Gab@StFerdinandIII - Plenty of cults exist - every cult has its 'religious dogma', its idols, its 'prophets', its 'science', its 'proof' and its intolerant liturgy of demands. Cults everywhere: Islam, the State, the cult of Gay and Queer, Marxism, Darwin and Evolution, 'Science', Globaloneywarming, Changing Climate, Abortion....a nice variety for the human-hater, amoral, anti-rationalist to choose from. It is so much fun mocking them isn't it ?
Tempus Fugit Memento Mori - Time Flies Remember Death
Real science only arose in one place at one time, namely in Christian Europe. It never arose in any other spatial or geographic setting. That alone tells us something. Egypt, China, the various Islamic states and empires, India, ancient Greece and Rome - all these had their pre-scientific and pre-Christian inventions, creations and insights. Alchemy, astrology, and aspects of math, engineering and logic all find their places in various ancient empires. But none of them produced the modern world. That single fact makes it clear that far from hindering secular rationality, Christianity must have promoted it.
As the prominent early 20th century mathematician and philosopher Alfred Whitehead suggested; science arose in Europe because of the: “faith in the possibility of science....derivative from medieval theology.” It was only in Europe that we have the “.....medieval insistence on the rationality of God, conceived as with the personal energy of Jehovah and with the rationality of a Greek philosopher.” Whitehead is perfectly correct. Christianity must have been a key component in the creation of science.
In reading about the badly named 'middle ages', it is clear that the Christian world was not a monolithic Catholic barbarity fighting against reason. The opposite was true. In fact, it is clear that Christianity was certainly responsible for Europe's ascension to science and rationality. We know this must be a valid thesis because non-Christian states and empires did not produce the modern world. In fact they never came close. In general, we can forward a universal law which would withstand any serious scrutiny and state that non-Christian theologies militate and obstruct against the development of reason and science.
There are many reasons why non-Christian philosophies are so primitive. Most non-Christian belief systems are circular and irrational. Their Gods are impersonal and not prone to reason. The universe is considered to be one large mystery, and inner peace and self-worth can only be achieved through meditation and mystical insights. Reason is not celebrated. Neither is individualism.
Centuries of meditation and platitudes about brotherly love and accepting one's 'fate' in life; does not produce science. Christian theology is different in that the various schisms, sects and debates within the Christian universe, led to, and reinforced, the nascent European propensity for rational inquiry. Some of the best minds that the human species has produced knew that scientific truth was a pursuit of creation. Newton, Kepler, Galileo, and Descartes all justified their search for natural laws and natural-scientific truth, on the basis that a perfect God would want man to understand the perfect world of reality. This cultural innovation, premised on the non-mystical Christian ideology, was instrumental to establish rational enlightenment.
Non-Christian philosophies are thus not only mystical systems of irrationality piety, but also ortho-praxy belief systems, or 'correct practices'. Christianity is ortho-dox, or a system of 'correct thinking'. Islam is the the ultimate expression of orthopraxy submission. The entire edifice of Islamic 'thought' is simply to impose 'correct practices' and make sure that people follow these rituals.
For Muslims, the Koran is the word of a supposed 'God' who is in fact Ali-ilah or the male Meccan moon deity. Allah is as far removed from the Christian ideal of God, as Taoism is from the Christian ideal of non-mystical, rationality. Islam does not encourage investigation or truth-seeking. It is a system of conformity, intent on social management, and the expansion of the cult at the expense of the 'other'. In such a mind-set orthopraxy is mandatory. Rationality would only lead to fragmentation and disputation and distract the 'group' from the main task at hand, namely; universalist supremacy and control.
Islam also mistakenly accepted in-toto, the elements of Greek thought and accepted them as 'facts' which could not be improved. This is a decidedly Muslim cultural attribute. Once something like the Koran, or the terrible philosophies of Plato; or the mystical explanations of Aristotle, are accepted as 'truth', the Muslim carefully stores them away and pronounces them ineffable and irrefutable. The rest of the cult are told to worship these 'self-evident' verities and simply submit to them. No inquiry is allowed. Islam is the opposite of a system of individualized, free-will and rational investigation. It is a system of obedience and acceptance. In Western Christian states, the ancient Greeks were held up to investigation, ridicule, enhancement and all manner of change and re-shaping. None of the ancient thinkers and scribes were accepted as omniscient.
After the replacement of Rome by the three main Germanic Kingdoms, we are told that Europe entered a 'Dark Age'. This is of course a dark lie. Europe never 'lost' ancient thinking and Roman-Greek literature and philosophies. Roads, cities, and trade caravans did not instantly plunge into the abyss during 476 A.D. What post Roman Europe did reject over time was the Greco-Romano belief system that history was circular; reason subordinate to the whims and fancies of a number of Gods; and that the human was not possessed of any particular attributes of free-will or deep comprehension. In short Christian Europe began to reject the mystical aspects of Roman-Greek philosophy. The development of Christian culture made this an inescapable reality. In fact, a very good argument can be made that far from initiating science and secular reasoning in the West; ancient Greece and Rome militated against it.
The empires of Greece, and Rome were all slave empires. Justifying slavery is most easily done with a system steeped in fatalism, racism or supremacism, and mysticism in which Gods play games with human souls. Any theology of morality and science immediately rejects slavery as evil and unproductive. Slavery always obstructs moral, social and technological progress. Greek and Roman pantheism and culture enshrined and justified slavery. Greek inventors knew of the steam engine; Roman engineers had the skills to build water mills; and both had insights into alchemic processes which should have produced rational science.
Yet modern rationality failed to develop in Greece and Rome. The culture prevented it as did the multitudes of laboring slaves. Why bother with innovation and the freeing of millions of humans ? Won't they then rise up and crush the state and the carefully-created system protected by various Gods? The same is true of China, India, and all the Islamic states and empires of the past 1400 years. These non-Christian states, never possessed the Christian urge to attain both spiritual and rational knowledge and truth and were thus mired in slavery and anti-modern mysticism.
Christianity ended slavery by 800 AD in Europe and it was the Christian church in alliance with the Royal Navy and Northern US armies, which eradicated slavery in the southern US and slave trading on the world's oceans. No other theology in world history ended slavery. No other ideology manufactured the moral and military armaments needed to end the immoral practice of human enslavement and degradation. No other conception of human affairs elevated both the spirit and the pursuit of rationality. Far from being opposed to science, a good argument can be made that Christianity created it.
Burning down the village to save it. The consequences of the coming economic destruction should not be under-estimated. It will vary by country and region. But take the UK as an example. Currently about 16.000 are dead from Corona. Last winter, about 29.000 died of the ‘normal’ flu. Corona-hysteria-ists contend that this virus will have phases, it will ‘mutate’, it will ‘come back’. No evidence exists for these assertions.
They are based on a mix of ‘scientific’ hypotheses, bad models and conjecture. The virus has not changed much and once infected the person is immune (link). Across most of the world, the Corona-craziness has peaked and the number of cases is falling. In fact a recent study clearly articulates that lock-downs do not work, and the pattern of the Corona infection and death cycles are the same across all countries, and all variations of responses from keeping the economy open (Taiwan, Sweden); to shuttering all activity (Italy, Spain, UK) (link).
If the lockdowns are extended into the summer, there will be unbridled destruction
By the early summer, given the extension of the current lockdown, the UK will likely see 12 million unemployed (link). This is 50% of the private sector employment. There are 32 million employed in the UK, with about 20 % working in various levels of government (link). This means that the private sector – which pays the salaries and expenses of government workers and funds the entire social-economic infrastructure of 70 million people – constitutes about 24 million workers. If 12 million are unemployed in the UK, that is a real unemployment rate of 50%.
In the UK private sector 95% of businesses are less than 50 people and 90 % of those are less than 10 people. These small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) total 1 million in the UK, and the SMBs employ 65% of the UK workforce or about 15 million people. Only 40.000 firms are larger than 50 people and about 7.000 are larger than 250 people (link). SMBs do not have access to capital, loans or large cash reserves. They usually survive month by month and quarter by quarter.
The SMBs will be devastated and out of 15~ million workers, one can rationally predict that 7-8 million will be unemployed soon. Larger firms who have reserves, capital, access to bank lending, or international parent and sister operating companies, will survive, depending on their sector (travel, hoteliers, hospitality, retail, luxury goods and many other industries are of course at high risk and will shed costs, workers and stop projects).
This government inspired disaster is the greatest socio-economic calamity to visit the UK since the Black Death and the English Civil War. Death rates will increase post Corona, given the stresses and ill-health which accompanies a shattered economy and society, in which 40% are under-or-un-employed. In the UK (and elswhere), this vast and deep annihilation of employment, social mobility and freedom will leave a disfigured country, with civil unrest and unbridgeable chasms between regions, classes and sectors ( to a New York Post on the coming Great Depression).
Breaking Fake Media News:
“Due to overwrought hysteria, fraudulent models and government incompetence, over a flu strain which kills 1/2 the daily numbers of the H1N1 flu strain; it has been decided to: Cancel Life. Please self-detonate to save the children's future (and Gaia's), your remains will be disposed of by the Corona-KGB. Remember people; this is bigger than sports, reality TV or life itself. Signed. Das Kommissar.”
The Corona hysteria is just another example of fraudulent models and the cult of scientism. The ‘model’ used by Imperial College of London, which generated 2.2 million Corona-related deaths in the US and 500.000 in the UK, has no connection whatsoever, to reality. Currently there are 15.000 deaths in the US and 7.000 in the UK. These numbers are no where near the level of the normal flu season (60.000 in the US, 29.000 in the UK, https://www.dailymail.co.uk...). Yet hysteria and police-state powers, reign supreme.
This same group at Imperial College was responsible for the irresponsible slaughter of millions of dead cattle, pigs and sheep due to ‘mad cow’ hysteria in 2001, from similar fraudulent models. This put farms out of business and cost the UK economy at least £10 billion. These models fail the test of real life. But of course the Imperial College worthies are ‘scientists’, ‘the experts’, ‘those who know’….the exact opposite of reality. They know nothing, their models are proven frauds, yet governments take them seriously and shut down the world-economy, a decision which will devastate personal lives and lead to more deaths. Obey the cult of science.
· Deaths attributed to Corona in the USA, a country of 350 million: 15.000
· Italy: 18.000
· Spain: 18.000
· France: 11.000
· Worldwide: Maybe 90.000
Versus:
· Deaths from the normal flu Worldwide: 500.000
2017 CDC report:
"According to new estimates published today, between 291,000 and 646,000 people worldwide die from seasonal influenza-related respiratory illnesses each year, higher than a previous estimate of 250,000 to 500,000 and based on a robust, multinational survey."
Yes, yes, yes, the Corona is severe – just as the 2009 Avian flu was severe and killed 9.000 in the US; or the Hong Flu of 1968 which killed 100.000. Yes, yes, yes, we need to protect the old, the sick, the young, through isolation measures, having a health infrastructure ready to aid those who are ill and suffering (respirators, cures, vitamins, hospital beds). Yes, yes, yes , everyone should take precautions and be careful. Yes, yes, yes, we understand the risks. We understand the platitudes, the slogans, the children’s, children’s future etc.
But there is no common sense. Shutting down life is simply not an option. Killing yourself, to save yourself, is probably a parable not worth pursuing. No Corona does not have wings, it does not travel hundreds of feet, it does not magically alight and enter your mouth. Yes it can be contagious if you get spores on your hands and within a few minutes rub them on your face. But the chance of catching it is pretty slight, no worse odds than ingesting the normal flu virus.
In Italy 1.500 die daily of non-Corona causes. Corona is killing at the moment, about 700 per day. This will last a few weeks than subside. That is, if you believe that all the deaths currently being documented are due to Corona. This is unlikely and most of the numbers are probably inflated. Many people might die with Corona, but not because of it. By contrast about 23.000 Italians die each year (the range is between 15.000 and 25.000 or so per annum), of the ‘normal flu’. This works out to about 400 a day over the flu season. So, we can calmly say that at its worse, the Corona-China virus kills about 2 x the normal flu rate. However, the aggregate number of Corona deaths in Italy will be below that of the normal flu. Though severe, it does not warrant closing an entire country for any length of time.
Corona is not the end of the world. Diarrheal infection killed 2 million last year and no one seemed to care.
Burning down the village to save it, is to be polite, idiotic. Yes, Huxley and Orwell were prescient handbooks warning about Statism, and the ineluctable rise of the Dystopian Technocracy, which neuters truth, life, freedom. However, they were not meant to be manuals.
World Government via the Useless Nations (UN), and its infected Communist organs such as the WHO, is not the answer. Dictatorship and totalitarianism is not the cure to a virus pandemic.
Hold China to account, find out the truth, develop a vaccine or similar and tell people to use common sense including plenty of vitamin ingestion and re-start the real world of nation states and end the totalitarian regime of economic and social isolation which, if one believes the numbers, is not working anyway.