Page 117: I will demonstrate!

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Galactic Scholar
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Re: Page 117: I will demonstrate!

Post by Galactic Scholar »

I think the Loroi aren´t in charge of the Union because of her beliefs as Soian appointed successors, but because they have the biggest stick. The funny looking apes from the backwater planet aren´t going to change that.
The biggest stick is worthless without the warrior to wield it, and you can't use a warrior that's having a mental breakdown. Civilizations are built ideals. When those ideals are destroyed, turmoil follows.

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Razor One
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Re: Page 117: I will demonstrate!

Post by Razor One »

Galactic Scholar wrote:
Ok, I disagree. I think we've gotten just about as far as we can on this topic then.
That's fair, Arioch hasn't commented much on this aspect of their society from memory, and it hasn't come up much in the comic beyond some comments from the Barsam Courier, so it's natural that opinions would differ in the absence of any real hard facts.

Have you heard of the Atheist Experience and Matt Dillahunty? He is an ex-fundamentalist Christian turned atheist. He analyzes the character of Jesus and it's quite an interesting take. He also does debates on and concerning Jesus and his dissection of the Sermon on the mount is also very good.

I would caution everyone about Jesus. He said some good things, he said some "meh" things, he said some downright evil things. All in all, not the best roll model for anyone.
Yeah, I watched a fair few Atheist Experience vids back the day, good mix of thoughtful, entertaining and comedic depending on who's calling, though I haven't actually watched any recently, should probably pick it back up at some point.

You're right about Jesus not being 100% on all things. If the account is accurate (lol), then he's very much a product of his time trying to send out a message intended for his time. It shouldn't be surprising that Bronze Age / Early Iron Age ethics don't necessarily shine bright millennia later.
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Absalom
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Re: Page 117: I will demonstrate!

Post by Absalom »

Razor One wrote:You're right about Jesus not being 100% on all things. If the account is accurate (lol), then he's very much a product of his time trying to send out a message intended for his time. It shouldn't be surprising that Bronze Age / Early Iron Age ethics don't necessarily shine bright millennia later.
https://www.google.com/search?q=11+nations+of+america

Your "100%" is defined by culture and the various consequences thereof. Whatever you think Jesus was wrong on, a significant number of people think the contrary, and what you think he was right on, yet again a large number think the contrary. It always annoys me when people go ragging on subjects like this without realizing that they themselves are doing the same as they are looking down on.

Galactic Scholar
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Re: Page 117: I will demonstrate!

Post by Galactic Scholar »

Your "100%" is defined by culture and the various consequences thereof. Whatever you think Jesus was wrong on, a significant number of people think the contrary, and what you think he was right on, yet again a large number think the contrary. It always annoys me when people go ragging on subjects like this without realizing that they themselves are doing the same as they are looking down on.
I think you are misunderstanding my and Razor's criticism, we're not just being contrarian and we're not just ragging on Christianity. We are analyzing and dissecting the good, the bad and the "meh" of Jesus and saying that Jesus gave some terrible advice. For example slavery is always bad. It's bad for the slaves, the slavers and the slave nation as a whole. Telling slaves to obey their masters is therefore bad advice. Giving no thought toward tomorrow is also terrible idea.

Whether people agree with us or not on those two topics is irrelevant. If they disagree they are simply wrong. We are physical beings inhabiting a physical world which is governed by physical laws. There are right and wrong answers in how we conduct ourselves as a nation. Jesus, and by extension Christianity, has some wrong answers, some "meh" answers, and some right answers. Slavery is one of the big ones Christianity gets totally wrong.

Absalom
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Re: Page 117: I will demonstrate!

Post by Absalom »

Galactic Scholar wrote:I think you are misunderstanding my and Razor's criticism, we're not just being contrarian and we're not just ragging on Christianity.
No, but you are misunderstanding mine.
Galactic Scholar wrote:We are analyzing and dissecting the good, the bad and the "meh" of Jesus and saying that Jesus gave some terrible advice. For example slavery is always bad. It's bad for the slaves, the slavers and the slave nation as a whole. Telling slaves to obey their masters is therefore bad advice.
And telling them to rebel would have gotten them killed. Spartacus was famous, but also overrated: that gladiator rebellion did have the possibility of causing real harm to Rome, but primarily it played into the Roman's fears of a slave rebellion (we know that Romans owned slaves, yes; not so often remembered is that slaves were never common in Rome, because the Romans considered them inherently dangerous; this same concern was common within American slaveholders as well, and affected historical perspectives on the Haitian revolution). That is why it was put down so harshly. Furthermore, Christianity was often looked down on as being a foreign religion (because it was in most areas) already: directly opposing e.g. slavery when you were the slave would have made it much worse, especially since it isn't a religion precisely about being released from slavery.

There's also another problem with opposing slavery in that world: it wasn't quite what we're familiar with. As far as I recall slavery was in many ways at least as bad back then as it was during the worst of the US's slavery period, but it was also just the most extreme end of a roughly continuous social structure. We often think of the Roman Republic as a democracy, but in many ways it was more akin to England after the advent of the Magna Carta than to modern America or Britain. There was a sort of system of nobility worked into Roman society, and certain types of relationships literally placed legal obligations upon both benefactor and beneficiary: slavery was just an extreme case of this. And this rule extended beyond Roman society, to most of the ancient world (maybe all, haven't looked into that particular subject), up through every "developed" society between then and now (serfs usually had it better than slaves, but that seriously did vary over time and location; Communism is really fit only for ants and similar, yet the USSR really was an improvement over Tsarist Russia), and arguably even today on a world-wide scale (any time that an obligation such as "don't murder" is placed on someone, that moves you ever so minutely towards the "slavery" end of the spectrum; for every such obligation removed, you move towards the "anomie" end of the spectrum; there are no inherent categories, and the optimum balance depends on what the beholder considers important).

At any rate, I challenge you to look at e.g. Enron, or the coal barons of the US, and not see the same problems as slavery in a diluted form. Slavery lead to many social ills, but slavery didn't produce them, it just made them easier. The problems exist even today, and primarily in social form.
Galactic Scholar wrote:Giving no thought toward tomorrow is also terrible idea.
But in context it has a point: you can die unexpectedly, so don't leave important matters unfinished.
Galactic Scholar wrote:Whether people agree with us or not on those two topics is irrelevant. If they disagree they are simply wrong.
We are physical beings inhabiting a physical world which is governed by physical laws. There are right and wrong answers in how we conduct ourselves as a nation. Jesus, and by extension Christianity, has some wrong answers, some "meh" answers, and some right answers. Slavery is one of the big ones Christianity gets totally wrong.
Now here's what I want you to actually think about: how do we decide what the right and wrong answers are? Christianity follows some mix of the Bible and doctrine, varying between individual groups. American society has mostly been following individual perceptions of the most commonly accepted norm (I'm not certain about right now; I think we're in a transition period, and in the absence of any recognizable rules, I don't want to try predicting anything). If we try Darwinism then we probably need to reduce access to medical care for the sake of improving the quality of the human race (genetic pool or social pool, take your pick; "survival of the fittest" doesn't need to be picky), whereas Humanism would say the opposite, and some variants of Consequentialism that conditionally embrace various forms of slavery probably exist.

And which one you think is right depends on your starting perspective, and personal experiences. Do we optimize for right now, or the far future? Do we optimize for beneficiaries (Humans) or system (Environment)? Do we optimize for freedom (anarchism) or productivity (authoritarianism)? Do we trust the lower classes? Do we trust the middle classes? Do we trust the higher classes? Do we optimize for representative leadership (democracy) or focused leadership (monarchy)?

Some perspectives (e.g. "far future", "system", "productivity", "trustworthiness floats", "focused leadership") can potentially favor slavery (regardless of whether it's called that) whereas others (e.g. "right now", "beneficiaries", "freedom", "trustworthiness averages", "representative leadership") will almost always abhor slavery.

This may seem laughable (I don't think it's been mostly intentional recently), but Hollywood occasionally has a habit of producing scenarios where slavery-by-another-name might be useful to improve things. In Avatar, the Earth has been ruined by over-exploitation, but if the indulgence of the population is the problem, then forcing the population to both cut back and repair the environment is inherently a solution if you can implement it: and a civilian draft enforced by law or force (or both) inherently falls on the "slavery" side of the spectrum, and only grows closer if you throw in "the descendants of the most damaging actors have to work the hardest" and similar factors. Similarly, the scenario of declining fertility in e.g. "A Handmaid's Tale" can result in some form of sex slavery making sense if your priority is the survival of the human race, while the prioritization of human fairness and equality can result in the ultra-prescribed society of "The Giver". Bizarre extremes, yes, but extremes are useful for shedding light on differences.


tl;dr: Take multiple people with the same philosophy, and you'll get multiple answers to any question. Take the same number with different philosophies and you'll get even more answers. And many of those answers will seem incompatible with each other, or to some of the answerers completely illogical.


Edited in: Riddle me this - what is the definition of "slave"? The only reliable answer I know of is "someone forced to take or not take actions regardless of their own choice".
Last edited by Absalom on Thu Jun 15, 2017 12:42 am, edited 1 time in total.

Galactic Scholar
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Re: Page 117: I will demonstrate!

Post by Galactic Scholar »

And telling them to rebel would have gotten them killed.
With that, we're done Absalom.

Disgusting. Absolutely revolting.

Krulle
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Re: Page 117: I will demonstrate!

Post by Krulle »

But he is right in this regard.
Many slaves have been severly punished for listening to sermons that propagate freedom of every single person.
(And slaves were killed for that, just as an example for the other slaves to NOT listen to those sermons.)

Everywhere, worldwide, anytime.
Many slave owners wanted to control the thoughts of the slaves, and "freedom" or "equalness" did, in their opinion, have no place in the thoughts of a servant/slave.

We Humans are the most savage race we know of. Things we do, despite knowing that they are wrong, not wanting to be treated the same way we still do it to others. Our moral compases may be alright, but when doing something we often forget to reflect how others/the other side might view our actions.

[edit]removed some more controversial discussion elements regarding slavery in Rome[/edit]
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Galactic Scholar
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Re: Page 117: I will demonstrate!

Post by Galactic Scholar »

But he is right in this regard.
Except that we’re not talking about the state of slavery, we’re discussing good advice that an all powerful, all knowing, all seeing, omnipresent God can give to slaves. The ONLY advice you can give to slaves is to get out. And if they can? Hit them on the way out. And if getting out isn’t an option? Take as many of them with you as possible.

Or maybe since he’s God, he can just tell people not to own slaves? How hard is that?

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CF2
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Re: Page 117: I will demonstrate!

Post by CF2 »

Galactic Scholar wrote:Except that we’re not talking about the state of slavery, we’re discussing good advice that an all powerful, all knowing, all seeing, omnipresent God can give to slaves.
Actually what we're really talking about is the likelihood of the Loroi deciding to wipe humans from the galaxy after Ensign Jardin shares Earth's location with them. Christianity was only brought up as a simile to emphasize how significant the existence of humanity is to the Loroi. So maybe we can end this wild tangent, even though discussion of religion on the internet has a perfect track record of never being divisive and always ending with all parties convinced of the same fundamental truths.
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Re: Page 117: I will demonstrate!

Post by GeoModder »

CF2 wrote: Actually what we're really talking about is the likelihood of the Loroi deciding to wipe humans from the galaxy after Ensign Jardin shares Earth's location with them. Christianity was only brought up as a simile to emphasize how significant the existence of humanity is to the Loroi. So maybe we can end this wild tangent, even though discussion of religion on the internet has a perfect track record of never being divisive and always ending with all parties convinced of the same fundamental truths.
Hear hear.

Btw CF2, am I translating your signature well with "My seniors, please observe"?
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GabrielGABFonseca
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Re: Page 117: I will demonstrate!

Post by GabrielGABFonseca »

GeoModder wrote: Btw CF2, am I translating your signature well with "My seniors, please observe"?
That's what I'm reading too. "Senior, attention to me!" or a variant thereof. There's no single good translation to toilal sininra, really - part of the meaning gets lost during translation.
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Turrosh Mak
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Re: Page 117: I will demonstrate!

Post by Turrosh Mak »

GabrielGABFonseca wrote:
GeoModder wrote: Btw CF2, am I translating your signature well with "My seniors, please observe"?
That's what I'm reading too. "Senior, attention to me!" or a variant thereof. There's no single good translation to toilal sininra, really - part of the meaning gets lost during translation.
Notice me, senpai!

edit: ugh, only 3 words and I still misspell one.

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CF2
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Re: Page 117: I will demonstrate!

Post by CF2 »

Turrosh Mak wrote:
GabrielGABFonseca wrote:
GeoModder wrote: Btw CF2, am I translating your signature well with "My seniors, please observe"?
That's what I'm reading too. "Senior, attention to me!" or a variant thereof. There's no single good translation to toilal sininra, really - part of the meaning gets lost during translation.
Notice me, senpai!

edit: ugh, only 3 words and I still misspell one.
Heh yeah, "Please notice me senpai~" or as close to it as you can get in Loroi Trade, because sadly there is no tilde in their written language.
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Re: Page 117: I will demonstrate!

Post by RedDwarfIV »

In several Pauline epistles, and the First Epistle of Peter, slaves are admonished to obey their masters, "as to the Lord, and not to men".[88][89][90][91][92] However, masters were told to serve their slaves "in the same way"[93] and "even better" as "brothers",[94] to not threaten them as God is their Master as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bible_and_slavery

So that was Paul saying it, not Jesus.

Paul said a lot of awful things.
If every cloud had a silver lining, there would be a lot more plane crashes.

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