Religion and the Armenian Genocide

[Gavur]

I mis-understood when you said we I thought you meant Armenians in actuality you meant us as one people (Adam)
Dr.Nicoli never read him before but among other things his dead on about our sense of time and progress I think it's an illusion that youth gives us because nothing changes unless it starts from within.
Thank you for the clarafication and your eloquent thoughts.

[Joseph]

Dear Nick + 1.5, from what I've been able to read so far, I can see that neither of you will yield...Perhaps you should "agree to disagree" as it is clear that your opinions are very very different from each other's..

And I agree with that Jade!

[1.5 million]

Hi Gavur

No, you misunderstand me. first read this excerpt from Dr. Nicoll

"Ordinarily, of course we imagine that man can grow and develop in what I might call the natural normal way, simply by education, example, and so on. Yet if we look at history, we find that man has not really developed, and particularly if we look at the present day we cannot boast that man has reached any further stage of development. Look for a moment at the horrors that humanity imposes on itself nowadays. Yet people are prone to imagine that time means progress and that everything is getting better and better as time passes.
...History repeats itself because man remains at the same level of being - namely, he attracts again and again the same circumstances, feels the same things, says the same things, hopes the same things, believes the same things. And yet nothing actually changes.

...As long as there is no change in the level of being, the personal history of the man remains the same."

Yes lets examine these assertions. Why has "man" remained the same through all of this period of history? I say the answer is that religion itself has been the very chains that have held "man" down and prevented us from growing and evolving into something better. Let me ask you Nick - just what in the world would cause you to change your beliefs (in Christianity)? What would cause you to reject the knowledge you feel is contained in the Bible? I might take the liberty here to answer for you (so I can continue and make my point) - you answer will be (essentially) "nothing" - am I not correct? Nothing that occurs or that will or can occur in the world would shake your belief. Correct? Well, if this is so - if nothing can possibly change the way you ultimatly think concerning the reality of life and existance - that is based on words and concepts cobbled together 2,000 or more years ago I might add - then just what is the prospect - for someone like you - or for a population that believes as you do - to change? And here is the real answer to Dr? (ie religious nutcase) Nicoll's dilema. I would suggest a more thorough examination of the relaity of our world - our present, our history and our possible futures would do you much better if your goal is to change for the better and to influence humankinds change for the better to do our best to eliminate all this superstision and hate that are primarily caused by - you guessed it - religion.

It is not that religion causes the problem. The essence of religion is higher knowledge about Man's potential. In Christianity, this potential is re-birth.

Religion is exactly the problem - as I have just shown - Dr Dumbsh*t. How can religion - beliefs arising from religion - ie - with no need to be connected to any reality - only the immagination and say so of someone - how can this be related to "higher knowledge" or have anything to do with "mans potential" in any real way - it doesn't - not at all. Because such speculations could be about anything - they have no basis in reality and offer very little promiss for anything real. And the proof of this - of the utter and abject failure of this (faulty) resoning - is that the "answer" the justification given for this is - the potential for re-birth (actually are you sure he is not a Hindu?) - yeah - lets forget about improving things - improving ourselves and the existance of our fellow humans - its too tough a problem - wars happen - yeah - thats what he says - we can't change ist - we are just EVIL...sinners all!...so what is the hope - rebirth into another life of course - where we can imagine that everything is pure and fixed - that is the worst BS I have ever heard. I know that religious people are diseased of the mind to buy into this type of BS and think it is wisdom...what a sorry state of affairs we are in...

Wher 1.5 asserts religion as the trouble. I am saying that the secular abuse of religion by politics is made possible by what we ARE or as Plato described it as living in a cave and capable of unconscious reactions as horrible as the Armenina genocide.. In this way politics devolves and uses religion for its secular purposes.

You are just naive. I won't call you stupid (in reference to Jade asking me to cool it). Secular abuse of religion? Well OK - but how is it that religion can be abused such? Think about this for a moment. Answer - it is the religion itself that absolutly allows for such - it is inherrent in the religion itself. If the religion did not exist - if it were not believed in - then we would not have the problem - there would be no horrible hateful beliefs to exploit. And BTW - religion has always been "used" this way - in fact this was - in part - the intention of all those who propogated religion in the firts place - as a means of control and explotation. And you poor suckers are still buying it - pathetic.

The Armenian genocide is just a natural reaction for sleeping man. There is no God's punishment here but simply the natural flow and change described in Ecclesiastes 3 where everything has a season: a time to love a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace. etc.

Genocide happens - thats what your saying....no punishment - oh how convienint. Well you have no clue - none whatsoever. Your religion has made you stupid - what can I ssay (sorry Jade). So it just was our "time" eh? So why do you care for it to be recognized? What would we be recognizing anyway? "We want it to be recognized that God chose this time and place for hatred and desecration for the Armenains . He wanted them to lose everything - life, happiness, nation, etc - for no particular reason - but just because it is part of nature - its what he does - a "natural flow and change" - he chose to back the Turks in this one - too bad Armenains - it was just not your time...." WELL FU! (and this is just how I feel when you claim these things - you insult me and my family and our people in a most fundemental way - and you are another proof of the failure of religion - and specifically how religion/Christianity fails and has failed Armenians very specifically). I think you owe us an apology and an explanation. Otherwise i feel justified in lumping you in with all the other Genocide deniers - because you have essentially here denied our Genocide in a very real and meaningful sense. I think its well past time to get your head out of your heavenly clouds and bring it back down to earth - where things are real!

For you and I as Christians, it is up to us to see it for what it is and to work on our own "being" which has also a benefit for others.

Sounds to me quite self centered and selfish - not very "Christian" at all. But I can see that you are no real Christian - in a variety of ways (and I understand quite abit more about the religion then you might possibly believe). You are sort of an east meets west type of "Christian" - you believe in transcendence of (personal) being and reincarnation - and all of that sort of mumbo-jumbo. I might be wrong about this - but I am very much getting these vibes about you - am I correct here?

What does it mean to believe? Our beliefs always change. This is why Paul called himself the wretched man in Romans 7.

Your beliefs alwasy change? What from non--believer to drooling disciple? From accepting John Chapter X verse Y as the paramount wisdom of the Bible to thinking that Revelation Chap Z Verse X has all of the answers?

1.5 and I disagree when he believes that religion is the cause of problems. I am saying that taken rightly, the essence of religion is what allows for the growth of man's "being" as described by Dr. Nicoll and a gradual freedom from lunacy.

Yes I contend quite the opposite. I have observable and provable facts on my side. I don't have to rely on promisses of an afterlife for justification. I don't just say - "I know it to be so thus it is so" - talk about lunacy. Why is it if one person says he heres voices in his head telling him to do something he is called a loony - but if a whole group claims such we are not to question their "religious" beliefs. These beliefs themselves - and those who take action based upon them - are indeed lunatics.

Taken wrongly, religion just becomes a tool for life in Plato's cave, and when the time is right, people feel free to kill each other.

Do you see the difference?

When the time is right? Like when I interpret these passages in this here book to tell me to kill those who believe differently - this sort of thing? Yes I see. You need help. Desperatly. We all do (to free ourselves from fanatical believers such as you).

[1.5 million]

And I agree with that Jade!

Yes I very much agree to disagree with Nick. As all thinking persons should.

[Nick_A]

The trouble with you 1.5 is that you are to laid back and evasive as to your opinions. Just kidding.

Before going further I will ask you to read the following article on some of Simone's ideas concerning social force. Perhaps then you will be able to understand me more.

http://www.spiritualitytoday.org/spi...4233grote.html

It is deep Simone but the author seems highly intelligent and has IMO understood her. If you understand this, you will understand why she said and I agree that:

Humanism was not wrong in thinking that truth, beauty, liberty, and equality are of infinite value, but in thinking that man can get them for himself without grace. Simone Weil

[Jade]

A touché! -

[1.5 million]

I'm sure that you mean well Nick, i'm sure that you are a very nice person...but really now...you really are in need of "saving" from these delusions of yours...you are missing out on the joys of the world...sure your heroin is filling a need...but really - if you ween yourself from it you will see what a collosal waste of time it has all been..and maybe you will percieve the sickness and the danger as well...

"To whom do we belong? This is the core question of the spiritual life. Do we belong to the world, its worries, its people and its endless chain of urgencies and emergencies, or do we belong to God and God's people."

We "belong" to the world.

"...she led an ascetic existence long before the mystical experience in which Christ took possession of her in the midst of one of her agonizing migraine headaches"

Here we go - She was taken possession by Christ (a ficticious mythological character BTW) and the answers then came to her (not)

"..her Dominican spiritual director..."

Ah I see - the same St Dominic who stated "Where blessing can accomplish nothing, blows may avail" - and in whose name and under whose order a great deal of the very worst crimes of the Inquisition were carried out...and much of this against the harmless Cathars - do you know who they were? They were ascetics who forswore earthly possessions and pleasures - to follow what in their minds was what Christs teachings were saying to do. And for this - not for any harm they did to anyone - they were tortured and burned after being branded heritics by Pope Lucius III in 1184. Thus started the Inquisition - which continued BTW in one form or another until 1850! (Can you imagine that? For this crime against humanity alone all Christianity should be condemned and outlawed forever.) And the Dominicans were the primary tool for much of this misery.

"She died in London at age thirty-four, some say of anorexia nervosa"

Again - we are asked to follow the ravings of a crazy person (a social theory developed by an anorexic loner? come now...)...this is wisdom? This is progress for mankind? What is next? The higher wisdom of Jim Jones? How about David Koresh? ...and the list goes on...visionaries responding to inner voices and perporting to be acting in concert with the dictates of the Bible - amen

Frankly as far as having any earthshattering or life changing importance it is meaningless to me to read analysis of the ego problems of mythical figures (like Christ). This examination does not address the truly important problems of the world or that face humanity. Sure - there is much we can learn from myth - from analyzing it and from understanding the reasons the creators of it fashioned it the way they did - and in this there are far better analysts then Weil. Sorry.

And while the result opf war may be destruction - her simplistic psyco-babble psedo-fruedian explanation for it just doesn't cut it - and again is real too abstract anyway to be of much use (and it presupposes concepts of belief that are themselves abstractions - meaningless to those of us who don't buy off on this kind of hocus pocus BS)

"The will to meaning creates false gods"

This is her (and your) self fulfiling (self describing) prophecy.

"the grace of Christ (and only through the grace of Christ) we in effect say to the afflicted "Let light shine out of darkness"

Poor girl really - she - like many - see/saw evil in all things (of the world) - and sure there are a plethora of exploitive people and these types tend to desire power, control wealth etc and thus pursue it and tend to more frequently rise to the top in fields (government, business, whatever) - and yeah - they are nasty...but poor Weil - she has no answer - so she turns to God - her heroin...

"Taken only as an end in itself, society functions as the Great Beast increasing human affliction. Viewed as a sacrament, society mirrors that heavenly home which is the source of all creative social and spiritual development on earth"

ie. - Life is rough out there - I can't deal with it - give me God - he will take care of things..Life here is imperfect - I need to believe in perfection (even though there is no such thing) - Heaven is perfect - we must be more like that...etc

Sorry - ultimatly weak and pathetic. She died a deluded loser - I'm sorry for her. And I'm sorry that you waste your time and energy with such. Sure - it could be worse - you could be following the call for Jihad...but perhaps one day you will come accross some writings of some other visionary that says "Life is tough - lest just kill everyone and get it over with so we can all hurry on our way to heaven" - This is what I (rightly) fear - and this is why such irrationaility is dangerous and must be stamped out - otherwise I do fear for us all. I think that life is good - and I don't want you spiritually obsessed nutjobs ruining it for the rest of us. Sure life isn't perfect - but it is an absolute falicy to expect perfection in anything outside of mathamatics. So get over it and deal with it. Don't just keep upping your dose - reality will not change.

[Gavur]

The whole idea about this discussion it seems to me is not about who is right or wrong .
I think both side's have a commonality which is one must know the question before looking for answers.which can only be found within ourselves.
The evolution of the thought process require from us to constantly seek a new way of looking at ourselves and our enviroment in order to reformulate the presicion of the question's we face .1.5 you might be happy with the world as it is or immuned to it ,but some of us are not ,therefore I will continue questioning you might even agree with me on this where the question becomes more significant then any answer.
So why label a fellow questioner a crackpot ? little I read of her today indicates to me she died for her ideal's and she fought with her pen mostly.
You can always not agree with the answers she has on some of her writing's but the question's she tackles is invaluable for any free thinker.
By the way you need to have respect for a figure lots of people believe as their God whether you have one or not !
We can have a discussion without insult's like fairy stories,mythological figure and such .
So what if secularist's have a lot of blood on their hands so do the other religion's you never see us Christian's insult or falsify what secularist's believe in.

[Steph]

Amen to that!

[Nick_A]

1.5

Needless to say you didn't understand anything on the nature of force.

Naturally you could never understand Simone. She wasn't anorexic. It was intentional. If the soldiers and the poor were restricted to rations, she would also in order to understand. This started when she was five and refused sugar. Later it became a way for her to remember suffering so that she can work to help others. We cannot do this which is why holocausts repeat.

If you think Simone is hard to take, I can just imagine you reading the half Armenian extraordinary person known as Gurdjieff.

But now we have your appreciation. How about some others:

Existentialist philosopher Albert Camus in a letter to Weil's mother in 1951 wrote:

"Simone Weil, I still know this now, is the only great mind of our times and I hope that those who realize this have enough modesty to not try to appropriate her overwhelming witnessing.

For my part, I would be satisfied if one could say that in my place, with the humble means at my disposal, I served to make known and disseminate her work whose full impact we have yet to measure."

T.S. Eliot wrote:

"A woman of genius, of a kind of genius akin to that of the saints"

Her appreciation of the Iliad is taught in major universities.

You are not able to understand what it means to really need to understand beyond the secular. It is the calling of the light for the Armenian. It is the recognition that there is life of a far greater quality then we normally have access to because of what we are as fallen creatures. Gurdjieff espressed it so:

“There do exist enquiring minds, which long for the truth of the heart, seek it, strive to solve the problems set by life, try to penetrate to the essence of things and phenomena and to penetrate into themselves. If a man reasons and thinks soundly, no matter which path he follows in solving these problems, he must inevitably arrive back at himself, and begin with the solution of the problem of what he is himself and what his place is in the world around him.”

G. I. Gurdjieff

Simone felt it very early in life and expressed it privately to Father Perrin in a private letter shortly before she died. He had asked to know her better. Fortunately it was put in print:

"At fourteen I fell into one of those fits of bottomless despair that come with adolescence, and I seriously thought of dying because of the mediocrity of my natural faculties. The exceptional gifts of my brother, who had a childhood and youth comparable to those of Pascal, brought my own inferiority home to me. I did not mind having no visible successes, but what did grieve me was the idea of being excluded from that transcendent kingdom to which only the truly great have access and wherein truth abides. I preferred to die rather than live without that truth. After months of inward darkness, I suddenly had the everlasting conviction that any human being, even though practically devoid of natural faculties, can penetrate to the kingdom of truth reserved for genius, if only he longs for truth and perpetually concentrates all his attention upon its attainment. He thus becomes a genius too, even though for lack of talent his genius cannot be visible from outside........................"

Inferiority must be taken with a grain of salt since her older brother Andre became one of the most brilliant mathematicians of the twentieth century and. When Andre was 15, Simone was twelve and they would discuss Greek philosophy in the ancient Greek language.

I do not want to see Armenia lose its depth. Jacob Needleman writes in the intro to his book "The American Soul:"

"Our world, so we see and hear on all sides, is drowning in materialism, commercialism, consumerism. But the problem is not really there. What we ordinarily speak of as materialism is a result, not a cause. The root of materialism is a poverty of ideas about the inner and outer world. Less and less does our contemporary culture have, or even seek, commerce with great ideas, and it is the lack that is weakening the human spirit. This is the essence of materialism. Materialism is a disease of the mind starved for ideas."

I admire the Armenian soul since it is a part of me. I will not stand by innocently and watch it sacrificed for the delights of Burger King.

Did you ever stop to consider that inwardly nurtured and nourished souls could never band together and create a holocaust. Our inner morality would not allow it. But since we are as we are life is as it is and we are governed by force and "prestige." There is no way for starving souls to get beyond it. You don't want to see it which is OK. I prefer to recognize it for what it is.

You think Simone is crazy and I know she is beautiful on the inside. She feels with the heart that only certain special women can have. The hungry soul exists in Armenia and I will help to acknowledge it regardless of how old fashioned it seems.