The USA and Israel

[Alexis Jacobi]

If there is a God and God is benevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent, then I would assume something will happen to bring about a sane solution. Otherwise, God must be a helpless bystander as well.

Somewhat of an aside here, but I think definitely related. Allow me to attempt the following with this:

From Chapter 22 of the 10-Week Email Course: The conversion of the Teutons to Christianity can only be explained by assuming that amongst them many men of softer heart could not withstand the gaze from the eyes of a merciless destiny and -- against all reality -- took their refuge in the dream image of a merciful God. Indo-European men of stronger heart have always been, like Frederick the Great, born stoics, who standing upright like the devout Vergil, have recognised a merciless fate (inexorabile fatum).

Strange, isn't it? how metaphysical ideas haunt our perception. They intrude, they determine. We have an odd pair among us: on one hand the arch-Christian who actually desires to be a True Jew; and on the other the man who represents the failure of that metaphysical picture which cannot any longer function or resuscitate; that does not help in any way in seeing or understanding reality; who is trapped within poisonous, restraining and debilitating ideas which the Religious Zealot insists that all must believe in order to get this thing, this state, called *salvation*.

Quoting from Hamlet, the victim of a ghost and his mother:

Let us go in together,
And still your fingers on your lips, I pray.
The time is out of joint — O cursèd spite,
That ever I was born to set it right!

When we cannot stand the face reality as it really is, in our weakened state we invoke false-pictures. If I was *born to set it right* I must recover a truer picture, and I must recover my manliness that has been subverted by surrender to a feminine longing. That is a complex metaphor when you think about it. That there is a manly way to see things, indeed to exist, and also the possibility to be seduced and then haunted by mistaken pictures.

Let women believe what they will, but men must see truly and act truly.

Yes, that God is a helpless bystander when facing the nature of the reality in which we actually are subsumed! Thus he could only stand there, weak & whimpering, in the face of the elements of the created world!

The *time being out of joint* appears to be a time in which one entire metaphysical picture collapses, and men wander among those ruins in whimpering weakness hoping for a psychic resurrection that never comes, that can't come, unless one really takes stock of oneself.

[phyllo]

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Fri Dec 29, 2023 9:52 pm
If there is a God and God is benevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent, then I would assume something will happen to bring about a sane solution. Otherwise, God must be a helpless bystander as well.

A sane solution comes from sane men and women.

Let's leave God in heaven. Please.

[Sculptor]

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Fri Dec 29, 2023 9:52 pm
If there is a God and God is benevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent, then I would assume something will happen to bring about a sane solution. Otherwise, God must be a helpless bystander as well.

A sane solution comes from sane men and women.

Let's leave God in heaven. Please.

Gosh, and does He do what you tell him to do?

[Alexis Jacobi]

But as you say, I don't think the sane solution is one that is going to come about. I'd be surprised and happy if it did, but I think it won't.

Agreed...

[phyllo]

Gary Childress wrote: ↑Fri Dec 29, 2023 9:52 pm
If there is a God and God is benevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent, then I would assume something will happen to bring about a sane solution. Otherwise, God must be a helpless bystander as well.

A sane solution comes from sane men and women.

Let's leave God in heaven. Please.

Gosh, and does He do what you tell him to do?

No, Gary doesn't do what I tell him to do.

I've never been in a philosophy forum as obsessed with God and religion as this site. I don't know why God gets dragged into so many threads.

[Sculptor]

A sane solution comes from sane men and women.

Let's leave God in heaven. Please.

Gosh, and does He do what you tell him to do?

No, Gary doesn't do what I tell him to do.

SInce when has Gary been referred to as "He" with a capital H?

I've never been in a philosophy forum as obsessed with God and religion as this site. I don't know why God gets dragged into so many threads.

Then why bring up the concept?

I think all we need to know about god is that the only one persistently arguing for his existence is rooting for the genocides and ignoring the deaths of the innocent.
God would seem to be relevant to this thread since religion is behind the Jews' claim to own a land previously occupised by those that they are currenly slaughtering.
And if you think my words are too strong then you are just not paying attention.

[promethean75]

8atzui.jpg

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine - Stirner, Max

[phyllo]

Then why bring up the concept?

I didn't bring it up. Gary did. Again.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Look out! Look out! The Jewish anti-Zionists are coming!

HaShem! Do something!

[Gary Childress]

But it will come. And when it does, you can be quite sure that all the injustices involved will be remedied...and the very last drop of blood or uttered curse-word will be answered for.

And every time I blatantly used a salad fork to eat the main course, I'm sure. Our ideas of justice appear to be very different.

[Alexis Jacobi]

I wonder if there is some sort of Yiddish Ju-Jitsu?

[Alexis Jacobi]

Warning!

The following video should only be glimpsed by those with an inborn Gnostic awareness. If you do not have this level of understanding it may be harmful to your development!

[promethean75]

The Jewish people haven't designed an original martial art grappling technique as such, but they do have what's known as The Weapon

[Alexis Jacobi]

But as you say, I don't think the sane solution is one that is going to come about. I'd be surprised and happy if it did, but I think it won't.

If there is a God and God is benevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent, then I would assume something will happen to bring about a sane solution. Otherwise, God must be a helpless bystander as well.

Well, I think something WILL happen. But man will be given a lot of latitude, first. Let nobody say God's got us all locked up on short chains: clearly, what Hamas shows is that we can do a great deal of evil prior to the Final Intervention. But it will come. And when it does, you can be quite sure that all the injustices involved will be remedied...and the very last drop of blood or uttered curse-word will be answered for.

I came across an interesting group of essays: The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Violence.

Check it out:

Violence has always played a part in the religious imagination, from symbols and myths to legendary battles, from colossal wars to the theater of terrorism. The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Violence offers intersections between religion and violence throughout history and around the world. Its forty chapters include overviews of major religious traditions, showing how violence is justified within the literary and theological foundations of the tradition, how it is used symbolically and in ritual practice, and how social acts of violence and warfare have been justified by religious ideas. They also examine patterns and themes relating to religious violence, such as sacrifice and martyrdom, which are explored in cross-disciplinary or regional analyses; and offer major analytic approaches, from literary to social scientific studies.

One reviewer wrote:

I found this brilliant anthology to be revolutionary, evocative, and deeply disturbing. The 40 articles herein contained cover a vast range of territory from psychology, sociology, anthropology, textual analysis, armageddon, ritual, sacred sites, torture, just war theory (Augustine and Aquinas), to a profile of major and minor religions around the world.

The authors vary slightly as to how they render the religion=violence correlation, but they are united in seeing a surprising conjunction between them.

Religion is deeply tied to in-group identity formation (as noted in evolutionary psychology), which ends up with a strong dualism that demonizes the Other. The quest for purity, as in global fundamentalisms, can only function if there is the vast world of the "impure" who are always rendered as less than human and hence ripe for extermination.

On this reading, Yahweh is a genocidal and tribal god bent on the utter destruction of all other tribes. It seems that the three Western monotheisms are more prone to this kind of thinking. Yet Buddhism, seemingly the most non-violent of the global religions, comes in for its share of critique, especially around the issue of the militarism of the local kings and princes who protected the monasteries by proxy.

What I found especially disturbing is the bizarre popularity of armageddon sadistic and masochistic fantasies found in many religions. While for most these delusions fall into the "science fiction" genre, for many others, they are literally true. As always, regardless of the religion, only a few will be saved while billions will be condemned to some kind of envisioned hell. This triumphalist and ego-centric position remains one of the worst byproducts of a certain kind of religiosity.

Among the articles in the volume I was especially drawn to several, however, others will highlight different ones as they impinge on their own research. I was rather compelled by the following: "Religion and Violence from a Psychological Perspective," by James W. Jones, "Religion and Violence from Literary Perspectives," by Margo Kitts," "Armageddon in Christian, Sunni, and Shia Traditions," by Michael A. Sells, and "Cosmic War in Religious Traditions," by Reza Aslan. Of course, I must add that the rest of the articles in this superbly edited volume have their own great value and everyone will, as noted, come up with their own list as to their sense of which articles influenced them the most deeply.

In summation I can say that this is a very important book to read. It took me some time to read all of the articles, and at times I had to take a slight break because of the nature of this painful yet urgent material.

[Sculptor]

The Jewish people haven't designed an original martial art grappling technique as such, but they do have what's known as The Weapon

Meh.
They have a much better weapon. The ultimate weapon which enables them to commit genocide whilst playing the victim - it's called accusations of antisemitism.