course on sex education, should have done so decades ago. This is not the venue for him to air his (off-topic) sexual hangups.

"Sick of it are we all."

Well said.

"That guy, TTWSYFAMDGGAHJMJ2, is a truely creepy character, a pompous old bag of wind."

Most here are windbags, and many are pompous. A significant fraction are creepy by design, or by accident. So those attributes cannot be at issue. So that leaves the issue that TTWSYFAMDGGAHJMJ2 you suppose that he, she, or it, is old?

As I have previously explained for those unfamiliar with the rudiments of heterosexual intercourse, those being CCNL1. Through friction of an erect penis against vaginal walls, orgasm is reached by the male. For the female, the process is different.

I would add, per JJ, that sex is not love, love is not sex. If CCNL1 objects to gay sex, he should not indulge in it. In the meantime, he would do well to spare us all his revelations on his own sexual insecurities and confusion.

Sick of it are we all.

Athena, Athena, Athena,

As noted previously, do a Google or Bing search on the terms "mutual masturbation" and outercoursing and you will find both terms are commonly in describing homosexual sex acts in plain, non-offensive English.

Part one.

No religion, gender or ethnicity disqualifies a person from becoming a Supreme Court justice, but how should a particular judge's life experiences -- including faith, gender or ethnicity -- inform his or her judicial rulings?

Sometimes it helps to imagine oneself in certain positions. And it helps even more if one can be honest with oneself, give an accurate account of one's thoughts in the position chosen. For the purpose of answering the above question, I imagine myself a Supreme Court justice--a white man, not particularly religious, perhaps more Democratic than Republican, faced with my fellow justices, the justices to come and America at large.

Today is Friday, I sit at home, and these are just the thoughts at the moment. I think about my fellow justices, so many of them Catholic and having no problem at all with more and more babies born on our planet--and unfortunately more dumb babies than not because the less intelligent people seem to be breeding left and right, not only within American society but worldwide. A terrible vision occurs to me: all the more intelligent people overwhelmed by the less intelligent as the intelligent Israelis are surrounded on all sides by the dumb Muslims.

I am a man of course obsessed with differences in intelligence between peoples. White people, Asians, Jews do not make me afraid. All the others make me sweat. I am not particularly religious, as already said. I cannot be sure in our world in which it seems the mostly dumb will inherit all the technology--technology which is completely dangerous even to the most intelligent--that Christ will come and save us all from our quite possible irresponsibility so long as we are mostly good.

Part two.

All that dangerous technology--and all those "privileged" whites which must be dislodged and make way for all the blacks and Hispanics...All those "privileged" whites of which I am one...Of course sitting in the courtroom I cannot help but see everything through myself--all my fears, all my hopes. I suppose if God exists it matters little not only if stupid people are born but that they overwhelm the more intelligent. As long as people are mostly good and in the grace of God it matters little if they destroy themselves with their technology--it matters little if society does not care about meritocracy and instead uses "affirmative" (negative?) action to elevate the dumb to positions which really should go to the truly capable. What am I thinking? I am next to incoherent...

But my fellow justices--those on the left not only bleeding hearts but determined to elevate entire groups that have so far been not very fortunate in America,--doing everything to demonstrate themselves not racist. God forbid that they should appear racist although it certainly seems that they really do not believe in any God...If they do not believe in any God then why are they so concerned about elevating the stupid? You would think in not believing in God they would be obsessed with excellence, always trying to make sure society aims in the direction of intelligence, because if society fails and there is no God there is no salvation.

No, without God man must be stern with himself. Society must go on no matter the cost in human suffering. Without God all that exists is society. Furthermore, why talk about being good in a world without God? Without God there is no ultimate goodness in the universe--no ultimate goodness to overcome evil. And if evil cannot be overcome by ultimate goodness all morality is pretty much pretension--because if there is no ultimate goodness life is fundamentally evil,--we humans are fundamentally evil. We can never really overcome our evil.

Part three.

So why be so concerned about dumb people in society? Why not work toward their elimination? Certainly some of my right wing fellow justices seem to harbor that thought although they are devout Catholics...Certainly they seem in favor of all those not black or Hispanic--even though Catholicism is the dominant religion of the Hispanic world...All those women, Hispanics, blacks striving against, despising especially the white man. But they are not racist, no, only the white man suffers from that disease. The dead white male is already dead so it has nothing to do with racism to call them dead white males.

Roiling mind...And who is this Jared Diamond fellow with his book Guns, germs and steel?--This book in which he gives the most liberal, bleeding heart interpretation of the rise of civilization? According to him there cannot possibly be differences in intelligence between peoples. No, the success of people of European descent comes entirely from the fortunate environment in which they grew up.--Which of course means transplant anyone now to Western civilization and he will be just as if a native Westerner.

And then we have Daniel Dennett saying that to choose a natural (naturally gifted) musician over one who has worked hard to be a musician smacks of racism...and of course his entire career, like so many others engrossed with biology, consists of the scared dance of being for genetics, evolution, but not acknowledging in the slightest possible differences in intelligence between peoples...

Part four.

The big no no of American society: that people might differ as to intelligence. Entire disciplines almost have erupted explaining man in any way but that people might differ genetically as to intelligence. We can open books left and right and at the heart of the book the unspoken thing just glares and is danced around this way and that--so much so that the extremes of not saying the unspoken thing of course make one think of it through the entire book...

America...All equal under God or no God. This whole attempt worldwide--and for years--to see all men as being equal. That men might not be equal the biggest threat of war? War to make equal? America moving beyond ethnic difference, religious difference, gender difference--a society in which all are equal, not just with equal opportunity. Men must be equal. We must see that this is true even if it is not. The self-deception rivaling religious delusion? It sure seems so, for even the supposedly hard-headed atheists are lost in it.

The Supreme Court...be truthful about this, lie about that. Demonstrate empathy. Hold one's own position. Justice. Justice? Justice with a belief in God? How? There are so many Gods...And if our God consoles us for the annihilation of our society by technology through our own irresponsibility...where is the justice? And without God, justice? How? Without God society must constantly move in the direction of the intelligent--because without God there is either the success of society or nothing. But choose the more intelligent over the less? Will that ever be seen as justice? Would it be absurd to say that in a world without God and moving toward selecting the intelligent among us to ensure the success of society that society will fall back to God for the simple reason that we cannot make the selection of the more intelligent over the less just?

Supreme Court decisions. The real ones are still in the heart.

Onofrio:

I'd be interested to know whom you would nominate, Farnaz.
===================
I cannot really answer that. There were several who were quite brilliant, original thinkers, Heschel among them, of course. Although Franz Rozensweig is almost unbearably difficult in translation, and I have, no doubt, missed a lot in his thinking, I admire him a great deal. I'm also very interested in such radically different theologians/philosophers as Joseph Ber Solovetchik and Mordecai Kaplain.

Persiflage,

Thanks for the info. and links. Here is the question: What kind of analysis exists, offered by whom, to explain, for instance, the appearance both in the Tanakh and in Native American oral literature of twins, one good and one evil, fighting in the mother's womb?

The prevalence of flood myths, etc.?

Dear Muckenfuss

That guy, TTWSYFAMDGGAHJMJ2, is a truely creepy character, a pompous old bag of wind.

Has he said even one sentence that makes any sense at all?

No he has not.

I will wait for his apology for his previous rude, nasty, and obnoxious comments, but I feel that as long as he pretty much of a lost soul.

"is libelous or defamatory
is obscene, pornographic, or sexually explicit"

Then, CCNL, why are you still allowed to post here? After all, you defame every religion but your Crossanized version of Christianity, and have gone quite sexually explicit and obscene in the discussion of homosexuality, to the point where I'm surprised that you didn't get slapped for an inappropriate comment.

I'm just sayin'.

"That's a great example for our young people. When the going gets tough, run away as fast as you can, find someone else to blame for your problem, and above all else, don't take any responsibility for it."

Sounds like Sarah Palin.

Danielinthelionsden wrote:

"And thence forward, infer all manner of ill will and bigotry against your fellow man, ..."

Mmmmm....I think you mean 'imply', but your points are well-made. My guess is he's a RCC priest. Is it just me, or does anyone else think that, if praying to his parents would serve any good purpose for his followers, Christ would have mentioned it to them? Or that, if she was intended to be "queen of heaven", and honored as such, that would have been mentioned as well?

My other half, a Polish RCC policeman, was told by his parish priest (at the wake, no less) that his mother's death from lung cancer was god's punishment on him for his homosexuality. Evidently that clod thought that smoking two packs a day for 46 years meant nothing. We both had a good laugh about that and many other RCC superstitions...he hasn't been back to a catholic church since!

TTWSYFAMDGGAHJMJ2

In a previous thread, you said that gay people are

"an embodiment of profligate evil"

"visages of perversions"

"paranoid" and

"schizophrenic."

You need to stop ALL further comment on ANY subject, until you apoloize for these remarks.

You are the one who is perverted, not gay people. Your "Jesus-mania" is a mental disorder, not being gay, and you could probably benefit from some treatment.

But until you get treatment, please spare us from your further uncontrolled and nonsensical babbling.

Life’s experiences help one to arrive at the truth in different ways, but it does not change the truth they seek which is objective. To the point, a baby is a baby no matter what your experiences are. You can know the child by being its mother, by being its father. A mother knows from her feelings of a new life even at conception. The father knows through the love for his wife. A Microbiologist, knows there is a child through his scientific experience, as does the Eugenicist, and the Embryologist know through different experiences. However, the child is still a child, though all arrive at the same truth by different experiences.
How one's experiences have shaped the nominee is what the President and Senate seek. Her life experiences form a Justice’s acquisition of prudence, reasonability, fortitude, honesty, and temperance that are applicable to her judicial acumen to apply the law objectively. The law does not change, and neither does justice.
Consequently, when the experiences cause one to conclude falsely, they can be detrimental. That is what is suppose to be determined in this hearing Does Sotomayor’s experiences help her adjudicate justly.
The bottom line is to arrive at a just conclusion for the petitioner in respect to the written law and its contextual intent. Seven Justices did not find a just relationship of man in accordance with the law as written.
Subsequently over fifty million unborn have died. What is more disturbing is that, precedence and ideology are trumpeting the substance of an unjust law that is a contradiction of its foundation. Namely, “Roe” violates the very rights it basis its justification on, viz. human rights and is being sustained by precedence.
Since the "conceived" is human, only one's pre-suppositions can sustain "Roe" and that is why a life of experience that has meaning is meaningful to the just adjudication of the law.

PRAISE GOD - EXCELLENT ANSWER

TTWSYFAMDGGAHJMJ2

So, what's your point? You repeatedly post false doctrines, and then insist, in bad faith, that these false doctrines are true. And thence forward, infer all manner of ill will and bigotry against your fellow man, and promote, in a very un-Catholic way, an intolerance of belief and rejection of anyone who does not believe as you do.

So, what is the point of all this? As far as I can tell, you have not made a single convert, but have only subverted and sullied the cause of Christianity, even more.

If your aim is to ruin, and sink forever, what is left of Christian belief, then keep up the good work, for in that, you are succeeding.

In short, you do not present yourself here as a serious person, with serious ideas worth debating.

TTWSYFAMDGGAHJMJ2

Poor Jesus, that he should have such a defender as thee.

Both the law and justice change constantly. That is why capital punishment, once lawful, was deemed unconstitutional, then reinstated as constitutionally correct, and yet abandoned by some states. That is why abortion, once illegal, is now lawful. That is why states are opting more frequently to provide for and sanction same-sex marriage. That is why the once-legal action of Joseph Kennedy to lobotomize one of his daughters for intending to marry a non-catholic would today land him in jail. The law and justice are both social constructs and, as such, are in constant states of change.

TTYSW wrote:

"The law does not change, and neither does justice."

Well said. Long live Roe v Wade. May it ever be a woman's right to decide whether she wishes to cart another human being around in her body!

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
DANIEL12
POSTED ON JULY 16, 2009 6:10 PM

IRT::
“No religion, gender or ethnicity disqualifies a person from becoming a Supreme Court justice, but how should a particular judge's life experiences--including faith, gender or ethnicity--inform his or her judicial rulings?”

ANS:
Life’s experiences help one to arrive at the truth in different ways, but it does not change the truth they seek which is objective. To the point, a baby is a baby no matter what your experiences are. You can know the child by being its mother, by being its father. A mother knows from her feelings of a new life even at conception. The father knows through the love for his wife. A Microbiologist, knows there is a child through his scientific experience, as does the Eugenicist, and the Embryologist know through different experiences. However, the child is still a child, though all arrive at the same truth by different experiences.

How one's experiences have shaped the nominee is what the President and Senate seek. Her life experiences form a Justice’s acquisition of prudence, reasonability, fortitude, honesty, and temperance that are applicable to her judicial acumen to apply the law objectively. The law does not change, and neither does justice.

Consequently, when the experiences cause one to conclude falsely, they can be detrimental. That is what is suppose to be determined in this hearing Does Sotomayor’s experiences help her adjudicate justly.

The bottom line is to arrive at a just conclusion for the petitioner in respect to the written law and its contextual intent. Seven Justices did not find a just relationship of man in accordance with the law as written.

Subsequently over fifty million unborn have died. What is more disturbing is that, precedence and ideology are trumpeting the substance of an unjust law that is a contradiction of its foundation. Namely, “Roe” violates the very rights it basis its justification on, viz. human rights and is being sustained by precedence.

Since the "conceived" is human, only one's pre-suppositions can sustain "Roe" and that is why a life of experience that has meaning is meaningful to the just adjudication of the law.

Onofrio, Farnaz, et al -

Regarding archetypal realms, Henri Corbin had significant influence on Jung and others in proposing a formalized matrix in which archetypes may exist and have their meaning. His field was Islamic mysticism.

He called this the imaginal realm, which by description is a comparatively boundless, transpersonal, and unconscious part of the human psyche. He staunchly supported the idea that this was an objectively existing realm, although non-physical in nature. One tangential dimension of the imaginal realm is of course the djinn realm.

By implication the much bigger question - the mystery behind the mystery so to speak, is discovering exactly how the non-physical interfaces with the physical or material realm.

If we accept the imaginal realm as truly existing, then one solution supporting this complimentarity of the two realms would be a scientific proof that the material realm is in fact not fundamentally made of matter.

Or, in the Gurdjeiffian sense, everything is made of matter, up to and including the Absolute - but of an ever more refined consistency.

In my mind, we're getting to the point of seeing either of these as possibilities....

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

http://www.hermetic.com/bey/mundus_imaginalis.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hillman

Good night all.

TTWSYF,

Thee:
"Today, we are abandoning the wisdom of God’s Catholic Church. Her immortal moral principles based on human nature, and subsequently engraved in the Bill of Rights."

So, the Bill of Rights is a Catholic manifesto! Cheered on, as it was born, by the pope and his bejewelled princes...

We haven't seen such misappropriation since the *Old Testament* was superseded by dying-rising-saviour set-ups!

Onofrio wrote:

"I must learn to love even TTWSYF."

It would be superfluous: you could never love him as much as he does.

Daniel12,

Thee:
"It seems we hear more the negatives than the positives about Mormonism."

Well, their *alternative* sacred history of ancient America would be amusing if it weren't so insulting to Native Americans and to history. Perhaps they should rebrand it as fantasy fiction. Then certain non-Mormons might even take it seriously (a la Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, et alii).

Thee:
"Would it be ironic if the other Christian denominations are responsible for the negative views concerning Mormonism?"

Not ironic, Daniel, just all-too-predictable. A matter of duelling kooky fictions trying to unfact one another. Protestants protesting too much about those who've protestantised too much ;^)

Farnaz,

Thee:
"Am getting lost in that so far it appears that while there is suggestive text in the NT, there is no mention of a trinity per se, that the belief wasn't codified until the Nicene Creed. Whence, then, the Egyptian influence, hypostatically speaking?"

The book I cited by Gwyn Griffiths would throw a lot of light on this. I know it's on your to-read list :^) I don't mean to harp, just felt I needed to offer you more than my feeble broadbrush.

Do you know of Griffiths? I admire him rather a lot. A true bard: poet, bohemian, activist, both classicist and egyptologist. A brilliant man.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/professor-j-gwyn-griffiths-730594.html

Farnaz,

Thee re Heschel:
"Did you know that he had translated "emes" as "sincerity," titled the book "The Passion for Sincerity"? Quite a difference, no?"

Indeed it is. Yet whoever nudged it to *Truth* knew a thing or two about marketing.

This callow suburbanite might not have opened a book titled 'The Passion for Sincerity'. ;^)

So sad but true.

Thee:
"Once at a talk by Cornel West, I listened to him pronounce Heschel the greatest Jewish theologian of the twentieth century. In fairness, I don't think this is so."

I'd be interested to know whom you would nominate, Farnaz.

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
ONOFRIO
“THE CHRISTIAN MORAL LAW”
POSTED ON JULY 17, 2009 1:20

IRT:
“Shall you be paying due respect to those contributing streams?”

ANS:
We pay respect not to the religions of the Founding Fathers, not to the Enlightenment Period, which was a failure because it made the world anthropocentric and not theocentric, but to the FF's recognition that we are creatures created equal by God, endowed with certain inalienable rights and a free will. These rights were so given by this Christian God and not given by man. What man gives, man can take away.

Many troglodytes and philistines have tried to distort the source of the rights of man by denying the FF were referring to a Christian God but to a vague and nebulous Pantheistic God of all religions and therefore of no religion. The Court once tried to describe God that way.

The intent of a generic God was to impugn the profound importance of these principles by diminishing the authority of the Creator from which they came.

To the contrary, the God of the FF was a Christian God, not a Buddhists or Hindu god, not the multiple facets of the Pagan gods, or the Greek or Egyptian gods, not the Shinto or Animal gods, or the inanimate gods supposed in nature.

Today, we are abandoning the wisdom of God’s Catholic Church. Her immortal moral principles based on human nature, and subsequently engraved in the Bill of Rights. It is because of these principles that this country flourishes, and to our fault is retreating to the anthropocentric rationale that has spurred Communism, Fascism, Socialism, and was the cause of the tragic ending of the French Resolution.

Under the Christian precept, "all men are created equal," man is endowed by God with certain inalienable rights and are therefore the providence of God and not man. The Enlightenment Period was a clear example to the FF that with God all things are possible, and with man alone nothing is possible.

More about Mormonism in added off-topic commentary:

Mormonism is another "angelic"-dependent religion just like Judaism, Christianity and Islam for without the "angel"/"pretty, thingie" delivering the Golden Tablets there would be no Mormonism.

Regarding Judaism, Christianity, Islam and "angelic-connections".

Judaism is the foundation of Islam and gives this religion the rationale for what it does starting with the need for the "angelic" connection. Ditto for Christianity in that regard.

from : www.catholic-pages.com/angels/gabriel.asp

"Archangel Gabriel

The Jews venerated Gabriel as the angel of judgment, and in both Jewish and Christian tradition he is one of the seven archangels. Gabriel is also known to Moslems, who believe him to be the angel who served as the mouthpiece of God in dictating the Koran to Mohammed.
Mention of St Gabriel occurs four times in the Scriptures:

He first appears to Daniel in the guise of a man and proceeds to interpret a vision Daniel has had of a ram with two horns, which is overcome by a he-goat. Gabriel explains that the ram is the empire of the Medes and the Persians which will be destroyed by the he-goat, the king of the Greeks (Alexander the Great). This vision came to Daniel in the year 554 BC, while the Israelites were in captivity in Babylonia. The prophecy was fulfilled nearly 200 years later.

The angel Gabriel again appears to Daniel to foretell the coming of the Messiah and the destruction of Jerusalem and its sanctuary.

The next appearance of Gabriel is recorded in Luke 1:11-20, where he predicts to the priest Zachariah as he is burning incense at the altar in the temple that his wife is to bear a son whose name shall be John.
The final mention of Gabriel is found a little later in the same chapter of St Luke's Gospel, where he goes to the Blessed Virgin Mary with the tidings that she is to be the Mother of the Messiah. Thus we see that Gabriel comes as the bearer of good tidings and as the comforter and helper of men.

In Milton's Paradise Lost, (book iv), Gabriel is placed at the eastern gate of Paradise as chief of the angelic guards.
Christian tradition holds that Gabriel is the unnamed angel who spoke to St Joseph and proclaimed the birth of Christ to the Shepherds. He is also believed to be the angel who comforted Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. A fresco of this angel figures prominently in a chapel on the Via Appia, indicating that he was honoured very early in the history of the Church. The Hebrew word from which Gabriel is derived means "hero of God".

I have to look into this Heschel, I read Martin Buber and liked him.

To Onofrio on Mormonism, I got a copy of their book from the guys that go house to house but I have still to read it.

The only thing now that I can think about Mormonism is that I read somewhere that the Mormon women having so many children wears them out. How true that is I have no idea. I do know one Mormon woman who comes to a bookstore I frequent and she does look worn out (has I believe eight children). But on the other hand a Mormon family that lived across the street from where I lived had eight kids and the woman looked like she was in her early thirties (even though her oldest were getting close to their twenties) and she in fact resembled a bunny rabbit and had so much energy and was unfailingly cheerful.

As for "as we are now, God once was. As God now is, we may become", that is really something. I never knew the Mormons said things like that. I do know they believe prophecy is far from dead, that a prophet can appear equal to the ancients (I believe I have that right). But you hear all the time about the Golden tablets and that the Native Americans are a lost Jewish tribe, something like that. It seems we hear more the negatives than the positives about Mormonism. Would it be ironic if the other Christian denominations are responsible for the negative views concerning Mormonism?

Hi Onofrio,

On Heschel:

Did you know that he had translated "emes" as "sincerity," titled the book "The Passion for Sincerity"? Quite a difference, no?

The Kotzke Rabbi and the Ba'al Shem Tov, they say, battled for Heschel's soul. When he was nine, an uncle of his, a follower of Menachem Mendel, began to supervise his education and thus began the Rebbe's dark influence on the mystic boy. What a giant Hescehl became, divided soul.

Once at a talk by Cornel West, I listened to him pronounce Heschel the greatest Jewish theologian of the twentieth century. In fairness, I don't think this is so. But he was a great figure, an early fighter for civil rights, a vocal opponent of the Vietnam , etc.

On myth, Jung:

You know, I think at this point "universals" have gone beyond Campbell. Don't even know if they call them that anymore. Perhaps, Persiflage knows, as you say.

Farnaz

Farnaz,

Anthropomorphism:

A deus ex machina...for deus? ;^)

Daniel12,

"life prior to man could not only have existed, but have been born much earlier than man and still be in existence, having evolved so far beyond man that perhaps all man sees is the creation of such beings. In other words, the more it can be said humans are just children compared to the age of the universe, the more it can be said life in existence prior to man is possibly now all but God to us. And when you think of it, how powerful does God have to be to really exist for us? Is not a being somewhat less than God but far beyond the human still God to us?"

That there's some fascinating speculation, Daniel12. Lem's views here harmonise with a key doctrine of Mormonism, to wit:

As we are now, God once was. As God now is, we may become.

Or words to that effect.

Now by no means to I wish to endorse Moronic phantasmy of the Salt Lake type, but I do think the LDS are on-to-something here.

Who knows what our trajectories and matrices might be, in eternity?

Yet, for the mo, I remain gibbonesque. Halloo, fellow primate. Let us learn together to scupper our gibbonicidal tendencies, yea, in all their sneaky insinuations...

I must learn to love even TTWSYF.

Farnaz,

Thee:
"What also fascinates (does it not?) are the (universal?) motifs in mazy motion throughout Middle East, the West, NOrth America, e.g., twins, good and evil, battling in mother's womb, floods, of course....(Global Warning? Q?)"

Och aye. Jung, I think, was on to something in this regard. Persiflage, no doubt, could throw light here.

We all linguify, we all dream, we all feel the challenge of pain and the threat of dis-integration...

...though apprently, according to Dan le Douze, some of us are djinn-yes optimates, due to trounce-by-devices mere primate-ivity.

Proudly gibbon, me.

Faith in Australian Law:

"Twitter tackles impersonators"

Farnaz,

Thanks for your reflections on God-with-us. I suppose, in the end, that any lasting theistic tradition has to wrestle down its anthropomorphisms, yet without crushing their poetic power. That's the real trick...

On A J Heschel - back in the early 90s I absent-mindedly plucked his 'A Passion For Truth' from a pile of books at a garage sale. I had no prior knowledge of the author, no expectations, but intrigued by the title, I began to read. The Kotzker Rebbe made quite an impression on me, more so than Kierkegaard. I found the former's wild contrarian irascibility compelling. I keenly recall my inital shock (I was Christmongerly pious at the time) and then delight at the Kotzker's startling valorisation of Pharaoh.

TTWSYF

a.k.a. the P.T.F. (Pompous Thomist Flogger)

Thee:
"The fools you speak of who believe in God includes the Founding Fathers, who based America’s foundation on the precepts and teachings of Christianity."

Said *Founding Fathers* were often freethinkers, deists, and freemasons, in addition to/despite their *default* Christianity. They were influenced by the European *Enlightenment*, which was not exactly a pro-Catholic or Pope-endorsed movement.

Shall you be paying due respect to those contributing streams?

As for the ideals of the Founding Fathers; they may have been informed by Christianity, but in a very broad sense, not limited to your RCC. There would be a fair bit of input from British cultural and historical trajectories (rather un-Catholic, no?) as well as New England protestantism. All that equates to HERESY in your terms. Funny how you venture outside your One True Church when it suits your polemic.

Of course, ignorant me is probably way off beam here. So can you perhaps quote us some of Pius VI's ringing endorsements of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution?

Or was he too busy closer-to-home, having the related French 'Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizens' circulated to all his bishops?

Sarcasm aside, did you know that in his 'Quod aliquantam' brief of 1791, Pius VI uneqivocally denounced the 'Declaration of the Rights of Man' for seeking

"to annihilate the Catholic religion and, along with it, THE OBEDIENCE DUE TO KINGS" (capitals mine)

In the follow-up encyclical 'Adeo nota', Pius VI condemned the 'Declaration of the Rights of Man' for

- "denying the rights of God over man"

- benefitting "people who are strangers to the Church, such as infidels and Jews" with "monstrous freedoms".

Though it eventually changed its tune on some of these matters, the Papacy has a fairly chequered history with regard to supporting human rights and constitutional government.

Semper eadem?

We have faith that the Washington Post will continue to enforce the rules/laws/agreement of the On Faith blog:

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Proof God exists? Perhaps not yet proof, but something of the possibility. Something of the possibility? Well, yes: Although there are problems conceiving an absolute (omnipotent, omniscient) being--obvious problems which have been much stated by atheists such as the problem of how evil can exist if God is all knowing and good--we can well imagine a being within the universe so powerful that it is just short of God, in fact for all not being God still with a tremendous amount of influence, the force behind so many of the effects we see and have difficulty tracing backward to a cause. The science-fiction writer Stanislaw Lem wrote a short piece which was more philosophical speculation than science-fiction. Lem observed the known age of the universe according to astrophysicists and compared that to the known age of life on earth--specifically the length of time it took for man to evolve. And when he came up with the difference he realized the difference is so great, man so young compared to the age of the universe, that life prior to man could not only have existed, but have been born much earlier than man and still be in existence, having evolved so far beyond man that perhaps all man sees is the creation of such beings. In other words, the more it can be said humans are just children compared to the age of the universe, the more it can be said life in existence prior to man is possibly now all but God to us. And when you think of it, how powerful does God have to be to really exist for us? Is not a being somewhat less than God but far beyond the human still God to us?

Hi Onofrio,

You wrote, "Do you think it allows that God may actually be imperilled, vulnerable?"

I don't know that Judaism would use the words "imperiled, vulnerable," but Abraham Heschel, theologian greatly respected by students of Christianity/Catholicism, as well as of Judaism, argued suffers "with."

Even in the Tanakh, setting aside the evolution of the God concept, one sees that the deity creates first, then sees that it is good, that he must be reminded of who/what he is, for example with Sodom and Gomorrah, that He tries different tactics, etc. He is "wrestled with," bargained with, chastised, etc. And the notion of this deity which carries more abstractly into the Talmud and rabbinic Judaism is not seen as inconsistent with the all-knowing, the all just, the all merciful--the All, the One.

Can one simply say ascribe some of this to anthropomorphism and have done with it? Or is it more complex than that? Don't know....

Muckenfuss,

Have you read Pagels on the Gnostic Gospels?
(Pages are excerpted at PBS site.)

Hi Muckenfuss,

Thanks for the suggestion regarding the Gnostic Gospels, also made by Ian, Relig. Studies pal, who sent along this link.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/story/pagels.html
=======================
I understand that contemporary interest in them has grown. Will need to get my bearings on how they are generally understood before I venture further. (Will also need time.) Meanwhile, I've glanced at the PBS site, which is interesting to say the least.

And thanks again for your link to the article on Buddhism and science. Have reread it. Impressive. :)

Farnaz

TTYSW wrote:

"You have been given several times the proofs of God from reason. I am not repeating them any more. Aquinas gives five; Aristotle gives one from motion in an elaborate rational and compelling proof."

Proof by reason is no proof. Aquinas' "proofs" are nothing but opinion based on his "reasoning". You can provide no empirical proof. Your entire fantasy is built on the fantasies of others. Go fumble your beads.

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
MUCKENFUSS | Posted ON: July 16, 2009 3:26 PM
PROOF OF GOD:

IRT
"You have been repeatedly asked to prove the existence of god, and the best you can do is to quote the unstable and psychotic "thinking" of others. You have never given an iota of empirical proof of the existence of god. So run along and fumble your beads. You have wasted your life."

ANS:
You have been given several times the proofs of God from reason. I am not repeating them any more. Aquinas gives five; Aristotle gives one from motion in an elaborate rational and compelling proof. Aquinas explains the proof from five observations of undeniable reality. Look them up. Even Wikipedia has a few simple short proofs a second grader can understand.

If you are incapable of understanding them, it’s unfortunate for you. The evidence of God’s existence is revealed to the simplest of minds, to little children but not to those who are so arrogantly predisposed that they are blinded by their own prejudices.

It's unfortunately for those who are incapable of understanding the use of reason explicitly expressed in these proofs. The fools you speak of who believe in God includes the Founding Fathers, who based America’s foundation on the precepts and teachings of Christianity.

If you think the Founders were stupid and you have a better idea join the crowd who agree with you, viz. the Communists, Fascists, and as did N. Korea, China and Russia, Cambodia, the Congo and Sudan who also agree with you. They think they are God and that Jesus was a charlatan. They also believe the two billion people who also know God exists are also fools. That’s unfortunate for them and you when even a Man rises from the dead and you still don't believe Him.

God is so manifested in all He has Created that even a simpleton knows of his presence. Einstein, who wasn’t known for his religion, said anyone who couldn’t see the wonders of God was brain dead.

Your preposterous contention that a Creator exista but not God is presumptuous piggery. Manipulating the truth only workes in the alternate world, not the real one, and you are in the real one.

All your prattle and rant will not change the facts. God exists whether you believe it or not. However, a day will come when you will believe it, and you’d better hope it’s not too late because you won't have a choice not to believe.

Part one.

No religion, gender or ethnicity disqualifies a person from becoming a Supreme Court justice, but how should a particular judge's life experiences--including faith, gender or ethnicity--inform his or her judicial rulings?

Supposing a person has intellectual integrity, a question cannot get much uglier than this one. The easy answer to this question is to say that the U.S. has a long and proud tradition in the formulation of laws which cannot be reduced to any one religion (or gender or ethnicity)--in fact the Constitution was formed by and constantly demands the mentality of a lawyer (and of course the ideal type of such: the legislative intellect). It is not for nothing that we have that wish for our children to the effect that they become either lawyers or doctors (the one our "Moses", "Lycurgus",
"Solon" mentality, the other our aspiration toward the healing powers of Christ).

In the U.S. we have seen a gradual progression to the effect that first a tangle of laws were created to unite disparate religious and ethnic tendencies (and to a much lesser extent gender differences) which nevertheless had the British isles and Europe as their common background, and then these laws have been extended to integrate religious and ethnic tendencies not of the prior background into the fold. The big problem--we are in the thick of it now--is in this attempt to integrate "those other people" ("those other people" of which women in general in the U.S. must be included, for the liberation of women in the U.S. has been concurrent with the liberation of individuals of "other" backgrounds) we are meeting with unusual difficulty, which is surprising considering the power of American democracy.

Part two.

But although this problem of integrating
the "others" is of unusual difficulty, it has been made light of--roughly speaking, the Republican party seeing the primary problem as being the preservation of the dominant "Christian background" (and to a lesser extent, the preservation of the British/European influence in both mind and body), while the Democratic party sees really no great problem at all, simply that we must continue to have and reinforce laws separating church from state (which is to say the Democratic party feels all religious, ethnic and gender differences will slide quite easily into a state above the listed differences which is a new common theme to all). Both parties pretty much--even the Republican--take for granted that women and the rest of those "others" are fundamentally not incompatible with the concept of the U.S. Constitution, our democracy in general. But the ugliness of our question is in precisely examining this assumption.

It seems that the more the U.S. is supposed to accomodate women and those "others" we also call by the name "minorities" the more the U.S. is hard pressed to find centripetal powers to offset the centrifugal powers of the "others". I think everyone in the U.S. at the least can admit that the project of integrating the "others" is of an order of difficulty several magnitudes removed from the prior (historical) integration process. But then again, perhaps we cannot admit even that. All too often we hear of simply needing to challenge and dislodge "white privilege", as if not only has the majority of all the marvelous inventions, discoveries and creations around us not come from white people, but that whites are "privileged" to have them, as if they came from some other agency and were given to the whites (shades of cargo culture thinking!). Hold your breath, dear reader, for this conversation is about to get much uglier.

Part three.

As usual, I find myself incapable of wasting another person's time. What I say is plainly, boldly and briefly stated--classical virtues (why write a book promoting, defending, explicating a single idea as so many do when that one idea can be expressed in a few paragraphs?). The problem before us hinges on the intellectual power of the "others". Of course everyone says there are no differences in intellect between the "others" and the "privileged", but our difficulty in integrating the "others" seems to give the lie to that. (And at this point I really should mention that men from places such as India and Asia--and those Jews of especially Ashkenazi background--are in my opinion not to be included in the "others" because they are precisely "model" minorities--in fact their success as "others" in comparison to the "real others" exacerbates the problem). What we do know is that if one is one of the "others" there is much pressure to succeed, to not only represent the group within the "others" of which one is a member (if one is black one represents blacks; if Latino, Latinos; if a woman, women), but to elevate as best as possible the group within the "others" of which one is a member. And this often goes to ridiculous lengths, lesbians--specifically those with all too obvious male qualities--representing all women; blacks with a significant amount of white or other blood--Eric Holder, attorney general (just look at his face); Benjamin Todd Jealous, head of the NAACP (look at his face too); Tiger Woods (half Thai); Obama (half white); Bob Marley (half white)--representing all blacks (if having only a drop of black blood, one is black. This one drop rule of course originated in the days of slavery and was used to strictly separate the blacks from whites, but now it is used by blacks to throw as much weight onto the black side as possible, to acquire as many successful blacks to represent blacks as possible. Lesson to all those not black having children with blacks: your child will be considered black and pressured to stand for all blacks--forget about what you contributed, you really do not fit into the picture, that is stone cold evident); Latinos with predominantly European blood (most often Portuguese or Spanish) representing Native Americans (of of course Central and South America) who are Spanish or Portuguese in only language...

Part four.

Ugly, right? I told you so. Oh, wait: I can only be a total racist, a white supremacist hating all those "others", including women, right? If you will forgive me I prefer to see it another way: that I must be ostracized for telling the truth. But, dear reader, the voices can be silenced as much as anyone might want, but the problem will not go away by that method--of that I am convinced. I have made my diagnosis (today I am a lawyer and a doctor) and now I give my prognosis. All the "others" will continue forcing themselves against the "privileged", and my belief is that women, especially if descended from the British isles, Europe, Asia and India, will have the most success, but most of the "others" will be recognized more with each passing day as not succeeding as expected--and in the case of religious groups and ethnicities not succeeding as previous generations of immigrants. In other words, my prognosis is that my diagnosis will become common knowledge...

And then the true nastiness begins. The true racists will come to be significant, perhaps differing from past racists in admitting the intelligence of Jews and Asians, or perhaps not (a significant theory is that the clearly superior intelligence of Ashkenazi Jews comes from the same genes which cause neurological diseases such as Tay-Sachs, Gaucher and Niemann-Pick), but society obviously will not be able (thankfully!) to fall back and realize the racist's desire of exterminating the "others"--but neither will it be able to find a truly satisfactory solution unless, perhaps, it be through the genetic sciences somehow establishing an "even spread of intelligence". No, what will occur is that society will be anguished, the average mind reflected through the better (in this case through the Supreme Court justice) oscillating between trying to be meritocratic, working toward promoting those (people in general) with clearly unusual and exceptional qualities, and being sympathetic, demonstrating empathy, toward those being left behind, seeing justice as elevating those "others" regardless of whether they have unusual and exceptional qualities.

Conclusion: what has just been explicated, articulated, is probably the greatest Supreme Court case of the future in the U.S.--and one so difficult we cannot even with much thought give a name to the case, articulate clearly the sides in the case. But we will feel it in our hearts. The question really is whether the Supreme Court will be equal to it--hell, will the legislative body be equal to it. A most difficult problem--which is precisely why to even broach it is to be considered a racist, one to be ostracized, perhaps even exiled. Perhaps even murdered. Certainly it is possible to be a Voltaire for the modern day life.

Our Faith in Laws Regarding Impersonation

"The crime of pretending to be another individual in order to deceive others and gain some advantage.

The crime of false impersonation is defined by federal statutes and by state statutes that differ from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. In some states, pretending to be someone who does not actually exist can constitute false impersonation. For example, suppose Bill attempts to evade prosecution for a crime by giving the arresting officer a fictitious name and address. In Colorado, where "[a] person who knowingly assumes a false or fictitious identity and, under that identity, does any other act intending unlawfully to gain a benefit for himself is guilty of criminal impersonation," Bill could be charged with a crime (Colo. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 18-5-113(1) [West 1996]). In this situation, the benefit Bill hopes to realize is avoiding prosecution, so that element of the offense has been satisfied. To be charged, the defendant does not need to seek a monetary benefit from the impersonation."

TTWSYFAMDGGAHJMJ2

Oh I can read. It is just, that whenever I read what you write, then I wish I could not read.

You have been very clear about how you feel on most things, that you are a self-appointed spokesman for your personal interpretation of what it is to be Cathollic, and you have dished out some of the nastiest homophobic non-sense that I have ever heard, in name of the Catholic Church.

I am an intelligent person. I did not misread or misunderstand your true intention. That you seek to back-track from it whenever you are "called" on it indicates that you do have some sense of right and wrong, and do not want to come off as being hateful to gay people, although you clearly are.

Not that this should go off the tracks onto the gay subject, but bigotry is an unending migraine headache, is it not, and people like you are the ones who cause all the pain.

Republicans:

...the other white meat.

Farnaz wrote:

"Persiflage, link on Coptic Christianity "

Want a real eyeopener? Read the Gnostic Gospels. MUCH more believable jesus.

TTWSYetc wrote:

""With God all things are possible, with man nothing is possible.""

There is no god. There is only a creator. No god, no jesus, none of it---all myth from beginning to end.

You have been repeatedly asked to prove the existence of god, and the best you can do is to quote the unstable and psychotic "thinking" of others. You have never given an iota of empirical proof of the existence of god. So run along and fumble your beads. You have wasted your life.

Persiflage, link on Coptic Christianity plus email from Relig. Studies pal clearing up Egyptian/Christian "trinitarianism" a bit. Thanx :) Friend remarked that Christians had sought forecast tripartite in Tanakh, but in confessed 'twas not there.

TTWSY and so forth pontificates thusly:

'.......Consequently, Egyptian and Greek myths are no more than tales of the crypt, buried in the abode of the dead. Christianity, on the other hand. is the pathway to eternal life in paradise.'

Christianity emerged from the very matrix of which you speak. To insist arbitrarily that Catholic dogma is any less mythological in substance or more literally real, verges on petulance - this is not the empirical proof that we crave.

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

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_dogma#Beliefs

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

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
Posted by: DanielintheLionsDen | July 16, 2009 12:02 PM

"I remember you; you're the guy who hates gays. You have said so many miserable homophobic things on these threads, that, everything subsequent that you may say is tainted.

Before you say more about anything, the thing for you to do is to apologize for what you have already said in the past.

ANS:
You aren't the guy who couldn't read are you? Maybe your memory isn't too good, or maybe your prejudices cloud your mind, or blurred your vision. You might revisit your source. It never ever was said. In fact the opposite has always been said.

When one is predisposed, they only see what they want to see. Only Left-wing ideology have to apologize for not speaking the truth. If anyone is a misanthrope its the Radical Left who promote gay sex that has destroyed over 26 million victims, that's not including the suicides it has caused.

Onofrio,

Thanks very much for the book recommendations, entered prominently on to-read list. Quick perusals of world religion books, web, of minor help. REply from query to Relig. Studies person, who, alas, leaves country this afternoon, yielded info. elaborating on what you have said.

Am getting lost in that so far it appears that while there is suggestive text in the NT, there is no mention of a trinity per se, that the belief wasn't codified until the Nicene Creed. Whence, then, the Egyptian influence, hypostatically speaking?

Have been, in spare time, reviewing regional in Tanakh. What also fascinates (does it not?) are the (universal?) motifs in mazy motion throughout Middle East, the West, NOrth America, e.g., twins, good and evil, battling in mother's womb, floods, of course....(Global Warning? Q?)

Republicans have made many comments on Sonia Sotomayer's "accent." Rush Limbaugh,
DITLD writes:

Pat Buchanan, Newt Gingritch, G. Gordon Liddy, yada-yada-yada have all commented that she was given a free pass into difficult colleges by way of affirmative action, that her native language is "illegal alien," even though her parents (not she) is from Purerto Rico, and even though Puerto Rico is part of the United States, and all Puerto Ricans are American citizens, the same as any American from New York, or California, or Texas.
=====================
Regional accents trouble ears of dazzling cosmopolites, schooling courtesy of infirmative action, inattention, incarceration.

TTWSYFAMDGGAHJMJ2

I remember you; you're the guy who hates gays. You have said so many miserable homophobic things on these threads, that, everything subsequent that you may say is tainted.

Before you say more about anything, the thing for you to do is to apologize for what you have already said in the past.

Egyptians believed like the Greeks in myths. Christianity believed in one God and eternal happiness in eternity with God. God never depended on man, He created man. Thus, it is written, "With God all things are possible, with man nothing is possible."

Truth trumps myths and fantasies. Those who embrace false gods are devoured by the world and perish with it. Consequently, Egyptian and Greek myths are no more than tales of the crypt, buried in the abode of the dead. Christianity, on the other hand. is the pathway to eternal life in paradise.

Counterww

I guess you are just too DENSE to get irony, and humor, DUDE.

Republicans have made many comments on Sonia Sotomayer's "accent." Rush Limbaugh, Pat Buchanan, Newt Gingritch, G. Gordon Liddy, yada-yada-yada have all commented that she was given a free pass into difficult colleges by way of affirmative action, that her native language is "illegal alien," even though her parents (not she) is from Purerto Rico, and even though Puerto Rico is part of the United States, and all Puerto Ricans are American citizens, the same as any American from New York, or California, or Texas.

But any hint of an accent that she has is distinctly "Bronx" which the last time I looked, was in America, even though Senator Sessions, and Senator Graham may be too sheltered and cloistered ever to have heard of such a place.

I know that Southern White people speak a variation on standard English, DUDE!

I AM FROM THE SOUTH DUDE! and my native English is a southern variation on Standard English. But I do know how to speak proper English, as Ms. Sotomayer does, and I do so in formal or public settings.

Those backwoods hicks have alot of nerve to hold other people to a standard that they themselves cannot attain.

I guess this is all news to you, DUDE.

Senator Graham sounds like Gomer Pyle. If he can't speak proper English, then let him take lessons and learn how. I mean DUDE! It is not like I am asking him to learn Chinese, just plain English, DUDE!

Senator Sessions, on the other hand, is a different problem, altogether. He gives off a vibe that makes my blood run cold. He is the stereo-typical Southern White good-ole boy. It is too bad that such a person as this should wind up in the U.S. Congress in the twenty-first century.

So, what does that make you, DUDE? Humorlessly proud of your own ignorance?

DUDE!

Wow! Republicans! What a great bunch of people.

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
SUSAN JACOBY
SOTOMAYER NOMINATION

IRT;
“Sotomayor can no more avoid having her legal views influenced by her background...than Justices John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito, and Clarence Thomas can ..... Well, they can deny it but they would be lying.”

ANS:
The fact is they didn’t deny it, but Sotomayor has. Why would they want to deny what their religion doesn’t influence their decisions? Truth is only an adversity to Dems. Denying their Catholicism would be denying what is truth, a truth based on the Natural Moral Laws embedded in the “Ten Commandments.”

Of course, truth is the farthest thing the Democrats want to see in a judge. As a previous president of Judicial Watch once said speaking of Bork, “This is the first time in American history that a nominee was rejected for supporting the Constitution.”
,
IRT:
"...no nominee can utter this truth in public ...."

ANS:
But, that is what Alito, Roberts and Bork did. Bork failed because Dems controlled the process.

IRT:
"The justices are all human beings, and their human experiences and beliefs--not only their legal training--influence the way they look at the law.”

ANS:
However, influences cannot blind them to the obvious and deny what is self-evident.

This is what the confirmation process should be about, discerning truth. Can the nominee overcome her predispositions and objectively interpret the law and not write it.

Sotomayor is so entrenched and caught up in a network of feminism and racial biases (though she is not a racist), not in just a few instances, but ubiquitously through out her whole life history, pervading her schooling, her organizations, the tone of her lectures, her temperament. Her prejudices interpenetrate her whole life making her incapable of being objective.

Her injustice to the Firefighter’s case is only one of the many examples of her biases that are a portent of her slanted views and proffer a lack of fortitude in discerning the law objectively and not bending its meaning through her bias considerations.

Prejudices can be deadly flaws that have already caused the murder of over 50 million unborn and are impugning Marriage and the family.

In addition, anyone who would want a position so much as to distort their fundamental beliefs, as you admit is being done and defend, is to admit to a lack of integrity and honesty on the part of the nominee and those who countenance the hypocrisy of the Dems who delight in assisting her to doing so.

Bork was a Justice who spoke to what he professed, but Dems didn‘t want a truthful Justice who told the truth, they wanted a Justice but one who didn‘t know the truth or was willing to abandon it for political expedience. NOW President Smeal, during Scalia’s nomination said she preferred a dumb judge over one who knows the law.

Catholic Dems like Pelosi, Durbin, Leahy, Kennedy and Kerry have no qualms in abandoning the truth for political expediency, unless a Republican does it.

Laws and rules come in all "shapes and sizes". Etiquette flows from these rules. The most-violated blog rules and etiquette requirements are "blog hogging" and impersonation.

Farnaz,

"Like you, the author likens the Egyptian notion to that of Christianity. What, if any, are the historic connections?"

*Aegyptiaca* represented a major ingredient in the spiritual soup of the Hellenistic-Roman world. Egyptian theologies that had developed in pharaonic times were still living traditions in the first centuries AD, i.e. contemporaneous with Jesus and the early churches. Egyptian thaumaturgy was renowned, and Egyptian ritual specialists much sought after. And the popular Egyptianising mystery cult of Isis disseminated Nilotic notions of personal salvation, resurrection, and divine pathos throughout the Graeco-Roman world, and featured an emotional, warmly intimate piety that appealed to all social classes.

But I am broadly hacking away here. I would recommend the following for further reading:

David Frankfurter 'Religion in Roman Egypt: Assimilation and Resistance' (Princeton 1998)

Gwyn Griffiths 'Triads and Trinity' (University of Wales 1996)

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
SOTOMAYER NOMINATION:

IRT:
This week, Judge Sonia Sotomayor will play her role in the farce enacted at all confirmation hearings for the Supreme Court in recent years--a farce requiring the nominees to pretend that their personal beliefs, politics, and backgrounds play no role in their interpretation of The Law. Capital "T," Capital "L," as if the Constitution were set in the same stone that God supposedly used to deliver the Ten Commandments.

ANS:
Now who would think such a thing but a left-wing ideologues who are blind to reality. If one’s total comport didn’t matter, than we could pick anyone. What matters is one’s professional competence, one’s ability to be objective, honest, have a modest temperament , and integrity, plus be healthy.

Of course ,no one is expected to be perfect, that’s why we have nine justices on the Court because out of nine it’s reasonable to expect at least five should be able to get something right, even though at times not even all nine get it right.

Second, it is also reasonable to expect that a justice is not blinded by their predispositions that it blinds them to reality so extensively that they can’t see the obvious that is self-evident before them.

Hence, four justices attempting to judge the Constitutionality of Partial Birth Abortion were questioning how far out of the birth canal a child being born could be before a butcher, masquerading as a doctor, could plunge a surgical scissors into the back of this little child’s skull and suck out its brains. They were impervious to the fact that a little human being was being born right before their eyes.

It’s reasonable to expect that a Justice would have a modicum of judicial acumen to know the basis of all Civil Law and not be morally blind. Consequently, in Lawrence v. Texas, the Court claimed that traditional moral values serves no legitimate purpose to the State, and cannot be a basis for Civil Law.

Of course, these are the same Justices that banded the “Ten Commandments,” the basis for all Civil Law from the public square because they might corrupt the minds of little children.

I would like to see Sotomayor answer two questions; one being, is it, at times, permissible to intentionally murder an innocent person for personal gain. And,that it is followed with the question, “Is the “conceived” human?”

Farnaz,

You wrote on previous thread:

"the notion that God needs man, suffers with man is distinctly Jewish, but it seems to be also a theme in hristianity/Catholicism."

I warm to this notion very much. The word *with* is winsome. Do you think it allows that God may actually be imperilled, vulnerable?

God - not top-down controller but irrepressible underdog. Nongod? Articulated something like it recently among Sydney Anglicans (very neo-Puritan folks). They deplored what they perceived as my slight on God's sovereignty. Yet two, despite their Calvinistic theo-machinism, were captivated.

Betimes a preposterous pinprick refutes the dark.

Counterww,

MAN, are you channelling Timmy2 or something, DUDE?

"The reason why the high court has nine justices, not one, is that the framers of the Constitution knew perfectly well that politics is involved in the interpretation of laws."

As I thought, hobbits - a ruse of the Dark Lord!

Whoops, wrong world again...

Final comment on this off-topic subject:

Farnaz's biography, as we know it, is of great interest with respect to her Jewish-atheist-influenced commentaries.

CCNL,

Biographies? Whatever do you mean? I've read just about all of Levertov's work. She was an influential innovator, and I respect her for that, but, as I mentioned, except for some of the Christian poetry and the Vietnam work her writing is, in fact, cold to me though technically brilliant. Considering her focus on witness, I think it interesting that this quality is one that not a few have remarked upon. But, think of Pound, one of her great influences, the master of technique....

The first of the two poems I posted, "The Jacob's Ladder," is viewed as something of a masterpiece, for obvious reasons. Yet I prefer the second as I mentioned.

I'm clueless as to what you are getting at--if anything. What do biographies have to do with anything? Which biographies?

DILD makes another dorky comment.

Southern people speak in essence a different American dialect of English there dude. Would you call the Boston accent what you did for the Southern version. It's all about politics, and you don't like theirs. The pendulum will swing over to the other side soon enough , dude.

Sessions and Graham did their job as the minority party, and that job was done well.

Man are you out to lunch.

Off topic but since the subject was addressed:

Levertov's poems were important enough to copy and paste two of them on these blog pages before they went "cold"?? Hmmm, biographies of famous people sometimes changes a person's attitude?? Looks like it!!!

Onofrio,

From previous thread--
On Levertov: I, too, prefer the poem on a theme suggested by Merton. Interestingly, the notion that God needs man, suffers with man is distinctly Jewish, but it seems to be also a theme in hristianity/Catholicism. Am very fond of Thomas Merton, though not so much on his views of homosexuality.

As for Levertov, her fathere was raised Hassidic, but converted and became an Anglican priest. I confess, though she was an important poet, I've rarely been able to warm up to her work, with the exception of some of the Christian and Vietnam poems.

Have been thinking about hypostaseis. Found this link at Wikipedia on Egyptian "trinitarianism."

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

Like you, the author likens the Egyptian notion to that of Christianity. What, if any, are the historic connections?

"I would like to know whether she is a Catholic who supports wide latitude for abortion rights..."

Actually, what you're really asking is how much responsibility or accountability a person can discard legally.

That's a great example for our young people. When the going gets tough, run away as fast as you can, find someone else to blame for your problem, and above all else, don't take any responsibility for it.

You'd think the only thing that mattered to these down-home crackers and their constituents is abortion and the 2nd ammendment - the GOP really is a pitiful bunch, and a seriously broken record.

And as far as I know, not a single Catholic among the inquisitors thus far.

Let's just say this nomination is a done deal and get ready for the next SC nomination - which could actually change the excessively redundant 5-4 alignment that panders to all things conservative.

Thomas and Scalia in particular never met a conservative right-wing position they didn't like. And the GOP is afraid of a tiny jottle of liberalism on the court??

The only activist judges on the court at present are distinctly aligned to the right of center.

And in the future, may well qualified minorities of all races, creeds, colors, ethnic peruasions and genders that are still under-represented on the Supreme Court, get their day in the sun as well.

Senator Sessions and Senator Graham both look pretty foolish, grilling this lady, with their thick, pinched, piney-woods accent. By no stretch of my imagination do either of these characters speak standard English; they certainly do not speak as well as Ms. Sotomayer.

What an ugly, ugly face the Republican Party has to show to world.

We can start confirming justices based on their qualifications. Let's begin with Robert Bork.

Hmmm, Susan notes:

"This is why I think it is unfortunate that, assuming Sotomayor is confirmed, there will be six Catholic justices on the court.)"

But follows with:

"My guess is that Sotomayor is the kind of Catholic--like the majority of lay Catholics in this country--who doesn't believe in imposing her religious views, whatever they are, on people who do not share them. That, as it happens, is a fundamental tenet of American constitutional law."

With that comment, onto the next "Catholic" Supreme Court judge since apparently other religions or atheist/ pagan groups are not producing much in the way of legal leadership!!! God bless all those no-nonsense nuns!!!