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EVOLUTIONARY HYMN
Lead us, Evolution, lead us Up the future's endless stair: Chop us, change us, prod us, weed us. For stagnation is despair: Groping, guessing, yet progressing, Lead us nobody knows where. Wrong or justice in the present, Joy or sorrow, what are they While there's always jam to-morrow, While we tread the onward way? Never knowing where we're going, We can never go astray. To whatever variation Our posterity may turn Hairy, squashy, or crustacean, Bulbous-eyed or square of stern, Tusked or toothless, mild or ruthless, Towards that unknown god we yearn. Ask not if it's god or devil, Brethren, lest your words imply Static norms of good and evil (As in Plato) throned on high; Such scholastic, inelastic, Abstract yardsticks we deny. Far too long have sages vainly Glossed great Nature's simple text; He who runs can read it plainly, "Goodness = what comes next." By evolving, Life is solving All the questions we perplexed. On then! Value means survival— Value. If our progeny Spreads and spawns and licks each rival, That will prove its deity (Far from pleasant, by our present Standards, though it well may be.)
I guess that was what Rush supposed to do, illustrate absurdity by being absurd. Evolutionary hymn for the last great pagan religion.
The Church of Evolution may come crumbling down in the next decade. Don't ask me why I say that but I have a weird feeling something is going to happen to shake thier foundation in thier faith.
Regarding the recent bouts of insanity ...
RE-ADJUSTMENT
I thought there would be a grave beauty, a sunset splendour
In being the last of one's kind: a topmost moment as one watched
The huge wave curving over Atlantis, the shrouded barge
Turning away with wounded Arthur, or Ilium burning.
Now I see that, all along, I was assuming a posterity
Of gentle hearts: someone, however distant in the depths of time,
Who could pick up our signal, who could understand a story. There won't be.Between the new Hembidae and us who are dying, already
There rises a barrier across which no voice can ever carry,
For devils are unmaking language. We must let that alone forever.
Uproot your loves, one by one, with care, from the future,
And trusting to no future, receive the massive thrust
And surge of the many-dimensional timeless rays converging
On this small, significant dew drop, the present that mirrors all.
For devils are unmaking language
Hey its late and my keyboard misses some of things I hit, isn't devil a bit strong? :-)
Last great PAGAN religion? Don't feel bad. It's going to look like you just stepped on a mine but that's the pity of these posts. You can't see anyone's eyes.
I should link you to a discussion logos once had with another on a C.S. Lewis thread some time ago. (logos argued that our future was not a return to paganism but rather a heading forth into something far more savage. He was -- and is -- right.)
I defy anyone on the forum to find the "pagans" in our world picture! =)
A CLICHE CAME OUT OF ITS CAGE
You said 'The world is going back to Paganism'.
Oh bright Vision! I saw our dynasty in the bar of the House
Spill from their tumblers a libation to the Erinyes,
And Leavis with Lord Russell wreathed in flowers, heralded with flutes,
Leading white bulls to the cathedral of the solemn Muses
To pay where due the glory of their latest theorem.
Hestia's fire in every flat, rekindled, burned before
The Lardergods. Unmarried daughters with obedient hands
Tended it By the hearth the white-armd venerable mother
Domum servabat, lanam faciebat. at the hour
Of sacrifice their brothers came, silent, corrected, grave
Before their elders; on their downy cheeks easily the blush
Arose (it is the mark of freemen's children) as they trooped,
Gleaming with oil, demurely home from the palaestra or the dance.
Walk carefully, do not wake the envy of the happy gods,
Shun Hubris. The middle of the road, the middle sort of men,
Are best. Aidos surpasses gold. Reverence for the aged
Is wholesome as seasonable rain, and for a man to die
Defending the city in battle is a harmonious thing.
Thus with magistral hand the Puritan Sophrosune
Cooled and schooled and tempered our uneasy motions;
Heathendom came again, the circumspection and the holy fears ...
You said it. Did you mean it? Oh inordinate liar, stop.
Or did you mean another kind of heathenry?2
Think, then, that under heaven-roof the little disc of the earth,
Fortified Midgard, lies encircled by the ravening Worm.
Over its icy bastions faces of giant and troll
Look in, ready to invade it. The Wolf, admittedly, is bound;
But the bond wil1 break, the Beast run free. The weary gods,
Scarred with old wounds the one-eyed Odin, Tyr who has lost a hand,
Will limp to their stations for the Last defence. Make it your hope
To be counted worthy on that day to stand beside them;
For the end of man is to partake of their defeat and die
His second, final death in good company. The stupid, strong
Unteachable monsters are certain to be victorious at last,
And every man of decent blood is on the losing side.
Take as your model the tall women with yellow hair in plaits
Who walked back into burning houses to die with men,
Or him who as the death spear entered into his vitals
Made critical comments on its workmanship and aim.
Are these the Pagans you spoke of? Know your betters and crouch, dogs;
You that have Vichy water in your veins and worship the event
Your goddess History (whom your fathers called the strumpet Fortune).
Newp ... not if God Himself is the Word.
I tend to think that its in our ability to COMMUNICATE that our true connected (not COALESCED-NESS) is shown. Although we, like animals, can howl and moan, laugh and snort or stop a body cold with either love or hate in the eyes ... its in words we excel.
Stories, fables, myths ... we understand ourselves and each other, we reach for the infinite, we abstract, we cut loose our souls from our bodies. Point out, please the ONE animal who's mastered sytax, much less the communication of an original (or even historical) thought or tale.
Some say we're at the dawn of the Age of Atheistic Man. I find his calling card is the Image coupled with the deconstructions of our language. He is cutting out our tongues and imprisoning our thoughts ... bombarding us with Images by which he shall desensitize our souls, harden our hearts and lead about by impulse-driven Grey Matter.
Really highly-evolved type humans generally proofread. I should have stuck to plodding about on stone tablets.
Regards!
I'd have had trouble with stone tablets I guess. Not a good idea to have your typo's written in stone! What an image that would be, erasers were hard to find then.
Some say we're at the dawn of the Age of Atheistic Man. I find his calling card is the Image coupled with the deconstructions of our language.
Perhaps you could explain what you mean by "deconstructions of our language".
If I'm not mistaken, the discussion to which you refer was on your "First Things" thread, and the argument against a return to paganism is that of Lewis, which I either quoted or alluded to - can't remember now. At any rate, the discussion was most definitely on a C.S. Lewis thread, and naturally I didn't bookmark it.
Just a wee small point of my own regarding a "return" to anything. Whatever we once were at each stage of our history, we came to from ignorance, if not innocence, and therefore we came into each new age relatively baggage free, if you will. I don't see how it would be possible to return to what we once were (whatever that was) without taking at the very least bits and pieces (and I suspect much more than that!) of our accumulated knowledge with us.
A return to paganism might best be illustrated by thinking of a Bantu toting "Fat Boy" (the nickname of the bomb over Japan) - 'tis a frightening picture indeed.
Perhaps you could explain what you mean by "deconstructions of our language".
Simple anthropological fact. No one in the religious evolutionist camp can explain honestly and logically the origina of all of the languages, plus all languages de-volve over time, after they come into existence. English is a perfect example. Just listen to Rap music. You will catch on.
His,
Bob Zuvich
rzuvich@hotmail.com
Well, this is a topic on which I'm liable to put everyone to sleep. Here's as good a paragraph as any to put it in a nutshell ... from L.N. Smithee's post by Bill Lind on The Origins of Political Correctness
Fourth, both economic and cultural Marxism rely on expropriation. When the classical Marxists, the communists, took over a country like Russia, they expropriated the bourgeoisie, they took away their property. Similarly, when the cultural Marxists take over a university campus, they expropriate through things like quotas for admissions. When a white student with superior qualifications is denied admittance to a college in favor of a black or Hispanic who isn’t as well qualified, the white student is expropriated. And indeed, affirmative action, in our whole society today, is a system of expropriation. White owned companies don’t get a contract because the contract is reserved for a company owned by, say, Hispanics or women. So expropriation is a principle tool for both forms of Marxism.And finally, both have a method of analysis that automatically gives the answers they want. For the classical Marxist, it’s Marxist economics. For the cultural Marxist, it’s deconstruction. Deconstruction essentially takes any text, removes all meaning from it and re-inserts any meaning desired. So we find, for example, that all of Shakespeare is about the suppression of women, or the Bible is really about race and gender. All of these texts simply become grist for the mill, which proves that "all history is about which groups have power over which other groups." So the parallels are very evident between the classical Marxism that we’re familiar with in the old Soviet Union and the cultural Marxism that we see today as Political Correctness.
But the parallels are not accidents. The parallels did not come from nothing. The fact of the matter is that Political Correctness has a history, a history that is much longer than many people are aware of outside a small group of academics who have studied this. And the history goes back, as I said, to World War I, as do so many of the pathologies that are today bringing our society, and indeed our culture, down.
Thanks to Stingray and others, I've learned the same thing applies to evolutionists and their cousins the eugenicists. It's time we quit allowing ourselves to be deluded by the great PR mavens at the March of Dimes, for example, who used the handicapped themselves as shills to eradicate the handicapped themselves.
A more honest approach might have been for Jerry Lewis to pull the latch on a guillotine rather than pat the condemned sort of "human" on the head.
BS BobZ.
(Hip enough for you?)
We've been being led away from God since the beginng.After the Jews continuely turned their backs on God, Jesus came to open the doors to Heaven for all of us.Part of this is living with the devil among us and having to continually fight him off and do what's right.
The Bible says man was created in Gods image, not as a monkey, but just as we are today.I still say if evolution were true, there would either be "no apes" or there would still be "every stage of man" left today.Everyone knows neither condition exists today, and I believe there is a simple reason for that, it was not Gods plan.
The devil is very real and I believe the people pushing for one world rule are working for him,they are the greedy money changers of today, the same kind of people that got their tables thrown over by Christ.The devil hasn't changed his plan in 2,000 years, instead of evolution, what we are witnessing today is degeneration of man.
I may have misunderstood you ... I'm sorry. But, on the one hand I'm not so certain that all rap can be lumped into the gang-bang arena.
Although their language is rank, I happen to like a lot of what the Last Poets have to say, for example, in "This is Madness". They recognized BOTH birth control AND the bomb as evils of (quite naturally) the White Man. Evinced him perfectly in their "White Man's Got a God Complex" Rap's simply been nipped in the bud and overwhelmed by the same Gramscian decadence and abandonment of common sense as the rest of us ... if you'd ever listened to the Last Poets you'd know why.
Here's a poem for you:
THE COUNTRY OF THE BLIND
Hard light bathed them-a whole nation of eyeless men, Dark bipeds not aware how they were maimed. A long Process, clearly, a slow curse, Drained through centuries, left them thus. At some transitional stage, then, a luckless few, No doubt, must have had eyes after the up-to-date, Normal type had achieved snug Darkness, safe from the guns of heavn; Whose blind mouths would abuse words that belonged to their Great-grandsires, unabashed, talking of light in some Eunuch'd, etiolated, Fungoid sense, as a symbol of Abstract thoughts. If a man, one that had eyes, a poor Misfit, spoke of the grey dawn or the stars or green- Sloped sea waves, or admired how Warm tints change in a lady's cheek, None complained he had used words from an alien tongue, None question'd. It was worse. All would agree 'Of course,' Came their answer. "We've all felt Just like that." They were wrong. And he Knew too much to be clear, could not explain. The words -- Sold, raped flung to the dogs -- now could avail no more; Hence silence. But the mouldwarps, With glib confidence, easily Showed how tricks of the phrase, sheer metaphors could set Fools concocting a myth, taking the worlds for things. Do you think this a far-fetched Picture? Go then about among Men now famous; attempt speech on the truths that once, Opaque, carved in divine forms, irremovable, Dear but dear as a mountain- Mass, stood plain to the inward eye.
I think we're there when our own President can't figure out what "IS" is and we just laugh.
I'm only guessing I may have misunderstood you because of the "religious evolutionist" bit. I don't have any problems reconciling science with religion if that's what you mean. I am in no way an evolutionist, however and do not believe mankind evidences by any stretch of the imagination an unbroken, ever-ascendant line on the graphs of physical, mental, musical, lexicographical or certainly spiritual measure.
Of course, then again, I believe in Free Will ... by which we most resemble that God evolutionists would deny. The very concept flies in the face of Enforced Evolution Ever Forward. Where the Almighty Right to Choosein always improving, ever progressing where our very actions (much less ill thought) have no consequence?
Utterly ridiculous concept ... this "we happened to arise from the soup" to cook up our own, more perfect destinies. What a piece of luck we happened to evolve ourselves some Reason, Intellect, Conscience and Voice -- like extra arms or something -- along the way. What a shame it looks as though our Brave New World requires nothing of the sort if tainted with Individualism of Human Essence (rather than accident) or sincere gratitude for one's Creator.
Pity the poor dumb animals. Doesn't look like they'll ever catch up (regardless of how big their beaks get).
You'd like C.S. Lewis's "The Abolition of Mankind".
Face it ... I'd have been beaten silly if caught, likely discovered as a girl and been stoned to death for having been educated. So ... they weren't the good old days in all respects. =) I do still feel I've more in common with one of the "Condemned" I dropped into your UN post.
In the "good old days" there WAS real Progress, not just Progressivism:
ON A VULGAR ERROR
No. It's an impudent falsehood. Men did not Invariably think the newer way Prosaic mad, inelegant, or what not. Was the first pointed arch esteemed a blot Upon the church? Did anybody say How modern and how ugly? They did not. Plate-armour, or windows glazed, or verse fire-hot With rhymes from France, or spices from Cathay, Were these at first a horror? They were not. If, then, our present arts, laws, houses, food All set us hankering after yesterday, Need this be only an archaising mood? Why, any man whose purse has been let blood By sharpers, when he finds all drained away Must compare how he stands with how he stood. If a quack doctor's breezy ineptitude Has cost me a leg, must I forget straightway All that I can't do now, all that I could? So, when our guides unanimously decry The backward glance, I think we can guess why.
Morning logos ... here you are at First and Second Things:
I think these two poems should speak for me tonight:I just stumbled across this little gem of Lewis, which he wrote in a letter to Don Giovanni Calabria, and might be taken as his explanation as to why we now have so much difficulty distinguishing between "first and second things:""What you say about the present state of mankind is true: indeed, it is even worse that you say. For they neglect not only the law of Christ but even the Law of Nature as known by the Pagans. For now they do not blush at adultery, treachery, perjury, theft and the other crimes which I will not say Christian Doctors, but the pagans and the barbarous have themselves denounced.
They err who say 'the world is turning pagan again.' Would that it were! The truth is that we are falling into a much worse state.
'Post-Christian man' is not the same as 'pre-Christian man.' He is as far removed as virgin is from widow: there is nothing in common except want of a spouse: but there is a great difference between a spouse-to-come and a spouse lost."
Or perhaps he means merely that the world has changed since we were children, and we need to learn a new way to deal with it. What do you think?
You don't mind if I repost the Condemned in here, do you? =)
THE CONDEMNED
There is a wildness still in England that will not feed
In cages; it shrinks away from the touch of the trainer's hand,
Easy to kill, not easy to tame. It will never breed
In a zoo for the public pleasure. It will not be planned.Do not blame us too much if we that are hedgerow folk
Cannot swell the rejoicings at this new world you make -
We, hedge-hogged as Johnson or Borrow, strange to the yoke
As Landor, surly as Cobbett (that badger), birdlike as Blake.A new scent troubles the air -- to you, friendly perhaps
But we with animal wisdom have understood that smell.
To all our kind its message is Guns, Ferrets, and Traps,
And a Ministry gassing the little holes in which we dwell.
I still can't believe how plainly they speak these days. ORGANIZE human life. PLAN human life. Ensure that all humans are WANTED, all births are PLANNED. Population is CONTROLLED. Where is the freedom in ANY of this? Where do folks like us fit in?
I think soon it will dawn on everyone that those charitable ideals of physicality, intelligence and perfection for which they're ready to sacrifice their young and stultify their lives will the yardsticks by which their progeny will -- or will not -- be entitled to life in Utopia. The brilliant efforts of the March of Dimes ... using the handicapped themselves as shills for research money to eradicate the handicapped themselves ... will seem like child's play when comes the time for repeal of the ADA.
It's all very exciting to read in the New York Times Sunday Magazine about the gene therapy that may save this yuppie or that yuppie's hopelessly doomed child. I defy you find such an article, however, that does not stray into the "But is it all worth it?" moment of CONSCIENCE whereby we are guided ever closer to understanding that the technology on which they test these MALPRACTICE-PROOF HUMANS will then be used as excuse and impetus to clearcut future individuals with the audacity to be born imperfect.
Either Truth and its attendant Values are True and are not subsumed by the chattering teeth of Changing Times or there is no Truth and never was.
Angelic minds, they say, by simple intelligence
Behold the Forms of nature. They discern
Unerringly the Archtypes, all the verities
Which mortals lack or indirectly learn.
Transparent in primordial truth, unvarying,
Pure Earthness and right Stonehood from their clear,
High eminence are seen; unveiled, the seminal
Huge Principles appear.
The Tree-ness of the tree they know-the meaning of
Arboreal life, how from earth's salty lap
The solar beam uplifts it; all the holiness
Enacted by leaves' fall and rising sap;
But never an angel knows the knife-edged severance
Of sun from shadow where the trees begin,
The blessed cool at every pore caressing us
-An angel has no skin.
They see the Form of Air; but mortals breathing it
Drink the whole summer down into the breast.
The lavish pinks, the field new-mown, the ravishing
Sea-smells, the wood-fire smoke that whispers Rest.
The tremor on the rippled pool of memory
That from each smell in widening circles goes,
The pleasure and the pang --can angels measure it?
An angel has no nose.
The nourishing of life, and how it flourishes
On death, and why, they utterly know; but not
The hill-born, earthy spring, the dark cold bilberries.
The ripe peach from the southern wall still hot
Full-bellied tankards foamy-topped, the delicate
Half-lyric lamb, a new loaf's billowy curves,
Nor porridge, nor the tingling taste of oranges.
—An angel has no nerves.
Far richer they! I know the senses' witchery
Guards us like air, from heavens too big to see;
Imminent death to man that barb'd sublimity
And dazzling edge of beauty unsheathed would be.
Yet here, within this tiny, charmed interior,
This parlour of the brain, their Maker shares
With living men some secrets in a privacy
Forever ours, not theirs.
There are angels and there are angels, logos. (And you know I'm not talking some sappy New-Age crap by which they're all reduced to Hallmark mush.)Funny ... all of a sudden I can't help thinking about Gramsci and his abhorrence for "common sense" (the self-evident and enduring truths by which a society is connected, if not coalesced). "Illumining" his "organic intellectuals" (though "all" are intellectuals, of course) .... through an education by which the laborer is made to understand the machinations of labor and the manipulation of men. Elitist intellectuals struggling with their elitisism even as they enjoin the organic intellectuals to spur the Struggle in the trenches far from understandably protected and distant ivory towers.
If you were the sort who believed in angels, you might well think some rather dark ones had found a way to stage whisper a promise of Perfection in the parlour of Man's brain ... bent on twisting his very DNA into their own image of skinless, nose-less, unnerving rebellion against Huge Principles.
Obviously, it's time to knock it off! Night, logos.
Either Truth and its attendant Values are True and are not subsumed by the chattering teeth of Changing Times or there is no Truth and never was.
Two points before I dash to a meeting...
Referring to your comment, supra, you have nailed it. The deconstructionists understand very well the problem they have with Truth. And if they can eliminate the concept of Absolute Truth from the human lexicon (eradicating Absolute Truth itself is an entirely different matter), they will have eliminated God from human experience, for the two are the same.
And secondly, the reason egalitarianism will always fail is simple. Those at the bottom of the scale (whatever scale you wish to use; i.e., intellectual, economical, spiritual, etc.) can only be raised so far and no more. Therefore, to form an egalitarian society those at the top of that self-same scale will have to be pulled down to meet those who can rise no further. And that means the proponents of the system will have to limit their own achievements to reach that Utopian society they prattle on about. And, of course, they will never do that. Ergo, guaranteed failure built into the system.
Come to think of it, that's why egalitarianism is just another word for totalitarianism.
Deconstruction of the language! Ain't it grand?
I'm only guessing I may have misunderstood you because of the "religious evolutionist" bit. I don't have any problems reconciling science with religion if that's what you mean.
I rarely respond more than once, but I just happen to still be lurking.
Evolutionism is a religion the same as Hinduism, Buddhism, Reincarnation, Satanism, Islam, Paganism, Shintoism, Shamanism, and I do not have any problems with the Bible and Science at all either, but I do have problems with evolutionism or creationism and science. The events of the past are history, not science. Origins is history, not science. Science can only be used to study either one, but they themselves are not and can not be science.
His,
Bob Zuvich
rzuvich@access1.com
Pay no attention to all the poetry and rambling above ... what's your gut feeling on the Big Change that will shake their faith?
I'm really curious. Not that you do or should care what I think but ...(1) -- Scandal? Exposure of the Blood Trail, the March of Dimes, eugenics and euthanasia in all their horrific glory?(2) -- A natural consequence? Wholesale death among the "living" and affluent middle class Westerners for a change?
(3) -- A major bio-backfire? Perhaps some unpleasantness with the more "unnatural" means of selection ongoing as Man perfects Mankind ...
Damn, it's enough to keep one up all night!(1) is out. Trust me. People don't care and those that might would prefer not to.(2) seems possible but probably would be such a genuine mistake (as opposed to ebola and AIDS in Africa) that it could possible be explained away to a hopelessly busy and tightlipped public. (I'm in utter AWE of the March of Dimes PR office, by the way ... wow!)
(3) is the most intriguing one, of course. In this sultry oh-so-sexy lab dance of procreation -- picking partners from a binder, producing perfect progeny in petri dishes and ensuring a long-lived and pain-free Limbo of Life for the "Living" -- how low will they go and how awful might it be?
Yes, some people forget that paganism is a very, very bad thing.
************
RELIGION IN THE THIRD REICH. Although Hitler was born a Catholic, he rejected Christianity as an alien idea, foreign to the racialist pattern of German life. "Antiquity," he said, "was better than modern times because it did not know Christianity and syphilis." His criticism had many facets:
1. Christianity was a religion that defended the weak and the low.
2. It was purely Jewish and Oriental in origin. It forced people "to bend their backs to the sound of church bells and crawl to the cross of a foreign God."
3. It began 2,000 years ago among sick, exhausted, and despairing men who had lost their belief in life.
4. The Christian tenets of forgiveness of sin, resurrection, and salvation were plain nonsense.
5. The Christian idea of mercy was a dangerous, un-German idea.
6. Christian love was a silly concept because love paralyzed men.
7. The Christian idea of equality protected the racially inferior, the ill, the weak, and the crippled.
During the Nazi drive for political power Alfred Rosenberg (q.v.) placed positive Christianity (q.v.) on the party program. This movement rejected most of the "Oriental" principles of Christianity and substituted for them such "positive',' aspects as racialism (see RACIAL DOCTRINE), the reestablishment of the old Nordic values, and an emphasis on the spirit of the hero. At this time Hitler held ambivalent views on the subject. When he became Chancellor in 1933, he insisted again and again that his government aimed at creating favorable conditions for religion and that he placed the greatest value on friendly relations with the churches. Many Germans at this time believed that the Fuehrer had rescued Christianity from "Red persecutions" and that he would allow the free exercise of all religions.
On July 20, 1933, Hitler concluded a concordat with the Catholic Church (see CONCORDAT OF 1933). He guaranteed the integrity of the Catholic faith and agreed to safeguard its rights and privileges. Catholic schools, youth groups, and cultural societies were not to be disturbed if they kept out of politics. In concluding the agreement, the Fuehrer hoped to assure himself of an atmosphere of confidence by impressing world public opinion. He was deeply proud of his first diplomatic success. As later events indicated, however, he intended to fulfill his obligations only as long as they were useful to him.
From the beginning of the Third Reich, Hitler failed to come to an understanding with the Protestant Church. During the early years of the Nazi regime there was a call for the rejection of Protestantism and the formation of a new "German" religion that would accommodate ideas of blood and soil (Blut und Boden, q.v.) and leadership (see DEUTSCHE GLAUBENSBEWEGUNG, the German Faith move- ment). In 1934 Professor Ernst Bergmann issued his Twenty-five Points of the German Religion. The new German religion stressed these beliefs:
1. The Jewish Old Testament as well as parts of the New Testament are not suitable for the new Germany.
2. Christ was not Jewish but a Nordic martyr put to death by the Jews, a warrior whose death rescued the world from Jewish influence.
3. AdoIf Hitler is the new messiah sent to earth to save the world from the Jews.
4. The swastika succeeds the sword as the symbol of German Christianity.
5. German land, German blood, German soul, German art--these are the sacred assets of German Christians.
Speaking for the German national church, Bergmann said: "Either we have a German God or none at all. The international God flies with the strongest squadrons-- and they are not on the German side. We cannot kneel to a God who pays more attention to the French than to us. We Germans have been forsaken by the Christian God. He is not a just, supernatural God, but a political party God of the others. It is because we believed in him and not in our German God that we were defeated in the struggle of the nations."
Christians all over the world were repelled by these views. Inside Germany the German Faith movement produced its antithesis, the Bekenntniskirche (q.v.), the Confessional Church, which worked to maintain the purity of the Evangelical faith. The Confessional Church declined to obey the Reich bishop appointed by Hitler and instead convoked a fraternal council of the Evangelical Church in Germany. It declared that Christian doctrine was incompatible with Nazi Weltanschauung (q.v.), or world view, and politics.
Meanwhile, Hitler decreed the supremacy of the Nazi state over the Protestant Church. He closed church schools and took over church property, and he drove pastors from their pulpits and forbade others to preach. He hoped to destroy the strength of Protestant opposition by a slow process of erosion. Some Protestant pastors decided to go along with the regime, but many others refused to bow. The theologian Dr. Karl Barth (q.v.), who declined to take an oath of loyalty to Hitler, was removed from his post. "I was a professor of theology for ten years at Bonn University on the Rhine," Barth wrote later in Switzerland, "until I refused to open my lectures each day by raising my arm and saying 'Hell Hitler!' I could not do that. It would have been blasphemy." The outspoken Dr. Martin Niemoeller (q.v.), pastor in the wealthy Berlin suburb of Dahlem, was arrested and tried secretly on a charge of sedition. Niemoeller, who had been a submarine officer in World War I, was cleared of all major charges, but he was arrested again and sent to a concentration camp.
The Catholic Church did not long enjoy the peace that it had been promised by the Concordat of 1933. Catholic bishops attempted to remain on good terms with Hitler and the Nazis, but underneath there was hostility as one by one Hitler broke the terms of the concordat. Monks and nuns were arrested and accused of smuggling gold out of Germany. The Catholic press was censored. Religious processions were banned, and pastoral letters were forbidden. Monasteries were closed, monks subjected to show trials, and priests tried on faked charges of immorality. The propaganda machine led by Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels (q. v. ), Minister for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, attempted to arouse disgust among the German people for the "moral excesses" of Catholic churchmen.
Catholic theologians fought back. Michael Cardinal von Faulhaber (q.v.), Archbishop of Munich-Freising, defied the Nazi state. To forestall his arrest Rome made him a papal legate, which gave him diplomatic immunity. On March 21, 1937, Pope Pius XI (q.v.) issued an encyclical titled Mit brennender Sorge (With Deep Anxiety),' which was read from every Catholic pulpit in Germany. It accused Hitler of breaking his agreement with the church and charged that he had exposed Catholics to "violence as illegal as it is inhuman." Hitler's reply was to subject priests, monks, and lay brothers to a new series of trials.
Hitler's struggle with the churches ended with the outbreak of World War II. He deemed it best to ease his campaign against religion, which might have impaired the morale of his soldiers. But he did not forget his final goal of annihilating both Catholic and Protestant faiths. At the same time he was careful not to come openly to the support of the new paganism. Although he was sympathetic with its approach, he was too shrewd a politician to give his personal support to the new German Faith movement.
From "Encylclopedia of the Third Reich" by Dr. Louis Snyder, Paragon House Publishers, New York, NY (1989).
Well, PLEASE forgive me than for jumping to the wrong conclusion. (No need to respond more than once ... as you can see, I can hold a conversation on my own, thanks!)
I'm right with you on the EvolutionISM aspects.
One of these days we'll just see whose BELIEF system has more REASON to it.
Reason
Set on the soul's acropolis the reason stands A virgin, arm'd, commercing with celestial light, And he who sins against her has defiled his own Virginity: no cleansing makes his garment white; So clear is reason. But how dark imagining, Warm, dark, obscure and infinite, daughter of Night: Dark is her brow, the beauty of her eyes with sleep Is loaded, and her pains are long, and her delight. Tempt not Athene. Wound not in her fertile pains Demeter, no rebel against her mother-right. Oh who will reconcile in me both maid and mother, Who make in me a concord of depth and height? Who make imagination's dim exploring touch Ever report the same as intellectual sight? Then could I truly say, and not deceive, Then wholly say, that I BELIEVE.
I believe this brings me back to the original outrage of the evening -- the UN's "reassessment" of the "values" by which they plan to ORGANIZE mankind -- which began this C.S. Lewis Open-Mike Night.
Please forgive my totally misunderstanding your first post. Will try to watch that posting impulse that typing up poety only slightly slows. (Guess a good first start would be an immersion in the more genteel and longer-to-type language of Lewis rather than quickie slang from foulmouthed CD's ... however prescient.)
Regards (and thanks for coming back twice just this once.)
Wheeeee! Let's get that set to music and recorded by a full orchestra with a 500-voice chorus. Then we'll play it every year to celebrate Earth Day (aka Lenin's birthday).
If you missed it the first time around (I can't remember), I think you would get a kick out of that First and Second Things post I linked to logos. ("Real time" article by Lewis from "Time and Tide" magazine on how the Nazis were embracing, if not at all understanding, the Norse gods.)
Thanks for the meaty post.
I hear some of the whales, dolphis and hyenas from the big two-album "Gaia" album still are on tour ... with just the right PR and production team, I think we could give the Stones a run for their money (barring anti-aging efforts on the band's behalf actually reversing their decay, of course =).
It is hard to compete with hyenas, whales, crystal pyramids and Stones, -- all singing in a hot tub, -- but I declare that Freepers are up to the task! Let's go beyond this first hymn to a whole hymnal. For starters, Gilbert and Sullivan had a bit of innocent fun at the expense of Darwinian man, if anyone wants to dig that out :-)
Just one more post before I start "real work" myself ...
I think that may be why Gramsci -- that great synthesizer and fixer -- keeps coming back to me. I'm going to do a post with rdf on him (concentrating on all-important education for starters) and I think you'll find that in addition to the Great Struggle, the (true) intellectuals have a sort of private struggle with their being actual elites.
He beats egalitarianism hands down as well. Witness the truly telltale elitism of Hillary & Co. No need for pretence (or even actual, Jimmy Carter type hands-on, enjoining of the beloved proletariat).
Who actually loves the "real" proletariat anyway? The important thing is to smash, lay waste, the bourgeoisie (turning to apes before our eyes, I'm afraid).
Costs even LESS to interrupt the production of what wooden horses we can and use them and the already finished but imperfect as firewood for our Bunsen burners as we experiment with other-than-wooden horses whose frames of being are not so obviously indebted to the Tree of Life.THE GENUINE ARTICLE
You do not love the Bourgeoisie. Of course: for they Begot you, bore you, paid for you, and punched your head; You work with them; they're intimate as board and bed; How could you love them, meeting them thus every day? You love the Proletariat, the thin, far-away Abstraction which resembles any workman fed On mortal food as closely as the shiny red Chessknight resembles stallions when they stamp and neigh. For kicks are dangerous; riding schools are painful, coarse And ribald places. Every way it costs far less To learn the harmless manage of the wooden horse -So calculably taking the small jumps of chess. Who, that can love nonentities, would choose the labour Of loving the quotidian face and fact, his neighbour?
Well, there you go. Had I not started the day with a little Puccini and the first two sides (I still listen to albums) of the Mikado I might have been all right.
(When you pay a whopping $.50 per album -- or as much as $3.00 for a picture perfect, Lotte Lenya version of Mahogany -- you can afford to go a little crazy sometimes and check out the occasional New Age paean of animals singing (and "brighter animals" writing) hymns to Gaia! =)
> barring anti-aging efforts on the band's behalf actually reversing their decay, of course =).
London [wire services]. The Decay Watch on the Stones continues today unabated. All of the Stones, oh, alas!, appear to be aging and decaying quite dreadfully. Little hope is held out that anti-aging measures can erase one jot, spot or wrinkle. Soon Mother Gaia will eat the Stones, one by one. Mother Gaia will eat the hyenas and the whales and even the Osmond Brothers. What then, we ask, what then?
Yikes! The format has gone into irreversible decay too!
There's Gaia on the starboard bow, starboard bow, starboard bow, there's Gaia on the starboard bow, shake her off, Jim!
Okay ... well, one thing we must acknowledge as far as Evolutionists and Vivisectionists are concerned:
Their utter selflessness in taking upon themselves the tough decisions to forever alter and/or dispose of other humans' lives in order that their progreny may evolve to enjoy the eternal life they themselves were born too early to enjoy.
Evolving Man has some startlingly definite lines of demarcation delineating the Valuable from the Disposable ... those tenets by which he sorts the Wanted from the Unwanted among his fellow humans.
Pity there's precious little to explain their utterly arbitrary and suspiciously ephemeral natures (besides the fact Men-as-Gods must forever chase in order to crown the greased pig that is Science availed of the Latest Technology).
Speaking of vivisection, have a peek at this one:
http://www.FreeRepublic.com/forum/a3870b16b1a77.htm
No need to respond but I do agree entirely with you on the inherent mystery of (and very real dangers in conjecturing on) Origins and Ends.
At the end of the "The Great Divorce", Lewis's spiritual guide (George McDonald) cautions Lewis that, because he has not yet drunk the bitter cup of death and must return to earth, that he should not speak of what he's seen lest anyone be misled into thinking Lewis speaks with authority on the next life.
I do love Lewis."Ah," says Lewis, "I'll act as if it's forbidden.""But it IS forbidden ... that's what I'm telling ye." George McDonald replies.
Chief, if the opening Hymn is a sample of what I'd get should I peruse Mere Christianity, I think I'll pass.
Poor excuse, even if it were true. But that's not where the "opening hymn" came from. Mere Christianity is a collection of radio essays which were originally broadcast to the British military services during the early part of the air war over Britain. No poetry at all.
I've never heard of him, I hope it's a compliment.
HE IS THIS THREAD! He's wonderful!! Abolition of Man is one of his best essay pieces, IM(and many others')HO.
He addresses you as Chief ... have you any idea how funny that is? (Did you ever read "Voyage of the Dawn Treader?")
Please point out to Ros, et al. how "what do you mean by that?" Eustace and "Yessir, couldn'ta said better me-self right you are -- right you are" Chief showed for the poetry!
If only there were snowballs with which to bean the squirrels!
Right for you, Chief! Hear him, hear him! (Powerful wet stuff, water!)
In fact, could we just stipulate that this has been a Congress of Dufflepuds?)
That having been said, it should be observed that Phone Home (or however you say that name) has absolutely no grasp of Christianity whatever, and evidently rejects it for reasons of personal convenience. But then again, so do most.
Dan (Why I Am [Still] a Christian)
Why INDEED we could, mate! A better idea I've not heard all day ... my entire life, for that matter! What a prince of post you are!
For purposes of clarity, I should point out that Phuong Hoang and I are old friends, emphasis on the old for P.H., and "Chief" was at one time my title. None of it has anything at all to do with Christianity, this thread or, for that matter, reality as any of us know it.
Oh, yeah, another little bon mot from Lewis you might appreciate, taken from Christian Reflections: The Funeral of a Great Myth, wherein Lewis sums up his final thoughts on evolution...
"It appeals to every part of me except my reason. I believe it no longer."
And in one of his letters, a bit of whimsy...
"We live in the most absurd age. I met a girl the other day who had been teaching in an infant school (boys and girls up to the age of six) where these infants are taught the theory of evolution. Or rather the Headmistress's version of it. Simple people like ourselves had an idea that Darwin said that life developed from simple organisms up to the higher plants and animals, finally to the monkey group, and from the monkey group to man. The infants seem to be taught however that 'in the beginning was the Ape,' from whom all other life developed, including such dainties as the Brontosaurus and the Iguanadon. Whether the plants were supposed to be descendants of the apes I didn't gather. And then people talk about the credulity of the Middle Ages! Apropos of this, can you tell me who said, 'Before you begin these studies, I should warn you that you need much more faith in science than in theology.' It was Huxley or Clifford or one of the nineteenth century scientists I think. Another good remark I read long ago in one of E. Nesbitt's fairy tales - 'Grown ups know that children can believe almost anything; that's why they tell you that the earth is round and smooth like an orange when you can see perfectly well for yourself that it's flat and lumpy.'"
Clarity? Nothing to do with Christianity?
I say Chief, having a quite bit of fun with us today, eh?
Watch him mates, that's our sly fox of a Chief ...
looks to give clarity the shortshrift when speaking of Christianity and ... by the Lion! ... if the Chief himself hasn't anchored us right on question of CLARITY when it's CLARITY we've been lacking lo these 24 hours!
Nothing more clear than CLARITY, I always say! Little dram o'clarity's just what's needed to clear things up tidy-like
Why, I tend to understand life's little abstractions, even, when there's a bit of CLARITY about!
Capital idea, Chief ... Good show! Carry on!!
Psst ... I'll treat you to a chapter from the "Treader" one day and you'll see why I'm laughing until tears fall down my cheeks. Of ALL THINGS you introduce CLARITY? into a Dufflepud Discussion? Poor man ... get thee to Narnia and know that I'm NOT making fun at all ... I just can't help it!!
I appreciate the bon mot
I don't think anyone's going to bother us over here so perhaps tomorrow I'll drop in a couple more little things you too might like. Used some Christmas gifts to get the Hooper anthology at Christmas. Do you know that this is the Very First Time I've read ANYTHING of his life save some brief biographical notes in a paper a forensic document expert copied to me once. I took her to lunch in LA one day and it turned out she'd been studying his manuscripts to present a speech on their authenticity! What a wonderful lunch that was. Turned out she also was very close friends with Madeleine L'Engle (whose husband used to sled with my grandmother Many Years Ago ... =)
It's a small but so very beautiful world, really.
I could feast for at least another day on Lewis I bet ... but you rest assured I'll putting down my anchor in the cove of the Dufflepuds before bed this evening!
Best regards, logos. I did mean no disrespect and, YES, you will need to just pull down "Voyage of the Dawn Treader" next time you're in the bookstore or library and take a few minutes to acquaint yourself with my beloved boys.
C. S. Lewis was an intellect from oxford...he went into christianity to dispprove it...he came out an exceptional believer of his time...Church of Evolution was not in his makeup...Jesus Christ was in his makeup...totally...he was totally sold out...
Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis...talks to people of all walks of life...especially the intellectuals...
Sometimes I read too fast, didn't notice the name.From the "Towards that unknown god we yearn" I wrote off what was said, because from what I have read, and what I think I have learned it appears to me that my God is a very personal God, not "an unknown god".
Maybe I completely missed the boat on this one.To me what was said was saying "anything and everything we do is okay" and I don't agree with that.
Turned out she also was very close friends with Madeleine L'Engle...
My, my, my...Madeleine L'Engle - my mother's favorite authoress of all time, and in later years they were pen pals. The world is indeed shrinking.
I'm embarrassed to admit that Narnia and Prelandria are just about the only works of Lewis I haven't read. I suppose now I have no choice.
He's right with you, Eustace ... making monkeys out of the Evolutionists, I'm afraid, on this one ...
You'll find "Mere Christianity" an excellent book. (But if you poke your nose into "Voyage of the Dawn Treader" don't be upset to find you, "Eustace", are a prig and a wet blanket from Page One but transcend -- rather than evolve -- into a brick by the end!)
Best Regards
You really should!
Ahem ... um, you know, logos, who REALLY might enjoy the Perelanda Trilogy? OWK, believe it or not! In fact, I was so intrigued by a comment he made the other day, I went back and read "Out of the Silent Planet" until I fell asleep.
I have three short poems I'd love to post here without perhaps further running this evolution thing BACK into the ground ... do you think he'd mind?
They go like this:
You see, they're kind of just to the point. That's why I thought "Adam at Night" might help explain a bit but ... what the hell. Let's go on.PRELUDE TO SPACE
An EpithaliamiumSo Man, grown vigorous now, Holds himself ripe to breed, Daily devises how To ejaculate his seed And boldly fertilize The black womb of the unconsenting skies. Some now alive expect (I am told) to see the large, Steel member grow erect, Turgid with the fierce charge Of our whole planet's skill, Courage, wealth, knowledge, concentrated will, Straining with lust to stamp Our likeness on the abyss- Bombs, gallows, Belsen camp, Pox, polio, Thais' kiss Or Judas, Moloch's fires And Torquemada's (sons resemble sires). Shall we, when the grim shape Roars upward, dance and sing? Yes: if we honour rape, If we take pride to Ring So bountifully on space The sperm of our long woes, our large disgrace.
That's one really cool thing about the Trilogy, you know. He understands so perfectly the planets themselves, the yen for space travel. At the same time, though, there's such a difference between the travels (means, journey and ends) of Adam who dreams at Night rich in his Tellurian splendor and the horrible men enamoured of a clunky, awesome power sort of H.G. Wells approach to the whole idea.SCIENCE-FICTION CRADLESONG
By and by Man will try To get out into the sky, Sailing far beyond the air From Down and Here to Up and There. Stars and sky, sky and stars Make us feel the prison bars. Suppose it done. Now we ride Closed in steel, up there, outside Through our port-holes see the vast Heaven-scape go rushing past. Shall we? All that meets the eye Is sky and stars, stars and sky. Points of light with black between Hang like a painted scene Motionless, no nearer there Than on Earth, everywhere Equidistant from our ship. Heaven has given us the slip. Hush, be still. Outer space Is a concept, not a place. Try no more. Where we are Never can be sky or star. From prison, in a prison, we fly; There's no way into the sky.
Of course, I'm just plain prejudiced when it comes to Lewis. One last "space" poem (these three, strangely enough, directly follow "The Evolution Hymn" in the book of poetry.
My dog's going to kill me.AN EXPOSTULATION
Against too many writers of science fiction
Why did you lure us on like this, Light-year on light-year, through the abyss, Building (as though we cared for size!) Empires that cover galaxies If at the journey's end we find The same old stuff we left behind, Well-worn Tellurian stories of Crooks, spies, conspirators, or love, Whose setting might as well have been The Bronx, Montmartre, or Bedinal Green? Why should I leave this green-floored cell, Roofed with blue air, in which we dwell, Unless, outside its guarded gates, Long, long desired, the Unearthly waits Strangeness that moves us more than fear, Beauty that stabs with tingling spear, Or Wonder, laying on one's heart That finger-tip at which we start As if some thought too swift and shy For reason's grasp had just gone by?
Goodnight logos. Always a pleasure.
In principio erat Verbum...
Did it occur to you, that the "deconstruction" of the Word is a ritual Deicide?
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Things started coming together pretty quickly on that score after the PC post I think I linked. I'll bet you can date my foray into Molnar's Utopia shortly after that. A.R. Muggeridge's The Desolate City (a white hot magnifiying glass pulled out to inspect the damage closest to me) afforded some much-needed CLARITY (I almost have to laugh again just saying the word) of vision with which to pay better attention. I'm still working on it.
Probably one reason Lewis can keep me up for a couple days straight from time to time ... =)
Here's a post for you four -- whose approach I sometimes describe to friends as the thunder of hooves and clank of armor, brilliant banners borne aloft ...
And, quickly, two with which to retire to bed:THE APOLOGIST'S EVENING PRAYER
From all my lame defeats and oh I much more
From all the victories that I seemed to score;
From cleverness shot forth on Thy behalf
At which, while angels weep, the audience laugh;
From all my, proofs of Thy divinity,
-Thou, who wouldst give no sign, deliver me.Thoughts are but coins. Let me not trust, instead
Of Thee, their thin-worn image of Thy head.
From all my thoughts, even from my thoughts of Thee,
0 thou fair Silence, fall, and set me free.
Lord of the narrow gate and the needle's eye,
Take from me all my trumpery lest I die.
FOOTNOTE TO ALL PRAYERS
He whom I bow to only knows to whom I bow
When I attempt the ineffable Name, murmuring Thou And Dream of Pheidian Fancies and embrace in heart
Symbols (I know) which cannot be the thing Thou art.
Thus always, taken at their word, all prayers blaspheme
Worshipping with frail images a folk-lore dream,
And all men in their praying, self-deceived, address
The coinage of their own unquiet thoughts unless
Thous in magnetic mercy to Thyself divert
Our arrows, aimed unskilfully, beyond desert;
And all men are idolators, crying unheard
To a deaf idol, if Thou take them at their word.Take not, oh Lord, our literal sense Lord, in Thy great,
Unbroken speech our limping metaphor translate.
.
AFTER PRAYERS, LIE COLD
Arise my body, my small body, we have striven
Enough, and He is merciful; we are forgiven.
Arise small body, puppet-like and pale, and go,
White as the bed-clothes into bed, and cold as snow,
Undress with small, cold fingers and put out the light,
And be alone, hush'd mortal, in the sacred night,
-A meadow whipt flat with the rain, a cup
Emptied and clean, a garment washed and folded up,
Faded in colour, thinned almost to raggedness
By dirt and by the washing of that dirtiness.
Be not too quickly warm again. Lie cold; consent
To weariness' and pardon's watery element.
Drink up the bitter water, breathe the chilly death;
Soon enough comes the riot of our blood and breath.
Good night, dear Trebics!