bob x
Well-Known Member
And how many people have a profound religious faith in their governments, at the moment?
"holy scriptures"
- Thread starter IowaGuy
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Oh, a few ... they're all at their various conferences here in the UK.
I watch some of the Conservative Party Conference and my blood alternately boiled and ran cold. Boiled at the 'us' and 'them' message of our elected leadership, 'them' being rioters, foreigners, refugees, the dispossessed, the poor, the hungry ... basically, people not-like-us, not 'little-englanders'.
Ran cold because, as Bertolt Brecht said, 'the bitch that bore him is in heat again' ... you could see it in the eyes of the blue-rinse brigade.
The Bible? It's been around millennia, and we've learned fuck-all in the meantime.
Me? I'm turning Jewish by the minute here ...
God have mercy on us all.
Thomas
radarmark
Quaker-in-the-Making
Oh my, Thomas my Twin (how is that for a play on words!). I feel the exact same way on this side of the big pond. Only hear the toothless and blue-haired have guns.
Pax et amore omnia vincunt
Pax et amore omnia vincunt
radarmark
Quaker-in-the-Making
Has anyone here really looked at the mass of material that is contradictory in the various versions of the Scriptures? Kind like Novum Testamentum Graecum by Mills?
Could be interesting to go over it book by book, pointing out the textual differences.
Pax et amore omnia vincunt
Could be interesting to go over it book by book, pointing out the textual differences.
Pax et amore omnia vincunt
Unbelievable.... The world has become more charitable than it has at any point in time in the past....
It is less violent than any point in time in the past...
The fact that discussions and 'occupations' (wall street) are taking part are evidence of these facts.
Life is good!
A Cup Of Tea
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How do we measure charity and violence?
Charity
By the amount of money and time folks are spending locally, nationally and internationally to help others. Look at what is being done by Habitat for Humanity, or Peace Corp, or folks sponsoring orphans and food internationally or building... do you think there was ever a point in time in the past where groups of high school kids and adults spent weeks out of their lives flying to foriegn lands to build shelter for people they didn't know?
Violence
Coliseums are no longer full of watching folks get drawn and quartered, we now save that for football and NASCAR.... Executions for crimes are at an all time low and not being held in a public square with families coming in with picnic baskets to watch... Murders worldwide have never been so low...
All as a percentage of the total population of course...if we were to go by numbers it would be an all time high, simply because the population is so large, but as a percentage, a completely different and more accurate story exists.
We can simply go by the death and destruction and punishment of crime found in the "holy scriptures" as a starting point if we'd like.
We've come a long way baby.
A Cup Of Tea
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But isn't that a luxury, something only modern rich people can afford? I really don't know I'm purely looking for your view, but didn't most people have less before? When they did give it would have been a different kind of charity, don't you think? If there isn't a lot of wealth to go around there wouldn't be all that many organizations around, right? If you had a little over, and you felt charitable, you might have given it to people that you know your self, people you see suffer, yes? Or perhaps to the local temple or church when those where around. And what those people, back then, gave might have been more out of what they actually had than the modern people who still spend most of their money on a bigger house than they NEED, more food then what they NEED, and trips and clothes and so on.
There is no statistics to compare and I wasn't there, I'm only making the argument.
First I just want to point out that we do have violence as entertainment, boxing as actual violence for example and films and games as fictional violence. It isn't murder, and it is voluntary so it's not the same, I just wanted to have that said.
But aside from the point you made about violence as entertainment, what about violence as a crime. Do you think we could actually compare two eras? I could probably agree that it could have been bad in ancient Rome, a city highly populated by people fighting for survival or simple greed. But didn't most people live of the land on forms or small villages? Would they live violent lives you think?
But I don't know if that's relevant, people back then where still people treating each other as such. They weren't all zealots just as we aren't all zealots now. I'm sure there where some village nut that demanded executions for this and that, just as we have our nuts now that bring automatic weapons to youth camps.
There are plenty of studies out there....more charitable....less violent.
yes Bugs bunny and the roadrunner violent...MMA viliolent....rap videos ....violent....
but rape, murder, violent crime? This past five decades....we are lower than any time in 'civilization'....
it wasn't even thought twice in times gone by to rape slaves, date rape, domestic violence....it was all 'normal', gotta keep your woman in line... that alone has changed stats dramatically...
What we have today is instant news...and we hear, see, find out about every atrocity that occurs in the world if we wish to, and every news cast begins with some sort of horrror....so we have the 'appearance' and 'perception' that we are more violent but the facts do not bear it out.
Feel free to start a thread to prove this otherwise.
yes Bugs bunny and the roadrunner violent...MMA viliolent....rap videos ....violent....
but rape, murder, violent crime? This past five decades....we are lower than any time in 'civilization'....
it wasn't even thought twice in times gone by to rape slaves, date rape, domestic violence....it was all 'normal', gotta keep your woman in line... that alone has changed stats dramatically...
What we have today is instant news...and we hear, see, find out about every atrocity that occurs in the world if we wish to, and every news cast begins with some sort of horrror....so we have the 'appearance' and 'perception' that we are more violent but the facts do not bear it out.
Feel free to start a thread to prove this otherwise.
A Cup Of Tea
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radarmark
Quaker-in-the-Making
Charity--unless if you count manditory tithes (Greek days till quite recently) as charity (10% of what you made in money, livestock, grain, or wine taken by force), I do not believe the percentage given as charity has ever been so high (I am optimistic).
Ditto for "the ultimate violence", murder and executions. They are statistically way down. Yes we still have boxing and Austrailian Rules Football, but I did mine voluntarily (and rugby and lacrosse)... is there a difference? Maybe. even if not, do not forget the senseless salughter of bulls and dogs and cocks (blood sport).
As Hobbes said of those early days:
Ditto for "the ultimate violence", murder and executions. They are statistically way down. Yes we still have boxing and Austrailian Rules Football, but I did mine voluntarily (and rugby and lacrosse)... is there a difference? Maybe. even if not, do not forget the senseless salughter of bulls and dogs and cocks (blood sport).
As Hobbes said of those early days:
In such condition, there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving, and removing, such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
I tend to agree.
I tend to agree.
Ben Masada
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Etu Malku
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