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ChurchSoldier
Guest
“Let me make the songs of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws.” (Andrew Fletcher)
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starshiptrooper
Guest
Our tolerance for degenerate behavior has historical precedent. The Romans held similar attitudes before their empire collapsed.
Strong men create prosperity. Prosperity creates soft and weak men. Those men are in turn the cause of bad times. The bad times make strong men. Such is the cycle of civilization. I leave you to guess where in the cycle we currently are.
Strong men create prosperity. Prosperity creates soft and weak men. Those men are in turn the cause of bad times. The bad times make strong men. Such is the cycle of civilization. I leave you to guess where in the cycle we currently are.
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Luke6_37
Guest
What is your definition of a “weak man”? Was Jesus weak or was he strong?
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dvdjs
Guest
Actually, checking the source, that should be an increase from 45% to 62%.
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SuperLuigi
Guest
Well, evidently it’s okay to punch a Nazi for a lot of people.
And as Dave Rubin notes “notice how the definition of who is a Nazi has been expanding.”
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SuperLuigi
Guest
Red herring.
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Regular_Atheist
Guest
This doesn’t seem like great historical analysis. I don’t know much about ancient history, but the Roman Empire adopted Christianity before it collapsed. The Marquis de Sade actually argues in Philosophy in the Bedroom that the Roman adoption of Christianity and rejection of hedonism was the reason it collapsed! Of course neither your or his argument are particularly compelling, but his at least has more basis in historical fact. This idea that the Roman Empire was some pagan center of degeneracy at the time of its collapse is false.
I know nationalists have to reinvent history to justify their beliefs, but this rewriting of the fall of the Roman Empire is just so offensive. If anything it turned towards Christian ethics prior to its collapse, not towards “degeneracy.” Not that empires fall as a product of being “virtuous” or “degenerate” or anything.
Very lame analysis. The situation we are in right now is because of a number of historical economic and political developments, not because “weak men” are in control. History is not driven by “great” or “weak” men. I can’t really engage with your point anymore than this though, because there isn’t really much content here. It’s just vague nationalist tripe.
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Regular_Atheist
Guest
That’s a typo - if you look at the article you’ll see that more people are accepting of it now. It’s up from 45% of people thinking it’s okay to 62%.
No need to predict some kind of Gattaca-esque eugenics dystopia based on this statistic. It’s merely a typo. People are actually more accepting of children born outside of marriage now. It’s gone up from 45% to 62%. Take a look at the article.
I really don’t think that people have this obsession with eugenics and “planning” families in the way that pro-lifers try and pretend.
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ATraveller
Guest
That’s a typo as others have mentioned.
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Luke6_37
Guest
It is a serious question for a Christian forum.
Christians look at a dead body hanging on a cross and declare this is our King and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against his people. The Gospel is all about the inversion of what the powers and principalities who govern this world want us to think about what it means to be a “strong man”.
Rome was full of “strong men” at the time of Christ’s death. The poster talks of “strength” and “Rome” and “immorality” and I am not supposed to immediately think of Christ Crucified? What else is there?
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ATraveller
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But there’s this from a few days ago on a poll conducted last autumn:
I guess people have different ideas of what is immoral and moral leading to the findings of this poll.
christianitytoday.com/gleanings/2017/may/moral-law-americans-agree-more-morality-decline-lifeway.html
I guess people have different ideas of what is immoral and moral leading to the findings of this poll.
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SuperLuigi
Guest
It is an excellent comparison, actually.
You don’t know much, but are going to take a shot in the dark at Christianity anyways?
A mistake common in the atheist community.
Incorrect. Camille Pagilla has studied this. One thing she notes is that during the Empire’s rise, art and statues were masculine. Towards the end, the art portrayed noodly (gender-confused, perhaps) persons.
It wasn’t necessarily paganism that collapsed the Empire, and it definitely wasn’t Christianity. Historians who don’t like Christianity have tried to do mental gymnastics to make it look that’s what happened, but the only disadvantage to Roman society was the change and the administration. But that wasn’t the problem; the problem was the behavior of many Romans wasn’t along the lines of Christianity and or line with the way Romans behaved traditionally.
It was a lack of morals and decadence which lead to the blurring of reality.
Over-spending, over-extending resources and not having enough children due to a drop in fertility because of selfish decadence. Sound familiar? Some analysis shows Rome had 1 million people at one point, and that its population was reduced by 95%. No other city in Europe (maybe even the world) would get that many people for another 1400 years.
It gets a bit tricky, because the Eastern Empire really existed in various ways to the doorstep of the 19th Century, but this wasn’t the Rome we once knew.
It would be logic to assume that the USA could follow this path if it doesn’t get its act together.
Evidently you don’t, as nationalists actually have an accurate idea of history.
For one he’s not the one going around these forums and elsewhere saying :bighanky: “communism never existed anywhere, therefore it’s soooo good! Believe me, please!” :crying:
but this rewriting of the fall of the Roman Empire is just so offensive. If anything it turned towards Christian ethics prior to its collapse, not towards “degeneracy.”
No, the empire did not turn towards Christian ethics in a meaningful enough way for a long enough time. It’s key actors were very anti-Christian in moral practice.
You say this:And then follow up with this:
What an oversimplification! Why not elaborate on what is going on?
The economic development relates to the entitlement mentality. It’s a given fact that once people in democracies figure they can vote themselves special rights and benefits, it’s game over.
It most certainly is! Ever heard of Genghis Khan or Alexander the Great? I’ll even mention Mohammed.
Since you’ve already admitted you don’t know much about the subject…
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SuperLuigi
Guest
Welcome to the world of moral relativism!
Oh, and TRY not to make this into a bandwagon fallacy…
LeafByNiggle
Well-known member
You use this term a lot, but not always appropriately. In this case Luke6_37 raised the question of the definition of a strong or weak man as it appears in starshiptrooper’s posting. The understanding of the meaning of “weak man” in this context is necessary in understand and evaluating the truth of starshiptrooper’s thesis. It is not irrelevant to question starshiptrooper’s definition of “weak man” and therefore it is not a red herring.
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Padres1969
Guest
Ah, that makes more sense. Thank you for checking.
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Luke6_37
Guest
Absolutely true. Pre-Christian Rome was a cesspool of degenerate behavior. Roman men had unfettered access to whatever sexual proclivity they desired through the slave markets - they were free to rape men, boys, girls, children, & infants with impunity. Christians were unique in imposing the same restrictions on men as existed for women. That’s the irony of the feminist critique of Christian morality. They don’t realize that the restrictions were designed to repress male not female sexuality.
Roman men could also order the infanticide of any baby born to them that they didn’t want as casually as we would clean out leftovers from the refrigerator.
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Padres1969
Guest
Yeah won’t comment on the rest of your comment, but I will agree with your overall premise. The Roman Empire became a good “Christian” state long before the western half collapsed (technically the Roman Empire (the portion we modern folks think of as the Byzantine Empire) did not collapse for almost a thousand years after the fall of the west when it finally fell to the Muslim Turks. It’s not a terribly good example.
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ATraveller
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Divorce, any reason or only in abuse cases only? I think that would reveal more about how people actually think but I think Gallup wants to keep it simple.
I find it interesting how in the US ‘economic liberalism’ has a completely different meaning from many other parts of the world.
Animals are usually treated very well. I don’t think the public are aware of this.This is terrible. If we stop testing drugs on animals then we will all die. God gave us animals to use them and make the best out of them, not raise them to human status. Animal right’s activist groups make me very annoyed.
Those other things are also very disturbing. It looks like we are turning into a very perverted society (if you think about it, look at what young people are wearing: women are wearing very immodest clothes, but just 100 years ago women wore dresses which went down to their feet). If we keep this up, then we will be the next Sodom and Gomorrah.
TV is one of the most effective way of pushing propaganda onto a population (satire could be argued to be the most effective). TV, if introduced to young people early on, regardless if it’s educational or not, stifles imagination and become passive thinkers, making them vulnerable to propaganda. TV creates a uniform vision of the world. And guess who runs Hollywood and the rest of the entertainment industry?I blame cable TV. All these bizzare shows making things like SSM and Polygamy seem everyday and fully acceptable. Wathcing some of the home improvement shows you would think the US population as nearly 50% same sex couples! Pray for what is right, please!
I still have trouble believing a sample size of just over 1000 can accurately represent a population of over 300,000,000. Of course I got a D in Probability and Statistics…twice!
The sample size can be representative but they point out the limitations in the form of the margin of error/the confidence interval.
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starshiptrooper
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Jesus was the best example of what it means to be a man.
He worked in manual labor and was therefore physically strong. He had iron willpower and was unafraid of confrontation be it moral, intellectual, or physical. He never compromised his moral principles. He was a leader with a mission and he was willing to endure great suffering and death to accomplish that mission.
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TMC
Guest
I don’t know that these are all “liberal” views. What is “conservative” about granting the government more power over people’s personal lives? I think the list is a mixed bag, but a better description might be more libertarian, or simply less authoritarian.
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