polycarp, It is from the tradition of social teaching of the Church that we are given the 'principle of subsidiarity'. It guards against the extreme of collectivism and excessive state intervention which threatens the dignity and freedom of the human person and family.

This virtue of justice and perfected in charity directs the duty and priority to helping those most needful both materially and spiritually. We are to seek out the good for each other, especially for the poor that is the Love with which God loves.

quote:

Originally posted by GG:
polycarp, It is from the tradition of social teaching of the Church that we are given the 'principle of subsidiarity'. It guards against the extreme of collectivism and excessive state intervention which threatens the dignity and freedom of the human person and family.

This virtue of justice and perfected in charity directs the duty and priority to helping those most needful both materially and spiritually. We are to seek out the good for each other, especially for the poor that is the Love with which God loves.

You are aware that all religious orders are collectivist? You are aware that the early Christians as described in the Book of Acts were collectivist?

You don't seek the good of the poor by throwing them out in the street when they are mentally ill and have just cut themselves to ribbons...and without any medication or the means to obtain it.

I'll let my neighbor know that you have been seeking his good by voting for Republican candidates who assured he was thrown out into the street in just that condition.

I'll let him know you were just protecting him from guaranteed medical care because its a bad thing to get treated when you have no money. If your protection kills him, send flowers.

Retired Monk
"Ideology is a disease"

polycarp,

quote:

You are aware that all religious orders are collectivist? You are aware that the early Christians as described in the Book of Acts were collectivist?

Collectivism is not adaptable with atheism. Atheism is growing in our nation and atheism has not a charitable intention. Forced collectivism is easily distorted as we are witnessing. Shamefully too many have become dependent upon a 30 year system that frankly does not work. There is not equal distribution, and too much abuse of this system. Many who deserve help do not get the helping hand they need. BIG DADDY is not all caring and all kind. Governments should not be in the business of health care!!!!!!!!!!! Let each American citizen decide by giving directly with their own money whom and what they will serve, and yours and my friends will be better served.

Hospitals and clinics have needed to close because of too great of a demand of services of illegals. In Maine reimbursement for services for those without insurance from federal and state is so slow that the dept just gets written off. I do not have insurance, polycarp, and even when it was available I opted out because it was just too expensive.

I lived in a retreat center for three years and I understand the concept of sharing in common. And when one has lost everything it is very easy to give away what one has.

Tell your friends who are in need that I vote for candidates who will give our country a progeny, who will give our country heirs, who will give our country PEOPLE to share in the support of others as in payroll taxes and other charitable ways. Tell your friends I support candidates who DO NOT support the need for the workers who send their money weekly OUT of our country. Tell your friends I support candidates who are not selling out our country to foreign invasion, and right now it appears that the Republican party without the president is standing strong against giving our country away. I am thoroughly disgusted with Pres. Bush and his desire to ram amnesty down the throats of the American people.

Our welfare systems are failing polycarp, because of a lack of work force of AMERICAN people. Tell that to your friends before he considers his support of candidates who cannot see beyond their self centered power grabbing sense and not for your friends and mine.

polycarp

quote:

I'll let him know you were just protecting him from guaranteed medical care because its a bad thing to get treated when you have no money. If your protection kills him, send flowers.

I have friends who are hooked on the system, polycarp. I've seen first hand how it removes dignity, bloats them with prescribed drugs and removes their hope of independence. I have a friend who works for the system and advises these dependencies. It breaks my heart to see this happening. (I remain silent about it in their presence.) It appears that once in the welfare system the HOOKS with not let people go. Federal and state welfare for the most part is a very corrupted system. It needs to be removed from government.

polycarp

quote:

t wasn't Mulsims that started the First and Second World Wars. It wasn't Muslims that institued the holocaust. It wasn't muslims that started the u.S. Civil War, it wasn't Muslims that created the slaughter in Vietnam, and it wasn't Muslims who have been running around assassinating So. and Central American presidents who didn't agree with the u.S. raping of their nation's resources. It wasn't Muslims that started the crusades.

I don't know about Vietnam, Central American presidents and the US Civil War, but I do know that IT WAS not the Christians who began the Crusades, polycarp.

Islamic threats to world peace has been around since the 6th century - - -

quote:

... During world war 2 there were strong connections between the Muslim governments (as well as some of the Muslim people) and the Nazis. Muslim extremists were strong supporters of Hitler. Most Germans were either brainwashed or scared and thats why so few did anything to fight or oppose Hitler. However many Muslim extremists VOLUNTARILY fought side by side with the Nazis until 1945 when it became clear the Nazis were going to lose the war. Many Soviet Muslims abandoned the red army to fight with Hitler. The Nazis and the Muslim extremists (not all Muslim people by any means) have very common ideologies and common enemies. They both hate Jews, they are both staunchly against communism, and they both wanted the British out of "Palestine". The Grand Mufti of Palestine was a very influential Muslim leader at the time, almost equivilent to the Pope for catholics. The Grand Mufti was one of Hitler's strongest allies and actively recruited Arabs and Muslims across the world for the S.S. So "Palestine" and the Arabs were not innocent for the many atrocities of world war 2.


Mohammad Amin al-Husayni (ca. 1895 - July 4, 1974, أمين الحسيني, alternatively spelt al-Husseini), the Mufti of Jerusalem, was a Palestinian Arab nationalist and a Muslim religious leader. Known for his anti-Semitism and his opposition to Zionism, al-Husayni fought against the establishment of a Jewish Homeland in the territory of the British Mandate of Palestine. To this end, Husayni collaborated with Nazi Germany during World War II and helped recruit Muslims for the Waffen-SS.

GG, it's been the western world that have been the threats to world peace during the last century, not the Muslims.

This country has been at war, in one way or another, under every U.S. President since Roosevelt. Now, just who has been a threat to world peace?

I suppose you might even say we invaded Grenada to defend our nation from being taken over by a hostile army of several thousand soliders if youn chose to believe that.

Just how many governments have Muslims overthrown in the last 500 years compared to us?

Retired Monk
"Ideology is a disease"

I'll bite....

Christians fear the controversial collectivism that is anything different and suggests a following away from the context of Christianity. I mean, this IS why religions fight within minor docrtinal differentiations as well as hugely different subjectives.

Atheists are not collectivists in that they need to believe in something of "faith" in order to understand their world nor behave in an ethical or morale way towards their environment or other humans.

The "other" collectivism is defining who you are and what you are about without any ordained enforcement or pontification. It doesn't make sense to me for my country to declare wars on verbs, nouns or have covert military operations with our tax dollars because it goes against what heritage we've been given to this point about transparency and representative democracy working towards full disclosure.

The U.S. wasn't founded on a military complex. That in fact had at least a two part reality of alignment thanks to Franklin to have France help with naval defense and round up militia for a ground defense from the orders of a Parliament that was making money off of taxing the very people they sent over in raw material and English finished product. I think diplomacy in contracting unofficially to have a "friend" in France help us determine separation from England was something that came very close to not happening. And I can bet wound't have happened had France known it would have bankrupted them and started their own revolution indirectly.

It seems to me that GWB sees himself as some kind of Franklin figure thinking he's going to secure independence for Iraq and for a time there will be free trade and a pat on the back by the people. Other than for sects of people affected by dicatates of Saddam most of Iraq people were living progressive lives (not backward) and more concerned about loosing their collective culture and opening a loose cannon worse that Saddam. And presto... fast forward.... here we are with a democratic process that has fundamentalists voted into power legally by the people and underminding the patsy government the U.S. has tried to establish as "fair" representation. This fair representation is so mediocre it can't get off it's knees and elbows and stand for itself thus the further inclination of insurgency to fundamentalism recognizing this weaknesses and disrupting of any "order" promised as an aftermath of first wave of fighting at "mission accomplished."

In every way the U.S. has been proven not only as a liar to empty promises but continually exacerbating worse conditions for the very people they claim to be their "protecting" or "liberating."

Third stage is bad management using infantry designed for boarder occupation and homeland defense coupled with involuntary extensions and long-term subtle trauma of language and cultural barriers to understand who and what the enemy combatent is about... well, we clearly are not training and maintaining these guys well.

The Vet Administration is already pulling the carpet out due to the proverbial funding and politics that is systemic in any war that depletes and indebts a nation. The answer: More War! to stimulate the economy.

Tell me, how in heaven's name can a Christian family "pray" for a soldier that is required to kill on the command of government rule not his own moral or ethical behavior? The thousands of people dead in Iraq as "collateral damage" directly affected by this? What the hell kind of religion prays for its "own" above those that are contract to go kill?

I'd say there are some "fundamental" issues in this country. I think we are going to find out there is a huge quagmire result of deregulation that is going to have very long-term results on citizens to figure out if representative democracy is actually something of application and not just ideologically written about but nonexistent.

I think we have a problem in our society when we are AFRAID to kill a ruthless leader and his affiliates above killing others for years on end in another country.

If this is the "best" the world has to look towards then it is weak, mindless, blind and not about personal or collective freedom but prostitutes for the civil unrest in consumerism, militarianism, and racism.

I'd like to make sure this is clear. Christians that promote hate of other religions should be seen the same as self-promoted KKK establishments that have racist and prejudice without any justifications that are reasonable. What we have in government is the same in years past when the government promoted the KKK as a upright organization... so it is with Christianity.

Trisha

Christians are prone to disregard the fact that the the early Christians lived collectively, not competitively. Books of Acts.

So-called Christianity in the U.S. could more be aptly called a "worship of national identity, death in the name of life, economic serfdom in the name of freedom".

Any relationship between U.S. "Christianity" and Christianity itself are purely coincidental, and have more to do with a common book sitting on a coffee table or a cross hanging at the front of a church. There the resemblance ends.

Retired Monk
"Ideology is a disease"

Poly,

But if I don't have that proverbial cross hanging on my wall or Pro-Ten Commandment signage in my yard, or fishy sign on my vehicle or get caught praying before a meal... then what could we possibly have as a national collective conservative religion?

Come on... we are encouraged to teach to our children that Ben Franklin was a sleezy guy creating a house of ill repute while in France. Adams own words about his immoral personal decisions so affecting that of the country.

Yet, without Franklin's crafty nature to convince the French ... wouldn't I have that funky Enlish accent and be drinking afternoon tea? (But then, maybe I'd be speaking Deutch since according to the U.S. without the U.S. Germany, Italy and Japan would have collectively overtaken things.)

What I find to be true is that people that have to introduce themselves with their religion are still trying to convince themselves and purposefully creating a situation of warning or elimination in relationships if one doesn't counter with the same.

I figure... if I am a good person.. it'll show more than any statement I could attempt to make as a first impression.

Trisha, you'll find a lot more "Christians" roaming around that have no ties to Christianity than you will among Christians who do.

That "sleezy" Franklin's personal life shouldn't even be of concern to a "Christian" if no one was harmed by it. There is that little part about not judging others...but instead, of tending to ones own behavior.

Righteous anger when someone is harmed. Unrighteous anger over personal actions when no harm has been done.

I find it quite amazing that many of the Jewish community follow the precepts of Christ to a degree far surpassing that of many Christians!

Religion tends to be co-opted by the society in which it finds itself, and this is certainly very evident in the United States...as is true all over the world.

Religion will come to reflect the inculturated values of the society, will be interpreted in a manner that supports that society, and as a new "doctrine", will change that doctrine only as a following of a change in society, not as predecessor of change. Doctrine will lag social change, any any change will be fought tooth and nail until that change becomes an overwhelming norm. This is true even in my own church.

The values of "greed" since the Reagan years has co-opted much of Christianity. Praying for "more" is a common practice. One's neighbor is of no concern.

Individual sects of the "old doctrine" can persist for years. The "Old Believers" of the Orthodox Church within the United States are a striking example of this.

Fundamantalist Christianity will be with us for a long, long time...even if reduced to smaller sects here and there if the values of the culture undergo a change.

Retired Monk
"Ideology is a disease"

polycarp

quote:

Doctrine will lag social change, any any change will be fought tooth and nail until that change becomes an overwhelming norm. This is true even in my own church.

Truth is inherently given to each person. Each person is free to accept or reject what never changes. Truth is discoverable and is compatible in all generations.

Obviously it is not for each of the many cultures that exist in the world to determine what is truth. Truth is not a group consensus nor given by authority of state for both of these could take it away. Truth is not humanly contrived and manipulated.

Our judicial system too often legislates by their own preconceived unrestrained moral barometer of our nation desiring to redefine truth, therefore, redefine nd violate the US Constitution. For instance, courts have designated that parents are not the first educators of their children and therefore are to allow educats to indoctrinate their children without interference. They have grossly violated parental rights.

The following gives indepth explanations of why truth is hated and why it must be removed in order to control the peoples of the world.

www.deliberatedumbingdown.com

http://www.americandeception.com/index.php?page=usercat...bb952431300972d2b723


Roe vs. Wade was a direct violation of the U.S. Constitution. It's major distortion was one reason the Declaration of Independence was removed in public schools because of the fear of the words "INALIENABLE rights" given to humanity.

Once cannot have their OWN truth and cancel out another's.

Truth experienced is truth for the individual. "Truth" not experienced is a sham. Belief and experiental truth are two very different things.

Ultimately, people attach their own interpretations to words, doctrines, beliefs...and will interpret in a manner that comes from within their own cultural experience.

That is just the way it is. The "form" of catholisicm is identical in each country...what that form means is interpreted in the manner of the culture in which it takes place.

"Truth" takes on many different shades. Many different meanings.

Retired Monk
"Ideology is a disease"

polycarp

quote:

"Truth" takes on many different shades. Many different meanings.

You're unbelievable, polycarp. Many different meanings to truths - - - therefore NO truth is what you state. Unbelievable - - - !!!!!!!!!!!

Some people really struggle with the reality that Life might be less/more than absolute or structured.

Truth is fluid. Attaching right and wrong to it becomes a preconceived ordeal in judgment.

I don't know what "righteous" whatever is.

I mean, if this is righteous as in a right to respond, punish, retaliate, or justification of "more correct, right(er), more decent etc" then I don't believe in that garbage (as an absolute) it's perceptional to the judging beholder.

I might respond to something but that doesn't mean I have a right to respond nor how I respond being right. Yet, I believe these things are nuances that are inferred in usage often unquestioned or hated by those that do question and the hypocracy of plays between engagements.

I'd say on that one... we're all flawed.

I have met people of other faith walks that resemble more Christ-like behavior while not professing to believe in the man-god themselves.

Funny how that IS.

Trisha

Oh... There's GG.

But but butt butt ....

If people have different truths the whole world is in anarchy!

Ah, extremism as the false arguement.

No, the world is not in anarchy even though truthiness is a bit of marshy existence. Maybe more like jello. Some of the world resembles anarchy as a matter of fundamentalism that is destroying lives without justice. However, there is still a joint truthiness shared by other people... thus making this less jello and more solidified. (Probably the part of the conversation where you are lost...)

Then again, I am a person not bothered by the theory that everything ceases to exist as we perceive it as soon as we quit looking at it. Then again, I'm someone who is a volunteer part-time student of quantum physics... and says... well if that happened coincidentally that's cool... if that was supnaturally designed that's cool and if that simply evolved that's cool....

There's a pattern developing....

quote:

Originally posted by GG:
polycarp

quote:

"Truth" takes on many different shades. Many different meanings.

You're unbelievable, polycarp. Many different meanings to truths - - - therefore NO truth is what you state. Unbelievable - - - !!!!!!!!!!!

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder GG. If one thinks a painting is ugly, another mediocre and another thinks it beautiful, what is the "truth"? The painting is just the painting. "Truth" is made up about it. What is true has a different shading coming from the perspective of the observer. Ideas are the same way.

We share the same religion. What is true for me is not true for you. A different shading.

Retired Monk
"Ideology is a disease"

quote:

Ideas are the same way.

Truth is not "ideas". You do a great disservice to what is truth.


Is the beauty of the earth "an idea??"


To be charitable
To bring love where love does not exist
To honor parents and children
To defend righteousness
To desire happiness
To lay one's life down for a friend

These are JUST ideas, polycarp????

Some people GG, do not think the earth is beautiful. Just something to be torn apart for profit. Truth for one, isn't truth for another.

You have one idea. Others are opposed to it. Where is the truth? It depends on the individual.

What you see as truth, others see as hogwash.

Truth in ideas and beliefs is subjective, not objective. It varies from one person to another.

Everything is as it is. Opinions about things are made up. No truth to them.

Retired Monk
"Ideology is a disease"

Gotta love Colbert on Truthiness.

Poly,

I am curious... so other people having opinions stated as truths doesn't cause your blood pressure to rise and believe that God is somehow slighted and you have to bear witness and make things righteously right on behalf of said beliefs?

I'm always curious how people of the same religion can BE functionally so different when communicating or just living in this world.

I'm still trying to really deal with the nuts and bolts of what makes people compel to change other people outside of relationships like parent/child, boss/worker etc.

What is it in the belief system that turns it from inclusion and order to fundamentalism in practice?

There's a huge difference from a premise of we "all are one... of one" as inclusive to do no harm to perceptional differentiation ... to We all must act, behave and practice as one (forcebly through physical or psychological brainwashing.)

How arrogant and presumptuous for me to think that Christianity is the only way for God to be with all the different people of the world... should we believe in a monotheistic super invisible power hungry man.

For me it seems... people have made up their mind on what "is" real, truth, or going to happen. There's no changing it.

GWB has made up his mind on who is informing him well. He's made up his mind about marketing a war to the public. He's made up his mind about more debt created funding the bloodshed. He's made up his mind on how he justifies sending people to their death for his truth in the cause. No different than all those Confederate re-enactments of a war they lost but justifying ... the south will rise again.

What does that mean?

Why the hell would we want that to rise again?

Rebirth seems in some sense of logic nothing more than repeating the same mistake.

I don't know... I don't have all the answers that people seek.

I'm more of a sun worshipper instead of a son whorshipper.

I can see the sun... I know I'm going to die. And I'm okay with the concept of ... hey you are dead that's it. I don't need to cajole myself with fairies and pixies in a mystical afterlife to live well now.

Truth is some perfection in order and consensus that absolutists seek to be validated.

Therapy, is tricking a client into forming judgments, based on 'reasoned' truths. It seems to me that if I was lucky enough to come up with something humorous as my judgment, and no-one around said, "YOU CRAZY!", this would be wisdom...

polycarp

quote:

Where is the truth? It depends on the individual.

What you see as truth, others see as hogwash.

Truth in ideas and beliefs is subjective, not objective. It varies from one person to another.

Everything is as it is. Opinions about things are made up. No truth to them.

Were you once a monk, polycarp? There is no truth at all if each person has dominion on what truth is. Laws are based upon truth, a truth inherently given not humanly contrived.

quote:

Originally posted by GG:
polycarp

quote:

Where is the truth? It depends on the individual.

What you see as truth, others see as hogwash.

Truth in ideas and beliefs is subjective, not objective. It varies from one person to another.

Everything is as it is. Opinions about things are made up. No truth to them.

Were you once a monk, polycarp? There is no truth at all if each person has dominion on what truth is. Laws are based upon truth, a truth inherently given not humanly contrived.

GG, a protestant will have a different "truth" about religion than you do. Cathoics have different "truths" among themselves.

If you don't know how the human mind functions...sorry.

Beauty is still in the eye of the beholder. People interpret truth as meaning their own view of it. That's just the way it is.

Retired Monk
"Ideology is a disease"

polycarp

quote:

GG, a protestant will have a different "truth" about religion than you do. Cathoics have different "truths" among themselves.

There is only One Truth or there is NO truth.

Different truths??? C'mon, polycarp. You never were a monk were you?

quote:

Originally posted by GG:
polycarp

quote:

GG, a protestant will have a different "truth" about religion than you do. Cathoics have different "truths" among themselves.

There is only One Truth or there is NO truth.

Different truths??? C'mon, polycarp. You never were a monk were you?

You keep proving my point GG.

My forum name is polycarp. Do you know who Polycarp was, what he wrote, when he lived?

I have training in church doctrine. Church history. Writings of the church fathers and their intepretation. I've studied the lives and writings of eastern and western saints. I have background in the development of liturgies....how they came about. Yet, we have two opposing views. What is true for me, is not true for you.

Your training is what?

Retired Monk
"Ideology is a disease"

How sweet it is! GG IS IRRESPONSIBLE! Very! It has been as if, 1) a paid subscription to Thom's site is a 'straw', that 2)blog-adders are straw men and women 3) We be bad! Really bad!!
All who follow be warned: The Middle Class have been screwed, by false arguments and empty promises! Don't be among the played; rather support and advocate the maintenance of modern technology, that it may be used in the interests of THE PEOPLE, that it's promise for our betterment be realized going forward!