NP - What's So Bad About Theocracy, Anyway?
Paul Mackin
mackin.paul at verizon.net
Sat Jun 23 12:00:53 CDT 2012
IMHO you're stretching the meaning of a theocratic system of government
way too far.
Do others do this? I mean do they use the word like you do?
P
On 6/23/2012 12:27 PM, Ian Livingston wrote:
> Yes, that's correct, Paul. Except, that is, for the part about me
> anachronizing christianity. As I stated above, Paul's enclaves
> (criminal though they were) were really political entities, "churches"
> by name, operating within the boundaries but outside the governance of
> the empire. That is why the Romans treated them in the same way they
> treated other criminals in the state. Theocracy does not imply
> political supremacy, it denotes, rather, a political system in which
> the gods or god (theos) reign as the nominal head of the system. The
> Byzantine Empire was theocratic, and thoroughly pauline. It took Rome
> several centuries to re-emerge as a power in the theocratic papal
> state, also quite pauline. Constantine's descendant, Julian, in his
> attempt to establish neoplatonic paganism as the foundation of the
> state, had only time enough to impose a nominally pagan military
> dictatorship that died with him on the battlefield in his quest to
> reassert "Roman" power in the east. The wealthy christian Bishops
> hated him, and would very probably eventually have succeeded in
> assassinating him anyway.
>
> The current efforts to resurrect the christian (pauline) empire, with
> their deformed Jesus as the nominal head of state, have had some ear
> since the early 19th c. in America, and find their pauline descendants
> in the enclave churches like the Mormons, Mennonites, and Shakers,
> etc.(that's not to mention the more recent, radical cults) who set
> themselves outside the dominant rule of the state to follow the rule
> of their nominal godhead. It worked to fill in the vacancy left as
> Rome eroded, so if the enclaves continue, they might fill some holes
> as the cartel states eventually decompose. I find them most disturbing
> in that they might conceivably form an armed, violent body able to
> instigate the sort of civil war that could, in fact, put a dictator in
> Washington, religious or not.
>
> Kazantzakis handled the diversion of christianity under Paul quite
> well in The Last Temptation of Christ.
>
> On Sat, Jun 23, 2012 at 3:41 AM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net
> <mailto:mackin.paul at verizon.net>> wrote:
>
> On 6/22/2012 10:38 PM, Ian Livingston wrote:
>> I don't see the disagreement there, David. Enlighten me.
>
> My quibble is different from David's. You're anachronizing
> Christianity. Theocracy implies political power. Paul was a
> pariah in the Roman Empire, a criminal if fact. Christianity
> wasn't even legal until AD 313 (Edict of Milan), two and a half
> centuries after Paul's death. Even in Constantine's time
> Christians were a fairly small minority in the Empire. The
> emperor had to keep his subjects happy and had to appease the Sun
> God as well as the Christian one. Paganism remained a force well
> into late antiquity.
>
>
> P
>>
>> On Fri, Jun 22, 2012 at 6:35 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com
>> <mailto:fqmorris at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>> A not slight quibble: Jesus (as Biblical character) didn't
>> separate church from state making church's authority
>> superior. His separation was anti-confrontational. If State
>> was inferior, it wasn't so in this world's authority.
>>
>> David Morris
>>
>>
>> On Friday, June 22, 2012, Ian Livingston wrote:
>>
>> I agree with you almost completely, Joseph, except for
>> this one point: Jesus is never anti-authoritarian.
>> Instead, he separates church from state. Render unto
>> Caesar and all that. The state is the state, it is not
>> compatible with religion. That is one of the chief points
>> of differentiation between Christianity and Islam.
>> Mohammed's state is theocratic. "St" Paul comes across as
>> quite theocratic, also. He engineered the true schism in
>> Christianity. All other sectarian divisions are minor
>> after Paul's diversion from Jesus' teachings, the almost
>> inevitable subsequent union of Caesar and Christ, and the
>> advent of militant christianity in Rome. Now, I'm no
>> christian, but I think this Voris guy is as ridiculous as
>> Paul and Constantine, so he scares me a little.
>>
>> On Fri, Jun 15, 2012 at 8:47 AM, Joseph Tracy
>> <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:
>>
>> Christian is a loaded word whose ownership should
>> not be conceded to theocratic killers. What we live
>> in is a classic agonistic state religion of imperial
>> dominance with roots in an upperclass ant-colonial
>> revolution, now shading into a weird blend of
>> plutocracy and militarism which uses personal greed
>> and Old Testament homophobia and glorifications of
>> ethnic cleansing as pressure valves and scape goats
>> when popular revolution looms. Even the edited Jesus
>> of the fucked over New Testament was peaceful and
>> anti-authoritarian. It would be impossible to
>> construct the Cristian Right from a popular consensus
>> about what Jesus taught in the New Testament. Where
>> would they fit the Sermon on the Mount or the
>> constant sharing of food?
>> Unfortunately fascism has become a loaded word, but
>> the combination of militarism, corporate power and
>> colonial power structures along with the changing
>> face of the big enemy( Communism, Islam, Terror,
>> Brownness, Blackness, Yellowness, Redness, ), the
>> claim to absolute imperial power of life and death
>> all point to that word as being as accurate a
>> description of the US as any I can think of.
>> On Jun 15, 2012, at 11:05 AM, Madeleine Maudlin wrote:
>>
>> > Don't we already live in a Christian theocracy?
>> >
>> > "Ugh!"
>> > "Boo!"
>> > "Yawn!"
>> >
>> > On Fri, Jun 15, 2012 at 9:59 AM, David Morris
>> <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> http://www.dangerousminds.net/comments/not_parody_alert_whats_so_bad_about_theocracy_anyway
>> >
>> > You may recall Michael Voris from this video,
>> “What’s So Bad About
>> > Theocracy, Anyway?” that explains why the United
>> States needs a
>> > Christian dictator.
>> >
>> > It’s simple: pro-gay, pro-abortion “parasitic”
>> liberals get to vote.
>> >
>> > Voris is the controversial star of the formerly
>> named “Real Catholic
>> > TV” web series. Yesterday, the conservative
>> crusader announced that
>> > his show will henceforth be known as “Church
>> Militant TV” and that he
>> > will be relaunching his brand (The Archdiocese of
>> Detroit have
>> > sensibly asserted that Voris was not authorized to
>> speak for the real
>> > Catholic Church and so now he’s using this more
>> appropriate name).
>> >
>> > You probably think this is an Onion parody, don’t you?
>> >
>> > It’s not.
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> "Less than any man have I excuse for prejudice; and I
>> feel for all creeds the warm sympathy of one who has come
>> to learn that even the trust in reason is a precarious
>> faith, and that we are all fragments of darkness groping
>> for the sun. I know no more about the ultimates than the
>> simplest urchin in the streets." -- Will Durant
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> "Less than any man have I excuse for prejudice; and I feel for
>> all creeds the warm sympathy of one who has come to learn that
>> even the trust in reason is a precarious faith, and that we are
>> all fragments of darkness groping for the sun. I know no more
>> about the ultimates than the simplest urchin in the streets." --
>> Will Durant
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> "Less than any man have I excuse for prejudice; and I feel for all
> creeds the warm sympathy of one who has come to learn that even the
> trust in reason is a precarious faith, and that we are all fragments
> of darkness groping for the sun. I know no more about the ultimates
> than the simplest urchin in the streets." -- Will Durant
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