Religion and the Armenian Genocide

[SoSarkissian]

and now ...

Round 6

DING DING DING

[Nick_A]

SoS

It takes two people to fight and I can only speak for myself but I'm not fighting. I just know That the religious issue is extremely important on several levels. One level that is of direct concern for this site is how Armenians explain the Armenian genocide to its children. What is the healthiest attitude? We know what happened but expanding into the why and its implications is IMO a very serious question.

I agree it is important that the world be made aware of it. I even showed in my dispute with Beliefnet.com how I am trying to make more people aware of it. However I maintain that there is something more than the secular necessary to make sense of it for the future generations.

I am not in favor of meaningless platitudes taking the place of serious honest discussion. I don't mind that 1.5 is being blunt since I know he is being honest. I much prefer that to meaningless feel good speech.

I know that religion will play a role in Armenia's future and in its collective understanding of the genocide. I want it to play the role I know it can, If it means understanding the resistance better, what is so wrong about that?

[Nick_A]

1.5

Yes and so say many. Funny how those who claim this always turn out to be frauds.

Just because a person becomes aware that there is a quality of life something beyond themselves doesn't make them a fraud.

So tell me about heaven. I understand some claim that all get to dine on the finest cavier and duck liver pate. I don't like cavier and duck liver pate...I think I'll pass.

Why do you insist on turning self knowledge into knowledge of heaven? All I've said is that a person cannot begin to become their potential as Socrates described without beginning at the beginning and this beginning is the attempts at self knowledge.

"May the outward and inward man be at one." Socrates

The inner man is in chaos while the outer functions as a conditioned personality in culture. Conditioned personalities can both cure and kill without being conscious of it simply because inner chaos denies sustained consciousness.

“We must prefer real hell to an imaginary paradise.” Simone Weil

First you must learn what hell is like before considering heaven if ones interest is in the experience of "truth."

You seem to value your imagination yet are aware of its difficulties. How do you distinguish between imagination and reality? This is not as easy as it seems other than with the obvious. How many are aware of Simone's remarkable observation here:

"Nothing is so beautiful and wonderful, nothing is so continually fresh and surprising, so full of sweet and perpetual ecstasy, as the good. No desert is so dreary, monotonous, and boring as evil. This is the truth about authentic good and evil. With fictional good and evil it is the other way round. Fictional good is boring and flat, while fictional evil is varied and intriguing, attractive, profound, and full of charm." Simone Weil

From "Morality and Literature,”
an essay published in Cahiers du Sud, January 1944

How many are aware of this much less understand it? But our difficulty with it indicates how limited we are in our perceptions of reality.

They are only exploiting the same waeknesses that your old time religions once did and still do. While I understand and appreciate your nostalgie (and more then this) for the old traditons I see them for what they are - which ultimatly has mcuh less and or little to do with actual belief in supernatural dieties or such. And certainly for you to lable these other "false prophets" is well like calling the kettle black as it were.

Let me put it in terms of Gurdjieff's explanation to Ouspensky in Ouspensky's book "In Search of the Miraculous."

"There are, he said, "two lines along which man's development proceeds, the line of knowledge and the line of being. In right evolution the line of knowledge and the line of being develop simultaneously, parallel to, and helping one another. But if the line of knowledge gets too far ahead of the line of being, or if the line of being gets ahead of the line of knowledge, man's development goes wrong, and sooner or later it must come to a standstill.
"People understand what 'knowledge' means. And they understand the possibility of different levels of knowledge. They understand that knowledge may be lesser or greater, that is to say, of one quality or of another quality. But they do not understand this in relation to 'being.' 'Being,' for them, means simply 'existence' to which is opposed just 'nonexistence.' They do not understand that being or existence may be of very different levels or categories. Take for instance the being of a mineral and of a plant. It is a different being. The being of a plant and of an animal is again a different being. The being of an animal and of a man is a different being. But the being of two people can differ from one another more than the being of a mineral and of an animal. This is exactly what people do not understand. And they do not understand that knowledge depends on being. Not only do they not understand this latter, but they definitely do not wish to understand it. And especially in Western culture it is considered that a man may posses great knowledge, for example he may be an able scientist, make discoveries, advance science, and at the same time he may be, and has the right to be, a petty, egoistic, caviling, mean, envious, vain, naive, and absent-minded man. It seems to be considered here that a professor must always forget his umbrella everywhere.

"And yet it is his being. And people think that his knowledge does not depend on his being. People of the Western culture put great value on the level of a man's knowledge but they do not value the level of a man's being and are not ashamed of the low level of their own being.

"If knowledge gets far ahead of being, it becomes theoretical and abstract and inapplicable to life, or actually harmful, because instead of serving life and helping people the better to struggle with the difficulties they meet, it begins to complicate man's life, brings new difficulties into it, new troubles and calamities which were not there before.

"The reason for this is that knowledge which is not in accordance with being cannot be large enough for, or sufficiently suited to, man's real needs. It will always be a knowledge of one thing together with ignorance of another thing; a knowledge of the detail without a knowledge of the whole; a knowledge of the form without a knowledge of the essence."

Efforts to "Know Thyself" are efforts related to our "being." The scale of being is what connects us to the Absolute. What betters our being increases our "understanding." The better we collectively "understand," the more we can put the Armenian Genocide into a perspective beyond the secular that will be meaningful for future generations

[1.5 million]

If only you were talking about something real (in a positive sense) - but your not. Its just hocus pocus. However I fully percieve (and can prove and have proven or at least shown solid examples for) how and why religious belief - such as yours - anyones - is harmful - historically, currently and likely for the future of mankind. And its not as if I really need to try all that hard to disprove your contentions - as contentions not based upon evidence don't really require evidence to refute - yet I have provided some and there are worlds more really and ultimatly you have little to offer but your (baselss0 assertion that you are onto something (heroin) that I am missing out (no thank you)...

And BTW I have more of an understanding of the Armenian Genocide - in all its aspects as well as understanding of how and why it happened then Simone Weil or someone with her shortcommings of historical knowldge and her blinders (a priori [wrong or at best partial] answers) ever will be capable of. Not only do I clearly have a broader realm of thought (not beholden to ideology and preconception) then she but I have more available (intelectual/scholarly) tools at my disposal (including of course the research and analysis of others....). And if you believe that this type of religious based view will provide you insight and answers - well - I won't discount that through any type of introspection aspects of truth and knowledge can be obtained - but to claim to know certain ultimate "answers" that consist of unprovable supernatural entirely self concieved constructs..well a goodly portion of your thinking and conclusions will just be out and out wrong with the validity of the rest in grave doubt.

And in regard to "knowing oneself" - I suggest that a knowlege of biology (including of course genetics as well as physilogy) is paramount, followed by Sociology, Anthropology and Psychology...along with of course - history (in general as well as family and personal history). I have a feeling that there is plenty worthwhile for the person who is interested in understanding and bettering ones self to chew on in just these areas that can bear fruitful results. All of which would be more useful then contemplating what god is trying to tell us or what god wants for us...as these latter things are pure baseless speculation and are without proper structure or foundation...might as well just take that heroin.

And lastly - since you seem to like quotes such as this I leave you with a few

Bertrand Russel:

"Apart from the logical cogency, there is to me something a little odd about the ethical valuations of those who think that an omnipotent, omniscent, and benevolent Diety, after preparing the ground by many millions of years of lifeless nebulae, would consider himself adequatly rewarded by the final emergence of Hitler, Stalin and the H Bomb."

Carl Jung:

"A close study of our holy books reveals that the God of Abraham is a ridiculous fellow - capricious, petulant, and cruel - and one with whom a covenant is little guarantee of health or happiness"

[Steph]

Amen to that.

[SoSarkissian]

SoS

It takes two people to fight and I can only speak for myself but I'm not fighting. I just know That the religious issue is extremely important on several levels. One level that is of direct concern for this site is how Armenians explain the Armenian genocide to its children. What is the healthiest attitude? what is so wrong about that?

I've said it before and I'll say it again ... Religion is un-debatable for majority of mankind ... The only authorized people to debate are those who dedicated their lives to learn the holly books and therefore became religious personals such as; Christian Priests, bishops and archbishops, Muslim Sheikhs, Jew reverent, etc.

Me as a Christian, I know one thing that Jesus preached for 3 years only in his life (from age 30-33) and made the belief spread deep in everyone around him. Where Mohammed the Muslim prophet, he was taking a different approach ... conquering the lands of non-Muslim territories, these conquers were called "Futuhat" ... what I mean by these two example, is that 2 different approaching style and yet the same result, believing in GOD.

For me I preferred the first style and therefore I'm Christian, others would prefer the other style, or even a third style, fourth style, and so on ...

Bottom Line:
-----------------
everyone should ask himself/herself the following two questions;
1. Do you believe in GOD?
2. Do you respect his commandments?

in that case; RESPECT WHOEVER BELIEVES IN ME - GOD said

Each one who talks with some hate against other religions is committing a SIN by disrespecting GOD's command ... one cannot hate another religion that believes in GOD he can only disagree.

If you look at this thread, who is really joining and discussing this thread? can't you tell that its not interesting to the majority that this debate is being dragged this long?

I advice everyone when it comes to religion ... say your thoughts in one decent speech to show and express their own point of view and stop when it feels like it will switch to a debate by saying ... "its your point of view, and i respect all point of views, but I'm sticking to what i know and believe" ... over as simple as that

[1.5 million]

So SoSarkissian - do you respect the beliefs of sucide bombers? What of Turkish Mufti's who emphasised to believers then to kill Armenians was right and just according to their beliefs? If religious belief is not open to questioning then we must accept these behaviors as valid - no?

[1.5 million]

SoSarkissian - if we believe that we must live by the 10 commandments why are you and all other Christians rejecting them? I mean they are not just words right? There are specific punishments for violation of these commandments. How can one be said to be living by the commandments if one is to weak to carry out their demands? How can you choose to not do such? This is moral relativism IMO - and is just the tip of the iceberg.

[SoSarkissian]

So SoSarkissian - do you respect the beliefs of sucide bombers? What of Turkish Mufti's who emphasised to believers then to kill Armenians was right and just according to their beliefs? If religious belief is not open to questioning then we must accept these behaviors as valid - no?

That wasn't Islamic beliefs, in fact Ottomans were never Islam or Muslims, they acted slams, even in today's Turkey; yes they are called Islamic nation, but who really is acting Islam? 5% only ...

Of course I don't agree to what they have done to us! You should know that fact about me till now ...

all I'm saying is that GOD wants us to respect who believes in him, not every Muslim is Muslim ... and not every Christian is Christian ... you know what I mean now ...

I never looked at Turks as Muslims; I always looked at them as barbarians, based on their history and what they have done to us. (excluding 0-5% of today's Turkey who started to see the truth and woke up to yell next to us for justice)....

Regarding the Commandments:
NO ONE can fulfill the 10 commandments not even priests themselves, otherwise we'll be considered saints. We try as much as we can, therefore there is confession which you have to do from time to time, in order GOD know that you tried and you didn't succeed completely and you still believe in him and that you are sorry for your sins and so on ...

I wasn't suppose to write in this thread ... now I’m dragged as well into this religious debate
I'm not going to explain any further so this thread doesn't go on any longer and deeper than this ... I'm off from this thread guys

this is SoSarkissian signing off this thread...

[Nick_A]

SoS

all I'm saying is that GOD wants us to respect who believes in him, not every Muslim is Muslim ... and not every Christian is Christian ... you know what I mean now ...

That's the point. I grew up hearing things like this and it took years before I discoivered that there were actually people that did not just provide superficial answers but ways in which a person can come to grips with these deep questions of life that are the essence of religion.

Any kid with any insight becoming familiar with the Armenian Genocide will sense that there is more to it then either the usual superficial secular or religious answers. I feel for them. Most will have it destroyed in them by efforts of the "Great Beast but some will survive and with a little help, with even the courage to "Annoy the Great Beast" for their own and everyone elses benefit in their search for meaningful answers.

By the "Great Beast," I mean Simone's description:

"The Great Beast is introduced in Book VI of The Republic. It represents the prejudices and passions of the masses. To please the Great Beast you call what it delights in Good, and what it dislikes Evil. In America this is called politics"