That’s not a light fault, that’s proved intellectual dishonesty on your side , how could you believe in some superior being if you don’t?

Yes! I am a teacher, but I really share with Paul Feyerabend certain aversion for "academical" merits as "brilliant" students in academic places are usually the most moronic ones. And the real knowledge is in the practice and sacrifices of our daily work.

I don’t need spiritual mental  assessment or a spiritual guide every time that something doesn’t fit into the map as I don’t tried to impose stupidities to my students but bringing them tools for thinking by themselves.

2.) I am not talking about translators and spreaders of "faith". I am talking about real-Catholic-religious-practices: Vatican II. By the way, we had a joke when I was a novice: Jesuits put their strengths in Philosophy and a Real career because theologists are the opium of the Church. Here’s another one: It is common in the Church studying Philosophy over three years to lose the faith and fourth or five years to recover it (this one is really deep…).

3.) "Faith and Reason" is the Jesuit lemma. Let’s put away Los Ejercicios de Ignacio de Loyola. And please don’t be an imbecile! all the people have the right to grow. Grow up and show mental activity behind the curtains of your beliefs. Altissima quaeque flumina minimo sono labi.

4.) I really have read this http://www.deepthoughtblog.com/?p=80 and I am absolutely perplex seeing such confession of mental slavery dependency.  As I see it…
It is good seeing that you have interests in Theology, I can’t realize that in your comments [...] but in your attitude as I have said repeatedly.

Accept at least that Philosophy, Moral Philosophy, Politics, History and Economy aren’t your strengths. Religious people tends to put all in religious terms, studying very few real affairs but showing snobbish property about things you just don’t know at all. The best example: most priests in their pulpits saying to the people how to live.
Dishonest and irresponsible idiots! (I meant idiots in its ancient Greek root)

Your Blog’s "slogan" is just the confirmation of all my thoughts:  I Have All The Answers, Even If I Don’t Understand The Questions. You make me feel sickest about ignorance .

5.) Don’t argue on Economy, Politics, Technology or Morals and we’d have an amazing chat. We could also start here –> I didn’t retreat of my statement: God is a thing without attributes. Please!! tear it master !!

6-) About the Manifesto… I have said WHAT?????? FINE! I WILL QUOTE MYSELF THEN:

it’s the conclusion of historical Russian, German and British movements in favor of workers and poor people. Also the conclusion of “Das Kapital” and the manuscripts of 1948…

  And you should know by now that the early Jesuit missions that attempted to prevent the spread of colonial powers were suppressed not by the Vatican but by the the Praepositus Generalis of the day.

  And any Jesuit who wants to study at Gregorian and doesn’t realize that it and its associated universities, the Pontifical Biblical Institute and Pontifical Oriental Institute were part of the great wave of university building conducted throughout the Church in the 14th through 16th Centuries is going to fail ecclesial history! Add in the tremendous advances in science made by rather-famous Jesuits and other monks and priests in the 1,500 years that the Catholic Church "…submerged humanity in a mental recess…" or that the Church *ever* taught that the Earth was flat and *killed* over it has been sleeping in class. And since Jesuit priest have been required to speak multiple languages for 450 years and theologians have been required to speak 2 and read/write at least 5 for loner, your throw-away comment that the Church only began to respect foreign languages a few years ago is nonsense. Toss in the fact that Latin *IS* still used as the Lingua Franca of the Church because its members speak so darn many different languages AND that Jesuits novitiates are *required* to demonstrate fluency in Latin to become priests and I must conclude, NMT, that you are a liar.  There is NO WAY a 4th year Jesuit novitiate could think the things you believe are true and not have been booted out as unteachable. There is NO WAY a Jesuit novitiate who must follow the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius could write something like,

  "A catholic order which places its very existence upon faith is a poor candidate for a “spreader of knowledge”"

  Since the Jesuit Order bases its existence upon the first principle of St. Ignatius, that "Our only desire and our one choice should be this: I want and I choose what better leads to the deepening of God’s life in me" no Jesuit would conclude that a religious order based on faith makes for a poor spreader of knowledge… since Jesuits base their *cough* RELIGIOUS order on faith and are demonstrable spreaders of knowledge.

  NMT, I was not attacking a straw man – you made errors of fact, such as claiming that the Communist Manifesto was responsible for a political movement that began before Marx was BORN.

  Last but not least, no Jesuit, whether still just a novitiate or not, could write ‘God is a thing without attributes’ and not know that a Catholic Theologian could tear him to pieces.

  NMT, don’t bother to try to justify yourself – one or two of these things might be an earnest young man who hasn’t finished training. All of them together tells me that you are claiming to be something you aren’t

The Catholic church submerged humanity in a mental recess over 1500 years !! They started to _respect_ foreign languages few years ago and there is conceit in the Vatican for a regression the old Latin prayers, so I don’t know why you draw them as the liberal people they will never be. You could believe what you want, though standing in reality. Educated priests know that so what you are?

I just want to know what’s your point because you just applied the “Straw Man fallacy” to my comments, and it is one of the most hateful things that intellectual honesty dismisses.
1. I used the quotations of Marx as a practical/simple example for contrasting what I said, an it is just obvious because I was trying to explain in simple words “how it works” not “what you could read everywhere”.
2. I’ve said the manifesto is a *product of historical movements* so I don’t get your point. Also, it looks like you understand slavery textually when I meant a wider perspective which, I think, is seemingly related to _free “intellectual” and “physical” development of human beings as a whole_ in what I have proposed earlier.
3. Saying pedantry you “differ” with Marx (now you make me laugh) is not an excuse for understand him wrongly. If I disagree with the religious behavior that doesn’t excuse me for saying that religion came from Saturn. Also if you are talking about theoretical affairs you should point what do you mean for “implementation” given that the Russian Socialism wasn’t Marxist. Lenin was poisoned because of his criticism to the ruler and also for his callings to practice the dictatorship of the proletarian, given that U.R.S.S. was a parliamentarian bourgeois state. China was never Communist strictly speaking and I think it is very naive from you to be repeating the anti-communist propaganda.

Whatever, if I were playing the same I should have started saying that God and heavenly things are impossible _in theory and practice_.

Theologically and strictly speaking God is a thing without attributes so It can’t be known if not just by a name. What makes powerful religion is a tradition (public speeches, a few common beliefs if there is a common belief at all, and a book wrote mainly at the III and IV century before some historically-non-existent-Zombie-Jew -as for its Christian part).

BTW, who wrote Peter’s letters? Peter? And died he in Rome too?

But you seem well-intentioned, so I assume that is not the case.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m still an amateur. Also english is not my first language so occasionaly idioms and such from my native language crop up. This is why I try to explain it again.

Christianity knows that people are imperfect and will fail to be moral at least some of the time. Everyone.

I do not know about “everyone” but when I truly believe that something is immoral or whatnot, I just don’t do it. If I do it, then I don’t consider it to be immoral.

You don’t understand the message of ‘being enslaved by a jerk is no excuse for being a jerk’?

Yes, well you see from a religion that wants to be my moral compass I would expect more akin to “Don’t allow yourself to be a slave”, not…this.
This is a perfect example of why Christianity is flawed.

Then I suggest you take a writing course! The phrase “For a Christian… …instigating wars, dealing in weapons etc is not a bad deed.” does not convey what you just claimed it was meant to. nor do phrases like, “The majority of the christians never develop mature moral senses”. Indeed, if I were more suspicious, I would suspect that you realize how stupid your initial comments sound and are trying to back down.

But you seem well-intentioned, so I assume that is not the case.

“Can you explain to me why those “many people within the group I am critiquing” keep doing immoral things ”

I explained this further up – Christianity knows that people are imperfect and will fail to be moral at least some of the time. Everyone. Some more than others. Being a Christian is, in the realm of the day-to-day, the admission that you will screw up and that you can’t stop trying to do better.

You think 1 Peter 2 is *tough*? Really?! You don’t understand the message of ‘being enslaved by a jerk is no excuse for being a jerk’? Morality and just actions don’t change just because you are forced to serve an unjust, immoral person?

Further, we are wandering a bit far afield of the original statement which is this: Db0 was too broad in his claims leading to statements that are at best nonsensical.

This statements leads me to believe that you missed the point of the article. The idea of the bullets I gave was not to characterize all Christians, but to show examples of how Christian morality might be skewed.

The point I was making with the sheer massive numbers of actual Christians that disagree with you is that there are many people actually within the group you are critiquing demonstrating hat you are wrong.

That is not the point. You don’t seem to realize that I do not try to characterize all Christians but rather to show how basing your morality on Christianity can create problems for humanity.

Can you explain to me why those “many people within the group I am critiquing” keep doing immoral things (based on christianity that is) even though it means they will go to eternal torment if they do? I gave an explanation, what is yours?

”I don’t care what any Christian or secular scholar says, thinks, or does – I know what the Bible *really* says!”

Fine, since you seem to be quite knowledgeable about the Bible, please explain just one example of the many objectionable ones

“Slaves, you should obey your masters respectfully, not only those who are kind and reasonable but also those who are difficult to please. You see, there is merit if, in awareness of God, you put up with the pains of undeserved punishment; but what glory is there in putting up with a beating after you have done something wrong? The merit in the sight of God is in putting up with it patiently when you are punished for doing your duty.”
[1 Peter 2]

How is that for quoting what the Bible says?

OK.

Then you write the lovely (and entertaining!) claim that “The Communist Manifesto is not a pamphlet, its historical importance is underrated but so big that America should not have good salaries or even abolished the (colonialist) slavery…” even though the Abolition movement in English-speaking nations was about 100 years old when the Manifesto was written and had already been abolished for more than a quarter century in England and much of America.

Again – OK.

I concur – Marx rejects the notion of ‘human nature’ in his works – but, since I disagree with him and the results of the implementation of his theories are universally disastrous, I think it is easy for me to say evidence is on my side.

Liberation Theology was never that large and certainly never well-organized. And if by “witch-hunt” you mean ‘two theologians told that they need to stop what they are doing or stop calling themselves Catholic’ then it was a witch hunt. Otherwise – no.

And I dearly love your calim that the Dominicans, Jesuits, and Augustinians (the three largest orders of Monks in the Catholic Church) were ‘revolutionaries’ when they used Vatican monies to build universities.

— D.T.@ “I understand that Marx’s position in religion was complex”.

No it wasn’t complex!! the religious position of Marx was very clear and his positions against religion too. I am sorry but the rest of your last reply is historically, philosophically and logically impossible.
He explained to his _7 years old daughter_ why (G)od(s) plays a double-sided role in History: “Maintenance of primitive relationships of domination inside societies. In favor of the exploiters” and “Deviation of the _real human freedom and happiness_” It is, creative and free production without capitalistic alienation of value(s)) because of real meanings and values of human experience are alienated towards the _false necessity_ of ownership and permanence. “They _seek the purposes of real life in heaven_”. Real life sucks but meanwhile they thought they are virtually happy. This premises are what is consigned in the famous phrase: “Religion is the Opium of the People” or better yet: “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions”. But the character of Marx is not the same most charlatans and pseudo-intellectuals use to show. He does not speak through metaphors, the complete content of his phrase is purely _dialectic_, given that it shows us the opposition to the interests of the people while already showing the problem and the solution. That’s indeed the whole principle of the critics to the Hegel’s Philosophy of Right: (“Hegel started from ideas, hence he concludes ideas!”) he took Hegel’s method and transformed it.

His own daughter wrote about that in an after letter telling what a good and wise man was his father. She said: “I was never more confused in my entire life”.
However, it is good reading Lukacs, Lenin and Adorno for knowing “deeply” what Marx was talking about.

To read is to know the historical structure of a text, not just following lines jumping on whatever easy conclusion comes in handy. One must be transformed by a text or remain a lettered ignorant. The Communist Manifesto is not a pamphlet, its historical importance is underrated but so big that America should not have good salaries or even abolished the (colonialist) slavery, it’s the conclusion of historical Russian, German and British movements in favor of workers and poor people. Also the conclusion of “Das Kapital” and the manuscripts of 1948…

i.e. It is curious that “Deep Thought@” (what an alias) repeatedly argues about “human nature” in Marx. But Marx stated that “Nature” is a myth tied to the Christianized counter-culture of the Middle Age. Marx was against a human “nature” and all the rational consequences of “naturalism” as a Philosophical and Scientific movement (the individual is an alienated concept relating the _actual kind of economical relations of power in societies_) hence the rightist concept of person. Please, don’t put this dark clouds of Christianized bigotry if you want to please your partners with a good chat.

It is also informative knowing that Liberation Theology, the Latin American Catholic movement was powerful and very, very well organized. So organized that then John Paul II started a witch hunting in the Catholic Church to repel their influence (a lot of bishops were holding for a liberal movement in a dying conservative Catholic Church). The counter revolution was in hands of the “dog of God”: the actual Pope…
For short, it is historically known that John Paul II and the C.I.A. worked hand with hand against them handling his threads at the governments of Latin America (the case of the counter-guerrillas formed by the C.I.A.) So, please, stop throwing “supposed facts” everywhere without precision in the use of your sources… Actually this is a fine occasion to say that the Bush government have _killed_ more people than Stalin, also Stalin wasn’t politically/philosophically a communist anyway and _he wasn’t crazy_, most governments around the world kill people to raise power… (See the recent case of Chiquita Brand and the Fruit… Co.) But that’s another story.

However, the main point about religion in Marx and also the main point in db0’s comments is that all religions play a regressive role for all societies, that’s correct. Religion -itself- never played an historical role of education but the contrary: You are mixing Religion with religious people, and “casuistry” doesn’t help for knowing big phenomenas. The Catholic priests that played an important part in the education of America were all revolutionaries and prosecuted people.

Thus It is easy and rightful to generalize on Religion because its historical/ideological groundings are all the same:

* (G)od(s) ~ (authoritarianism)
* bloodlines ~ (alienated -or inverted- human relations with the world)
* land ownership ~ (primitive relationships of power, aka. historical regressionism)
…which are also the bases of the Republican Party and all the conservative parties around the world… (look that this principles work for Buddhism too, no matter if Buddhism isn’t properly a Religion)

This assumptions are backed up in real life nowadays, as db0@ said but “Deep Thought”@ is pretty correct pointing that the terms “moral” and “religious behavior” are very different. No matter what, this is rater misleading because Religion already implies a _kind of morals_. For religious people the objective is to gain the grace -the favor of (G)od(s)- and as the “Bible” stated they must imitate Christ to gain salvation. Jesus, the fictional character of the Bible, and all the “Christian Saints” I know are the worst moral exemplars one would know in life.

Real life is real life, Bush wouldn’t be president for a second mandate without help of the astonishing amounts of Christian bigots in America. I hope it will not be in the near future. Now they know their savior is wrong.

Talking about Bible, Religion and _real knowledge_ are opposites: At least for Torah, Qoran and Bible there is a revelated book posing knowledge beyond all limits.
Why do you need knowing more if you are _really a religious person_?
—-

I don’t have time enough now. Bye.

Further, we are wandering a bit far afield of the original statement which is this: Db0 was too broad in his claims leading to statements that are at best nonsensical.