RE: Discuss Amongst Yourselves....

["Liebig, Steuart A." <LiebigSA@Maritz.com>]

I eally hate to sound like a know-it-all, but...
If you read your history again, the French Revolution was *not* rational,
or a product of enlightenment thinking in the same way as the American
Revolution, and note the different results. 

** i don't think that i was implying that they were rational, only that 
what
they did was IN THE NAME of rationality; big difference. they were most
certainly anti-religious (got to the popes' palace in avignon and you'll 
see
what i mean).

The fatal flaw was the
irrational notion of Egalitarianism, or equality, which is the opposite
of Freedom and individualism. It's also nonsense to hold up Stalin and
Hitler as rational and non-religious - Hitler was Catholic (never
excommunicated, BTW) and a deep Mystic - into the whole Spear of Destiny
thing. 

** i've read the "spear of destiny" and it's interesting, but to be taken
with a large grain of salt. some serious "truth" needs to be thought about
when reading that book, lots of mystical mumbo-jumbo in that one - -
interesting that you would use THAT example to back your viewpoint up. if
you read about the nazi propaganda machine, you'll find that the idea was 
to
cut the people off from the religion and develop hitler as a the center of 
a
new religion. (by the way if you read my post, you'd see that i mentioned
the idea of hitler being a mystic - - but many of those underneath the top
guys  - - goring probably wasn't - -  were not that way. "hitler was a
choirboy," i've seen the tony alamo posters too! love that you're using
that.) 

it seems like rationality has a very specific and ego-centric definition 
for
you. 

Stalin was a Russian Orthodox man to the end too. Both Communism
and Nazism are irrational quasi-religious beliefs which simply substitute
'Society' for 'God' in the tyranny equation set down by the monarchs who
came before them.

** stalin razed a lot of russian orthodox churches. i'd say that all you've
pointed out that is people will kill a lot of people in the name of 
"truth."
i view stalin as more of a czar to the end . . . 


is your point: organized religion bad? sure i'd go along with that, FOR ME,
a lot of the time. that equation doesn't work for everyone.

> Live and let live, I say, but don't let an untruth slip
> by. Integrity requires it.

> ** truth . . . what IS truth? i see a person's truth based on his/her
belief
> system. sorry, i don't believe in absolutes; <snip>

No absolutes huh? Jump off a skyscraper someday. Gravity's a bitch.

** talk about specious . . . 

i'd bet you that most hindus (who was slagging their belief system?), or
"new-agists" would agree that jumping off that building would have that
effect . . . i believe you used a little dig to belittle a point of view
that you cared not to discuss a little more civilly . . . too bad. i 
believe
that we were talking about the "hokiness" of some people's belief systems .
. . or at least some people's perceptions of that "hokiness" . . . 

** my belief is this: the real problem is that people get too caught up in
their version of the "truth" and are ready to kill for it all too often; it
seems to be more important to be right (and possibly a know-it-all) than it
is to really deal with issues. (see american political system nowadays . . 
.
)

- Larry (the reluctant know-it-all) :)

** reluctant?

stig