Ex Nihilo
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Posts posted by Ex Nihilo
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Ahh...the great Richard Hooker, doctor of the Church of England, wisest of all is the man who knows the limits of his wisdom.
"Dangerous it were for the feeble brain of man to wade too far into the doings of the Most High; whom although to know be life, and joy to make mention of his name, yet our soundest knowledge is to know that we know him not as indeed he is, neither can know him; and our safest eloquence concerning him is our silence, when we confess without confession that his glory is inexplicable, his greatness above our capacity and reach."
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Lmao!!! Best post ever!
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This is a drawing I did today while drawing with my daughter. Not my best work but I thought I'd share. I'm toying with the title being: "Socialist Bogeyman". Notice his white, straight teeth and healthy glow, which comes from ample access to adequate dental care and preventative healthcare....very scary indeed.
Also, now that I finally understand how to post pics to replies...here is the pic of ST.EOM from above:
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Hey Leo, why not start a temple? I think that'd be a really cool thing. I bet you'd get quite a bit of interest if you started public practice...I know I'd want to at least check it out.
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Bless him!
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I have one too, in the trunk of my car. Any Neitzcheians out there with shovels wanna help me bury him?
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I might end up killing someone if they posed a threat to others. But, I know that the actual reason I would kill them is because I was negligent in finding an alternative solution.
That may well be true Koki, but certainly you can recognize that "negligent" is a bit harsh, since it denotes carelessness or unreasonableness on your part. Many situations, like the one you describe (and I'm assuming you mean a deadly threat), do not allow appropriate time for creativity in finding the least violent means to detain an aggressor and a balancing of interests of all parties involved. When someone poses an immediate, deadly threat to yourself or others, it would be careless and unreasonable, ie negligent, to simply allow it to happen because you don't want to kill. Self defense and defense of others is a justifiable and, in some cases, heroic act even if someone loses his life.
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Hi Newt! Great topic. My dad let me buy a book on astral projection back when I was in middle school. I tried it. I think I had this idea that I'd be able to astral project myself into the girls' locker room...ahh young hormones...I tried to follow the instructions and found that my dreams became incredibly vivid at night. But I think I stopped because one of the experiences was not good, not sure if I actually did it or if I was just dreaming it all. I'd love to try it again though.
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Someone hurts my kids.
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Errr...I think libertarianism is just the modern term for liberalism in the classical sense...I think I first learned that from listening to a Ron Paul speech. And just about every radio talk show host I hear rails against Pauls social liberalism.
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I have a nephew with CP and, like the boy in the video below, was told he'd never walk. Even though the rest of the family was distraught, my wife refused to believe the prognosis. She and I went to his house everyday for several months and we worked with him till he began to walk on his own. My wife wouldn't give up. She knew he could do more than he was being given credit for. She's amazing like that.
This story (below) also shows how much the power of love can do. Pray for those with CP and pray for their families. Great things can always happen when there's love:
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I had an aunt who took a trip to Isreal with her "unsaved" brother, while there he was overcome by the spirit of the land and committed himself to christ. He was baptised in the Jordan River and got to see the empty tomb. He was the happiest he had ever been. Within a few days of coming home, he passed away. The last words he spoke to my aunt was how he had no fear of death, he finally knew where he was headed and was happy to go there. She said Isreal saved her brother.
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Saturday, April 24, 2010
What Does "Liberal" Truly Mean?
I am probably one of those you might call the 'Super Liberals' - and I certainly don't want government intruding in our private lives. As a Liberal I want our people provided decent lives and individual rights. I am no fan of the ‘Nanny State’ – being a Liberal DOES NOT mean believing in an intrusive government that wants to lord power and control over our personal lives. So what does being a Liberal truly mean? What I have come to understand as TRULY Liberal is a philosophy that is based on generosity, freethinking, tolerance, is not bigoted, that favors maximal personal freedoms, and that supports progressive reforms that improve the welfare of humanity.
A True Liberal could be called socially progressive and individually Libertarian.*
A True Liberal is socially progressive when it comes to providing our citizens a decent standard of living. This means a belief that no one should go without food, shelter, health care, or education. True Liberals feel that there is no excuse for the wealthiest society in the history of the world to selfishly deny basic standards of human existence to the disadvantaged. True Liberals hold that the greatest amongst us have an obligation to help provide for the least among us. True Liberals also believe in strong occupational health and safety laws that help to guarantee a safe working environment. True Liberals also believe in product safety standards that ensure our people aren't sold faulty or unsafe products. True Liberals support child labor laws, and regulations that guarantee fair and decent work schedules and conditions. True Liberals believe in environmental regulations that keep polluters from dumping toxic waste all over the place on our land, in the air, and in our drinking water. True Liberals believe in taking care of the sick, the handicapped, and the elderly (through Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security) and helping to provide for the poor through welfare, food stamps, and educational grants and scholarships. True Liberals believe in investment in early childhood nutrition, education, and family living skills. True Liberals believe in Civil Rights and Equal Rights for ALL our citizens. These things all are, in my opinion, TRULY Liberal.
True Liberals think everyone should be given a basic foundation from which to build - no one should go without food, shelter, health care, education, freedom, and the ability to pursue their dreams. True Liberals know that there are more than enough resources on Earth and in the Solar System to guarantee enough to go around for everyone. Hopefully, enough people will agree and live their lives in a way dedicated to see that this eventually comes to pass.
As well as just, equitable social systems, True Liberals believe that we should extend real freedom to ALL our people. True Liberals are Libertarians when it comes to our individual rights. True Liberals do not think that any of the rights we already have should be infringed upon in any way - in fact True Liberals believe that the United States of America should be in the business of advancing human rights, creating new rights for our people, and expanding those rights we already have. True Liberals totally support free speech, freedom of and from religion, the right to bear arms, freedom of assembly, and all of the rest of the rights enumerated by our Founders in the Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights, and the subsequent Amendments to the Constitution. True Liberals also believe in a TOTAL right of choice. True Liberals believe that individuals have the right to control what goes into, goes on it, and comes from their own bodies. This means choice not only in reproductive rights, but also in terms of sexual preference, the right to die, the right to control of our genetic material, the right to control any specimens from our bodies, the right to ingest whatever we wish, and the right to privacy as well. If members of a society do not have the total right of choice to control their own bodies, the people are slaves to the state, other institutions, or corporations. All of the above beliefs are TRULY Liberal. True Liberals are patriots who support freedom and an equitable society. Without the social justice provisions and individual liberties described above, we are not living up to our ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and are falling into a downward spiral of exactly their opposite!
*Libertarian: a person who upholds the principles of individual liberty, especially of thought and action - - Merriam-Webster
Copyright 2010, B. E. Foley
Posted by An American Philosopher at 10:20 AM
Labels: Liberal, Libertarian, Political Philosophy, Politics, Progressive, Social Justice
This is one of the best posts I've read on this forum. A true liberal isn't a statist or a fascist, he's a progressive libertarian. I come from the standpoint that government should ensure that its citizens be free from the force or fraud of others, but a thoughtful person sees how protecting the public from discriminatory and desceptive trade practices and environmental pollution fits into those parameters. Libertarianism isn't so much for privatization of governmental functions, its about maximizing all peoples freedoms. Freedom for only those who can afford it is no freedom at all.
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I know all about vhem....I like how all of you can see the bright side of pandemics. I'm surrounded by armchair optimists.
As for me I want to live, make and multiply
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The question is whose death. If you mean your own, then by all means. Life is a right not a burden. But this topic is about risking the lives of others, potentially half the human population, just so some labcoats can play around with microbiological uranium. Noone's liberty is so precious that it should be bought at the price of a life not willingly given and to say otherwise is monstrous.
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Research should not be restrained. Who is fit to judge what is or is not studied and what motivations might they have?
I know this will peg me as the Trotskyite of the group but I think its just common sense that the folks with the mandate given to them by the people to guard the health and safety of the public are perfectly fit to stop programs that represent such a serious threat...or maybe I don't understand how the state's police powers work in a democrati republic.
Besides, one man's inexcusable restraint is another's just just regulation. I've said it before, in the hierarchy of rights life is of greater value than liberty and where one is at odds with the other, life trumps liberty.
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I disagree with your interpretation of history, but even if that were the case, I for one am not willing to risk half the human population on a toss up. However, if you really think that killing ourselves off is great way to make the world better, shouldn't you go first? If you really back this policy, shouldn't you consider suicide or at the very least sterilzation?
I feel like I'm listening to Scrooge say that te widows an orphans should hurry up and die and decrease the surplus population!
p. s: I do not actually recommend you or anyone else actually kill themselves...I am merely using a rhetorical device to show ridiculousness of this argument. You have lots to live for...so does everyone else, Thats why shouldn't even toy with the ideaof releasing manmade plagues
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The Bubonic Plague, aka, The Black Death -- was a great boost to the economy of Europe. It is the default solution, if we can't find a more gentle means of population controle. War also works of course. So does famine. I would prefer something less awful.
I hope all this is just tongue and cheek. These comments are a tad bit scary...and inaccurate. Look at the effects of Africa losing millions to slavery or now being ravaged by aids. Where's the economic boom? Where's the evolutionary jump. All disease makes are widows, orphans, and corpses. Maybe do a little research into the influenza pandemic of 1918. For me, national and international security concerns may trump the interests of scientific discovery when we have the ability and desire to create something that is a worldwide existential threat.
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Will do! God bless you as well!
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Hi All,
I recently had a very strange dream:
I dreamed I was present at Christ's crucifixion. He was suffering terribly. He took a breath, and as he inhaled, I was immediately pulled toward the pupil of his eye like an extreme close-up until I went into the complete blackness of the pupil of his eye and then into another scene in the same motion. It was the scene of some sin being committed in the old testament but instead of the original perpetrator committing the sin it was Christ himself doing it. I keep moving into the pupil of his eye and into another scene of sin that happen earlier in the old testament, over and over again back through the time of the old testament, each time Jesus took the place of the original sinner. I saw Jesus behead John the Baptist. I saw Jesus throw Daniel to the lions, and Jesus toss Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego into the furnace. I saw Jesus steal Uriah's wife. I saw Jesus strike the rock in the place of Moses, I Jesus worship the golden calf. It moved faster and faster back in time...all the way back to the beginning. I saw Jesus kill Abel. All the way back to the Garden of Eden, I saw Jesus there with the serpent biting into the cursed apple. Again I flew into the pupil of his eye, and I was brought back to the exact moment I had left Jesus on the cross, finishing his breath, and then he said, "It is finished!" Then I woke up, with the feeling that a great truth had been revealed to me, "He became our sin, so that in him we become God's righteousness."
I work through a lot of spiritual questions through dreams. Do any of y'all do the same? I'd love to hear your stories. Thanks!
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True, we are looking at a snapshot not the end-game. I agree that government is getting into more and more areas of life, but only because there is a widening awareness that human actions have consequences that cannot or are not being regulated extra-governmentally. I believe Thoroeau was right:the government that governs best governs not at all, and when men are ready for it, that is what they will have. Perhaps that's the next great trend.
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Finally a conversation. Thank you Fawzo.
So, in "light" of this "recent enlightenment" of our "darkenss," you point to laws that govern man as examples of self-awareness changing our behavior, is that correct? And THAT is what Senor Alpa was talking about? Social contracts in the western world?
I think Fawzo is right to point out that laws can be generally viewed as examples of societies' growing realisation that "darkness" in a particular form exists and which manifests itself as injustice to others and taking steps to change in such a way that combats that darkness. Actually, it's a great litmus test for gauging human self-awareness and development. It takes a LOT of people agreeing with a proposed law to get it passed, it gets vetted, debated, reviewed over and over again before it finally gets voted on. I can see where an issue like child labor bans, which was especially detrimental to monied industrialists, would have to have enormous popular and support and will to overcome the economic arugments that politicians are all too susceptabile to. I think it shows self-awareness and growth writ large. It shows societal movements of consciousness.
In fact, you can track self-awareness and growth by watching the trends of lawmaking over time. Beginning in earnest in the 70s and up until today, environmental justice has been a large part of the legislative landscape. I think it shows that a large segment of the public has recognized how man's greed and ignorance has harmed the earth and all those who share it. Now, I see universal access to basic human services and resources as being a new stage in the development of human social self-awareness. Examples include projects like ending hunger, providing affordable access to healthcare or universal healthcare, looking for alternative and renewable sources of energy...all of these I see as ways in which we as a society have become cognizant in our own failings that have created huge inequalities and inequities that cannot be fully justified in the light of human suffering and poverty.
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Here they are...
Mother Mary
in Good Wishes, Gratitude, Blessings and Prayers
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Here's one of my favorite hymns to mother mary (excluding the beatles):
Ya gotta love Beth Nielson Chapman!