Hold up Henry; what's a libertarian?

[Belinda]

"Freedom, liberty,and personhood are indeed bestowed by others than oneself. If they were qualities bestowed on oneself everyone would be free to be whatever they wanted, at liberty to do whatever they wanted , and every pet cat would consider himself a person."

I'm a guy, yeah? My guyness is intrinsic. No one (not you, not me) declares me a guy: I just am one.

In the same way: bein' free, bein' a person is what I am. You can't bestow or gift these to me, you can only recognize that I am a free person or choose to ignore that I'm a free person. I can't bestow personhood on myself. I can only recognize what is intrinsic to me or deny it.

#

Freedom, liberty, self-possession/ownership, personhood, self, 'I'-ness: these, and a whole whack of other descriptors, all refer to refer to the intrinsic quality of the individual. Absolutely there is a legalistic interpretation of all of these descriptors, but you know, B, I ain't talkin' about legalisms.

Nobody has any essence of who they are. Who you are is what you do. Or as Sartre has it : existence precedes essence.

[henry quirk]

Kant claimed that our deontological duties towards each other must be based on reason. Simone Weil experienced that reason alone is not sufficient to deal with the hypocrisy of the human condition so in order for a free society to sustain itself it must invite the help of grace. She wrote:

Humanism was not wrong in thinking that truth, beauty, liberty, and equality are of infinite value, but in thinking that man can get them for himself without grace.

Secular humanism which must deny grace will insist on eliminating religious help for a person to open to the help of grace and instead emphasize reason through education leading to an evolved glorious future for our species.

It is easy for us to argue about rights but in the process it is easy to forget that denial of the help of grace acquired through the egoistic glorification of secular reason makes it impossible to actualize some worthwhile goals which further freedom. Will our culture ever evolve to understand the necessity for grace in order for a free society to sustain itself? I don’t know. It does seem that statist slavery will eventually rule until the next revolution. I do know that Man left to his own devices will act in ways resulting in the opposite of deontological ethics. It is the norm for human hypocrisy

So IMO those who support the necessity for the essential religious influence to sustain a free society with the intent of receiving the help of grace must strive to keep the essence of religion alive in modern secular society. How to do it is an important question. Arguing about rights is one thing and appreciating the role of voluntary obligations with the help of grace necessary to make them possible for a free people is another.

[henry quirk]

"Freedom, liberty,and personhood are indeed bestowed by others than oneself. If they were qualities bestowed on oneself everyone would be free to be whatever they wanted, at liberty to do whatever they wanted , and every pet cat would consider himself a person."

I'm a guy, yeah? My guyness is intrinsic. No one (not you, not me) declares me a guy: I just am one.

In the same way: bein' free, bein' a person is what I am. You can't bestow or gift these to me, you can only recognize that I am a free person or choose to ignore that I'm a free person. I can't bestow personhood on myself. I can only recognize what is intrinsic to me or deny it.

#

Freedom, liberty, self-possession/ownership, personhood, self, 'I'-ness: these, and a whole whack of other descriptors, all refer to refer to the intrinsic quality of the individual. Absolutely there is a legalistic interpretation of all of these descriptors, but you know, B, I ain't talkin' about legalisms.

Nobody has any essence of who they are. Who you are is what you do. Or as Sartre has it : existence precedes essence.

I disagree. I disagree. Don't care what JP said.

[Skepdick]

Don't care what JP said.

Batman said the exact same thing!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmwLPU5H6_Q

[henry quirk]

Don't care what JP said.

Batman said the exact same thing!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmwLPU5H6_Q

It's not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me.

No. Who you are determines what you do.

[Belinda]

Henry Quirk wrote:

No. Who you are determines what you do.

Not free then ,are you, as what you are is the same from your birth to your death?

[henry quirk]

Henry Quirk wrote:

No. Who you are determines what you do.

Not free then ,are you, as what you are is the same from your birth to your death?

A dumb comment comin' from someone who should know better.

[Nick_A]

Henry

No. Who you are determines what you do.

Never admit this in public. It is too insulting to tolerate and the educated elite will make sure you suffer for such assertions

In Romans 7 St. Paul eloquently describes why he is the wretched man and admits that his hypocrisy is the result of what he is and why humanity as a whole can say one thing and do the opposite.

Who we are is an intolerable question best avoided in polite society. Insisting on raising such questions may result in having to drink the hemlock.

[henry quirk]

Henry

No. Who you are determines what you do.

Never admit this in public. It is too insulting to tolerate and the educated elite will make sure you suffer for such assertions

In Romans 7 St. Paul eloquently describes why he is the wretched man and admits that his hypocrisy is the result of what he is and why humanity as a whole can say one thing and do the opposite.

Who we are is an intolerable question best avoided in polite society. Insisting on raising such questions may result in having to drink the hemlock.

Nick, you know I'm well past the point of givin' two shits about the hoity-toity.

Yeah, I'm not drinkin' poison. They can (try and) shoot me or go pound sand.

[Immanuel Can]

Crusades anyone?

Do you mean the comparatively small-scale Catholic crusades done for manifestly political and anti-Christian reasons,

noted your irrelivant "anti-christian" wording - to distance your sefl (good that you do) - for the right reasons, (you being a good guy, not that Catholics are are not Christian (I've no time for such games, Catholics are Christians, and some are thugs too.)


(I know my history per Spain in this instance, so bare this in mind). I do not think you are dick, but just ignorant of history. so read up on it per this matter.

Well, if you know European or North African history at all, you know that the Islamic Crusades were far longer, bloodier and more oppressive than anything the Catholics ever did. And if you know Spanish history, you know for sure that the Crusades were political, started with the objective of "liberating" Byzantium from the Muslims who had already conquered it...in other words, it was a military counter-crusade.

But all this is beside the question of religion: there is absolutely nothing in the teachings of Christ to sponsor, approve or even allow such behaviour to be Christian. So there's nothing "irrelevant" about that fact, in determining whether the Crusades were "Christian" or not.

??? do you know history?

Quite a bit, you'll find.

there was no mass expulsion of non-Islamics from the Middle East - as there was of Jews by Christian Spanish around 1000 AD.

Well, the Spanish Inquisition was a case of the religious being used by the secular. And it was an anti-Semitic mess, implicating, perhaps, the Catholics of the period.

But it has nothing to do with Christianity.

instead the Muslims allowed the non-muslims to live on thier lands - but to pay a tax and live is second class citizens with less rights

This is your understanding of dhimmitude? It was much, much worse than that...and still is. Here's a bit of additional information: https://www.newenglishreview.org/Mark_D ... 7s_Return/

I know my history and not a Christian - so objective. the show that you may not know history and are a christian, so not objective.

Heh. So your assumption is that "not-a-Christian"s are automatically objective, but Christians cannot, by definition, ever be?

Really?

...and yes Islam is not a religion of peace, the opposite in fact, but people are people and if enough muslim people in possisions of power remove a thug, and are of higher character, then Tunisia is a better place today than it was yesterday.

Any place that has less Islam can be getting better, obviously. But in every place where there's more, there's more misery.

Secular regimes killed over 100 million people in the last century alone.

so ya, assholes will be asshole.

So again...if a secular regime kills people, it's just because of "a-holes," and has nothing to do with beliefs or ideology?

...the Athiests have the highest blood count via Stalin and Mao, then the Christians.

I thought you said you knew history...

Mao has probably killed more than Stalin. Meanwhile, "Christian" wars have not exceeded some fragment of 4% of the death toll of wars in history. You're wildly wrong about that, as any survey of death counts makes abundantly clear.

Islam is down to near nothing,

Islam has killed more people than all other religions combined, and done so on orders of its leading figure, Mohammed. Right now, their death count is somewhere between 4 and 5%...with the other 92% being for non-religious causes of various kinds. By far, the biggest killers of human beings have been the socialist regimes, and those espousing various other secular ideologies. No religion -- not even Islam -- comes close.

you do not know your history Sir.

Um....quite the opposite, I'm afraid.

[Skepdick]

No. Who you are determines what you do.

So lets do a Gedankenexperiment.

Imagine you are a murderous psychopath, but you also are incredibly self-disciplined and have impeccable impulse control.

Do you commit murder or not?

[henry quirk]

No. Who you are determines what you do.

So lets do a Gedankenexperiment.

Imagine you are a murderous psychopath, but you also are incredibly self-disciplined and have impeccable impulse control.

Do you commit murder or not?

Okay. Skep is a psycho-nutjob with incredible self-control. He wants to butcher old ladies but he restrains himself.

So, all we can say about Skep is: he is a well-controlled psycho-nutjob. That is: who Skep is determines what Skep does (or doesn't do), or Who you are determines what you do.

[Skepdick]

Okay. Skep is a psycho-nutjob with incredible self-control. He wants to butcher old ladies but he restrains himself.

So, all we can say about Skep is: he is a well-controlled psycho-nutjob. That is: who Skep is determines what Skep does (or doesn't do), or Who you are determines what you do.

You haven't butchered any old ladies either, Henry.

Are you also a well-controlled psycho-nujob then?

[henry quirk]

Okay. Skep is a psycho-nutjob with incredible self-control. He wants to butcher old ladies but he restrains himself.

So, all we can say about Skep is: he is a well-controlled psycho-nutjob. That is: who Skep is determines what Skep does (or doesn't do), or Who you are determines what you do.

You haven't butchered any old ladies either, Henry.

Are you also a well-controlled psycho-nujob then?

How the hell would you know?

[Skepdick]

How the hell would you know?

The same way you would "know" about my "intrinsic nature".