Sadly, there is a conflict of religious cultures around the world! Few if any have any semblance of a foundation based on truth! Have histories where armed conflict, paedophilia, blatant BS and stupendous bloodshed marked their emergence!

Have histories that would make JC weep!

And continue to this day with the indoctrination of their fundamentally flawed fanaticism that has to be brainwashed in to stick and create a diaspora that then becomes the robotised following/financial support system for the various cultures that claim to know the mind of God intimately?

The only exceptions would seem to be, cultures where (transendal)meditation becomes the cornerstone of a belief system that includes peaceful cohabitation (love they neighbour as thyself) and sharing?

My departed Dad would have put it this way, if you cannot do someone a good turn? then at least don't do him/her a bad one!
Alan B.

DEFINITION:

That which produces a rugged curved shadow, is a tree.
That which produces a sharp, straight-edged shadow, is a building.

Such is the level of accuracy of the author's definition of religion!

Good enough for those whose eyes are stuck to the ground, who see only shadows and cannot/woudln't look up to see what it is that lays these shadows.

Religion is real. The organisations, ideologies and social behaviours around it are but its shadow!

This article is about defining religions for taxation purposes.
Since most large religious charities are classified as NGO’s, Church and State are less than connected at the purse strings, chained in fits, which I would think is opposed to the intent of separation principle of the Secular State.
That is undoubtedly the work of economists.
I think including environmental groups as possible religions is disingenuous.
But when the Labor Party is elected under Albanese who wants to end climate wars, look out. The best and most efficient way to win a war is to wipe out the enemy.
That should thin out some established religions that apparently hide away climate denialists.

Dan

To some extent, I agree with Sewell's claim that many leftists think that the most pressing problems of the human condition (crime, war, poverty) can be largely eradicated through legislation enacted by a thoughtful government. While many on the right recognize that human beings are human, not robots, and that humans can not be programmed to forget their self interest and be entirely altruistic.

I disagree with this author's claim that those on the right are motivated by religious ideals. Some most certainly are, but there are plenty of atheists like me who have no religion. I am right wing because I use reasoned logic to decide what is the best course of action for my community to take for it's own good. My natural selfishness is moderated by my understanding that our society would fall apart if everybody was selfish, and did not sublimate their selfishness for the greater good of the community in which they reside.

I would agree with this author that leftism has all the makings of a secular religion, other than the belief in the supernatural. Leftism is dogmatic, intolerant, promises a heaven on earth which it never delivers, and appeals to those who have an absolutist mentality where everything is either black or white. And there are plenty of people who think that way. They seem to be mostly of the left in this secular age, but they exist on the right also.

If the primary ideological position of the left is the perfectibility of the human condition to create a utopia, why do the leftists support programs guaranteed to destroy the society they prefer to live in? The importation of many ethnic and religious groups into western societies, championed by the left, has self evidently done nothing but cause an avalanche of intractable problems. The left knows this, because despite their absolutist mentality, they can still think.

The only logical reason for their apparent stupidity is that the left wants nothing less than absolute power. They don't care if their society becomes a dung heap, provided that they are the ones on top

Dear LEGO,

«My natural selfishness is moderated by my understanding that our society would fall apart if everybody was selfish, and did not sublimate their selfishness for the greater good of the community in which they reside.»

This sounds religious to me.

One way to look at religion, is that our selfishness separates us from God. It works like this: as there cannot be anything but God, both yourself and all others are also God, so conceiving yourself as a separate being, separated from others by selfish interests, makes you fail to recognise your divinity.

The process of sublimating one's selfishness helps to remove that obstacle and bring you closer to God - which is all religion is about.
If the means to forward this sublimation happens to be your care for society, then so be it.

Whether you come from the political "Left" or from the political "Right", whether your care for society manifests in wanting to maintain its atmospheric climate or in wanting to maintain its ethnic purity, it is not not that society actually needs and deserves your care, but rather that you need and deserve to improve your character and clean up those of its aspects that stand between you and God, so you no longer remain their victim.

Whether your political actions cause society a service or a disservice is unimportant - what counts is your honest attitude of being at service: that is what cleanses your soul, that is religion, that is to be praised.

Lego.

I’ve read your reflections on left v right psychology above, but could the difference be more simple?
The cohort of the left tend to comprise the youthful.
The physiology of that youthful group, tends to be more emotional, with an overlay of inexperience. The driving motivation, resentment.

Many on the right, were once leftists. You see that point openly admitted on these pages.
The instinct towards rebellion lies predominantly with youth. EG the rebellious youth.

We of the mature most likely to be conservative, are less tortured by rushing of fresh hormones as we age, and age is considered to be a state of the reflective.
There is a tension between the two states.

So from this position, it’s easier to diagnose the conflict of interests.
The youthful have a totally different set of values and motivations which step out with more highly active emotional energy.

He who captures the mind of youth, captures the forces of their reasoning.

Experience should tell us that a Dads army, is going to be working very hard to control and overcome the enthusiasm of youth.
To do this, the conservatives need to exercise their traits of maturity, which are patience, experienced knowledge, and a cunning way to ambush the enemy of youth.

My view gives little hope of a win: But nature has it, the old a consumed for food by the young. We’re too slow now. Too stodgy for battle. But the best defence for the conservative position, is to defend from the castle walls.

In a military sense, a force one third less than the attacking force is the ratio to win in the contest of battle. (Montgomery).

Dan.

Yuyutsu

Yes and no.

Here is a question to simplify the confusion of the meaning of life.

What cause should we die for, since we all die in the end.

Man usually dies for his own selfish cause, and in the West it is the cause most associated with collecting and consuming personal wealth. You could call that one greed.
A motivation which is the most carnal of all.

Religion is a social factor, invented long ago, to ameliorate the very negative effect on society of its consequences,(greed).

Overcoming this trait of selfishness , ( in Christianity at the least), requires a reworking of the spirit.
We are taught in the teachings of Christianity, that the interference of Gods work is most effected by mans carnal nature, and the only way to defeat this tendency is to overlay ones own spirit with that of Gods spirit. (Watchman Nee’s thesis on the spiritual man).

The soul is referred to as the persons ID.

Where all that fits with politics is quite another story, but Christ was never too concerned with the state of society here on earth. But mere carnal mortals are highly concerned.
That’s the conflict between religion and the affairs of State.

Dan

What are you people going on about regarding selfishness? If people were more selfish then the world would be a lot better place!

For exmple:
No war would ever be fought if soldiers were selfish. Why? Well it is a requirement of being a soldier that you be prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice for the benefit of others. No selfish person would ever lay down their own life for others.

In fact if people were completely selfish there would be no physical violence at all. Because nobody would ever put themselves in a situation or act in a way that may result in other people hurting them.

Poverty due to over population is mainly a result of people not being selfish enough. No selfish person would have so many kids that it negatively impacts their own prosperity.

Indeed, the need for welfare in general is a result of people not being selfish. Selfish people want to own stuff to make their lives easy and comfortable. So they go out and produce stuff that they want or that they can trade to get the stuff they want. Hence selfish people quite often end up being wealthier and thus can pay their own way though life unlike many unselfish people.

Selfish people also tend to be healthier than non-selfish. Because they value their own life more than anything, they take actions to care and protect their lives. eg. staying fit, not taking drugs, eating healthy, undertake activities that keep them happy, etc.

The combination of private property and selfishness results in a better environment to live in. Because selfish people value their own comfort and value the stuff they own they look after their own stuff better and thus produce nice environments to live in. The worst places to live in the world are those that don't have strong personal property rights and/or areas where land and housing is collectively owned.

To Yuyutsu.

Actually, it is psychology 101. If you want to worship a telephone pole because you think it will give you guidance in being a god person, and will give you eternal life, then go for it. Just don't push that superstitious nonsense on me.

"Socialising" is the act of teaching children to sublimate their selfishness for the greater good of the community. 'Good" and "bad" are simply judgements as to whether any persons actions are selfish or altruistic. There is nothing wrong with selfishness provided it does not negatively impact the community at large. Each person must decide for themselves where their pursuit of happiness through self aggrandisement should be sublimated to the needs of their friends, family, and community. Those who cast aside all thought of self interest in defence of their community (ie soldiers who take great risks to advance their nations military goals) are considered heroes of their people.

To Diver Dan.

There is a saying that "If you are not a socialist when you are young, you haven't got a heart. If you are still a socialist when you are old, you haven't got a brain."

I too was a young lefty and an anti apartheid demonstrator. What got me thinking straight was because it was obvious to me that those who were the leaders of the anti racist movement, were in fact very racist towards white people. My people. This has now become screamingly obvious with the rise of Critical Race Theory (which leftists are trying to admit into the school curriculum) which claims that everything that ever went wrong with the notoriously dysfunctional minorities, is all the fault of white people.

My goal on OLO and on other debate sites, is to deprogram the young who have been turned into Manchurian Candidates by our education system.

Dear Dan,

You essentially got it right: Christ was never too concerned with the state of society here on earth.

Very true also, and not only in the teachings of Christianity: overcoming this trait of selfishness requires a reworking of the spirit.

Also true, greed is one of the six obstacles on the path to God: lust, anger, greed, delusion, pride and envy.

Nevertheless, religion is not a social factor.
Religion does, in fact, precede society and will, in fact, continue even after society no longer exists.
It is true that religion often also has social implications, but these are just a coincidence, not what religion is about.
As I noted earlier, for those who limit themselves to the social dimension (including the author), judging religion by its social effects is like judging three-dimensional objects only according to the shadow they lay over the two-dimensional ground.

---

Dear Thinkabit,

«What are you people going on about regarding selfishness? If people were more selfish then the world would be a lot better place!»

Perhaps, perhaps not, but please allow me to stay out of this political debate because selfishness was mentioned here in the religious context: Whether or not selfishness can make this world a better place, it is a hindrance on the spiritual path.

From a religious perspective, there is nothing wrong with private ownership - only with the greed to own things no matter what it takes.

---

Dear LEGO,

I agree with you that «Each person must decide for themselves where their pursuit of happiness through self aggrandisement should be sublimated to the needs of their friends, family,...».

Nevertheless, true lasting happiness can only be found in God, not in the world.
The sages have already outlined what works towards that goal and what doesn't.
While you are not obligated to listen to me or to them, my posts here address not just you but the whole OLO readership, including the silent readers.

Meanwhile why not check out an essay titled The Criticism That Cures The Heart http://www.dabase.org/up-1-6.htm

And of course the kind of religion advocated in the featured essay is entirely of an exoteric institutional nature which by its very nature is completely devoid of any Spiritual and in the case of the featured essay
anything associated with the Transcendental dimensions of our existence-being - check out http://www.dabase.org/up-1-1.htm

I am of course on the left of the culture wars spectrum as are all of my friends most of whom take their religion and Spiritual practice very seriously. None of them have any sympathy for right wing religiosity and its obviously benighted political and cultural expressions.

In one way or another world wide I know of hundreds of thousands (even millions) of people who take their religion and Spiritual practice quite seriously who are not in any sense right wing.

And of course world wide there are hundreds of millions of Christians who are on the left of the political spectrum and who are (quite rightly) horrified by the obviously benighted nature of right wing religiosity and its political and cultural manifestations,which were epitomized in the form of Donald Trump and the fact that he was enthusiastically supported by right wing "religious" dingbats. Of course during his entire life time Donald Trump made a complete mockery of the Ten Commandments and The Sermon on the Mount.

There are of course there are millions of American Christians on the left of the political and cultural spectrum too.

The kind of self-serving religiosity proposed by the author is of course entirely exoteric in its nature. Such self-serving religiosity by its very nature has nothing whatsoever to do with the intrinsic Transcendental dimensions of our existence-being - even while quite often pretending to point to a transcendent "God".

thinkabit,
>No war would ever be fought if soldiers were selfish.
FALSE. They'd be fought under duress, and probably with a lot of deserters, but they'd still be fought.
Indeed famously, a lot of British soldiers in WW1 were killed by their own side after being wrongfully convicted of cowardice.

>nobody would ever put themselves in a situation or act in a way that may result in other people hurting them.
LAUGHABLY FALSE. That would mean robbers are less selfish than law abiding citizens! I suggest you try and start to live up to your name.
The flaw in your logic, of course, is that not all people are so risk averse, and the prospect of great reward is enticing to many.

>No selfish person would have so many kids that it negatively impacts their own prosperity.
Selfishness is not boolean; if it were, you could just as easily argue that no selfish person would have any kids at all! But in reality, poverty is the cause of overpopulation, as people have many children in the hope some survive.

>Selfish people want to own stuff to make their lives easy and comfortable. So they go out and produce stuff
That's not just selfish people, but people in general. But you have neglected to consider two factors: firstly, there's a limit to how much discomfort people are willing to put up with in an attempt to make their lives comfortable. Secondly, not everyone is able to go out and produce stuff.

________________________________________________________________________________

diver dan and Yuyutsu,
Christ was very concerned with the state of society here on Earth.
But Christ saw that it wasn't just a problem of leadership.

LEGO,
>There is a saying that "If you are not a socialist when you are young, you haven't got
>a heart. If you are still a socialist when you are old, you haven't got a brain."
At least you avoided the common mistake of misattributing that saying to Churchill (who actually had great respect for his old socialist opponent Attlee).
The saying makes assumptions about the flaws of one position while ignoring those of the opposing position, and the shifting meaning of "socialism" has complicated it further so it's no longer possible to make meaningful comparisons on labels alone (if it ever was).

PC racism is just as bad as conventional racism, but you seem to think the former justifies the latter! You've become too programmed yourself to tell whether those who disagree with you are programmed or not, let alone to deprogram them. And what evidence do you have that leftists are trying to admit Critical Race Theory into the school curriculum?

Thinkabit.

Are we at court with Plato?

Your selfish man acts in total self interest with visible good outcomes, as you explain.

But is the good outcome relevant to the charge that selfishness is bad.

Shouldn’t the question be, in your example, is the selfish man acting as a good man or a self interested bad man, with coincidental good outcomes?

Platos paradox.

Aidan

#...Christ was very concerned with the state of society here on Earth....#

Show me your evidence for that view.

The mission of Christ was to include the Gentiles into the Kingdom of God.

The “consequences” were to improve the reliability of the populations thus saved, and to have them behaving as good men.
That was a secondary outcome.

The primary importance of Christ (And Christianity), is to save souls for the new Jerusalem, which is Heaven in the next life, Eternity, and to be undefiled and pure enough to dwell with the perfect unblemished God. To achieve this aim, was the prime mission of Christ.

Prove me wrong, I’d be happy enough!

Yuyutsu.

#... Also true, greed is one of the six obstacles on the path to God: lust, anger, greed, delusion, pride and envy...#

The broad road to Hell is open to those who think becoming a good man alone, will tick them off for Heaven.

He did say: it is easier for a rich man to walk a Camel through the eye of a needle, than it is for him to enter the kingdom of God. (Poetic license).

It’s a very complicated subject. And very painful for the converted. StPaul had his head decapitated by the Romans for his troubles, as did John the Baptist, and of course Christ was crucified on the cross. That was but a precursor to what was to befall future Christians.

It’s a formality to define Christianity as a religion for taxation purposes, but another thing altogether, defining a yoga class, based loosely on Eastern religions such as Daffy Ducks ADI-Da as a religion. That’s actually a philosophy.

Dan

To Aiden.

Scrub "socialist" and insert "lefty."

Most people associate socialism with being left wing, which of course is not correct at all. There are right wing socialists (Fascists) and left wing socialists (Communists). In my haste to post I forgot that.

My bad.

Adian:
>FALSE. They'd be fought under duress, and probably with a lot of deserters, but they'd still be fought.
Indeed famously, a lot of British soldiers in WW1 were killed by their own side after being wrongfully convicted of cowardice.

But who is going to enforce the duress? In a selfish world the soldiers doing the physical arresting (or whatever it's called in the army) and court-marshaling won't even attempt the arrest because they would reason that this is likely the sort of action that would provoke the deserter to harm them.

>LAUGHABLY FALSE. That would mean robbers are less selfish than law abiding citizens! I suggest you try and start to live up to your name.
The flaw in your logic, of course, is that not all people are so risk averse, and the prospect of great reward is enticing to many.

Nope! The logical is flawless because I in this paragraph's hypothetical ALL people are COMPLETELY selfish. So as a result ALL people have the same aversion to risk. It is clear from the scenario I've described that I mean ALL people even though I don't specifically use the word ALL in the first sentence. This is because I use the word NOBODY in the second sentence. (Another example of this nobody/all thing is if someone says: "NOBODY in the room is quiet" then this means that ALL people in the room are making noise)

>But in reality, poverty is the cause of overpopulation, as people have many children in the hope some survive.

Which millennium are you living in? These days the majority of people make it to adulthood, even in poor countries.

Dear Dan,

Why would anyone want to define 'religion' for taxation purposes? How more foolish they can get?

Is Christianity a religion?
For some, I think, it is.
For others, it is only a social club they visit on Sundays.

You touched on the topic of Effort versus Grace.
It is a deep subject. I can relate to it but I am not sure whether you like to delve that deep at this time.

Regarding the "eye of a needle", yes, so long as someone thinks: "I am a rich man", or just the same "I am a poor man", then they are focused on money/possessions rather than on God, thus they are not ready for His Kingdom. However, one could alternately think: "God gave me all this wealth to administer in His name" - such a person, however rich, is ready for the Kingdom. It's what's in the mind that counts, not what's in the bank.

Yuyutsu

I think we’d get away with a small dive into this topic.

Firstly, the Christian Bible as a literary guide to Christian faith.
Scant, describes it. We have four short and seperate versions of Christ’s life and work, repeating the story and a few scribbling from the apostles.
Much of recent discovery has been heavily redacted by the RC church as not fitting their views and withheld from us.
It’s not a good start to a religion that took off on a global scale, and mostly still flourishes. So what drives it forward?

My view is, the longing for an afterlife which has room in it for us, the soul. That longing, to actually matter in the big scheme of things, nails the “effort” to believe. Mostly that motivation is hugely selfish.
The view of history put a desperate need in it for a purpose for the individual where most battles were hand to hand encounters with the necessity to slaughter the enemy before the reverse. Life was cheap.

We’re led to believe, Christ was totally selfless, but that view straight away, falls in a heap. As a mortal, he had the same necessity for daily survival as do we all. A very selfish pursuit. Thus the demarcation line between body and soul.
So in a walk with the spiritual Christ, separating faith from works is vital. That’s a real tough one!

I don’t know if ever you have waded through Watchman Nees book, “the spiritual man”as I have, but he contextualises this incredibly difficult topic in a book with an equivalence to war and peace. In fact that’s a good comparison, since this battle between body and soul is just that, war and peace.

Dan

Dear Dan,

Yes, I do believe that there is much more to Christ's teachings that we are no longer privy to. We must also remember that Jesus was preaching and teaching his individual disciples: a good teacher must speak at the level their students can understand, to where they are at, not above their heads.

So, and what I am going to say now can be dangerous if misunderstood and taken in the wrong context, some students/disciples need to develop their ego, they first need to learn to be selfish before they can learn to transform their selfishness and direct it towards God. I am talking about disciples who are lazy, procrastinating, apathetic, who have an indifferent "don't care" attitude - they should first be encouraged to make effort, to become achievers, even if it means that they become proud of their actions and successes. Only later on they should be humbled and made to understand that their success was only due to God's grace.

Longing for an afterlife is indeed selfish, but it is rare to find students who are so sincerely devoted to God that they are willing to forego the pleasures of both this world and even of the world to come. Under the circumstances, it is better to have them willingly delay the gratification of enjoying their life now: this should increase their devotion and free their time and mind to study further.

From the little Biblical evidence we have, Jesus' disciples (at least the 12 males among them) were not of the highest and brightest kind.

[continued...]

[...continued]

«As a mortal, he had the same necessity for daily survival as do we all. A very selfish pursuit. Thus the demarcation line between body and soul.»

Jesus was not a mortal. Sure, his bodily instincts were not much different to ours, thus they automatically took care of his physical survival, but mentally, Jesus did not consider his survival a necessity, he was willing to die at any time should his Father requires it.

Rather than between body and soul, the demarcation line should run between our emotions and our intellect. On its own, the body is just dead matter, it does as told by the mind. It is our emotions which make us selfish and it is our intellect which should keep our emotions in check.

Yuyutsu.

The deeper this dive into theology goes the further from the thread it gets.

If you (or I for that matter) would like to open a thread on the subject, it would be more appropriate, and the discussion can resume. We’ll see whom the spirit moves on that!

You’ve raised some intriguing points above. Especially the one Re Ego promotion.
I’ll give that some thought!

Dan.

thinkabit,
>But who is going to enforce the duress? In a selfish world the soldiers doing the physical arresting
>arresting (or whatever it's called in the army) and court-marshaling won't even attempt the arrest because
>they would reason that this is likely the sort of action that would provoke the deserter to harm them.

You seem to be forgetting that the risk of harm from the deserter if they follow orders is much less than the risk of harm from the rest of the army if they don't!

>Nope! The logical is flawless

ROFL!

> in this paragraph's hypothetical ALL people are COMPLETELY selfish.
> So as a result ALL people have the same aversion to risk.

You argument relies on the highly illogical premise that selfishness is in some way proportional to risk aversion.

>These days the majority of people make it to adulthood, even in poor countries.
But a simple majority is not sufficient. Survival rates are improving, of course, and as a result family size is falling. But in some places (particularly where there's a large perceived threat of war) family size is still high.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Dan,
>Show me your evidence for that view.
The high proportion of Christ's teachings that dealt with how we should treat one another.

>The mission of Christ was to include the Gentiles into the Kingdom of God.
Though that was always Christ's objective, it wasn't primarily His mission. Christ started the process, but mainly left it for others. Christ's own mission was to the Jews first (Mark 7:27) and indeed Christ completed it (John 17:4).

Saint Paul's ultimate fate is not known for certain. The book of Acts ends with him remanded in Rome awaiting trial by an emperor known to be hostile to Christians, so there's a general consensus that he was condemned at the trial, but Clement of Rome wrote otherwise.

And John the Baptist was beheaded on the orders of Herod, not the Romans.

_____________________________________________________________________________

LEGO,
There are no right wing socialists. Fascists hate socialism and socialists hate fascism, despite the similarity with some forms of communism.

>You seem to be forgetting that the risk of harm from the deserter if they follow orders is much less than the risk of harm from the rest of the army if they don't!

But the whole army doesn't arrest the deserter. It is only a few and considering that the deserter is almost certainly going to be armed (since the army themselves would have given them the weapon) and aware to the fact that they could be arrested (since they know that they deliberately disobeyed orders) there is a not inconsiderable chance that those trying to do the arresting will be seriously injured or killed.

By-the-way, this topic is actually more than just an intellectual waffle, it is playing out right now in real life. When I was a kid the army used to recruit people by showing them stirring images of macho men on caution to the wind heroic adventures all within a group of men linked by mateship. Such imagery was enough to stir people of join. But these days when the army advertises they rarely have anything like that- today its all rainbows and puppy dogs, warm and fuzzy feelings about how the army can look after you and foster your career. You wouldn't even know that when you join the army you might have to kill or even get killed yourself- they deliberately avoid advertising material that even remotely suggests such notions.
And this is mainly because over the last decades people have become more independent, more individual, less likely to blindly follow those in higher places, more inclined to put themselves first and get the most for them- or in other words they are basically more selfish and value themselves more and the groups they belong to less.

Oops, that last just posted got mixed up. I edited what I had originally wrote and moved text around due to the word limits and disrupted the flow completely.

The point I was trying to make is because only a few people arrest the deserter those few have a good chance of getting injured.

And now each soldier of the whole army (if they are all very selfish- and hence want to live) will not want to be one of the few that do the arresting- thus there is no overall threat from the whole army that is any greater than the threat from the few doing the arresting. And thus no arrest is ever made. But not only that- the original order can only ever originate from one person, and that one person will themselves be putting themselves in danger because they are asking others to put themselves in danger which could reflect back (because if you ask someone to put themselves in danger then there is the possiblity that they may refuse to do it and instead take it out on you- this is exactly what I'll do if I was forced into the army and asked to do something like a suicide mission- I'd shoot my commanding officer so at least that prick gets the same as I do!), so the initial order is never made in the first place.

But over and above all this, before you even get the arrest stage you will never have an army in the first place. Because no-one will voluntarily join the army, and no-one will ever try to force someone to try to establish an army.

Aidan: >You argument relies on the highly illogical premise that selfishness is in some way proportional to risk aversion.

I'm saying that risk aversion is positively related to selfishness not the other way round. So this means that those who are selfish are always risk averse but that doesn't rule out the possibility of some people being unselfish and risk averse.

And of course risk aversion is related positively to selfishness! For if someone greatly values their life (which a very selfish person will always do) and not want to die anytime before age gets them then they wouldn't do something that is plainly dangerous, like walk an elevated tightrope or attempt a world record motor-cycle jump, because they would realise that there is a good chance that they might die. But for those who don't care if they die or not then the high risk of dying wouldn't dissuade them from such an activity.

Dear Dan,

«If you (or I for that matter) would like to open a thread on the subject, it would be more appropriate, and the discussion can resume.»

Sure. What particular aspect(s) of religion would you like to discuss?

To Aiden.

What was the full name of the Nazi Party in Germany? Awww, I think I remember? Oh yeah, it was the Nationalist Socialist German Workers Party.

"We are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions."

Adolf Hitler
Speech of May 1, 1927

Mussolini was the editor of the Italian Communist Party newspaper but he fell out with the other comrades over whether Italy should support the allies in WW1. Fascism and Communism are different branches of socialism, in the same way that Shiites and Sunnis are two different branches of Islam.

Of course, the commies have been very successful inculcating those who have little knowledge of history in pretending that Fascism and Communism are polar opposites. And you fell for it. It is obvious that your teacher either had you house trained or you slept through you history lessons.

To submit a quote from a book you never bothered to read, here is a quote from Guy Sajer, a Wehrmacht soldier who wrote a first hand account of his service on the Russian front.

"We were dying by our millions to destroy a system of government that was almost identical to our own."

Got that, Aiden? "Almost identical to our own." So Aiden, thinking cap on now I hope? What is the essential difference between communism and fascism? Racism?"

Bong. Nup.

Italian Jews were safe from Hitler in Mussolini's Italy.

The difference, my dear Aiden, is which class within society wants absolute control? For the communists it is the academic, public service, and artistic types. For the fascists, it is the upper, middle, sometimes religious leaders, and the armed forces. Both sides seek support from the working class, the left from the unions which they usually control, and the right from war veterans and other nationalistic workers

To Aiden (continued)

God, I hate this 350 word limit.

That is why in communist countries they had to have political officers at company level making sure that the armed forces did not turn their guns around onto the commissars. That is why military purges are common in communist countries. The fascists don't have to worry too much about that because they get much of their support for their totalitarianism from the armed forces.

Quoting Voltaire, "Most countries posses an army, but the Prussian Army possesses a country."

thinkabit,
>And of course risk aversion is related positively to selfishness!
There's no of course about it, and I've already mentioned the counterexample of robbers, who are both more selfish and less risk averse than the general population. So stop trying to look at risk in isolation, and understand there's a balance between risk and reward. Being selfish DOESN'T make you focus on the risk more than the reward.

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LEGO,
What was the full name of East Germany? Awww, I think I remember? Oh yeah, it was the German Democratic Republic. And it was as democratic as the Nazis were socialist.

As Sir Humphrey Appleby said: "always dispose of he hard part in the title".

Hitler's speeches were not an accurate source of information - for example he claimed in a speech to be a Roman Catholic despite making it clear elsewhere he was an atheist. And so it was in this instance: he claimed to oppose capitalism, but in reality didn't care if the rich were exploiting the poor (except in the cases where the rich were Jewish). Hitler used rhetoric to hoodwink the German people, not to explain what he was actually doing.

And while Italian Jews in Italy were safe from Hitler, they weren't safe from Mussolini.

>What is the essential difference between communism and fascism?
There are two essential differences: firstly communism is on the far left economically (with a high degree of government intervention in the how the economy is run), while fascism is on the right. Secondly, a very high level of authoritarianism is a defining feature of fascism; it's not a defining feature of communism, despite it having been used to foist communism onto an unwilling population.

I stand by my claim: There are no right wing socialists. Fascists hate socialism and socialists hate fascism, despite the similarity with some forms of communism.

To Aiden.

Wrong again.

I see you skipped over Guy Sajer's personnel observation that "We were dying in our millions to destroy a system of government almost identical to our own."

If Fascism and Communism are polar opposites, then there must be very significant ideological differences between them, right? There isn't. Hitler had his Gestapo and Stalin his NKVD. Hitler had his SS and Stalin his Guards. Hitler had his concentration camps and Stalin his gulags. Stalin called Beria "My Himmler."

Democratic socialism is a contradiction in terms and makes about as much sense as democratic fascism. Both are totalitarian systems who's only real differences are which demographic groups within a society seeks absolute control. On the minor level, their different economic outlooks reflect the differences between the opposing demographic groups. Communists want total economic control by the bureaucracy, while right wing socialists, who's members include leading industrialists, know that privately owned manufacturing is much more efficient.

China went from Communist to Fascist because right wing socialism is infinely more aware of economic realities than left wing socialism. Left wing socialism thinks it can create wealth by decree. That was why China threw off the left wing socialism that was still being pushed by the "gang of four" and embraced right wing socialism. Prior to Deng xi Peng's takeover, the Chinese armed forces were a joke because just like every communist, Mao distrusted his own armed forces and would not modernize them. It took the Gulf War to shock the PLA into realising just how backward their army, air force and navy really were, and it was the PLA who supported Deng xi Peng.

US military men were not happy when China went fascist. They preferred china stay communist because they wanted to Chinese to keep ferking everything up.

There are 800 billionaires in the CPA so whatever the Communist Party of China claims to be, it certainly is not a communist party. It conforms exactly with the fascist demographic's political and economic model. If you think that the CPA is communist you must have your brain wired backwards.

Aiden: Funny thing about the crime of robbery/assault: Those who experience it are commonly the weak and defenseless.
Hmm, I wonder why that is?
I wonder in case that if instead their potential victim was male, huge, rough and aggressive looking and armed (like a piece of steel pipe) then they would still commit the crime. Just wondering....

Of course the desire of self preservation (which all selfish people have and the more selfish they are the more the desire it) plays on the mind of most of those who commit robbery. So risk aversion is related positively to selfishness!!

Aidan:

Another example of how selfishness can reduce crime is in the case of house contents theft:

Typically when a thief wants to commit a burglary and theft, they don't just steal from the first person they see. What they do is case potential targets first. For example, they drive along a street and look for places that show signs that the owners aren't home, they look for security features like steel screens and alarms, and especially look for vicious looking dogs.
Now why do they do this? It is to lower the chances of getting caught. And why don't they want to get caught? Well that's because they are selfish! The thief values their life so they don't want to waste it in prison or potentially be injured by the owner or by the dog. So the more selfish they are the less chance they will break into just any home, rather they will become more selective about the target.

On the flip side: typically house owners don't just leave their front doors wide open when they leave. Instead they deploy security.
Now why do they do this? Because they don't want their stuff stolen. And why don't they want their stuff stolen? Well that's because they are selfish! The house owner values their stuff- it's theirs not anyone else's. The more selfish they are the more they'll do to protect their goods- eg. be meticulous about looking doors and windows, install security screens, own dogs, hire private guards, erect high boundary walls with video cameras, push for hard punishment for the crime of theft, etc.

So for any given house, if you increase the level of selfishness of both the thief and the home owner you decrease the chances that the house contents will be stolen.

Struth, thinkabit, going into more detail won't prevent you from losing the argument!

Indeed I think you've lost it already. You FAILED to recognise that there's a balance of risk and reward, and it was only this gap in your understanding which led you to the perverse conclusion that risk aversion equated with selfishness. Now, even after I've explained it, you're preposterously still trying to make the same point!

This time you're claiming that because crimes are more likely to be committed against the weak, it somehow invalidates my point. It doesn't - those who commit crimes are still much less risk averse and more selfish than those who don't. The fact that their behaviour can be changed by increasing the perceived risk (without a corresponding increase in reward) doesn't change my point; I never claimed risk aversion was boolean!

Sure, if everyone was completely selfless then nobody would use or need locks. But that doesn't make selfishness in any way proportional to risk aversion.

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LEGO, I'll reply to you later, possibly tomorrow. Sorry, there's only so much in the way of ludicrous claims that I can deal with at a time.

Looks like you are madly running around the internet trying to find some info to support your erroneous beliefs, Aiden. And failing.

Rotsa ruck.

LEGO,
Your arguments were so ludicrous that responding to them was a low priority. I certainly wasted no time "madly running round the internet".

>If Fascism and Communism are polar opposites,
STRAIGHT AWAY YOU STARTED WITH A STRAWMAN!

I acknowledged the similarity between fascism and some forms of communism.

>then there must be very significant ideological differences between them, right?
There were very significant ideological differences on economics and on race. Not everyone was affected by those differences, hence Guy Sajer's observation, which I skipped because IMO it was irrelevant.

>Hitler had his Gestapo and Stalin his NKVD...
Yes. Both were murderous authoritarian scumbags who used violence to gain and secure political power.

>Stalin called Beria "My Himmler."
I find that quite surprising. Do you have a reference?

>Democratic socialism is a contradiction in terms and makes about as much sense as democratic fascism.
And here we see you lose your grip on reality so totally that it's difficult to see how to bring you back to it. For in reality, democratic socialism was a major force in postwar Western Europe.

But if you think there's a contradiction, please explain how the Attlee government (which won the British election straight after WW2 by a landslide, nationalized a vast amount, and then lost the following election) was either not democratic or not socialist?

You seem to have trouble comprehending that socialism is left wing by definition, but isn't necessarily authoritarian.

>China went from Communist to Fascist because right wing socialism is infinely more
>aware of economic realities than left wing socialism.
China still has a huge public sector, so the idea that it ceased being communist is rather dubious. It would make more sense to ask why other communist countries were stupid enough to attempt to suppress their private sectors.

>socialism thinks it can create wealth by decree.
There may have been some socialists stupid enough to think that, but it certainly wasn't the majority view. What most socialists thought they could do by decree (and by other forms of government intervention) was remove the obstacles to creating wealth.