1. Just because an argument is politically strategic, does not make it true: A couple of years ago, the Human Rights Campaign, arguably the country’s most powerful lesbian and gay organization, responded to politician Herman Cain’s assertion that being gay is a choice. They asked their members to “Tell Herman Cain to get with the times! Being gay is not a choice!” They reasoned that Cain’s remarks were “dangerous.” Why? “Because implying that homosexuality is a choice gives unwarranted credence to roundly disproven practices such as ‘conversion’ or ‘reparative’ therapy. The risks associated with attempts to consciously change one’s sexual orientation include depression, anxiety and self-destructive behavior.” Image
The problem with such statements is that they infuse biological accounts with an obligatory and nearly coercive force, suggesting that anyone who describes homosexual desire as a choice or social construction is playing into the hands of the enemy. In 2012, the extent to which gay biology had become a moral and political imperative came into full view when actress Cynthia Nixon, after commenting to a New York Times Magazine reporter that she “chose” to pursue a lesbian relationship after many years as a content heterosexual, was met with outrage by lesbian and gay activists. As one horrified gay male writer proclaimed, “[Nixon] just fell into a right-wing trap, willingly. …Every religious right hatemonger is now going to quote this woman every single time they want to deny us our civil rights.” Under considerable pressure from lesbian and gay advocacy groups, Nixon recanted her statement a few weeks later, stating instead that she must have been born with bisexual potential.
Yes, it’s true that straight people are more tolerant when they believe that lesbian and gay people have no choice in the matter. If homosexual desire is hardwired, then we cannot change it; we must live with this condition, and it would be unfair to judge us for that which we cannot change. By implication, if we could choose, of course we would choose to be heterosexual. Any sane person would choose heterosexuality (not so. see here). And when homophobic people come to the opposite conclusion—that homosexual desire is something we can choose—then they want to help us make the right choice, the heterosexual choice. And they are willing to offer this help in the form of violent shock therapy and other “conversion” techniques. In light of all this, I can absolutely understand why it feels much safer to believe that we are born this way, and then to circulate this idea like our lives depend on it (because, for some people, this truly is a matter of life and death). Indeed, most progressive straight people and most gay and bi people–including Lady Gaga herself–hold the conviction that our sexual orientation is innate. They have taken their lead from the mainstream gay and lesbian movement, which has powerfully advocated for this view.
But the fact that the “born this way” hypothesis has resulted in greater political returns for gay and lesbian people doesn’t have anything to do with whether it is true. Maybe, as gay people, we want to get together and pretend it is true because it is politically strategic. That would be interesting. But still, it wouldn’t make the idea true.
The science is wrong: People like to cite “the overwhelming scientific evidence” that sexual orientation is biological in nature. But show me a study that claims to have proven this, and I will show you a flawed research design. Let’s take one example: In 2000, a team of researchers at UC Berkeley conducted a study in which they found that lesbians were more likely than heterosexual women to have a “masculine” hand structure. Presumably, most men have a longer ring finger than index finger, whereas most women have the opposite (or they have index and ring fingers of the same length). Lesbians, according to this study, are more likely than straight women to have what we might call “male-pattern hands.” The researchers concluded that this finding supports their theory that lesbianism might be caused by a “fetal androgyn wash” in the womb—that is, when female fetuses are exposed to greater levels of a masculinizing hormone, it shows up later in the form of female masculinity: male-pattern hands and… attraction to women. But this study makes the same error that countless others have made: it does not properly distinguish between gender (whether one is masculine or feminine) and sexual orientation (heterosexuality or homosexuality). Simply put, the fact that a woman is “masculine” (itself a social construction) or has been introduced to greater levels of a male hormone need not have anything to do with whether she is attracted to women. We would only assume this if we had already accepted the heteronormative premise that masculine people (or men) are naturally attracted to femaleness and that normal (i.e., feminine) women are naturally attracted to men. Herein lies the bias. Many “masculine” women who are heterosexual (have you been to the rural South?) would like us to know that their gender does not line up with their sexual desire in any predictable way. And many very feminine lesbians would like us to know this too. The bottom line is that ideas about sexual desire are so bound up with misconceptions about gender and with the presumption that heterosexuality is nature’s default, that science has yet to approach this subject in an objective way. For a comprehensive examination of the flaws in the most widely cited research on sexual orientation, see Rebecca Jordan-Young’s brilliant book Brain Storm: The Flaws in the Science of Sex Differences (Harvard University Press, 2011).
3. The science is wrong: An even greater problem with the science of sexual orientation is that it seeks to find the genetic causes of gayness, as if we all agree about what gayness is. To say that “being gay” is genetic is to engage in science that hinges on a very historically recent and specifically European-American understanding of what being gay means. In Ancient Greece, sex between elite men and adolescent boys was a common and normative cultural practice. According to historians Michel Foucault and Jonathan Ned Katz, these relationships were considered the most praise-worthy, substantive and Godly forms of love (whereas sex between a man and a woman was, for all intents and purposes, sex between a man and his slave). If men having frequent and sincere sex with one another is what we mean by “gay,” then do we really believe that something so fundamentally different was happening in the Ancient Athenian gene pool? Did some evolutionary occurrence enable Plato’s ancestors to get rid of all of those heterosexual genes? And what about native cultures in which all boys engage in homosexual rites of passage? Do we imagine that we could identify some genetic evidence of propensity to ingest sperm as part of a cultural initiation into manhood? What about all of the cultures around the globe in which male homosexual sex does not signal gayness except for under certain specific circumstances (e.g., you are only gay if you are the receptive sexual partner, or if you are feminine)? And while I am on this subject, what about the fact the United States is precisely one of those cultures? When young college women lick each other’s boobs at frat parties, or when young college men stick their fingers in each other’s butts while being hazed by their frat brothers, we don’t call this gay—we call this “girls gone wild” or “hazing.” My point here is that a lot of people engage in homosexual behavior, but somehow we talk about the genetic origins of homosexuality as if we are clear about who is gay and who is not, and as if it’s also clear that “gay genes” are possessed only by people who are culturally and politically gay (you know, the people who are seriously gay). This is a bit arbitrary, don’t you think?
Just 150 years ago, scientists went searching for the physiological evidence that women were hysterical. Hysteria, by Victorian medical definition, meant that a woman’s uterus had become dislodged from its proper location and was floating around her body causing all sorts of trouble—like feminism, and other matters of grave concern. And guess what, they found the evidence, and they published books and articles to prove it. They also looked for and found the evidence that all people of African and Asian ancestry were intellectually and morally inferior to people of European Ancestry. Many books were published dedicated to establishing these obviously absurd and violent beliefs as legitimate and indisputable scientific facts. Similarly, the science of sexual orientation has a long and disturbing history. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, it was believed that homosexuals had beady eyes, particularly angular facial structures, and “bad blood.” Today, we apparently have gender variant fingers and gay brains.
Is it possible that people who identify themselves as “gay” in the United States (again, keep in mind that “gay” is a culturally and historically specific concept), share some common physiology? Perhaps. But even if this is so, do we really know why? Indeed, we may find (as Simon LeVay did) that men who identify as gay share a certain trait—a larger VIP SCN nucleus of the hypothalamus, for instance. But how do we know that this “enlargement” is a symptom or cause of their homosexuality, and not, say, a symptom or cause of their general propensity for bravery, creativity, or rebellion? In a homophobic culture, you need some bravery (and other awesome traits) to be queer. Perhaps these personality traits are what are actually being observed under the microscope.
And, of course, there is the time-eternal question: why aren’t scientists looking for the genetic causes of heterosexuality? Or masturbation? Or interest in oral sex? The reason is that none of these sex acts currently violate social norms, at least not strongly enough to be perceived as sexual aberrations. But this was not always true. In the 19th century, scientists were interested in the biological origins of the “masturbation perversion.” They were interested because they believed it was pathological, and because they wanted to know whether it could be repaired.
At the end of the day, what we can count on is that the science of sexual orientation will produce data that simply mirror the most crass and sexist gender binarisms circulating in the popular imagination. This research will report that women are innately more sexually fluid than men, capable of being turned-on by almost anything and everything (hmmm…. other than in Lisa Diamond’s research, where have I seen that idea before? Ah yes, heterosexual pornography.) It will report that men are sexually rigid, their desires impermeable. It will tell us that straight men simply cannot be aroused by men and that gay men are virtually hardwired to be repulsed by the thought of sex with women. Regardless of what else we might say about the soundness of these studies, what is evident to me is that they have been used to authorize many a straight man’s homophobia, and many a gay man’s misogyny.
4. Just because you have had homosexual or heterosexual feelings for as long as you can remember, does not mean you were born a homosexual or heterosexual. There are many things I have felt or done for as long as I can remember. I have always liked to argue. I have always loved drawing feet and shoes. I have always craved cheddar cheese. I have always felt a strong connection with happy, trashy pop music. These have been aspects of myself for as long as I can remember, and each represents a very strong impulse in me. But was I born with a desire to eat cheddar cheese or make drawings of feet? Are these desires that can be identified somewhere in my body, like on one of my genes? It would be hard to make these claims, because I could have been born and raised in China, let’s say, where cheddar cheese is basically non-existent and would not have been part of my life. And while I may have been born with some general artistic potential, surely our genetic material is not so specific as to determine that I would love to draw platform shoes. The point here is that what we desire in childhood is far more complex and multifaceted than the biological sciences can account for, and this goes for our sexual desires as well. Some basic raw material is in place (like a general potential for creativity), but the details—well, those are ours to discover.
5. Secretly, you already know that people’s sexual desires are shaped by their social and cultural context. Lots of adults worry that if we allow little boys to wear princess dresses and paint their nails with polish, they might later be more inclined to be gay. Even some liberal parents (including gay and lesbian parents) worry that if they introduce their child to “too much” in the way of queer material, this could be a way of “pushing” homosexuality on them. Similarly, many people worry that if young women are introduced to feminism in college, and if they become too angry or independent, they may just decide to be lesbians. But if we all really believed that sexual orientation was congenital—or present at birth—then no one would ever worry that social influences could have an effect on our sexual orientation. But I think that in reality, we all know that sexual desire is deeply subject to social, cultural, and historical forces. We know that if the world today were a different place, a place where homosexuality was culturally normative (like, say, Ancient Greece), we would see far more people embracing their homosexual desires. And if this were the case, it would have nothing to do with genetics.
The concept of “sexual orientation” is itself less than 150 years old, and almost equally recent is the notion that people should partner based on romantic attraction. Most of what feels so natural and unchangeable about our desires—including the bodies and personalities we are attracted to—is conditioned by our respective cultures. The majority of straight American men, for instance, will tell you that they have a strong, visceral aversion to women with bushy armpit hair. But this aversion, no matter how deep it may now run in men’s psyches and no matter how nonnegotiable it may feel, is hardly genetic. Up until the last century, the entire world’s female population had armpit hair, and somehow, heterosexual sex survived.
People like to use the failure of “gay conversion” therapies as evidence that homosexuality is innate. First of all, these conversions do not always fail; if you make someone feel disgusted enough by their desires, you can change their desires. Call it a tragedy of repression, or call it a religious awakening—regardless, the point is that we can and do change. For instance, in high school and early in college, my sexual desires were deeply bound up with sexism. I wanted to be a hot girl, and I wanted powerful men to desire me. I was as authentically heterosexual as any woman I knew. But later, several years into my exploration of feminist politics, what I once found desirable (heterosexuality and sexism) became utterly unappealing. I became critical of homophobia and sexism in ways that allowed these forces far less power to determine the shape of my desires. If this had not happened, no doubt I’d be married to a man. And if he wasn’t a complete asshole, I’d probably be happy enough. But instead, I was drawn to queerness for various political and emotional reasons, and from my vantage point today, I believe it to be one of the best desires I ever cultivated. [Does this mean that your daughter may decide to be a lesbian if she takes some women’s studies courses? Yes. Whatcha gonna do now?!]
Perhaps most importantly, the fact that we might cultivate or “choose” something doesn’t mean that it is a trivial, temporary, or less a vital part of who we are. For instance, is religion a choice? Certainly it is if we define “choice” as anything that isn’t an immutable part of our physiology. But many religious people would feel profoundly misunderstood and offended if I suggested that their religious beliefs were a phase, an experiment, or a less significant part of who they are then, say, their hair color. Choices are complex. Choices run deep. And yes, choices are both constrained and fluid–just like our bodies.
Post script: Ultimately, the terms set forward in the public debate about this subject–biology versus “choice”–are quite limited, mainly because “choice” is not the most useful term for describing all of the possibilities that sit apart from biology. Several social, cultural, and structural factors can shape our embodied desires and erotic possibilities. The fact that these factors are not physiological in origin does not mean that they aren’t coercive or subjectifying, resulting in a real or perceived condition of fixity or “no choice.” We know that social factors also become embodied over time. And yet, I remain somewhat committed to the concept of “choice”–or something like it–to describe the possibility of a critical and reflexive relationship to our sexual desires. Personally, the idea that I don’t have control over who or what I desire is a big turn-off to me, so I am constantly pushing back on what feel like the limits of my own desires. For instance, I went through a period of pushing myself to date femmes because I had some good reasons for being suspicious about why I had ruled them out from my dating pool. When it felt like I could never be nonmonogamous, I made it a goal to at least try. Then when I realized I only really felt attracted to alcoholic rebels, I nipped that in the bud too. Just when I thought I’d never think hairy men were hot, I allowed myself to face my attraction to Javier Bardem. When my tastes and proclivities start to feel like they are solidifying, I get suspicious and disappointed. So, in the interests of full disclosure, I am writing from the perspective of someone who finds sexual fixity pretty uninteresting, and who believes that there are really good feminist and queer reasons to take regular, critical inventory of the parts of our sexuality that we believe we cannot or will not change.
#138: A K A Stone To: Vicomte13 (#114)
That is not the Bible.
So Catholics use the book of Enoch. Interesting.
A K A Stone posted on 2018-02-13 11:12:48 Reply Private Reply
#139: Tooconservative To: Vicomte13 (#117)
The book of Jude also directly quotes the book of Enoch, giving substance to it.
I'm merely tracing out the entire lineage of these myths about horny angels and evil giants. And I've done so accurately.
Tooconservative posted on 2018-02-13 11:16:13 Reply Private Reply
#140: A K A Stone To: Vicomte13 (#116)
I don't worship the pope who is an extra biblical character.
You ignore scriturre when you blaspheme and call him holy father.
I was feeling pity for you as vxh savaged you and kicked your ass. Since you took my kind words to you and returned with hateful you're not a Christian for asking questions about your beliefs. We have turned a page and I look at you differently. Maybe you aren't just lost but you are a dark creature.
A K A Stone posted on 2018-02-13 11:17:50 Reply Private Reply
#141: VxH To: Tooconservative (#137)
Jesuit syncretism and accommodation.
Helps the eunuchs spread their empire like butter on mlk toast.
VxH posted on 2018-02-13 11:19:23 Reply Private Reply
#142: no gnu taxes To: A K A Stone (#138)
I saw all these free will Baptist churches and later realized why they felt the need to call themselves "free will."
Still I thought they all accepted Christ.
The current Catholic Pope seems to just be interested in leftist dogma, not any actual teachings of Christ.
no gnu taxes posted on 2018-02-13 11:20:10 Reply Private Reply
#143: A K A Stone To: Vicomte13 (#116)
Then why do you class a man God's name " holy father"
You also pray to a woman and that is stupid because she is dead and can't hear.
You ignore these contradictions of yourself and you cannot explain it. So again why would we think Catholics are followers of Christ when they ignore simple truths?
Now I do believe that if Catholics believe in God and genuinely repent they are saved despite their errors. But you are a smart guy and I do wonder how you get so much wrong. You ignore passages we have pointed out to you many times. You have never pointed out scripture that I have rejected. Yes I have sinned many times. However I am talking about the teaching of scripture and what it means.
A K A Stone posted on 2018-02-13 11:25:09 Reply Private Reply
#144: Tooconservative To: A K A Stone (#138)
Only the Ethiopian Orthodox. It is from copies of their ancient versions in the Ge'ez language that we know of the book of Enoch (other than some references to it among the church fathers). More recently, some fragments of the book of Enoch were recovered from the Dead Sea scrolls from the caves at Qumran.
Once the Orthodox, of any stripe, ever gets their hands on something, they will keep and preserve it forever. It is a well-known characteristic of the Orthodox.
And the Ethiopian church was cut off when the northern African Christian heartland was lost. We tend to forget that northern Africa was once the breadbasket of ancient Christianity as, for instance, when Augustine was a major theological influence and political power when he was bishop of Hippo. And Hippo was where the bishops met to affirm the official canon of the books of the Bible. Not Rome but Africa. It is a fact about the ancient churches that is worth remembering.
The Ethiopian church put into their canon every last book they had in their hands. That doesn't mean they weight them all equally, any more than we do with our canon of 66 books of the bible. Some books are far more important than others.
Tooconservative posted on 2018-02-13 11:27:16 Reply Private Reply
#145: A K A Stone To: Vicomte13 (#116)
Like when you said we should transfer our wealth to the rest of the world. That sounds like a commie not a follower of Christ.
Also when you said the solution was to murder every right wing person. That was following Christ correct? The more I think back I can remember some pretty evil stuff you said. Like the murdering everyone you talked about.
Or you claiming to raise nlizards from the dead.
A K A Stone posted on 2018-02-13 11:29:18 Reply Private Reply
#146: VxH To: A K A Stone, Vicomte13 (#145)
Hah. Must've missed that.
It's consistent with Vicomte13 finding humor in/ridiculing anyone who tries to understand the process by which the French Commie Jesuits "educated" Pol Pot in preparation for his genocidal endeavors. Although the Socialists have been making gains at Annapolis and the other academies for decades, I doubt that's where Comrade Vic learned what he's preaching.
More likely a character/mental defect inherited from the tree he fell so close to.
VxH posted on 2018-02-13 11:34:07 Reply Private Reply
#147: A K A Stone To: Tooconservative (#131)
You said that good. You're ducks are I'll in a row.
Vic has to twist scripture and ignore stuff. Then he gets mad as you say.
It's ok for him to say we are not followers of Christ. I am a flawed person but I truly believe the Bible is the word of God. So when ai tell him stuff in it and he ignores it and turns all nasty where he even said every right wing person should be murdered.
A K A Stone posted on 2018-02-13 11:39:18 Reply Private Reply
#148: Liberator To: Tooconservative (#111)
You may be misled on the subject.
I'm not making any definitive claim on any interpretation of Genesis or Book of Enoch, but there is some very compelling evidenece that supports the existence of "Giants."
I understand that this is one more subject you easily toss in your circular CT File; And if you don't see it in the New York Times or Smithsonian, I guess it can't be believed?
WAIT. It seems the Times DID cover these type of stories once upon a time. And the Smithsonian IS kind of involved -- not in a good way. Here are a few couple of sources to prime your pump. IF you're sincerely interested in the subject. Others might well be. It really is fascinating.
http://humansarefree.com/2014/09/the-great-smithsonian-cover-up-18-giant.html
https://manvsarchaeology.wordpress.com/2013/03/10/giant-remains-near-cagliari-sardinia/
There are quite a few contemporary researchers delving into this subject. I am quite familiar with Steve Quayle's work.
If you feel this is impossible or the spread of hoaxes, so be it. One thing is crystal clear -- some very powerful PTB have actively impeding actual science and history while simultaneous corrupting it. One could point directly at the same Darwinists who've displayed "Lucy" and "Neanderthal Man" at Museums and claimed "Evolution" as "Settled Science."
Liberator posted on 2018-02-13 11:40:07 Reply Private Reply
#149: A K A Stone To: no gnu taxes, vicomte13 (#142)
There are lots of false teachings in Protestant churches also. One thing I will say for the Catholics and Vic agrees with. They pretty much have the same beliefs and teach from the same materials. I will say that Catholic charities and family values are spot on traditionally.
The Catholics have been a great Ally in the pro life cause. Just because I criticize several things about them doesn't mean that I don't respect some of their charitable work. They have made a diffference?. However it is not by works we are saved and their is some real problems in the Catholic Church.
A K A Stone posted on 2018-02-13 11:57:21 Reply Private Reply
#150: Tooconservative To: VxH (#146)
I always saw that attributed to influential French intellectuals from the circle of French existentialists like Jean-Paul Sartre. I don't think Pol Pot was attending Notre Dame or hanging out with French Catholics. At least, I don't recall that.
Tooconservative posted on 2018-02-13 12:00:53 Reply Private Reply
#151: VxH To: no gnu taxes, A K A Stone (#142)
Natural Law.
The universe is ordered.
"Let there be light" is consistent with today's quantum cosmology, where at the moment before the "big bang" there was nothing, and a moment later - all the energy in the universe, was.
Pretty good guess for a bunch of nomadic sheep herders.
Likewise, their socio-biological model of human proliferation: Male and Female.
Who is the architect of that order, why are we separated them, and how did they restore our relationship with them?
iMHO, those are the essential, substantive, questions of the "Christian", biblical, worldview.
VxH posted on 2018-02-13 12:01:20 Reply Private Reply
#152: A K A Stone To: Tooconservative (#150)
A K A Stone posted on 2018-02-13 12:03:44 Reply Private Reply
#153: VxH To: Tooconservative (#150)
He attended a Jesuit Catholic school as a child.
There are many sources saying he went to Paris to study. The name of the institution, however, I have not been able to find.
VxH posted on 2018-02-13 12:04:25 Reply Private Reply
#154: no gnu taxes To: VxH (#151)
I see know reason why it has to be.
no gnu taxes posted on 2018-02-13 12:05:20 Reply Private Reply
#155: Tooconservative To: Liberator (#148)
Uh-huh. The museums and archaeologists are all just hiding the evidence. They're so afraid of upsetting the public. Just another giant conspiracy theory.
I did notice in the comments:
Steve Quayle is the source of a lot of this stuff. And we notice the currency of these ideas about horny angels having Nephalim giant babies with human women.
Tooconservative posted on 2018-02-13 12:06:56 Reply Private Reply
#156: Tooconservative To: VxH (#153)
Most any child in Cambodia at the time would have attended a Jesuit-run elementary school if they received any formal education at all. But the Jesuits never taught what Pol Pot grew up to practice. This was well before any liberation theology among Roman clergy (which was mostly found in South America anyway).
He attended the Sorbonne (at the time, the name of the main building of the ancient University of Paris) on scholarship, apparently to study radio and electronics. He dropped out. However, he did absorb much of the French existential philosophy of Sartre and his associates back in the day. Pol Pot got much of this via another Asian, Khieu Samphan, who advocated ruthless communist doctrine and the necessity of policy similar to that of Mao Tse Tung and his Cultural Revolution which killed millions in China. These unabashed Maoists wanted to promulgate such massacres around the world, in former colonial client states such as Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Africa, etc. And Paris was no stranger to the idea of mass murder of counter-revolutionary forces, as they held the original mass murders of the nobility, monarchy, and bourgeoisie back during the French Revolution (Reign of Terror).
Baltimore Sun: A terrifying synthesis of forces spawned Pol Pot's ugly regime, 1998
Tooconservative posted on 2018-02-13 12:16:15 Reply Private Reply
#157: Tooconservative To: A K A Stone (#152)
Now I'm wondering if I have any cheese/sour cream potato chips left in the pantry. : )
Tooconservative posted on 2018-02-13 12:21:22 Reply Private Reply
#158: Tooconservative To: A K A Stone (#147)
I assure you, I've never met another Catholic who says some of these nutty things he tries to peddle to us.
BTW, I just retrieved my potato chips! You're to blame. LOL
Tooconservative posted on 2018-02-13 12:25:41 Reply Private Reply
#159: VxH To: Tooconservative (#156)
It seems the Jesuits learned (or at least practiced) quite a bit about Communal/Centrally Banked farming down among the native bipedal cattle of Paraguay... who, oddly, were never empowered with quite enough education to actually run the farms autonomously, themselves.
=================================
https://books.google. com/books? id=SO2uCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA20&lpg=PA20&dq=many+of+the+cambodian+leader s+had+been+learning+their+marxism+in+paris&source=bl&ots=ZoTgfFjIki& amp;sig=rUX5ay9vZZ8- yWvQ6kjTjyplH7E&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj2xZb0t6PZAhUD12MKHXeiBdgQ 6AEIMDAB#v=onepage&q=many%20of%20the%20cambodian%20leaders%20had%20been% 20learning%20their%20marxism%20in%20paris&f=false
Got Mlk?
VxH posted on 2018-02-13 12:42:53 Reply Private Reply
#160: VxH To: Tooconservative (#156)
That's a good article / find. Thanks.
VxH posted on 2018-02-13 12:45:44 Reply Private Reply
#161: Tooconservative To: VxH (#159)
Touché. : )
I don't find the old Jesuit Reductions of Paraguay as sinister as you do. You might want to read up on them more. The Jesuits were trying to protect the natives from being enslaved by the colonial regime and to Christianize and educate them.
I'm no Jesuit fan but the Reductions were not villainous IMO. Those Jesuits were decent enough and not related to the later commie-influenced liberation theology types (like the murdered bishop, Oscar Romero who was adopted by the commie Catholics as their hero despite his rejection of their ideology and was then canonized by Pope Frank) or the many daft Lefty bishops like Pope Frank himself.
Tooconservative posted on 2018-02-13 12:54:13 Reply Private Reply
#162: VxH To: Tooconservative (#156)
Gee what a surprise...
Speaking of trees and apples...
Cluster frack; Monumental, 1 each.
VxH posted on 2018-02-13 13:20:58 Reply Private Reply
#163: VxH To: Tooconservative (#161)
The Jesuits were trying to protect the natives
from being enslaved by the colonial regime and to Christianize and educate themby assuming dominion over them and their faith... and redistributing farm profits via their central bank.There. Fixed it. :-D
I think the comunual/monastic pre- history of Roman/Syncretic Catholocism can be observed in communes of Qumran:
https://www.google.com/search? q=qumran+community+rule
And possibly further back:
https://www.google.com/search?q=qumran+Akhenaten
What happened to Akhenatens's caste of religious eunuchs after Egypt returned to its polytheistic old-school ways? Hmmm.
Ol' Akhe sure does resemble a proto-Pope, perched between the Sun/Aten and Akhe's minions.
I think Islam probably got cooked up in the same soup.
VxH posted on 2018-02-13 13:30:58 Reply Private Reply
#164: VxH To: Tooconservative (#161)
VxH posted on 2018-02-13 13:50:26 Reply Private Reply
#165: Tooconservative To: VxH (#164)
For Pol Pot, it was elementary 101 classes in radio and electronics theory. He failed and dropped out.
But he did absorb some half-baked Sartre existentialism and Maoist genocidal policies that were au courant in Parisian Lefty circles of the era.
France is still uncomfortable with Pol Pot's time there, much as they are with having sheltered the Ayatollah Khomeini during his exile in France or their accommodations of the regime of Zimbabwe's vicious dictator, Robert Mugabe. There are other vile leaders directly associated with France that I could name but that is a decent sample that comes to mind.
Tooconservative posted on 2018-02-13 14:16:35 Reply Private Reply
#166: Tooconservative To: VxH (#163)
You're stretching it too far IMO.
Qumran was conquered and abandoned in 70 AD, almost 1500 years before there was any Jesuit at all. Jesuits were created by Ignatius Loyola in 1539 to wage a murderous Counter-Reformation against Protestants across Europe.
You shouldn't assume that Qumran was a commie commune. We simply don't know enough. And our modern standards of Marxist-Leninist communist ideology just don't apply to people living in the first century A.D. You can't so easily connect A to B despite a few common elements. And, again, much of what we know of the Essene community at Qumran is pretty speculative. What we do know is they had a scriptorium and, in the face of Roman conquest, they left us a lot of ancient scrolls in those caves. The scrolls are evidence, most of what we think we know of Essene religion and social practice is very tentative. As with many marginal sects, we just don't know that much about the Essenes beyond their treasure trove of scrolls.
Tooconservative posted on 2018-02-13 14:25:08 Reply Private Reply
#167: VxH To: Tooconservative, Vicomte13 (#165)
No big surprise...
https://books.google.com/books? id=mQcHmuuEK5sC&pg=PA150&lpg=PA150&dq=Sorbonne+Bolsheviks&so urce=bl&ots=u_YPCg3a9Y&sig=9HNitX4L8Z6TDKC2YtU31J8bdYo&hl=en& ;sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiAlYmXzqPZAhUV62MKHQUjDAYQ6AEIMjAC#v=onepage&q=Sorb onne%20Bolsheviks&f=false
Ok. So I think we've got an adequate picture of the Sorbanne as an incubator for Communists and their "ideals".
But then you knew all that, didn't you Comrade Vicomte13?
VxH posted on 2018-02-13 14:44:28 Reply Private Reply
#168: VxH To: Tooconservative (#166)
Yeah I know that's when they formalized Loyola's militant order, but the timeline fits with Roman Catholicism - and Islam.
More like a monastery I think - And they were selective about who they let in:
https://www.google.com/ search?q=Requirements+for+entering+the+monastery+at+Qumran
[Tevya MlkcowVoice-ON]
[Tevya MlkcowVoice-OFF]
VxH posted on 2018-02-13 14:53:29 Reply Private Reply
#169: Tooconservative To: VxH (#167)
The Reign of Terror during the 1790's French Revolution, Marx publishing the Communist Manifesto in 1848, the widespread revolutions against monarchies across Europe in 1848 (Sicily, France, Italy, Germany, Austrian Empire), the subsequent publication of Marx's Das Kapital in 1867, these all led directly to the rise of the Bolsheviks in Russia/Georgia/Ukraine and the emergence of Marxist-Leninist ideology in the early Soviet Union. It spread then to Mao's China in the 1940's and to other regimes like Vietnam and Cambodia in the Fifties and Sixties.
Everywhere it took power, innocent people died by the millions. That was integral to the design of communist ideology, not a flaw or shortcoming.
Brittanica: The Revolutions of 1848
The French Reign of Terror in the 1790's was a template that many of these followed. The revolutions against monarchs all failed in 1848. And that fueled the growth of Marxism as the only force that might be able to overthrow the monarchies of the era (including the despicable Russian empire when the Bolsheviks took power and murdered the Romanov royal family as a deliberate matter of policy, no turning back).
Tooconservative posted on 2018-02-13 14:56:46 Reply Private Reply
#170: Tooconservative To: VxH (#168)
We still can't even prove whether Qumran was an Essene group or a bunch of Sadducees or a mix of the two. I think at the end it was likely both groups and some other Jews who fled there for sanctuary when the Romans were destroying the walled cities and fortresses of Israel in 70 AD when they leveled Jerusalem and hauled the population off into slavery in the Roman empire, i.e. the Diaspora.
To be fair, almost every monastery we know of, even the Buddhists and Hindus, are communal. That doesn't make them some early version of Marxist-Leninism. I'm pretty sure there weren't any Bolsheviki at Qumran.
Tooconservative posted on 2018-02-13 15:00:37 Reply Private Reply
#171: VxH To: Tooconservative (#170)
>>We still can't even prove whether Qumran was an Essene group or a bunch of Sadducees or a mix of the two.
{ shrug }
>>I think at the end it was likely both groups and some other Jews
That seems reasonable to me.
>>I'm pretty sure there weren't any Bolsheviki at Qumran.
No worshippers of Mlk?
It's the collective behavior, not the tribal taxonomy that I think distinguishes Bolsheviki.
Fire in the minds of men...
VxH posted on 2018-02-13 15:34:00 Reply Private Reply
#172: Vicomte13 To: VxH (#167)
I graduated from the Sorbonne. It's a great school.
Pol Pot went to the Sorbonne? So what. The Sorbonne has been in existence since 600 AD. A lot of people have gone to the Sorbonne.
Vicomte13 posted on 2018-02-13 16:07:23 Reply Private Reply
#173: VxH To: Vicomte13 (#172)
Lots of Commies, like you.
VxH posted on 2018-02-13 16:23:22 Reply Private Reply
#174: Vicomte13 To: VxH (#173)
I am not a Communist. You, on the other hand, are a cockroach, and you would never get in. And if somehow you did, you wouldn't get through.
Vicomte13 posted on 2018-02-13 16:37:50 Reply Private Reply
#175: VxH To: Vicomte13 (#174)
What ever you say, Comrade. You and your fairy tails are probably STILL the laughing stock of the flight line on Coronado island.
===================
(1) When I was a boy, I dove off a dock into a shallow, rocky lake alone. I broke my neck and severed by spinal cord, and was completely paralyzed and drowning at the bottom of the like. I asked God "Please", and he healed me and allowed me to rise and walk away. I told no one until decades later.
(2) A very dead lizard was raised from the dead in my hand by God, when I asked him "Please".
(3) A dead mouse was raised from the dead in my hand by God, when I asked him "Please".
https://libertysflame.com/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=38701
===================
That's Legendary stuff! SMH.
VxH posted on 2018-02-13 16:50:53 Reply Private Reply
#176: Vicomte13 To: VxH (#175)
That is all completely true stuff.
God is.
Christ is his son. His physical son. Real. Not a legend. Rose from the dead.
If all of the "Christians" and Catholics and Orthodox and people like you who are ashamed to say all get their religious beliefs wrong and talk themselves into a pit, then nevertheless God is, and Jesus is his son, and Jesus rose from the dead, and he can bring others back from the dead. And if we follow him, by doing what he said to do, we can find favor with him.
Neither one of us has been behaving very well towards the other. I would extend you the hand of peace and suggest we start over and try again.
In fact, I am. Here. Now. Peace to you. Let's make peace and stop swearing at each other. It is as unkind as it is unnecessary.
Vicomte13 posted on 2018-02-13 17:57:23 Reply Private Reply
#177: VxH To: Vicomte13 (#176)
{ shrug } I don't feel ashamed. I just don't bark on command.
VxH posted on 2018-02-13 18:48:00 Reply Private Reply
#178: Liberator To: A K A Stone (#152)
If its a worthy subject, it's like a pool -- you MUST jump in. And you do. Head first.
I for one enjoy your first-blush totally unfiltered reaction. And for that reason it's honest and straight-forward -- though lacking a bit of tact, crude and raw at times.
Fwiw, we are in agreement often.
Liberator posted on 2018-02-14 13:50:58 Reply Private Reply
#179: sneakypete To: tpaine (#56)
Get real. That is NOT restricted to Americans. It is true of every group of people to be found anywhere in the world. It's one of the flaws of human nature,as well as one of the survival traits needed by tribes to maintain unity.
sneakypete posted on 2018-02-14 13:57:08 Reply Private Reply
#180: sneakypete To: hondo68 (#58)
So,what are you saying? If you don't think homosexuals should have the right to vote,hitch up your big girl panties and spit it out.
sneakypete posted on 2018-02-14 13:58:38 Reply Private Reply
#181: sneakypete To: A K A Stone (#59)
If that's true,who are you to try to do God's Work for him? Let HIM handle it.
sneakypete posted on 2018-02-14 13:59:42 Reply Private Reply
#182: sneakypete To: tpaine (#61)
True.
I have no idea why so many people in America,allegedly a country of people who worship individual rights and freedoms,confuse public policy with private rights and prejudices.
By LAW,if it is ok for the government to punish homosexuals for having sex in private,the government has that SAME AUTHORITY to punish heterosexuals for having sex in private.
This is America. We are all supposed to have the same rights,as well as to have our own personal beliefs. Nowhere is that more true than when discussing personal likes and prejudices. To have our own freedoms,we MUST allow others to have their freedoms,also. REGARDLESS of if we share those desires or not.
sneakypete posted on 2018-02-14 14:04:32 Reply Private Reply
#183: sneakypete To: GrandIsland (#64)
AFAIK,the word "faggot" came from the British,whose original use for the word was a bundle of sticks used to start a fire.
Since at one time when the Catholics were in charge,burning homosexuals at a state was a common punishment. Doesn't take a real stretch of the imagination to guess where and how the term "faggot" came to describe homosexuals,is it?
sneakypete posted on 2018-02-14 14:07:06 Reply Private Reply
#184: IbJensen To: sneakypete (#183)
I think it was a stake, driven into the ground that should have been driven into their perverted Godless hearts.
IbJensen posted on 2018-02-14 14:11:03 Reply Private Reply
#185: sneakypete To: A K A Stone (#71)
Homosexuals like to pretend they are the "majority minority" for political power reasons,but I strongly suspect there are a HELL of a lot more bi-sexuals running around than there ever were dedicated homosexuals.
Just look at all the married fathers of multiple children that got a divorce and suddenly announced they are homosexuals for proof. If you are really and truly a homosexual male the idea of having sex with a woman would be as repulsive to you as the idea of having sex with another man would be to me.
I would like for anybody that claims that God demands us all to be purely one or the other and condemns bi-sexuals or homosexuals to a lifetime of burning in hell to explain to me why males are born with nipples,and to take a good close look at a clitoris and tell me what it looks like.
God is either perfect in all respects,or he flunked out of design school. Which is it,and if God DOES exist and is perfect in every respect,WTF are YOU to condemn his creations? IF your God didn't think it was a biggie,who are you to get your panties all in a wad over it? Spend more time trying to improve yourself than finding flaws in others,and you will be a lot better off.
sneakypete posted on 2018-02-14 14:20:50 Reply Private Reply
#186: sneakypete To: A K A Stone (#75)
Yeah,and we ALL know nobody would ever consider telling a lie to gain political power and wealth,right?
sneakypete posted on 2018-02-14 14:22:07 Reply Private Reply
#187: sneakypete To: IbJensen (#184)
How CHRISTIAN of you!
sneakypete posted on 2018-02-14 14:44:09 Reply Private Reply