The West has lost its freedom of speech

[Value Collector]

Well to put it bluntly, no Catholic Church, no scientific method.

That is where it started.

In the monasteries.

Lol, nope human curiosity, testing and learning started long before the catholic charlatans.

No doubt the Catholic Church had members who had an inbuilt thirst for knowledge just like any group of humans, this might have lead them to the church to begin with, and later caused them to investigate and learn, however it's not a "catholic" thing, I think a search for knowledge is a human thing.

I think religion was some of our earliest attempts at understanding the world, but because they were our earliest attempts, they are also our most flawed and worst attempts. And to try and hang on to old ideas in the face of evidence against them is deeply unscientific.

Science changes its mind based on what's observed, faith is the denial of evidence so that belief can be preserved- Tim Minchin

 

[Tink]

Well I can only give you my view, you are welcome to your own.

The Scientific Revolution took root in a Western Europe whose theological and philosophical foundations, Catholic at their very core, proved fertile soil for the development of the scientific enterprise. The mature idea of international law emerged from the Late Scholastics, as did concepts central to the emergence of economics as a distinct discipline.

These latter two contributions emerged from the European universities, a creation of the High Middle Ages that occurred under the auspices of the Church. Unlike the academies of ancient Greece, each of which tended to be dominated by a single school of thought, the universities of medieval Europe were places of intense intellectual debate and exchange.

David Lindberg explains: "t must be emphatically stated that within this educational system the medieval master had a great deal of freedom. The stereotype of the Middle Ages pictures the professor as spineless and subservient, a slavish follower of Aristotle and the church fathers (exactly how one could be a slavish follower of both, the stereotype does not explain), fearful of departing one iota from the demands of authority. There were broad theological limits, of course, but within those limits the medieval master had remarkable freedom of thought and expression; there was almost no doctrine, philosophical or theological, that was not submitted to minute scrutiny and criticism by scholars in the medieval university."

The Catholic Scholastics' eagerness to search for the truth, to study and employ a great diversity of sources, and treat objections to their positions with precision and care, endowed the medieval intellectual tradition - and by extension the universities in which that tradition developed and matured - with a vitality of which the West may rightly boast.

All of these areas: economic thought, international law, science, university life, charity, religious ideas, art, morality - these are the very foundations of a civilisation, and in the West every single one of them emerged from the heart of the Catholic Church.

It goes on ......

 

[Value Collector]

Well to put it bluntly, no Catholic Church, no scientific method.

That is where it started.

In the monasteries.

So when Aristarchus in 230bc discovered that the sun was at the centre of the solar system, and that the earth revolved around the sun and the moon revolved around the earth, How exactly did the Catholic Church assist him with this?

http://http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristarchus_of_Samos

Considering the church itself was a few hundred years away from existing, how can you say it invented science, when early scientists were already making important discoveries, and humans had been investigating, discovering and inventing for thousands of years.

I think this is another example of your catholic centric view of history.

The interesting thing is, if you erased all human knowledge today, the sciencetific knowledge would slowly be rediscovered, eventually we would rediscover that the earth is round, it orbits the sun, germ theory, theory of gravity, evolution etc would all be rediscovered in time, however the religions wouldn't be, there may be some other crazy stories, but the bible and Quran would never come back as they are, yet we would discover everything else even without Catholics, lol.

 

[luutzu]

...

The interesting thing is, if you erased all human knowledge today, the sciencetific knowledge would slowly be rediscovered, eventually we would rediscover that the earth is round, it orbits the sun, germ theory, theory of gravity, evolution etc would all be rediscovered in time, however the religions wouldn't be, there may be some other crazy stories, but the bible and Quran would never come back as they are, yet we would discover everything else even without Catholics, lol.

Very true.

Another example would be the Theory of Evolution. Some Dutch [?] scientist came to the same conclusion a decade or two after Darwin. He heard about Darwin's conclusions and concerns about having his findings publish - how it will turn the Church's doctrine on its head and so forth - so wrote to Darwin telling Darwin that if he do not publish he will anyway.

This also give an interesting insight into the Church/Religion and its censorship against science and reason.

Religion cannot be scientific, cannot open itself to science and learning because it does not allow its principles to be questioned, and never permit any challenge to any of its claims. When the answer to any mystery, any claims or events is "God works in mysterious ways", "have faith", "god have his reasons", "it is written", "because I said so"... science and discovery is out the window.

In science, anyone can question or try to disprove any theory - there are no sacred cows. While there are scientists so renown, and ideas so entrenched that most scientists don't question and false conclusions can go on for centuries... but that is more the fault of the scientists at the time, not the discipline itself.

I heard somewhere that Mass in Europe were in Latin up until only a couple century ago. When most of the followers can't even read or write in their own language, preaching the word of God in Latin is not really aiming to teach so people can understand, but simply to submit. When you amen to whatever it is that's said every week, chances are you'll also amen to whatever it is that's said with great emphasis in your language too.

----

With regards to Tink's and the Church making it possible for science etc.... If there is any truth in that, it's more as a byproduct of the Church's doing rather than its encouragement. So when Pope whatever his name paid Michelangelo and other Renaissance artists and scholars, or when the Church commision grand churches and cathedrals - leading to advances in engineering and architecture, or when the King James Bible forces the peasants to learn to read... it's all about God and worship and payment to his representatives on Earth - every good thing that came out of these are unintended.

So you got Mendel and his work with peas and flowers that led to genetics and mutation, some other monk discovering double entry bookkeeping... most other monks spend all day lashing themselves, live in pain and suffering because this life is sinful and so on until you get to paradise.

When you believe this life is just to get by and the real and eternal life is what awaits you... chances are you're not going to bother with discovery and doubts and queries just in case you upset Him and spend eternity in Hell. The faithful who do want to discovery and enquire do so saying it is to simply discover God's laws... and if they're really good and really honest, they'll have a midlife crisis, stop going to Church and change the wordings on their tombstone.

 

[Value Collector]

So you got Mendel and his work with peas and flowers that led to genetics and mutation, some other monk discovering double entry bookkeeping... most other monks spend all day lashing themselves, live in pain and suffering because this life is sinful and so on until you get to paradise.

If you were a thinking person in those day, such as Mendel you would no doubt be attracted to employment at the church, because it gave you a lot more time for private thought and was less hard labour than other lines of employment. This in no way means the church is responsible for your findings though.

Even Charles Darwin nearly became a preacher, as he believed it would give him lots of free time during the week to work on his study, after all it's a relatively easy life for you once the community believe god wants them to give up 10% of their pay to you, and you are an unquestionable authority, lol.

 

[luutzu]

If you were a thinking person in those day, such as Mendel you would no doubt be attracted to employment at the church, because it gave you a lot more time for private thought and was less hard labour than other lines of employment. This in no way means the church is responsible for your findings though.

Even Charles Darwin nearly became a preacher, as he believed it would give him lots of free time during the week to work on his study, after all it's a relatively easy life for you once the community believe god wants them to give up 10% of their pay to you, and you are an unquestionable authority, lol.

Yea, a pretty cushy job I'd say. Memorise a few key passages and rituals then live the rest of your life well fed, well sheltered, well dressed, well versed in a foreign language and well respected for not doing much and never questioning much of anything at all - kinda like most people in high finance nowadays

 

[SirRumpole]

Yea, a pretty cushy job I'd say. Memorise a few key passages and rituals then live the rest of your life well fed, well sheltered, well dressed, well versed in a foreign language and well respected for not doing much and never questioning much of anything at all - kinda like most people in high finance nowadays

Thats probably why the church is attractive for pedophiles, plus the trust that such positions offer.

 

[luutzu]

Thats probably why the church is attractive for pedophiles, plus the trust that such positions offer.

Yea, the trust and the privilege is definitely there. And it seems to be strongest, or at least more apparent to me, in small villages in developing countries.

I made a friend while he was over and when we talk about his family back there... said how proud he is of his 7 year old son, very smart and always win first place at school. He's so good even the Father in the village recognised him and invites the kid to stay overnight at the Church to be taught privately etc.

Hearing that alarms bell went off... I find ways to tell him, you know.. over here there's a lot of cases of priests and kids... maybe keep an eye out just in case. I'm not saying that father is that, but just in case man.

The guy was shock to hear that such thing is even possible, then got upset that I even think a priest could do that.

Anyway, in small villages like that, the Father's storeroom is always full during New Year and Christmas... The dirt poor peasants would literally saved up to at least give him a few kg of salt or sugar or rice. There's a good priest I heard of who kept some and redistribute the rest to the poor... the guy before him though... forget about it, it'll bring them closer to God or something.

 

[Value Collector]

Thats probably why the church is attractive for pedophiles, plus the trust that such positions offer.

maybe, I think the sexual repression of the church also has something to do with it.

 

[SirRumpole]

maybe, I think the sexual repression of the church also has something to do with it.

By "The Church" you mean Catholics ?

Methodists and Anglicans et al whose priests are allowed to marry don't seem to have nearly as much trouble with pedophiles as the Catholics.

That's another religious dichotomy isn't it ? All those married Anglican priests must be "sinners" according to the Catholic Church.

 

[Value Collector]

By "The Church" you mean Catholics ?

Methodists and Anglicans et al whose priests are allowed to marry don't seem to have nearly as much trouble with pedophiles as the Catholics.

That's another religious dichotomy isn't it ? All those married Anglican priests must be "sinners" according to the Catholic Church.

I really mean any church that represses sexuality, the catholic church is guilty of this in regards to their clergy, but others are guilty of this by introducing all sorts of ideas to alter normal sexual behaviour eg shaming gays, banning sex before marriage while also shaming masturbation etc.

 

[Value Collector]

On the Topic of sexual repression, check this guy out. He was a leader of one of the United states' biggest church group. He preached against homosexuality for years, shaming gays and stirring up hate against him, then it turns out he is actually gay. However because of his religious beliefs, he is a self hating Gay man trying to live in a hetro sexual relationship.

I actually feel sorry for him, and all the gay men and women whom he has shamed into hiding their sexuality, I see him as a victim also.

 

[Tisme]

On the Topic of sexual repression, check this guy out.

I actually feel sorry for him, and all the gay men and women whom he has shamed into hiding their sexuality, I see him as a victim also.

Self victimisation is a trait in many minority tribes. Self victimisation is used successfully in marketing strategies as a tactic for product identification and differentiation.

 

[Tink]

Interesting article -

Political correctness is killing freedom of speech
Brendan O'Neill

On 26 August, I spoke at the University of Sydney on PC, free speech and campus life.
Here are my opening remarks.

Ladies, gentlemen, people of indeterminate gender.
There are two reasons you should be freaked out by political correctness.
The first is that it prevents people from saying what they want to say, from expressing what they believe to be true. And it is fundamentally illiberal to stop people from expressing their beliefs and their ideas.
And the second is that it prevents the rest of us from hearing those ideas and deciding for ourselves if they are good or bad. It infantilises all of us through denying us the right to weigh things up, to argue over them, to be the arbiters of what is right and what is wrong.
Instead it gives that role to a dictatorship of do-gooders, who decide on our behalf what words and thoughts are fit for public consumption.
On the first point, the stifling of non-mainstream thought. One of the great fallacies of PC is that it’s just about being polite. They call it “institutionalised politeness”. It’s about eradicating ugly terms and ethnic slurs, so what’s the beef? Who could be against that, except racists and misogynists?
This is disingenuous in the extreme. PC doesn’t only prevent the use of shocking words; it strangles the expression of ideas, ideologies, moral beliefs, and religious convictions. Like every form of censorship in history, it curtails the expression of beliefs that an elitist group of people have judged to be wicked or foul.
Let me give you some examples of campus clampdowns on un-PC speech which are actually assaults on the expression of moral convictions.
At a university in America, a newspaper has said it will no longer accept op-eds opposed to gay marriage, criticism of gay marriage being the latest verboten utterance of our unforgiving age. It dresses this up as a PC measure to protect gays from offence, but the real consequence is that Christian beliefs, traditionalist convictions, are no longer permitted.
On some campuses in Britain, criticism of the Muslim veil is now branded “Islamophobia”, or even “hijabphobia”, and you will be shushed or shamed for doing it. This is done in the name of protecting Muslim women from offence, but the impact is to demonise an utterly legitimate moral viewpoint: that the veil is not a great thing.
On campuses across the West, including this one, any expression of support for Israel is met with a furious response. Student radicals are like Pavlov’s dogs when it comes to Israel: any mention of Zionism and they go mental. They ban or boycott all things Zionist, in the same way far-right regimes once banned or boycotted all things Jewish.
And they try to disguise this ugly intolerance in PC language, as an attempt to prevent the expression of offensive words that might pollute campus life and harm Muslim students in particular; apparently pro-Zionist commentary makes students feel “unsafe”. But once again, it is fundamentally a political idea, the idea that Israel is a legitimate entity, which is being crushed here, not just un-PC words.
So don’t buy the idea that PC is merely politeness or good manners. It’s about policing the parameters of acceptable thought. It’s about patrolling the borders of what it is acceptable to think and express.
Whether campus censors are raging against gay-marriage sceptics, or climate-change deniers, or people who think Israel is a cool country, they’re seeking to restrict the public expression of moral views.
Especially contrarian views. As we saw with the mob at the University of Western Australia that shut down Bjorn Lomborg’s climate-change institute on the basis that Lomborg is a “climate contrarian”. Perhaps all academics should in future be asked: “Are you now or have you ever been a climate contrarian?” How extraordinary that those who claim to be left-wing, once the home of contrarian thinking, should now treat contrarianism as tantamount to a crime, to be screamed and chased off campus.
And the way they stymie all these non-mainstream, supposedly controversial ideas is by branding them offensive, “hate speech”. What they forget, because they really are this arrogant, is that one person’s “hate speech” is another person’s deeply held moral conviction.
The Christian student who thinks marriage should be between a man and a woman truly believes that. The Jewish student who thinks Israel is a great country really believes that. And to my mind, stopping people from expressing things they truly believe is outrageous, an unspeakable offence against democracy, especially at a university, where ideas are meant to flow and crash and battle it out.
Those students believe those things just as surely as PC students believe the ABC is wonderful or Julia Gillard was a good prime minister. Those are mad ideas with little basis in fact, but you aren’t prevented from expressing them, are you? Imagine if you were. Well, now you know exactly how the un-PC people feel, who are harassed or “no platformed” or prevented from holding meetings for saying what they believe in their heart of hearts to be true and right.
And the second point about PC: it doesn’t only ride roughshod over the rights of the speaker; it denigrates the rights of the audience, too.
The reason the PC think certain ideas and words shouldn’t be expressed is because they don’t trust you. They think if a far-right speaker comes to campus, all you brainless idiots will be transformed into violent racists. They think if you hear the Christian viewpoint on marriage, you will become demented homophobics. They want to restrict public speech because they see you as fickle morons; as psychos-in-waiting who must be kept non-psychopathic through censorship, through the hiding-away of naughty words or images that might turn you mad.
Even worse, they see some of you as fragile victims, who need protection. The PC consider themselves the great protectors of minorities from offence. They want to save black people from racist words, gay people from Christian beliefs, women from gruff male banter.
How paternalistic. How insulting. The idea that we need these wise, white, impeccably middle-class student leaders to protect blacks and others from harmful speech is not a progressive one. It is neo-colonialist. It is shot through with a white-saviour complex and a view of minorities as incapable of negotiating public life on their own.
This is why you must oppose PC. It silences people; it infantilises everyone; and it allows tiny groups to style themselves as the guardians of moral decency and defenders of the poor, sad little people. PC should be burnt to the ground. Go forth and be as un-PC as it’s possible to be.

 

[Tisme]

Interesting article -

Political correctness is killing freedom of speech
Brendan O'Neill

On 26 August, I spoke at the University of Sydney on PC, free speech and campus life.
Here are my opening remarks.

. Go forth and be as un-PC as it’s possible to be.

Big ask when there are so many laws in place to ping people who digress.

I'll do my best though Tink

 

[Tink]

Oxford undergraduates and the ISIS school of art criticism

– Newsweek, 2 August 2015 –

If you thought only the whackjobs of ISIS were hellbent on obliterating statues that offend them, think again. Thousands of miles from the Islamic State, in what you would imagine to be the different moral galaxy of the Western academy, there are young hotheads who likewise want to remove from public view the monuments that have the temerity to upset them.

Earlier this month it was revealed that a bunch of students at Oxford want a statue of Cecil Rhodes removed. Rhodes was a British imperialist, founder of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), architect of Apartheid and all-around unpleasant guy. And according to Oxford students calling themselves the Rhodes Must Fall movement, his statue at Oriel College””his alma mater””is not only offensive but an act of violence.

“There’s a violence to having to walk past the statue every day,” one student told Sky News. The statue is “really problematic.”

Problematic is to the intolerant PC brigade what “haram” is to Islamists””it’s used to brand things that are wicked, and which should ideally be No Platformed or Safe Spaced out of existence. The activists’ casual conflation of speech with violence””or rather, of walking by a statue with feeling assaulted””speaks to the terrifying Orwellianism that has much of the Western student body in its grip.

The notion that expression is a form of violence””whether it’s controversial books that are said to assault students’ fragile minds or invited speakers whose words allegedly harm students””opens the door to the policing of speech as thoroughly as we police physical force. After all, if walking past a statue is like being punched in the face, or hearing a controversial idea is akin to being stabbed, then that statue must go and that idea must be extinguished, right? Equating thought with violence has been a key tactic of every tyrannical censor in history.

Unlike ISIS, the Oxford students aren’t wielding sledgehammers against the stone object of their fury (not yet, anyway). And where ISIS has mainly demolished statues it considers idolatrous, these students are more politically minded demolishers, keen to rid Oxford of the likeness of a racist. And yet, the similarities between these Western statue-fearers and the ISIS statue-destroyers are striking.

The “Rhodes Must Fall” guys talk of Rhodes’s problematic “legacy” and how it has no place on a 21st-century campus. One says his statue is “a reminder…of the colonial project.”

ISIS, too, is also all about erasing legacies. Its English-language magazine Dabiq justified the destruction of artifacts at Mosul Museum in Iraq as a means of “erasing the legacy of a ruined nation.” It boasts of having “laid to waste the…legacy of a nation that had long passed from the face of the Earth.”

What ISIS and the Oxford lot share in common is a Year Zero attitude, a desire to rewrite history. It’s a deeply authoritarian instinct: not merely to discuss the past and challenge its events and ideas, but to cleanse all remnants of it from the present. It’s cultural cleansing, disguised as an Islamic duty by ISIS and as radical anti-racism by Oxford students.

Oxford students aren’t the only ones aping the ISIS approach to yesteryear’s monuments. They were inspired by students at the University of Cape Town, who protested against and threw **** at a statue of Rhodes until it was taken down last April.

In the U.S., students at the University of Texas at Austin (UTA) are agitating for the removal of a statue of Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy during the Civil War. A UTA student leader says the statue is “not in line with…the ideals of a diverse and all-inclusive university.” Imagine that””a historical monument that fails to conform to the values of today.

Earlier this year, St. Louis University took down a statue of the Jesuit Missionary priest Father Pierre-Jean De Smet holding a crucifix over Native Americans. The statue has been there for decades, but it was recently judged “culturally insensitive.” Students at the University of Maryland are demanding the renaming of their football stadium, currently named for H.C. Byrd, a segregationist.

In the wake of Charleston church massacre, The Guardian actually set up a page to track all outdated or racist symbols and monuments in the U.S. Seriously. It’s like a sex offenders’ registery for statues.

If every old thing, whether it’s the works of Mark Twain, which are strewn with racial epithets offensive to modern ears, or those libraries named after slave-owner Thomas Jefferson, were to be judged by how well it sits with modern-day mores, we’d have to tear down everything. News Flash: People in the past had different values to ours.

The attempt to airbrush historical stuff from the present is the height of authoritarianism. It’s an attempt not merely to control what people can think and say today, but to project contemporary conformism back in time. Yet being surrounded by statues of flawed historical figures and dead eccentric writers is part of living in a complex, colorful society. They’re reminders of history’s ups and downs, and its changes.

“He who controls the past controls the future,” said Orwell. Yes, that’s it.

The intolerant students and others seeking to smash past images and ideas really have their eye on establishing their future authority to determine what all of us may think and say.

 

[pixel]

PC and suppression of ideas on ideological grounds is just another sign of people's insecurity, which brings about the Nanny State, the need to treat adult citizens like incompetent infants.

• Consider the warning labels on plastic wrappers: Don't let children choke in this! Or on washing machines: Not suitable for pets and children!
• Consider the laws forcing childless couples to still fence their backyard pools, lest an unsupervised child trespasses and comes to harm.
• Consider closure of suburban playgrounds lest some child falls off the swing and gets a bruise.
• Consider the mass poisoning of citizens with fluorides in everybody's drinking water, instead of educating people not to over-indulge in sweets.

We are no longer expected to think for ourselves and be responsible for our considered actions. Instead, some dictatorial minority is usurping the right to regulate our every thought and deed. Yet not even those dictatorial minorities are prepared to consider the consequences of their laws and rules. Least of all, they accept responsibility.

 

[Tisme]

We are no longer expected to think for ourselves and be responsible for our considered actions. Instead, some dictatorial minority is usurping the right to regulate our every thought and deed. Yet not even those dictatorial minorities are prepared to consider the consequences of their laws and rules. Least of all, they accept responsibility.

I'm more a disciple of the William Golding school of thought. In essence we have an instinct for morality, search for peace, for rules and the good of the tribe. However there's a dangerous undertow of savagery and anarchy that surfaces to gain supremacy over the group when the environment doesn't match civilisation.

It's that frustration of the savage wanting freedom to exist (benignly) that puts us at odds with ordered society. Its the savage in normal people given authority that compels them to become little hitlers who make rules upon rules.

Guaranteed you put 10 subordinate halfwit public servants in a room and eventually they will spontaneously think up policy that can be used to organise the population as they would want themselves organised and subjegated by a higher authority.

I reckon we innately want chaos to upset our lives, if only for the excitement ... it's one reason people get drawn back time and time again into internet fracas, be it farcebook, twitter, discussion groups, etc.

 

[pixel]

Brilliant opinion piece by Liam Bartlett: "Free Speech comes at a Cost"

Read it at http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/opi...t/news-story/cedaf7202290bbd3f29a05a517edb650

But for there to be a rational and meaningful discussion, our political leaders - elected representatives of the people - need a modicum of intelligence and reason. And there lies the rub: The Powers that be find it far easier to "forbid" and "suppress" than engage, learn, and adapt.

 

[Tink]

Never have Voltaire's words been so pertinent—a grand censorship is being engineered through political correctness.