www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Is Europe Dying.? Is the Pope too late?

Well, that makes two of us [history buffs, that is]. However, I read history in light of moral theology and objective principle, not merely as a mess to be muddled through...which it is, of course, but it is also much more.
Also, I hope as a history buff that you recognize that all conclusions are tentative, that there is always more to learn.
-Daniel

And ByzTN- your remark about invading Ohio was almost as dumb as your "kum bay yah" comment. C'mon, can't you do better than that?
:p :rolleyes:

Daniel,

You are awfully rabid. Relax.

Have a cigarette.

Logos Teen

Iconophile,

I'm just curious...I'll give you the oft-repeated morl dilemma.."If you could go back in time to when Hitler was an infant, and kill him, would you do so"?

I will further add that I would like you to assume that kidnapping little Adolf and raising him in an atmosphere of love and respect for all is not an option to my scenario.

Would you deliberately murder an infant if you knew that it was the only way to save millions?

Gaudior, wondering about moral relativity

God would simply find another way for His plan to unfold, wouldn't he, Gaudior?

Would he not raise up someone else to what Hitler's position would've been, had you not murdered him?

We cannot foil God's plans, only act within them as for or against His Will.

Logos Teen

I agree with you, Garrett, but I wonder if others would.

Gaudior, philosophically

Guadior- My answer: "hell no".
It is always wrong to intentionally kill an innocent human being, even if one had foreknowledge that he would grow up to be Hitler. As for good consequences coming from an objectively evil action :"What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?"

Garrett- "rabid"? Geez, I am not the one who gets a kick out of bombed-out cities...
And thank God I kicked the cigarette habit...
:p Daniel

Thank you, iconophile...your answer is a wise one.

Gaudior, now retiring from the thread

Dear Gaudior you said:

"I'm just curious...I'll give you the oft-repeated morl dilemma.."If you could go back in time to when Hitler was an infant, and kill him, would you do so"?"

I say:

No! In order to be truthful and express my opinions fully, I have to say that it was not the man "Hitler" that committed those attrocities, nor was it "Stalin'. Nor did the circumstances come about through men...such as Marx, Lenin, Bismark, etc., but rather it was 'the entity' to which they had subjecated themselves to. I mentioned Bismark because he destroyed the balance of power in Europe allowing Germany to become all powerful, and also because he himself kept insisting at the end that he had a 'demon' inside of him.

Had it not been these men, it would have been other 'weak' men, and more or less in the same time and place. As an example, Father Arseny, a saintly priest that suffered for over 30 years in the Gulag said: Athiestic communism came about because of the sins of the priests..for it is the priests that guide the people.

As another ecample, Saint Nektarios was told by a powerful demon while exorcising someone that there were three of them in the world. One was 'leading' Russia and the other was in China. It was right after the Bolshevik revolution.

We are a sinful world, and sins abounds throughout. When it becomes overpowering in certain places and times, God's 'love' cannot break through and evil makes it's play. But there has to be a limit to this evil, and that's when we end up in a war. We are being 'allowed' by God to put an end to it.

Today our world is leading up to the final 'anti-Christ'. The man of total evil. Our economic system and inter-dependancy is leading us to a world government and we are powerless to do anything about it. All we can do is pray that our Lord will spare us...for a while at least.

I for my part, believe that as long as this nation, (and I'm starting to perceive us as the continuation of the Roman Empire), remains powerful and in good hands, (by that I mean devout hands), and we are able to stop the immorality that we have been exporting through our moral laxity, the world will be basically safe. Should we continue on the paths of the past, then we will suffer the consequences and no doubt become weak in everyway.

With out weakness the spiritual unity of the 'New Age' movement and it's 'one' religion will emerge....and there he is, the destroyer of destroyers, the 'anti-Christ'.

May heaven help and guide us!

Zenovia

What I was implying, and will now state, is that old hippies still rant about the same nonsense I heard from them 40 years ago - military industrial complex, corporate corruption, international corporate conspiracies, etc, and even
If I hadn't grown up listening to this stuff, I might think it had some credibility. I would agree that many current sins result from corrupt human nature, but I seriously doubt that corporations exist for any other reason than to make a profit. I also doubt that our government is capable of the things you accuse it of, since I have never known it to be efficient enough to pull them off. It seems to me our government is not evil, just often inept - even during those times when there is a Democrat in the White House. But again, old hippies never change, they just become more shrill with time. The 60s are over and the world has moved on. Perhaps thats a good example to follow. Perhaps, and I suspect it is the case, you have the best of intentions and seriously believe what you post. You certainly have a right to hold those views. But I see too many of yesterday's answers to todays problems there. Those of us who may disagree with you are not fans of human suffering and would certainly like to see the end of it. It will end, when Christ returns. But I am afraid it will be with us until then - with or without "evil corporate empire," if such ever existed.

Byz-
You know, back in the 60s, when I was involved in the antiwar movement, when I heard leftists talk about "American imperialism" my reaction was "give me a break".
I now speak of it because that is what its architects call it. They are quite open about it. And the term "global corporate empire" is as good a description of any, when government and corporation appear increasingly intertwined.
It ain't conspiracy lunacy if you look at the facts and read what the figures involved have said about their intentions.
To dismiss what I say because of your adversion to some past social movement is irrational; surely again you can do better.
Daniel

I think you haven't gotten past that "past social movement" and are still firmly stuck in the 60s. What I am hearing from you is the same stuff I heard back then. One of my conservative friends told me, during the Clinton presidency, that Russian troops were training in the midwest and that Clinton was going to use them to overthrow the U.S. government. Now I have little respect for Bill Clinton, but he is an American, and he would never do anything of the sort. Bush is an American, too, and even if you dislike his policies (and nowhere did I say I always support those policies), he would not do some of the things I have read you accuse him of in your posts. If you want to find hysteria, read your own posts. As I stated earlier, if you want to accuse our government of being inept and, I would add not accurately understanding the rest of the world, I would agree with you. Evil, however, it is not. And yes, the "corporate" stuff is lunacy, along with the Illuminati, Masonic plots, and the rest of the conspiracy theories.

Charles,

You gotta admit though, The Graduate was a pretty awesome film.

"There's a great future in plastics!"

Logos Teen

Nice avatar Daniel, I have a holy card with Our Lady of Palestine on the front & have become very attached to it.

james

TN- Hippies didn't sing "Kumbayah", you know. That was the clean-cut, earnest liberal faux folk singers, an entirely different 60s species...
Read what Wolfowitz was writing ten years ago, read Crisis , the house organ of the Catholic neocons, which recently published an article by HW Crocker promoting the idea of an American empire. [And lest any of you sign on, this is the same guy who said that the sacking of Constantinople should be a Roman Catholic feast day.]
Talk of corporate power is lunacy? Do you deny that global corporations, many of which have bigger budgets than many nations, wield great power in the world, and that this is often not benign?
And while some get carried away with it it is a fact of history that the Freemasons have been an anti-Christian force throughout their history.
I really am tempermentally incapable of the sort of conspiracy-mongering you suggest; what I am talking about is not some hidden conspiracy but matters of public record.


James- Are you saying that this icon is Our Lady of Palestine? I was unaware of that; I ran across it in a local OCA parish. I asked the priest if he minded if I traced the pattern and he made a photocopy for me and I painted this icon for my daughter, Maria Rose. I know it as "Mother of God, Ever-Blooming Rose."
It is Russian, and I have seen a Greek version of it. Can you tell me what you know of it?
-Daniel