Meme Thread for Both Posting and Discussing Memes

[Typhonis]

Wasn't one of the things that set people off was the selling of indulgences? Where a rich person could donate to a church or bishop and the get a slip of paper saying his sins were forgiven before he did them?

 

[Carrot of Truth]

The Catholics brought the reformation onto themselves with their own incompetence and corruption. That said its not like that whole ordeal was relevant for long after it happened. The last major event where it was sort of a big factor was the reign of Louis XIV but even then it was just him expelling all the protestants. The schism that truly fucked everything up was the one initiated by the pope that caused the division between Catholics and Orthodox because said Bishop of Rome got too uppity.

 

[King Arts]

you kicked us out because we asked you to not fleece your flock

Umm what? I'm not Catholic. The Eastern Orthodox split with the Catholics over the issue of the Filioque and papal supremacy(they are related)
Protestants never then joined the Orthodox and got kicked out, you guys started your own movements what are you talking about?

 

[LordsFire]

Perhaps there was no other way, because man is so flawed. But that doesn't make this bitter tragedy a good thing, as some (most?) Protestants appear to believe.

I'd be a lot more sympathetic towards the Catholic side of things, if it weren't for the fact that its claim to authority is based on nothing but circular logic, and the fact that it continues to defy clear scriptural teaching with its doctrine.

The cornerstone of the Catholic Church as an organization seems to be its presumption of sole authority over how scripture is interpreted, and interposing themselves as an additional stage of intermediation between God and Man. This is an inherently corrupt doctrine, and setup that fairly obviously was designed to gain worldly power and influence, rather than to serve God's purposes.

 

[Zyobot]

A true reformation would have been a much better alternative to the OTL schismatic ruination (which wasn't even driven by genuine faith -- Luther had actually wanted a true reform, at least originally -- but by base political ambitions on the part of temporal princes). This would have kept things fairly united on theology, too. The primary matter was corruption within the Church. Had that been addressed earlier and more comprehensively, there would have been little support for more violent reform proposals. (And only very few would, at the outset, have signed on for openly schimatic ventures.)

So then the Church would still be one, at least in the West, and a lot of grief would have been avoided. The lesson is that all of it only happened because of crass greed and other unworthy motivations-- on both sides. The Church was infested with corrupt leaders, and Protestantism was chiefly successful because it became a very useful tool for power-hungry princes who wanted absolute control.

Perhaps there was no other way, because man is so flawed. But that doesn't make this bitter tragedy a good thing, as some (most?) Protestants appear to believe.

Eh…

I'm not so sure about everyone having to remain united under the Catholic Church, even if they feel the Pope doesn't speak for them and have come to a different understanding than what it teaches.

As you know, I'm inclined to agree with you that individual and political self-determination are sacrosanct, and that people shouldn't be forced to affiliate with anyone they feel is headed in the wrong direction. In fact, I'd argue the same for spiritual self-determination, as well, namely by those who simply can't square Catholic theology and practices with their honest understanding of what Jesus wanted.

Even before the Reformation, I'm sure those people existed, and felt great urge to suppress their sincere feelings instead of do some honest self-reflection on it, much less self-acceptance and doing what was best for them individually (per apostates automatically being damned to burn with Satan forever and ever). Also kinda' dehumanizes the apostates in question, actually, no matter their reasons for leaving.

 

[Skallagrim]

I'd be a lot more sympathetic towards the Catholic side of things, if it weren't for the fact that its claim to authority is based on nothing but circular logic, and the fact that it continues to defy clear scriptural teaching with its doctrine.

The cornerstone of the Catholic Church as an organization seems to be its presumption of sole authority over how scripture is interpreted, and interposing themselves as an additional stage of intermediation between God and Man. This is an inherently corrupt doctrine, and setup that fairly obviously was designed to gain worldly power and influence, rather than to serve God's purposes.

That's a rather crude -- and I daresay misguided -- take, but if I start debating you on this, no doubt we'll get a repetition of "you only think the Reformation was bad because you're Catholic". (Not necessarily from you, but we've just seen that bad faith take, and I'm not keen to see it repeated.)

Suffice to say that we disagree on this matter, and that -- as a good Catholic -- I recognise your freedom to hold your view, even though I think it incorrect and ultimately even harmful to you. Perhaps we can discuss the matter elsewhere, some time.

My position is not based on my own faith but on the demonstrable outcomes of the Reformation (which I hold to be mostly detrimental in a ocio-political context, regardless of theology). In that same way, I would advise you to regard the matter on those terms. Put aside what you hold to be theologically correct, and ask whether the Reformation was good on its own terms. Was this a desirable outcome? Which alternatives are there?

Personally, I think that if the Catholic Church had continued in a state of corruption, that would have probably been just as bad. In different ways, but still. From the start, I have posited my wish that the so-called Reformation had been an actual Reformation, as opposed to that terrible schism; that wound which remains (if scabbed over) to this very day.

As I said once to a Protestant friend of mine: they should have just elected Luther to the Papacy, and told him "There you are, in the position from which you said reform should come-- so reform, then!"

 

[LordsFire]

My position is not based on my own faith but on the demonstrable outcomes of the Reformation (which I hold to be mostly detrimental in a ocio-political context, regardless of theology). In that same way, I would advise you to regard the matter on those terms. Put aside what you hold to be theologically correct, and ask whether the Reformation was good on its own terms. Was this a desirable outcome? Which alternatives are there?

I see this position as being no different than blaming Catholicism for what later secular thinkers did.

If you're going to blame Protestant thinkers for the philosophy of those who came later, completely rejecting Christianity, then it is just as reasonable to blame the Catholics that the Protestants were rejecting.

 

[Skallagrim]

I see this position as being no different than blaming Catholicism for what later secular thinkers did.

If you're going to blame Protestant thinkers for the philosophy of those who came later, completely rejecting Christianity, then it is just as reasonable to blame the Catholics that the Protestants were rejecting.

I don't see the equivalence here. But frankly, your post is a bit confusing. The subject of your first sentence isn't clear. You say "this position", which is supposedly "no different than blaming Catholicism for what later secular thinkers did".

Which position? Mine? Yours? What are you trying to say here?

 

[Scottty]

Wasn't one of the things that set people off was the selling of indulgences? Where a rich person could donate to a church or bishop and the get a slip of paper saying his sins were forgiven before he did them?

It was.
And what's more, the notion of forgiveness of sins being something one buys with money is not only utterly unbiblical, it wasn't even in accordance with official Roman Catholic doctrine on "indulgences" at the time. Or so I've been told.
But to the people running the RCC as a business, it really did not matter whether what the common people were being taught was "proper" doctrine or not, as long as all that lovely, lovely, money money money kept rolling in!

In their eyes, "God has given us the Papacy, let us enjoy it!" - the whole thing was just a means of raking in the lolly.

 

[LordsFire]

I don't see the equivalence here. But frankly, your post is a bit confusing. The subject of your first sentence isn't clear. You say "this position", which is supposedly "no different than blaming Catholicism for what later secular thinkers did".

Which position? Mine? Yours? What are you trying to say here?

You put blame on the Protestant Reformation/Protestant Thinkers for people like Rousseau, Hegel, and Marx, who came later, even though such thinkers explicitly rejected Christianity.

If you're going to blame people for the ideology of someone else who has rejected the core of said people's ideology, then by logical extension, the Catholic Church and its thinkers are responsible for the Protestant Reformation, and thus for Rousseau, Hegel, etc.

 

[Skallagrim]

You put blame on the Protestant Reformation/Protestant Thinkers for people like Rousseau, Hegel, and Marx, who came later, even though such thinkers explicitly rejected Christianity.

If you're going to blame people for the ideology of someone else who has rejected the core of said people's ideology, then by logical extension, the Catholic Church and its thinkers are responsible for the Protestant Reformation, and thus for Rousseau, Hegel, etc.

That's a fairly weird take. Let me zoom in a bit, so you get what I mean.

Person A: "Look, Hitlerian totalitarianism descends quite clearly from the totalitarian basis provided by Rousseau's concept of the 'general will'. Once you reduce people to a collective with one will, you inevitably invite one Great Leader to supposedly channel that will. This is why Rousseau's philosophy led inexorably to despotism, and stood at the very crib of modern totalitarianism."

Person B: "A-ha! But Rousseau was opposing the Ancien Régime! So he only wrote his ideas because the existing order was there to oppose, which means Hitler actually descends from the pre-modern, traditional governments!"

Person A: "Are you trying to tell me that you are now always responsible for the beliefs of your opponents? Get real!"



Do you see the difference? There is an intellectual legacy whereby Hitlerian totalitarianism derives from principles that were first comprehensively formulated in modern times by Rousseau. Likewise, on a larger scale, there is an intellectual legacy whereby all of modern collectivism and totalitarianism, as well as the general impulse of vastly increasing state power, descend from principles that were first comprehensively implemented by the Protestants during the Reformation.

That intellectual legacy shouldn't be atrributed to "the other side", as it were. You track it to its intellectual beginings, not to its intellectual enemies.

After all, if you say that men should be free, and I counter that they should be enslaved, and I write a book extolling slavery, and two centuries hence some intellectual heir of my thinking founds a slavocracy... it would be absurd and even vile to propose that you are somehow the originator of those evil ideas, "because Skall only wrote them in reaction to your opposed ideas!"

Do you see how silly that would be?

For the same reason, it is silly to blame the Catholic Church for bad ideas that the Protestants came up with. You can blame the Catholics from that time for their own bad ideas (of which there were plenty), but the fact that the Protestants came up with terrible alternatives of their own is on them, not on the Church.

 

[LordsFire]

For the same reason, it is silly to blame the Catholic Church for bad ideas that the Protestants came up with. You can blame the Catholics from that time for their own bad ideas (of which there were plenty), but the fact that the Protestants came up with terrible alternatives of their own is on them, not on the Church.

Except that what Rousseau came up with involved explicit rejection of Christianity and all of its fundamental doctrines.

It is the same sort of thing, except even more so. If you're going to blame Protestants for what someone who rejects Christianity as a whole believes, then it is just as rational to blame the Catholics for the Protestants rejecting them.

 

[Skallagrim]

Except that what Rousseau came up with involved explicit rejection of Christianity and all of its fundamental doctrines.

It is the same sort of thing, except even more so. If you're going to blame Protestants for what someone who rejects Christianity as a whole believes, then it is just as rational to blame the Catholics for the Protestants rejecting them.

I've talked about Platonism the entire time. You keep going on about Christianity. But theology isn't my quibble! I charge you: go back though this discussion, and find the point where I argue that the great horrors caused by Protestantism are theological. Go. Find me that quote.

Because I tell you this: from the very start, my thesis has been that Protestantism is bad chiefly because it re-introduced Platonism, including a political reading thereof. THAT is the legacy I condemn.

Whether Rousseau rejected Christianity matters not one iota. He embraced the Platonism. And that Platonism was only there to embrace because of the Protestants. In fact, he specifically based his work on the (re-)interpretation of Platonism that the Protestants had invented. Had there been no Protestant Reformation, it would have been impossible for Rousseau's philosophy to emerge.

There are several other philosophical fuck-ups introduced by Protestantism that ended up being foundational to several of the most-deranged "Enlightenment" thinkers. None of them are particularly theological. For this reason, from the start, I've been telling you to stop fixating on the theology (which I haven't even argued about), but to look at the philosophical and socio-political ideas introduced by the Protestants. That is where my main objections to the whole affair can be found.

I'm looking at this as a great error in philosophy. I barely care about the religious dimension, except on a personal level (which I consider irrelevant here). To put it another way: if they'd all stayed Catholics or Buddhist or atheists, but some had developed the same Platonist ideas and others had rejected those ideas-- I'd always side with the latter group, and oppose the former group.

They're not horrible because they didn't want to be Catholics anymore. They're horrible because their ideas were so fucking crap.

 

[King Arts]

I'd be a lot more sympathetic towards the Catholic side of things, if it weren't for the fact that its claim to authority is based on nothing but circular logic, and the fact that it continues to defy clear scriptural teaching with its doctrine.

The cornerstone of the Catholic Church as an organization seems to be its presumption of sole authority over how scripture is interpreted, and interposing themselves as an additional stage of intermediation between God and Man. This is an inherently corrupt doctrine, and setup that fairly obviously was designed to gain worldly power and influence, rather than to serve God's purposes.

This is false the Catholic Church's authority is not a circular argument. Papal supremacy is. But the authority of the Church was there from the beginning. Before the 1500's the doctrine of sola scriptura of some random individual having the authority to interpret scripture by themselves was ridiculous. The Church as a whole not only interpreted scripture but decided what scripture was. That's why protestants don't even have the complete Bible.

The actual circular argument is the Protestant argument of using the Bible by itself as authority. You do know it did not descend directly from heaven. Men had to compile all the books together to make the Bible. You trust these "infallible, corrupt" men to pick which books are God breated, but not to read and interpret it right?

 

[Husky_Khan]

This Plato guy sounds like he's responsible.

 

[Skallagrim]

This Plato guy sounds like he's responsible.

 

[LordsFire]

They're not horrible because they didn't want to be Catholics anymore. They're horrible because their ideas were so fucking crap.

Except you've failed in any way to explain how philosophies attached to a Christian worldview are the responsibility of a bunch of anti-Christian philosophers.

A Christian worldview does not permit Roussouean thought. They're fundamentally incompatible. Similarly so for Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, and Hitler.

You can argue about the particulars of peripheral details of ideology that may or may not be shared with such anti-Christian thinkers, but if they're rejecting the core of your philosophy, then that is on them, not on you.

I believe that the death penalty is sometimes warranted. I'm a writer. I have published stuff online and at some time hope to get published 'conventionally' as well. It is not my fault if at some point down the road some secularist decides that 'the death penalty is appropriate for those who reject atheism.' Just because we agree that the death penalty is at some times appropriate, does not remotely mean that I bear any responsibility for his terrible ideology.

The only way I can see your position making any sense, is if the 'protestants' you're thinking about had rejected God, the Bible, the Gospel, et al, and were wearing the skinsuit of a church while claiming to still be Christians. And at that point the problem isn't 'protestant philosophy,' it's 'heretics claiming to be christians.'

 

[Skallagrim]

Except you've failed in any way to explain how philosophies attached to a Christian worldview are the responsibility of a bunch of anti-Christian philosophers.

A Christian worldview does not permit Roussouean thought. They're fundamentally incompatible. Similarly so for Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, and Hitler.

You can argue about the particulars of peripheral details of ideology that may or may not be shared with such anti-Christian thinkers, but if they're rejecting the core of your philosophy, then that is on them, not on you.

I believe that the death penalty is sometimes warranted. I'm a writer. I have published stuff online and at some time hope to get published 'conventionally' as well. It is not my fault if at some point down the road some secularist decides that 'the death penalty is appropriate for those who reject atheism.' Just because we agree that the death penalty is at some times appropriate, does not remotely mean that I bear any responsibility for his terrible ideology.

The only way I can see your position making any sense, is if the 'protestants' you're thinking about had rejected God, the Bible, the Gospel, et al, and were wearing the skinsuit of a church while claiming to still be Christians. And at that point the problem isn't 'protestant philosophy,' it's 'heretics claiming to be christians.'

At this point, I'm getting pretty convinced that you're trolling.

I've explained what the issue is; what philosophies the Protestants (re-)introduced and (re-)invented, and how those philosophies -- not their theology -- are the problem.

Still, you fixate on "but they are Chistians, and others who adopted those philosophies aren't!"

I've told you: it doesn't matter. The problem is those philosophies. You care about the theology. I don't. It's not relevant to my argument. If all OTL Protestants had become muslims or Buddhists or atheists, or had remained Catholics, and had adopted the same philosophies... I'd feel the exact same way about their ideas, and about the harm caused by those ideas.

This is my final word on the matter. Either you understand my point, or you never will. I'm not spending one more second explaining this again. Sorry. I genuinely can't tell if you're trying to be a deliberately obnoxious troll, or if you genuinely don't understand what I'm saying. I hope you do get it now, and that you weren't trolling either. But I'm ending all participation in this line of debate now.

 

[ATP]

Not really. Educate yourself about how doctrine actually was decided in the various Protestant state churches, maybe?
And about all the Dissenter folks who didn't feel any obligation to toe the line.



I think the stories of that sort of thing are over-hyped. People in the 18th Century "Age of Enlightenment" made up all sorts of nonsense about previous eras.




One of the reasons that nothing like the French Revolution happened in the UK, was the spiritual impact of the Methodist Revival. Meanwhile, Roman Catholic kingdoms whose rulers did not care if you were an Atheist, so long as you were not a Protestant, sowed the seeds of their own destruction.
In the justice of God, those nations that rejected the Reformation got the Revolution instead.

1.Dissident folks who do not listen to protestant rulers died.
2.No,they only used old protestant lies about evul catholics.
3.French revolution happened,becouse masons there worked against their state,when masons in England was tools of their rulers.
But you are right,if Louis XVI kill all masons among elites,we would have no revolution there.

 

[Zyobot]

Something we can all agree on for a change, I'd think.