Like electroconvulsive shock therapy?
Sigmund Freud vs. Carl Jung
- Thread starter Cypress
- Start date
Dutch Uncle
* Tertia Optio * Defend the Constitution
Yes. It works, but has limits. Have you had the experience? Did it calm you?
As far as I can tell there has not been a major war strictly motivated by religion since the First Crusade, or the 30 Years War many centuries ago.
There just are not enough people willing to die on the basis of the question of whether Jesus or Siddhartha Guatama had a better insight into the ultimate transcendent truth.
The modern middle east is engaged in a conflict between Zionism and Palestinian nationalism. That conflict is far more political in nature than theological.
Al Qaeda's goals were always more political than theological.
Hindu extremists and Buddhist nationalists in India and Myanmar are largely driven by nationalist and geopolitical reasons. I doubt the Baghavad Gita and Pali Canon are really figuring into their calculations in any significant way.
If one wants understand the root causes of modern conflicts, I suggest looking at natural resources, geopolitics issues, petroleum, and water before you start pouring over scrolls and sacred texts like the Daodejing and New Testament.
Last edited:
Dutch Uncle
* Tertia Optio * Defend the Constitution
Agreed wars and conflicts are over resources and territory (either for same resources or strategic reasons). Disagreed that any wars are primarily religious wars.
Religion is a tool and can be used as a motivator. "For God and Country!" can be translated into dozens of languages for armies around the world, past and present. Isn't that what the Palestinian suicide bombers say before blowing up a busful of tourists? "Allahu Akbar!"? ‘God is most great’. Religion is the tool to motivate the bomber, but the target and reason behind the bombing is for military, political and economic control over Israel.
The Thirty Years' War was a contest of control between the Habsburgs and the Bourbons. Again, religion was used as a motivator for cannon fodder in one of the most destructive wars in European history.
Fucking Euros, eh? No wonder my ancestors left that shithole. LOL
I know what you mean.
Human beings have been motivated by tribal concerns for two hundred thousand years. It becomes a matter of knowing which buttons to push.
My two cents: religion is a figleaf or avatar for nationalism.
Nationalism is really the defining characteristic of the modern world since the Napoleonic era.
Nationalism has been the motivation of all major conflicts of the last 200 years, and nationalism is what killed tens of millions of people in the 20th century.
Dutch Uncle
* Tertia Optio * Defend the Constitution
It has certainly been used as such. Consider that Lincoln started the War of Northern Aggression purely to force the South back into the Union, but he sold it as ending slavery per Christian morals. ""Battle Hymn of the Republic" was popularized among the Union soldiers marching to invade the South and burn it to the ground.
"In God We Trust" began replacing "E Pluribus Unum" during the Civil War: https://www.treasury.gov/about/education/pages/in-god-we-trust.aspx
The motto IN GOD WE TRUST was placed on United States coins largely because of the increased religious sentiment existing during the Civil War. Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase received many appeals from devout persons throughout the country, urging that the United States recognize the Deity on United States coins.
Nationalism is also a tool and, agreed, has largely replaced religion as a motivation tool for war. As humanity industrialized, we became more efficient at killing each other.
Hitler didn't do anything different murdering Jews than his predecessors over the previous 1900 years except that he mechanized the process on an industrial scale so that he could murder 6 million Jews, and 5 million others, using industrial efficiency.
We can call abortion clinic murders political but in reality it's christian fundamentalists demanding the entire country live by their belief system. The christian right is already at war with America, yet you believe they can be reasoned with.
Freud wrote a superiority complex is overcompensating for failure. Trump is a perfect example and we see politicians all over the country emulating Trump. This is only the beginning, christian fundamentalists are not going to fade away.
Religious fundamentalism of any stripe is abhorrent.
Christian fundamentalism is particular to the United States. And it is specifically particular to American Protestantism.
Not only are Protestants a minority of world Christianity, but conservative American Protestants constitute maybe only five percent of world Christianity. There are two billion Christians on the planet.
Can you explain why anyone would get made at me for not jumping on the bandwagon to condemn modern world Christianity based on the actions and words of small minority fundamentalist American Protestants?
No, but you've chosen to ignore the history of the church, up to and including sex scandals, enabled by the abhorrent leadership of the Catholic Church, the Rwanda massacres, and the civil war in Ireland. Every one of them a direct result of Christian dogma. Sorry, but you don't get a pass on this because you start thread offering discussions about other beliefs. And you are absolutely whitewashing what happened to Galileo. I don't care if he was an insufferable asshole. What happened to Galileo was inexcusable, and you act like it was no big deal. Your refusal to acknowledge this tells me you've got a blind spot for Christian religion. I don't share that blind spot. It has always been and continues to be a detriment to society. As are all organized religions.
The nuance and context of Galileo is not widely understood, and I am just writing what scholars of the history of science have concluded.
If you are convinced I am some sort of bible thumping Christian apologist, I wonder why you do not complain when I post complimentary things about atheist thought, Hinduism, Animism, Buddhism, Sihkism, etc.
Why do you only complain only when I post something about Christian thought?
I post about Atheist thought in a complimentary way:
https://www.justplainpolitics.com/showthread.php?166653-quot-God-is-dead-quot&p=4383990#post4383990
I post about Hinduism in a complimentary way:
https://www.justplainpolitics.com/showthread.php?159051-Upanishads&p=4168755#post4168755
I post about about indigenous American Animism in a complimentary way:
https://www.justplainpolitics.com/showthread.php?163693-John-Lame-Deer&p=4294416#post4294416
https://www.justplainpolitics.com/s...equivalence-and-animism&p=4217835#post4217835
I post about Buddhism and Confucianism in a complimentary way:
https://www.justplainpolitics.com/s...ng-of-life-from-world-intellectual-traditions
I post about Judaism, Sikhism, Islam in a complimentary way:
https://www.justplainpolitics.com/s...ded-scriptural-readings&p=4193903#post4193903
I post about the Baha'i faith in a complimentary way.
https://www.justplainpolitics.com/showthread.php?152193-Bah%E1%EDr-faith&p=3990618#post3990618
The fact is I am interested in a multitude of world spritual, ethical, and philosophical traditions. I would be interested to know how that translates to resolute Christian apologist and bible thumper?
I have plenty of posts and threads on this board making fun of bible thumpers and the cultivation of ignorance by the American white Christian nationalists.
But I do not feel obligated to be unremittingly and relentlessly hostile to Christianity. To me, that kind of posture would border on propaganda and intellectual inflexibility.
The fact is, the reason Christian Europe ultimately outpaced the Islamic world, east Asia, the new world, and Africa in science and technology is at least substantially due to Christianity.
Christianity, uniquely, resurrected Greek reason and logic, the ancient Greek tradition of inquiry and rational thought. Christian scholars established the first universities and for a thousand years Christianity was the main patron of European science and higher education.
That spirit of inquiry, reason, and logic were generally missing in Europe's competitors in the Islamic world, Asia, and Africa.
But I do not feel obligated to be unremittingly and relentlessly hostile to Christianity. To me, that kind of posture would border on propaganda and intellectual inflexibility.
The fact is, the reason Christian Europe ultimately outpaced the Islamic world, east Asia, the new world, and Africa in science and technology is at least substantially due to Christianity.
Christianity, uniquely, resurrected Greek reason and logic, the ancient Greek tradition of inquiry and rational thought. Christian scholars established the first universities and for a thousand years Christianity was the main patron of European science and higher education.
That spirit of inquiry, reason, and logic were generally missing in Europe's competitors in the Islamic world, Asia, and Africa.
Historians and economists say we'll see a systemic breakdown--social, political, and economic--in our lifetime. We're already seeing high unemployment, food bank lines, and supply chain slowdown. There's a good chance people will lose their pension, 401k, and social security.
In the Shadow, Jung cites Nazi Germany to explain social and political violence. Fear and frailty is projected on other ethnic groups who are then violently attacked. Psychology has been talking about the collective unconscious lately. I don't see this as coincidence, they know what's coming.
Dutch Uncle
* Tertia Optio * Defend the Constitution
Disagreed since I do not believe human beings are so easily misled on the whole. People push back against bullshit. It may take a few hundred years, but they do.
That said, the events that happened were over resources; the land and the people. Religion was simply a motivation tool.
Politics and religion have always mixed. Whether religion is simply a motivational tool, it is still a horrific use of religion for nefarious purposes.
Have you being paying attention to #stopthesteal?
But seriously, I disagree with that statement. How many people have been fooled for centuries by mythical stories of burning bushes and stone tablets. People are easily duped by belief in the Sky Guy.
You don't need to thump the bible to be an apologist. That's a strawman. Others don't have to be right in order for you to be wrong.
Completely disagree. The Christian church was dragged, kicking and screaming into reform. The Renaissance happened despite Christianity not because of it. The only difference between Islam and Christianity is that one was forced to reform, the other has not yet done so.
But I cannot be wrong when you misrepresent what I said.
To my knowlege, Johannes Kepler was not imprisoned for heliocentrism. With Galileo, the politics of the counter reformation was in play.
The intellectuals of the Renaissance were all devout Christians.
The study of the natural world was considered a perfectly Christian thing to do. Because Isaac Newton, Johannes Kepler et al. thought that by studying nature, they were leaning about God's creation and gaining insight into God.
The resurrection of ancient Greek logic, thought, and inquiry is attributable to Christianity. Period, full stop. The dialectic method and the scholarly skepticism of Plato, Socrates, Aristotle were specifically reintroduced into western Europe by Christian scholars, aka Saint Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Peter Ableard, etc.
The European University was a creation of Christianty.
There was periodic tension between intellectuals and the church. But the so called war between science and religion is a construct of the 19th and 20th centuries.
The church had to be dragged kicking and screaming from their devotion to Aristotelian scholasticism, towards the inductive logic of Francis Bacon. But that does not discount the fact that rational inquiry and logic was reintroduced into Europe by Christianity. That lay the groundwork for the unique western tradition of skeptical inquiry and rational logic.
In terms of church reforms and corruption, that is another topic I could write extensively about.
Dutch Uncle
* Tertia Optio * Defend the Constitution
Politics and religion have always mixed. Whether religion is simply a motivational tool, it is still a horrific use of religion for nefarious purposes.
Have you being paying attention to #stopthesteal?
But seriously, I disagree with that statement. How many people have been fooled for centuries by mythical stories of burning bushes and stone tablets. People are easily duped by belief in the Sky Guy.
Just like politics? I see people who spread twisted truths like "white privilege" and "gun deaths" to be dishonest fuckwads and sometimes pure evil. You?
Yes on watching the BS over #StoptheSteal. What is 1% of 330M people? Hint: It's a big fucking number but still only 1 percent of the population. A fraction of that number is who believes Trump's #StoptheSteal bullshit. Notice how many JPPers risked their jobs and freedom by participating in the Insurrection. LOL
IMO, it's more important to consider things as a matter of scale. 20,000 assholes attacking the Capitol must be resolved, but was our Republican really in danger of falling? No, it wasn't as we all saw. The moment the military told Trump the military wasn't part the process to resolve the election, Trump's Insurrection was doomed to failure.
https://www.businessinsider.com/tru...tect-supporters-at-capitol-says-miller-2021-5
Trump asked for troops to do 'whatever was necessary' to protect demonstrators who went on to storm the Capitol
https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/28/politics/milley-2020-election/index.html
Top US general tells Congress the military won't play a role in the 2020 election
"The Constitution and laws of the US and the states establish procedures for carrying out elections, and for resolving disputes over the outcome of elections ... I do not see the US military as part of this process," Milley said in a letter released on Friday responding to questions from two members of the House Armed Services Committee.
"In the event of a dispute over some aspect of the elections, by law U.S. courts and the U.S. Congress are required to resolve any disputes, not the U.S. Military," Milley added.
"I believe deeply in the principle of an apolitical U.S. military," Milley wrote.