Our loyal leftist commenter a.morphous responded to my post of the other day on Homeostasis & Cultural Health with an argument that homosexuals want to be able to marry each other simply because “they are people and want to live like people.”
Not so. They want to be able to marry each other because they want to be able to live like heterosexual people, without ever actually living like heterosexual people.
It should be made clear first that no one is preventing homosexuals from living, simpliciter – no Western state is killing them solely on account of their homosexuality (it’s different in dar al Islam) – and, since they are people, they are ipso facto living like people. No one is making them live like dogs or pigs or raccoons.
So homosexuals are not agitating for the right to marry each other in order to escape some egregious oppression that prevents them from living human lives. The reason homosexuals want all of us to say that they can marry each other is that they want to be treated *as if* they were living like heterosexuals, without the irksome requirement of actually living like heterosexuals. No one is preventing them from going ahead and living like heterosexuals, of course. But they don’t want to do that. No; they just want everyone to say that homosexuals are really no different from heterosexuals, and ought therefore to be treated the same way that heterosexuals are treated, in every respect. This despite the fact that (as they are convinced) they really are different, and despite the fact that their difference is crucially important to them, in that (so they feel) it makes them what they are: homosexuals, rather than heterosexuals.
Andrew Sullivan, perhaps the most thoughtful advocate of homosexual marriage, has written that, “Including homosexuals within marriage would be a means of conferring the highest form of social approval imaginable.” [Same Sex Marriage, Pro & Con: A Reader, page xxiv]
But it’s no good. It can’t be done. Heterosexuals – especially heterosexual men – can forebear to express their disgust at homosexual sex, but they cannot stop feeling it. If they could, they would, for then they’d be indifferent about the sex of their lovers, and so able to venture forth in search of some homosexual sex, which is much easier to come by than the heterosexual sort. But this won’t happen, because heterosexuals don’t want homosexual sex. They find it revolting. That’s what makes them heterosexuals. This will prevent them from expressing any genuine, honest approval of homosexual sex. And this will ruin the approval that homosexuals hope will be conferred on their perversion by legalization of homosexual marriage. They won’t get approval; they’ll get “approval.”
As I said in the post where a.morphous made his comment, no one is ever really fooled by such linguistic or legal circumlocutions and euphemisms. Whatever it is that homosexuals will get when homosexual marriage becomes the law of the land – as seems likely to happen this summer, when the Supreme Court takes up the matter – it won’t be the true and honest social approval for their arrangements that is given to real marriage, and that they so want. None of the actual, ineluctable differences between heterosexuality and homosexuality will be changed by the legal fiction. Thus it won’t be homosexual relations that are ennobled by the new PC code; rather, the term “marriage,” and all the social appurtenances thereto, will be debased, in exactly the way that currency is debased by artificial inflation.
When that happens, truly married couples may need to find a way to signal to their fellows that they are truly married. Some new differentiator will perhaps arise, that will enable everyone to tell who is married and who is only “married.” The fad of Covenant Marriage among Evangelicals is a gesture in this direction. The problem with it is that (so far as I know) there is no sign by which couples bound by a covenant of marriage can signal their state to their fellows, the way that the wedding ring is now beginning to signal only “marriage.” If there were, it would be quickly copied by “married” homosexual couples, and lose its usefulness to the truly married.
The sad reality – sad for homosexuals, given how much they’ve poured into this campaign – is that once homosexual “marriage” is legal, everyone will look at them as they walk along together and know that their wedding rings signify that they are only “married,” because everyone will know, just as they now do, that they are homosexuals. Perhaps, then, the truly married will need no special sign. People will look at them, walking along, and know that they are heterosexual, and so their wedding rings will signal that they are married, rather than “married.”
The whole rigmarole of the campaign for homosexual marriage will then be found to have been in vain. Homosexuals will know this, of course – they are no easier to fool with polite dissimulations than anyone else – and they will find that they still feel just as bad about not being treated as if they were heterosexuals as they ever did. So they’ll start some new campaign to assuage their feelings of deprivation.
It’s a hopeless project. It can’t succeed. There’s no way anyone can honestly, truly treat homosexuals as if they were heterosexuals, because, hello, they just aren’t heterosexuals.
This dynamic is not special to homosexuals. It is not a form of discrimination aimed only at them; so it would be inapposite for them to feel singled out. The same dynamic is at work, for example, in respect to intelligence. As heterosexuals tend to live longer, healthier, happier lives and have more and more successful children than homosexuals, so intelligent people tend to do better in life, along all dimensions, than unintelligent people. They also tend to earn college degrees; so a college degree has been a sign of intelligence. The Egalitarian Establishment wants everyone to be successful, so it has for decades been laboring mightily to make it possible for absolutely everyone to have a college degree, as though the degree itself could confer intelligence and success (it’s a cargo cult). These nobly intended efforts have not changed anything for young people except to increase their cost of entering the labor force and decrease the value of their college degree, and its usefulness as a signifier of above average intelligence. The Bachelor’s degree now signifies what a high school degree did in 1960, and a middle school degree in 1910. It has been inflated. It is useless. Bachelor’s degrees are a dime a dozen. Only STEM degrees are any use at all to employers, or therefore to students.
Thus we may feel confident that in twenty years or so there will have begun a massive government campaign to ensure that everyone who wants to earn a Ph.D. can do so, and the debasement of the Ph.D. will have picked up even more steam than it already has.
This ratchet is good for academic employment, I suppose, but it’s bad for academic compensation and prestige (except for the academic bureaucrats, of course).
The War on Poverty, the push to equalize compensation for women, and the effort to make women just as effective in combat as men are other examples of this dynamic. They cannot succeed, so long as some people are less enterprising than others, and so long as women want to take time off from working in order to raise their children, and so long as women are weaker than men. I.e., they cannot ever succeed. They are at war with reality; and reality wins such wars, every single time.
Reality will win the war over homosexual marriage, too. The West may “valorize” it by making it legal, may even force people to “approve” of it. But this “approval” will be no more real than the “money” that the Soviet regime used to pay its employees, or the “work” they did. It will all be a pretense, a Potemkin village. And sooner or later it will blow away in a stiff wind, just like the USSR. In the meantime it will cost us plenty of misery and hassle and money, to be sure, and many lives will be ruined. It will be a disaster, as falsehood ever is. But then, that’s why it will eventually fall apart. Eventually the horse of “marriage” will be lying there, dead, and no amount of flogging will keep it going. At that point, there will be nothing to do, but bury it.
The Orthosphere 
Absolutely beautiful realtalk. Simple and effective.
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I think in the end, sodomites will be shocked at just how quickly men in particular return to their old attitudes. But… but… the polls said they supported us!
No, the polls tell you what people are comfortable to say. Kristor is very right in that this is a project doomed to failure akin to the Soviet economy. The question is what comes after that for those inclined towards sodomy. I would therefore caution them as they debase the culture, further entrench themselves with the despised authorities of our time, are involved in numerous child sex scandals (see founder of Human Rights Campaign), and generally try to make life hell for anyone who openly disagrees with them…
Hate crime legislation ceases to exist in anarchy, as do its protections.
As Henry Sumner Maine put it, democracy is inverted monarchy. Under monarchy the culture magnifies the differences that separate men, so the nobility, and the king in particular, appear to be almost another species. Under democracy the culture minimizes, and ultimately denies these differences. It is maintained that there is no essential difference between the sexes, the races, the sexualities, the classes, etc. The differences are only apparent, and so it is supposed that they can be eliminated by fiddling with appearances.
When a culture magnifies something to make it appear better, greater, finer than it actually is, that thing becomes “magnificent.” The word does not properly mean wonderful. It means magnified, inflated, puffed up, boosted. We are all familiar with the magnificence of monarchy, but what you are describing is the magnificence of democracy.
The magnificence of democracy consists of endless shams wherein lesser things are boosted and passed off as greater things. A high school degree is made magnificent by calling it a bachelor’s degree, and a bachelor’s degree in media studies is made magnificent by pretending that all bachelor’s degrees are the same.
I think it is only fair to point out that homosexuals aren’t the first to contract sham marriages. I’m afraid I have myself connived in what were, in fact, magnificent fornications.
JMSmith:
Exactly right. That is what makes “gay marriage” into a kind of step backward for progressives: unlike the heterosexual sham which came before, it is impossible for the homosexual sham to maintain outward appearances. Heterosexual serial fornicators can easily maintain the outward appearance of marriage, thereby partaking parasitically in its deontological status. Homosexual fornicators, not so much. Homosexual “marriage” is the part where the hemorrhagic fever becomes so acute that the liquified interior starts bursting through the skin: where the bugs infecting the interior burst forth to crawl on the surface.
And a happy MLK day to you.
Here’s the thing: we live in what we might as well call a cosmopolitan society, which necessitates living with people who may have different tastes and lifestyles and even moral codes than we do. Even in America, in which a good chunk of the populace likes to pretend otherwise, this is the case. At this point, most of us have learned tolerance for homosexuals (driven in large part by likable publicly gay celebrities like Ellen deGeneres and Neil Patrick Harris — which may be a dumb reason for change, but there it is). It may only be “approval” and not approval but that is all society needs to function. If you want to exclude gays from your church picnic, knock yourself out, it is legal rights they are after, not your wholehearted approval.
I really do wish there was a way to bet on what the future will be like.
I also do not understand this notion that the institution of marriage is threatened by people wanting to extend its definition so they can participate in it. I’m also not sure why I should care. It would seem to me that the high divorce rate or the number of children born out of wedlock is a much greater threat. But who cares? Institutions are to serve humanity, not the other way around.
The high divorce rate and number of children out of wedlock are largely a result of people changing the “definition” of marriage in a way that made “gay marriage” seem like common sense to people. Gay marriage is just the reductio of something that has already happened. If you want to see the results of this historical scale disaster just look at what has become of African American culture. This would seem the day to do it. When last did the West see such a culturally degraded people or such a speedy cultural collapse?
Some of us still have a dream, a. morphous.
“When last did the West see such a culturally degraded people or such a speedy cultural collapse?”
Never. As a Spenglerite, I believe that is how it should be. A man only dies once, same for a civilization.
When I was a boy, two spinsters lived in the house down the street. They both taught physical education at the college and were very active in the Girl Scouts. They were also active in my parent’s church and customarily joined my family for thanksgiving dinner. I now suppose they were in a Boston Marriage, although I came to this supposition on my own, as the domestic arrangements of the two spinsters were universally regarded as their own affair. The two spinsters did not ask for public recognition of their private arrangements and the public did not ask what those private arrangements might be. If there had been a scandal in the locker room or at the Girl Scout camp, their private arrangements would have been brought to light, but as there never was, they never were. When the first of the two spinsters was dying, there was nothing to prevent her friend visiting the hospital, and when she at last died, she bequeathed her share of the house to her friend.
This sort of tolerance was the rule throughout the United States until about thirty years ago. The tolerance for male homosexuals may have been lower, but if two bachelors who liked to cook moved in together, no one asked about their sleeping arrangements. I suppose there must have been, dwelling in my old home town, about a hundred homosexual men in their prime. Yet only one attracted public notice, so far as I recall, and that was after he fondled a young boy.
Sexual nonconformists could be persecuted under this old regime, but persecution is hard work, so mostly they weren’t. The biggest sexual scandal in the village during my boyhood was, in fact, the affairs of an adulterous dentist who was reputed to be in an open marriage. And the village was probably right about that. The adulterous dentist and his open marriage were a greater social menace that the two old spinsters and their Boston marriage. The adulterous dentist may have been a greater social menace than the homosexual pedophile, since naughty scoutmasters had been with us always and adulterous dentists in open marriages were something new.
“[H]omosexual men” is a diabolically false liberal social construction.
There is simply no such thing as a man who is sexually averse to females and then sexually attracted to males.
“I really do wish there was a way to bet on what the future will be like.”
There is. It’s called betting. In fact that might be the definition of betting, staking a claim on what the future will look like.
Marriage pertains to communal regulation of the reproductive act. In so doing, this signals the community’s interest in the reproductive act, and the overwhelming interest in the result of the act–continuation of the collective, or bloodline. Homosexuals are not being excluded from anything. Rather, they are simply not engaging in the conduct subject to the regulation.
In the past, marriage has not been thought to be the licensing of love. And rightly so. The community has no legitimate interest in interpersonal commitments, simply in and of themselves.
So gay “marriage” threatens marriage with complete destruction, in its very definition and teleological orientation. Continuing the community’s bloodline, as a separate interest worthy of focus, is really what is being targeted here.
Tolerance is neither “approval” nor approval, but something less than either.
Regardless, as the quote from Andrew Sullivan attests – many others could be adduced – it is not tolerance that homosexual advocates want, nor “approval,” but true, honest, hearty approval, without the scare quotes. It is such approval that they hope to win by legal fiat. They can’t get it, because 98% of people find homosexual sex disgusting, no matter what they say about what the law should be.
Alcoholism is legal, but no one approves of it; even alcoholics disapprove of it.
The question arises irresistibly to the mind: why do homosexuals want approval for their homosexual acts in the first place? The man convinced his acts are right does not look to the approval of others as a validation for his moral reasoning, except insofar as, finding it missing, he wonders whether he might not have erred, and ought to correct his moral arguments. It is only the man who knows deep down that there is something whacked in his moral constitution who looks to the approval of others for reassurance that he is on the right track after all. If your behavior does not win wide approval, indeed if it is not considered truly excellent by your society, then you almost certainly stand in need of moral reformation.
Such is the real situation of homosexuals. The overwhelming majority of their compatriots think their behavior is revolting, and lying about that fact is not going to change it. It is only going to introduce a massive slug of noise into the social discourse; a lie to which all citizens will be forced to agree, somehow, at least in part, and at least with their money if not with their lips.
You capture the attitude of the left so precisely, so succinctly! Divorce and illegitimacy are indeed much worse problems than homosexuality, because they are so much more prevalent. They afflict almost half the population, whereas homosexuality ruins very few lives. In a population of 300 million, divorce and illegitimacy wound 150 million people, and the sequelae hurt virtually everyone, while homosexuality ruins only about 6 million.
With the left, you respond: who cares?
The Dutch philosopher Andreas Kinneging has a good discussion of toleration in his collection of essays The Geography of Good and Evil. Kinneging argues that toleration is a virtue, but a minor virtue that a man is seldom in a position to exhibit. To be tolerant of a behavior, he writes, one must (a) disapprove of the behavior and (b) have the ability to suppress the behavior. It one does’t meet both conditions, one is not being tolerant. If one doesn’t meet condition (a), one approves or is indifferent to the behavior. He makes it very clear that a man who “does not care” about a behavior is in no sense “tolerant” of that behavior. If one doesn’t meet condition (b), one is resigned, not tolerant.
I tolerate my children making noise while I am trying to read (at least sometimes I do), but the range of my toleration is no greater than the range of my power. Beyond that range I suffer those things I disapprove in a spirit of resignation. If one applies Kinneging’s standards about ninety-eight percent of boasted toleration disappears in a puff of smoke.
The word toleration should probably be used only to describe a state that declines to use its police power to suppress a behavior of which it disapproves. A state with an established church could truly “tolerate” separatists because it meets the criterion of disapproval (it has an approved church) and the criterion of power. The liberal state actually shows less tolerance because it is actually indifferent to most of the behaviors it allegedly tolerates.
I have heard that from leftists many times. “Marriage is already ruined, so let’s do gay marriage!” What the hell kind of argument is that? “My child has already been abused and molested, so let’s do necrophilo-cannibalism!”
Kristor-Thank you. This is precisely the impossible goal of the gay agenda-to have people, in their hearts approve of their behavior because they cannot at heart approve of their own behavior. Their illusion is that if the whole world approves of them, they will as well.
It may only be “approval” and not approval but that is all society needs to function. If you want to exclude gays from your church picnic, knock yourself out, it is legal rights they are after, not your wholehearted approval.
When has that ever been enough? I don’t see it stopping until wholehearted approval is obtained.
There is no such thing as a union of self-annihilators. And no matter whether one chooses self-annihilation or is born a self-annihilator, he cannot be one to maintain or advance, either as an individual or as a “union,” any institution especially one whose very essence is creation of new life.
The diabolical pursuit of “gay marriage” is in asserting the false equivalency of self-annihilator = procreator.
Institutions are to serve humanity? Not to those who know marriage as a sacrament.
It seems to me that Mark 10 indicates that marriage was made for man. Consider also Mark 2:27:
And he said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”
Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper for our benefit as well.
Having said that, I might misunderstand what you mean by service.
You don’t understand how marriage is threatened by people who want to extend its definition to include themselves? Are you referring to sodomitical “marriage” exclusively, or to every and all deviant “lifestyle” under the sun?
For once, I agree with a.morphous. Just cause some deluded idiot thinks the sky is green and the fields are blue doesn’t affect the integrity of the colors of the field and sky, does it? Then why would sodomitical pairings threaten actual marriage?
The point is that no healthy, normal civilization would even have this debate anymore than a healthy, normal person would debate the colors of the sky and the field.
It affects it when he seeks legislation (or judicial fiat) that everyone else must agree to his delusion, and treat the delusion as reality. It affects it by given approval to the notion that objective reality does not exist – that we can change reality by fiat. In that sense, it damages far more than the institution of marriage, it damages the ability to comprehend the nature of reality itself. It may not be the only or most forceful agent of damage, but then, each individual straw doesn’t weigh much either – that still doesn’t prevent the straw from adding weight.
Well, unfortunately, people like a.morphous are not confined to asylums. Many people are as delusional and idiotic as him. Just admit, the West is on it’s last legs. Trying to save the West only preserves the decadence for a little while longer. Stop trying to prevent the inevitable and just let it collapse. Rebuild from the ashes.
Gotham is not worth saving.
Point well taken, Svar. And I agree. However, my comment to the formless one’s claim wasn’t intended as a defense of the existing forms of sham marriage against the latest, greatest version(s) of same. I was merely pointing out (although I admittedly didn’t do a very good job of it) the ridiculousness of his claim on its face. ‘Course that is assuming (as I probably shouldn’t do) that a.morphous isn’t as yet so far gone that the Unprincipled Exception won’t at some point rear its head with him on this whole question of what the term “marriage” means. Perhaps when people start “marrying” their pet monkeys or some such. Who knows?
The only thing that is needed for society to function is for all of us to “approve” of men who want to “marry” monkeys.
@ Terry Morris
Oh yes, I know. But I feel that conservatives should freak out too much about things like gay “marriage”. It gives the whole issue too much importance that it needs to have. And it reeks of missing the rotting, decaying forest for the homosexual tree. We are in a point in time where people don’t know the meaning of sex, love, or marriage. I just feel that conservatives are being decadent(to paraphrase Spengler). It seems like keeping an 80 year old man on life support until he’s 95. The West is on it’s last legs. It must die so something better can arise. Imagine if the Roman Empire never fell and we lived on after the period of Nero and Caligula and horse-mongling. The West would have never arisen and we would be really miserable and probably members of a underground Christian sect. In the same way, I feel conservatives are preventing the ultimate end of liberalism(which is basically like a form of civilizational cancer): civilization death followed by rebirth from the ruins.
@ Kristor
Are you saying what I think you’re saying? That we facetiously promote more and more ridiculous sexual deviancy to hasten the end? If so, I agree. I don’t believe in voting but I were to vote, I’ll vote for the most radical liberal Democrat every single time. If the people don’t wake up, they are not worth saving.
Romulus and Remus, two orphaned survivors from the Trojan civilization, forged the Roman one. It’s the natural way for civilizations.
No, I wasn’t saying that. I was joshing. It’s evil to do evil, period full stop. Things may get worse before they get better, but we can’t make things better by making them worse.
Kristor, right. Svar’s Machiavellian strategy doesn’t strike me as particularly Christian or morally upright either. Conscience wouldn’t permit me to embrace or otherwise engage such a tactic, but I’m certainly not opposed to abstaining from the fraudulent electoral process as a legitimate form of protest. Not that I think it will do any good.
Terry – I have constantly maintained throughout my advocacy that Christian Reactionaries are limited by the Moral Law. Thus, I do not think we have any license to throw in with the Modernists just to hasten their destruction. However, controversially to some I do not condemn most of the actions of groups like Army of God, which would be evil outside of the context in which they are committed.
Passivity cannot be justified by any Christian awake to the Modern world, but seeking justice seems a better pursuit than helping our enemy slip the noose around their neck. And I feel that we are entering a period where there will be a wide array of options open for Christians to cut themselves off from society and begin the fightback.
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All in all, Kristor, while I agree, there I have two points of disagreement: the first being that heterosexual men are more disgusted by homosexuality and sodomy than heterosexual women. Heterosexual women are found to be far more disgusted of the act and behavior than men and it seems to be even more deeply visceral than with men. And this goes for all women from ultra-conservative Christian girls to hardcore secular liberal girls. I think this is due to the fact that (young) men tend to make shock jokes as a coping mechanism for things that disturb them and eventually the shock wears off while women tend to retreat into a protective bubble.
The second is more in line with Zippy’s comment. Personally, I feel that sodomites are small fish and are a symptom of a greater and deeper rot than the cause of anything. Sodomarriage is not going to destroy society or civilization. The reality is that society and civilization were already in the gutter and that’s why we find it necessary to indulge in the delusions of others and maybe even pick up the delusions for ourselves. In other words, if liberalism was syphilis, sodomarriage would be the syphilitic sores.
Over all, sodomites are to be pitied at best and held in contempt at worst but they do not deserve hatred (general statement, I don’t believe this article is hateful). It’s their enablers and pushers that we need to go after. Either way, I have personally taken a strong “Enjoy the Decline” approach to this and other weird degenerate nonsense that the leftists are pushing in our Cosmopolitan Circus of a country. My attitude towards sodomites and transsexuals and other deviants is like that of freak show observer, I find them amusing. What really gets my ire would be adulterers and polygamists. Heterosexual deviants are far, far worse than homosexuals and are extremely destructive.
I think in summation, one could say the following.
1) Sodomites are criminals of the Moral Law, and thus in a sane, Traditional society, their activity would carry civil penalty, as it has done in the past in Traditional Christian civilization
2) We do not live in a Traditional society, we live in a Modern society, and as Reactionaries see the overthrowing of the current order as political goal #1
3) Anyone opposed to overthrowing Modern society to replace it with a Traditional society is an enemy, with particular scorn given not to the peon-like civilians, but the elites who are entrenched, wealthy, obscenely decadent, and politically influential in various sectors
4) Enemies of Tradition are to be afforded no favor and no sympathy, for they have defied God and set themselves against Him. We are His servants. They serve not only different gods, but an Age of Lies.
I would say we live in a godless society; but you may call it Modern if you like.
And by the way, I am embarked on a study of the Revelation of John. It seems that the beast from the sea, of Revelation 13:1-10, is the civil government — the devil’s tool to persecute the church.
Modernity is inherently godless, going by the true sense of the word ‘God’.
Look at it this way
The Muslims of the Middle East have declared war to kill the Christian bodily.
The Moderns of the West have declared war to kill the Christian spiritually.
There is absolutely no reason to oppose these two in different measure or totality, and to do so is actually to betray an over-attachment to the physical world and your bodily life. Both are incarnations of evil set against us. Both must be extinguished or otherwise removed from ANY position of authority over us by which they may pursue their maniacal ends. In this cause, we restore Traditional Christian civilization.
As per your 1:17am reply: By what authority do you propose to “extinguish” or “otherwise remove[] from any position of authority over us . . . “?
By whose authority? Yours? Your colleagues in spirit, if not also in arms?
Where is YOUR authority?
I think you’re giving sodomites more importance than they need. As long as they are staying away from children and youths and staying in the closet, I do not feel the importance of trying to hunt down fairies for more problematic criminals.
I am, of course, talking from a civil perspective. Sodomy does break the Moral Law but does a finite limited worldy government need to spend resources and manpower on homosexuals? I’m more concerned with having usurers and war-mongerers up.
Also, I don’t agree we can go back and nor should we. We can only go forward. I just fail to see how sodomarriage and trannies and other freaks are progressive. I’m not a utopian, but I’m a Spenglerite/Evolan. What’s needed is a new golden era, a new civilization forged from the inevitable death of the West like how the West came from Rome and Rome from Troy.
I’m not entirely sure how a question of authority would be pertinent here. It reminds me of those questioning who gave Vladimir Putin the authority to seize control of the Crimean peninsula… well, historically you do kind of reach the end of the ladder of authority. Was Putin expected to have asked the UN?
We are talking about an ideological conflict here, correct? Three ideologies in conflict with one another.
Christianity (Tradition)
Modernity
Islam (Tradition)
And so these ideologies have been locked in battle for some time. I think you would agree with that, looking at things such as the Crusades, the Grand Jihads, and the French Revolution as the bloodier examples of such an ideological conflict, all of which were justified through their specific background ideology.
I understand this may be difficult to comprehend if you’re still working into Reactionary thought, but this is seen in very much a macro scale. We’re not talking tit for tat here. Traditional Christian Civilization existed, and was declared war upon by both of these other ideologies. One conquered in the political realm, the other has wreaked havoc on the stretch of geography it has retained sway in.
To defend the political view that Christian Reactionaries believe is just and correct, they must be in opposition to both of the above forces. If you want a justification, it is that I believe Christianity to be true and Christian Traditionalism to be the most desirable form of government. One might call this the authority of truth over lies. Of course, the Muslim and the Modern will claim the same thing about their own sets of ideas.
This has been going on for a long time now in various forms. It should not really come as a surprise to anyone, whatever side of this three-sided die they happen to be on. You do acknowledge the Church is under persecution, so it puzzles me that you seem to be questioning whether there is a battle joined here. There clearly is. The world is not at peace, and Christians are the victims of much of its scorn and violence.
@Svar
You raise fair points. Out of interest, who would you regard as important? Not naming names of course, but which group of individuals in the elite echelons of Modernity would you say rank highest on the importance scale?
Hunting down such people typically who are criminalized proves impossible and fruitless, however this is not the purpose of any law. Laws serve myriad purposes, one of which is deterrent. Adultery, usury, theft, sodomy, bestiality, pornography: the criminalization of all of these and more has been suitable for Traditional societies of the Christian nature. I do not doubt there was sodomy in the Medieval period, but due to the law it was not out in the open and its practitioners were never raised up out of the sewage as they are today. In short, it did not influence society.
Your final paragraph I am in absolute agreement with and I think this is destiny, though I feel we play a key role in this destiny so should not sit around gazing at the stars. Whenever anyone in this medium speaks of “going back” there is a bit of nuance there. What is meant is, “a return to the World of Tradition”, not a specific mimicry of some idealized society in some place or time. Evola sees this dichotomy between the Modern World and the World of Tradition which have a relationship non-temporal in nature even though from our perspective one precedeth the other. They are better seen as metaphysical realities that can be interfaced with depending on how the society is structured (possibly among other things), and so our goal is to interface with the World of Tradition and disconnect from the Modern World, which could just accurately be described as the absence of the World of Tradition, as if we have pulled away from it.
The ‘Golden Age’ of tomorrow will not be identical to anything that has come before, but it will have many things in common with Traditional societies and very little in common with Modern societies.
“You raise fair points. Out of interest, who would you regard as important? Not naming names of course, but which group of individuals in the elite echelons of Modernity would you say rank highest on the importance scale?”
1. Global Capitalists/Usurers/Money-Changers like George Soros
2. Activists/Chattering Classes
3. Predatory elements like pornographers
Those are the three I can think of now.
“Your final paragraph I am in absolute agreement with and I think this is destiny, though I feel we play a key role in this destiny so should not sit around gazing at the stars. Whenever anyone in this medium speaks of “going back” there is a bit of nuance there. What is meant is, “a return to the World of Tradition”, not a specific mimicry of some idealized society in some place or time. Evola sees this dichotomy between the Modern World and the World of Tradition which have a relationship non-temporal in nature even though from our perspective one precedeth the other. They are better seen as metaphysical realities that can be interfaced with depending on how the society is structured (possibly among other things), and so our goal is to interface with the World of Tradition and disconnect from the Modern World, which could just accurately be described as the absence of the World of Tradition, as if we have pulled away from it.”
Well looks like we agree. I don’t necessarily believe in the concept of destiny since I believe heavily in free will. My feelings towards the Death of the West is similar to the thought of the death of a person: it’s something I feel is inevitable due to the nature of organisms. They are born, they live, they die. At the same time, there is a Ragnarokesque element to fighting against the tide. I personally can’t decide if I should resist the inevitable or hasten the inevitable so that we can have a fresh start sooner than later. Batman or Bane.
The ‘Golden Age’ of tomorrow will not be identical to anything that has come before, but it will have many things in common with Traditional societies and very little in common with Modern societies.”
We are definitely of the same mind on that Svar.
I actually debated that very point with someone over at Bruce Charlton’s blog. I conclude that neither option is really credibly.
We cannot save what is at its root corrupt.
Nor are we really of enough influence to hasten its death in any way that would be worth the time spent on it.
Instead, I look at the two manifestations of true manhood, asceticism and heroism. While Modernity is still the unquestionably dominant force and has not yet gone into a death spiral, we should be the ascetic, contemplative and apart from its machinations, living on the outside and observing it. However, when the death spiral begins and the systems buckle and break, then the heroic side of man will reveal itself and action will be undertaken to ensure a future for Christian peoples of the future. As you note below in your comment to Debra S, the threat of this foreign religion, Islam, makes this all the more important.
Post-Modernity cannot be left to savages like ISIS. We relinquish out duty if we allow it to be so.
In a sense, a Golden Age of Tomorrow would share much of the same substance of a Golden Age of Yesterday, although the accidents may be quite different.
I don’t think anybody’s mind is likely to changed by further exchange on this topic, so good luck with your plan to remake society along the lines of 1950 or 1350 or whatever. I think it’s about as relevant to actual politics as the activities of people who like to dress up for the Renaissance Faire.
I’m sure similar things were said to Robespierre… and look how much of his world he was able to tear down. I hazard a guess that your world is made of far weaker stuff than his was.
And how exactly is 1950 or 1350 worse than the freakshow you want to replace it with?
Strawman, much?
Amusing. “I have seen the future, and it works,” eh?
Remember, he was not going to further exchange ideas, so he presented as a parting shot a non-idea, that non-idea being “something something 1950’s something something 1350’s” which is a very common non-idea presented by our superiors who have so many superior ideas and non-ideas all the dang time.
“I think it’s about as relevant to actual politics as the activities of people who like to dress up for the Renaissance Faire.”
See here: http://www.glibberal.com/gay-pride-parade-san-francisco
Here: http://www.localnomad.com/en/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/sao-paulo-gay-pride-parade.jpg
And here: http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.operawarhorses.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2013%2F05%2F3671270379_4809d59152-e1369602341457.jpg&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.operawarhorses.com%2F2013%2F05%2F27%2Fsummertime-vacation-destinations-for-enjoying-opera-part-1-san-francisco-in-june-and-early-july%2F&docid=R0LE9LNXkmCjgM&tbnid=SjvBfQeKWL7VcM%3A&w=425&h=283&ei=Vra9VLnHMYWyggSf6oDQDg&ved=0CAIQxiAwAA&iact=c
The great lesson taught by Jacques Derrida: What can be constructed can be deconstructed.
Precisely. I am perplexed by these people who seem to think that the Enlightenment just goes on forever, that in spite of over 2000 years of political tumult, something immunizes the ideals of today from questioning or overthrow.
I mean, they might have a point if we were talking about Nazi Germany here, where men had martial discipline and were willing to die and slave for their state ideology… but liberalism isn’t that, in fact it has expressly rejected that path. Liberalism has seen the rise of the dumbest, most clueless and self-absorbed generation in history. Growing numbers do not participate in its lauded ‘political process’. Its economies once pillars of strength are now nothing more than craft paper wrapped around an invisible edifice. Its a population of people who wouldn’t survive one week without the internet, electricity, some form of government handout in many cases.
Almost every single measure of societal health is on a downward trajectory in the West, and those few that aren’t are only on an upward trajectory due to something even worse going on at a deeper level.
My fear is not that Modernity might survive. It’s that Islam might seize what is ours when its lumbering corpse finally keels over.
to Mark at 1:59am, who writes:
“If you want a justification, it is that I believe Christianity to be true and Christian Traditionalism to be the most desirable form of government.”
Christianity is true — and the only reality. “Jesus Christ, in whom we live and move and have our being.” “My God will supply all your need according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.” Our chief need is forgiveness and the SURE hope of heaven. And so on.
But Christians are sojourners on earth. Their true home is in heaven. And too many of us are remarkably like liberals in our efforts to immanentize the eschaton, as Voegelin coined the term: to make of earth our heaven.
Mark: It just ain’t gonna happen. This world is Satan’s domain. Work as you are called to do through the means given to you in these later days of a free society; work to elect Godly leaders; work to end the killing of babies in the womb; work to silence the open-society gay liberation armies who are also the tools of those who seek one-world government; and work mostly to proclaim the Gospel of forgiveness through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ.
But don’t imagine that traditional mores, those that mirror the decalogue, will ever again visit our shores. And no: reactionism in and of itself is not an authority to follow.
The powers that be are ordained of God. Romans 13. Yes: God uses evil governments, even, for his purpose: which is to benefit his church and bring his children safely home to heaven.
Debra, look at Mark’s comment to TFB. He has a valid point, just because we have a Savior doesn’t mean we are to abandon the responsibilities of this world. North Africa, the land of St. Augustine became overrun with Saracens and completely lost to Christendom. Imagine a world long after your passing where your descendants are Islamic. That is why the issues of this world matter as well.
This reminds me of a conversation I had last night with a friend. He’s a Catholic like me and many of the Catholic and Protestant Christian college campus-based communities went out on Saturday to march for the pro-life cause, for the end of abortion. I didn’t go and I told my friend why. I told him that I am pro-life but I believe marching doesn’t do anything, the whole cultural zeitgeist is against us and the end of legalized abortion is just not politically feasible. I believe my energy is best utilized on more viable targets.
Debra, I fully respect this position and it is one I think most Christians take, consciously or not. They buckle under and suffer, in many countries they even die. They are martyrs.
I am aware that heaven is not of this world, but heaven is not what I am trying to bring about. No Reactionary is a utopianist. He seeks only a restoration of Tradition, and he knows there will still be problems to contend with as there have always been in history. You bring up the slaughter of the unborn. My God, what crime could be worse? Could any of Islam’s multiple atrocities come close to matching the landfills it would take to house the corpses of children that the Modern world has churned out?
With regard to the decalogue, I want to be very clear I am NOT a Christian Reconstructionist. I believe this view is biblically unsound and uninformed. The World of Tradition is more broad and covers many many types of civilizations, most of them not Christian in character, of course that is a prerequisite for me though.
Now, I take it from what you say that you believe these are the end-times? The coming of the Son is near and we should await his imminent return? That is a respectable viewpoint and one that can be backed up strongly with evidence and argumentation.
I however look at it like this: if we are in the end times, then whatever happens is for naught, our enemies will be brought before God’s judgment from which there is no escape. Such is the penalty for having rejected the Son. Our actions this close to the time are irrelevant for there is no future we can control. There isn’t time.
BUT, if we are not… if this is just the end of a cycle, and the end times are actually impossibly distant in the future for us, at the end of another cycle to come, then I feel it a worthwhile goal to be a committed Reactionary and to do all I can to bring about a civilization where Christian children do not have to live in fear, where babies are not murdered for convenience, where perversity is not celebrated, where virtue, purity, and good faith are promoted by the social bonds we subscribe to when we make a society.
Debra, I believe we are facing something catastrophic. I believed from all I have seen and studied that global civilization faces imminent disintegration to a multitude of forces.
Perhaps this will reach its finality in the Second Coming and all will be well. But what if it is not? What if the Lord is not due to come yet, and we have not prepared for what comes next. I dread to think what might happen. Prudence tells me to make plans, even if there is a large chance that those plans are for nothing.
What “prepar[ation] for what comes next” do you propose? I stated clearly that we are to act in a manner consistent with the law, as long as we are able to do so, in order to effect change.
What is your dread? That God would usher you into heaven after your having to bear the sufferings of the martyrs?
Isn’t that what is going on with our brothers and sisters in Christ across the Muslim lands to this very day?
And yet we — and I do mean WE — hope to escape such pain at death?
We are only safe when our safety is measured in terms of our spiritual well-being, and not in terms or our temporal well-being. All that we “have,” temporally, may be taken away at any moment; witness the sufferings of Job.
Our chief concern should not be the perpetuation of this corrupt and evil generation, but the proclamation of the Gospel to a world fast on the road to hell.
“I stated clearly that we are to act in a manner consistent with the law, as long as we are able to do so, in order to effect change.”
The law is based on who has power and has the ability to inflict controlled violence, it means nothing in it of itself. Unless I misunderstood you and you meant the Law not the law.
“What is your dread? That God would usher you into heaven after your having to bear the sufferings of the martyrs?”
I can’t answer for Mark but I can answer for me. My fear is the fate of my posterity.
“Isn’t that what is going on with our brothers and sisters in Christ across the Muslim lands to this very day?
And yet we — and I do mean WE — hope to escape such pain at death?”
I’d personally rather die as a passion-bearer than a martyr. Letting yourself be killed submissively is something that goes against the fiber of my very being. But this is what we are talking about, if we don’t fight our descendants will be in the same place as the Christians in the Middle East are today.
“We are only safe when our safety is measured in terms of our spiritual well-being, and not in terms or our temporal well-being. All that we “have,” temporally, may be taken away at any moment; witness the sufferings of Job.”
I heard the Story of Job was not a literal account but an allegory. Also, OT God doesn’t seem anything like the Christian God. He seems more like Allah than Christ. I know that I may be wrong in this but I struggle with the idea that OT God is the same God as our Christian God.
“Our chief concern should not be the perpetuation of this corrupt and evil generation, but the proclamation of the Gospel to a world fast on the road to hell.”
Does Christ tell us to be passive?
I don’t feel that I’d answer these points in a significantly different way than Svar has done.
Then I should be on my knees in fervent prayer that our Lord would have mercy on us, though our pagan and godless society deserves the same fate as Sodom and Gomorrah — and we DESERVE nothing.
Fear the Lord, not what evil men may do to you.
Build your house on the Rock and don’t give way to sinful worrying.
Be active through legal mechanisms to thwart the godless agenda of the left (and others).
And know that our God will supply all your need according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus.
@ Debra S.
Why should we pray fervently to God for mercy when we don’t even deserve it? We should pray for mercy and then let God decide what to do. In the meantime, we take action.
But Christians are sojourners on earth. Their true home is in heaven. And too many of us are remarkably like liberals in our efforts to immanentize the eschaton, as Voegelin coined the term: to make of earth our heaven.
As I much as respect Voegelin’s monumental achievement he was in the end too extreme in his Augstinianism. Government’s chief end is to provide the conditions to allow the Church as many as possible. The edict of Milan was a good thing, in that allowed the Church access to the whole of society. For about a thousand years that was the basic ideal so the zeitgeist hasn’t “always been against us.”
This is one of the things I find so frustrating about the Orthosphere; we are not really a community of like-minded believers. And our efforts to strengthen and encourage one another in the really important, let me add critical, matters remind me of ships passing in the night.
Indeed.
But don’t imagine that traditional mores, those that mirror the decalogue, will ever again visit our shores.
Then what was their point? If they are only meant as personal guidelines, then it seems they could only be a take it or leave it kind of proposition. If they reflect the truth about how we should live our lives, then they should apply to societal as well as individual living (after all, what is society other than individuals living in communion?). Now, if your point is that the likelihood of that happening is slim, you certainly have plenty of evidence to back it up.
Your last sentence fits my meaning precisely. As to the “shores” part, I intended to imply our country as it is now constituted (with our Constitution and culture in tatters). But it is not impossible that out of the ashes may arise a part of these shores which has separated itself from the smoldering and smelly mother ship (I imagine we stink in God’s nostrils). Or better yet, maybe our Lord will come sooner rather than later.
I hope, Svar, that in reviewing my comments to Mark you will see that I promoted rather than dismissed the idea of being involved in doing what we can, as we are called individually to do, to make changes in our civil government which more closely correspond to natural law, or as I stated it, to the Decalogue.
As for the zeitgeist, it has been and always will be against us, now more absolutely — in our country — than ever before.
And your “more viable targets”?
“I hope, Svar, that in reviewing my comments to Mark you will see that I promoted rather than dismissed the idea of being involved in doing what we can, as we are called individually to do, to make changes in our civil government which more closely correspond to natural law, or as I stated it, to the Decalogue”
I know, I didn’t think you’re being passive or anything. The good Christian folks I know are the same way, they do things to protest abortion like marching and such. While that is not passive, I find that it is ineffective and a waste of time and effort.
“And your “more viable targets”?”
Immigration, usury (financial fraud, Wall Street), war-mongering, (lack of) ethics in journalism. You’ve got to attack those that support and fund the zeitgeist.
You may attack them, of course; and you may make of that attack a semblance of a reason for being; or you may make of that attack something of a commercial venture, as certainly so many activists do.
In a material world, fighting the zeitgeist seems a worthy pursuit, something you can really get your teeth into and feel noble about all the while.
But is that the end of it? In all that fighting against real and imagined iniquities, is there ever really an end of it? The more you knock down, the more there are which rise up to take their place.
Work instead for that which lasts. The world passes away; but God’s Word endures forever.
I don’t know what is particularly effective in the fight against abortion. However, the number of abortion clinics is at an all-time, 20-year low. Those good Christian folks are doing something right, probably mostly prayer and penance.
My main problem is probably that it is such a narrow focus, legalized abortion is like gay rights a symptom not a cause. America lost her way long before the 1960’s and Roe v. Wade, the 1960’s could have been crushed if America had a spiritual resilience.
The passiveness of the American Christians has unwittingly allowed the mass murder that is abortion. As soon as that decision came down, a decision FAR MORE OUTRAGEOUS than anything preceding the Civil War, there should have been a violent coup against the court.
Mark:
Once again I realize that here at the Orthosphere many — if not most — of our quarrels arise out of theological differences, for those of us who are professing Christians.
And so it is with our discussion. One small example (if I may classify it as such), is our interpretation of the end times. Your religious interpretation, by what your comments imply, is that the end times are either approaching swiftly or are yet somewhat distant.
My understanding of the end times is that the entire New Testament period is the “end times.”
That chasm alone between us is indicative of other theological differences; and so try as we might to encourage or inform the other, we will necessarily miss the mark and end up talking past one another.
This is one of the things I find so frustrating about the Orthosphere; we are not really a community of like-minded believers. And our efforts to strengthen and encourage one another in the really important, let me add critical, matters remind me of ships passing in the night.
Tether yourself to your Savior and to His Word. Believe His Word, though the world rages against you, and some even in the “church.” And do not subordinate His Word to your own idea of what ought to be.
I didn’t mean end-times in such a theologically specific way, as to where they begin or what can we expect. I anticipate that across theological traditions present, there will be different interpretations and beliefs.
My point was can we anticipate the return of Christ and the end of this world in the immediate future, so let’s say within the century. If we can, then we need not worry about the ‘posterity’ that Svar refers to. Now, I believe this is a distinct possibility because of various reasons we need not lay out here. However Reactionary activities are in preparation for this not happening in the immediate future, and I still find them very much a worthwhile pursuit.
Kristor, your leftist commenter also said in that previous thread that “Same-sex marriage is found in many cultures,” which is news to me, and which was allowed to pass undisputed. It is quite the opposite of Rod Dreher’s assertion ( of about a year ago) that “no culture has ever had same-sex marriage.” So I’d appreciate it if either you or the leftist could tell me which cultures Dreher and quite a few others, including me, have overlooked.
Hah. When I read that, I interpreted a.morphous to be saying that *homosexuality* has been common in many cultures, and I was not even aware that I had not read the statement accurately.
I had not heard of any cultures where homosexual marriage was practiced either. But Wikipedia has a page on them: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_same-sex_unions.
These examples it must be noted, are very unusual. In Rome it seems, these were fads for pederastic emperors and didn’t seem to carry the same connotations as actual marriage (similar to the horse that was made a senator in a rather outrageous display).
The example in one province in China appears to have been an anomaly as it is found nowhere else there and it was devoid of religious connotations applied to actual marriages.
OT:
But I am in a pugilistic mindset, and after checking in with Orthosphere today a number of times, I note with great displeasure and offense that among the beautiful avatars assigned (by chance?) to your commenters, that there is one that resembles — incongruously — the rippled musculature of a man’s back.
I object to this offensive display of flesh which is out of keeping with both the tone and the content of Orthosphere.
Debra…
,
A non-fleshy “avatar” doesn’t make sense. Anyway, there is a real need to differentiate between the modern Christians of the Orthosphere and the genuine white Supremacists who will actually be the ones to rumble in the streets when the SHTF. You need to realize Debra that your “flesh” will not be required to defend anything let alone your fellow Christians while my flesh is EXPECTED to defend the degenerates all around us especially the homosexualized and deracinated “white” Christians so very prevalent in our society. Your misplaced piousness shows a total lack of awareness of the mess that the white males of the West are truly entangled in and how your “flesh” is only worthy of invisibility.
But Wikipedia has a page on them
No it doesn’t. It has a page of vague assertions about how these relationships were dealt with in ancient societies, with a list of sources at the end you’d have to read before deciding to trust them. If oxymoronic same-sex marriage were a widespread, legally recognized and socially revered institution among these societies, we’d know it. If any of them did have it, they were obviously rare and perverse outliers. For some reason the West has now found it necessary to outdo the ancients by mainstreaming the rare and perverse.
Ah. Reading the page (which I should have done before I linked to it), I see that you are quite right. Compare the skimpy page on same sex marriage to the page on unicorns: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicorn. Judging only by the length of each article, it would seem that unicorns have been far more important in human history.
Yeah, when I read a.morphous’s claim, I was on my phone, and posting from that is annoying. The wikipedia page huffs and puffs quite a bit about all the societies which have had gay marriage, but then does not offer a single compelling example. We get “the Greeks had pederasty.” But pederasty is neither gay nor marriage. Nero married a male! Yeah, and Caligula married a horse. Did Rome have interspecies marriage? (Don’t answer that) Some religions have blessed same-sex friendships! Even Christianity! Not gay, not marriage. Seventeen of the first twelve Roman emperors were queer as ducks!
My favorite is “the Theodosian Code outlawed gay marriage; therefore, there was tons of gays a marryin’ before that.” Second best is “After searching two thousand years of Christian history, we found one (1), that’s one, example of some mutant priest marrying two other mutants in 1061.” Third best is “Long, long ago, in ancient times, the American Indians (don’t call them that, bigot!), who, incidentally didn’t have writing (so!? doesn’t prove we are better than them does it, bigot!), were gay marrying all over the place. Well, or something that I’m going to call gay marriage, anyway. And seriously, if you can’t trust an anthropologist to accurately describe the sexual practices of some random illiterate savages, what can you trust?”
Yeah, Nero certainly didn’t see fit to change the law to accommodate his perverse appetites. Also, is Nero really the historical banner they want to wave? Hey everyone, we’re slightly crazier than imperial Rome at it’s worst!
The left often trots out Native Americans, not realizing that they don’t really qualify as a ‘civilization’. They were effectively nomads with no great accomplishments.
@ Mark Citadel
Some Indians did have civilizations like the Inca, Mayans, and Aztec but not the ones in America and Canada. The Five Civilized Tribes in America only arose after contact with Europeans.
That being said, I don’t know how you can say Amerindians or any other group really sodomarriaged.
Most importantly, I fail to see the point with reasoning with the Left. No matter how much historical, scientific, philosophical or biblical (for those “Christian” leftists) evidence you throw out there, they will never concede with defeat and even if they do lose face they will come back the next day as if nothing happened. You can not reason with someone who doesn’t use reason anymore than you can fish.
yes, I have gotten into the habit of only using Native American to describe what someone I knew once referred to as “Indian Feathers”, rather than the Incas, Maya, etc. Their version of same sex marriage involved “two spirit people” or some other new-agey sounding BS.
Like you say, the left is not interested in facts. The same with any data showing that sodomites rape children at higher rates, and that they make awful parents. Well, those have to be coming from some unreliable Christian organization don’t they! You’re just homophobic.
The left is truthophobic, and may the time come soon that their empire of lies is ended.
To Marissa:
I don’t believe in penance. Repentance, yes. Penance, no.
I am not Roman Catholic.
Repentance and penance are really the same thing under slightly different forms, as the etymology of the two words should make clear. Penance is just a way of enacting and reinforcing repentance; is a sort of rehearsal. It is not a repayment, or anything of the sort (Jesus has already taken care of the bill). It is more like practicing your scales than it is like paying off your credit card. It is repentance reiterated, for training effect. I can tell you from personal experience that there is a moral and spiritual training effect. Some repetitions are vain, some not.
In so far as “Jesus has already taken care of the bill,” I am in total agreement with you.
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I have a comment that is more of a question. I am totally against gay marriage, but i am also against the church, both protestant and Catholic varities, from not only marrying but celebrating the marriage of divorced couples. How can the church voice opposition to gay marriage while at the same time celebrating marriage between people who were previously married? How is one worse than the other?
Simple answer.
BOTH are abhorrent and should not be taking place at all.
You are right to critique churches in this regard, yet I’m sure people here in all denominations would like to see liberal influence quashed not just in society but in our own churches where it is increasingly prevalent. God knows I do. We generally are critical of both and then some. Certainly Traditional Catholics are not happy with any relaxing of divorce laws in the church.
Agreed. I certainly hope my comment wasn’t interpreted to mean two wrongs can make a right. The churches sure need a lot of cleaning, but i see a trend to gain membership at almost all costs.
I am not aware of the Catholic Church, at any rate, celebrating second marriages (marriage after divorce of first spouse and first spouse still living). In fact, that was the whole hullabaloo in the recent Synod. Or by “celebrate” do you mean something more broad than presiding over/officially sanctioning the second marriage? For example, turning a blind eye, or not rigorously enforcing da rules?
Covenant Marriage can be represented by the lack of rings on the couple’s fingers.
If one accepts the following equation:
Homo=same=exact same=self…
Such that…
Homosexuality = sex with self = self-annihilation…
Then “we” can understand how “gay marriage” has come to pass…
The “men” of the West are de facto homosexuals… Those who desire to pleasure themselves to death. Those who BELIEVE in the “right” to “love, f$%k, screw” whomever one pleases INCLUDING the self. This includes almost all Christians whether liberal or traditional.
It is nearly impossible for even the staunchest Christian to deny another’s “right” to “love” whomever one pleases.
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Gays really don’t want to marry anyway, that’s another reality that is (purposely) missed by the advocators. There are no mythical millions dying to get gaymarried.
https://thepracticalconservative.wordpress.com/2015/01/23/there-are-more-news-headlines-about-gay-marriage-than-gay-marriages/
Homosexuals desire to form a union of self-annihilators THAT THEN has the purpose of perpetuation. The whole born this way versus chose this way is totally irrelevant once we understand homosexual = sex with self = pleasure one’s self to death = self-annihilator. That even your traditional Christian will not embrace this TRUE EQUATION shows “us” that their arguments against homosexuality are really half-hearted. So it is not even a matter of white males viscerally rejecting the homosexual act and thus absolutely unable to equate heterosexuality to homosexuality, but rather, ALL white males BELIEVING in the “right” to “love” whomever one pleases INCLUDING the self. This, of course, includes nearly all the white males of the Orthosphere.
Not entirely sure what the message is here.
Sodomy is an act against the will of God, referred to as an ‘abomination’ in the Text. It is condemned more than once directly, and Traditional Christian societies have without exception had civil laws against it, just as they have held laws against adultery and bestiality.
Indeed, sodomic acts are self-annihilating, mainly through the degradation of oneself morally, the fundamental denial of true manhood and womanhood, and of course the physical degeneration that sodomites typically endure as a result of their activities, viral in nature and otherwise.
I have not seen any Orthospherans defending any kind of ‘right’ in the realm of sexual deviancy, such would be to elevate the imaginary ‘rights of man’ above the will of God.
I understand you’re coming from an ethno-nationalist perspective, but what exactly are you condemning Christian Reactionaries for? Of all groups on the Reactionary Right, our opposition to sexual degeneracy is I would argue the most clear and steadfast. I think what people like Svar are actually saying is that the ‘homosexual agenda’ is just a small part of the whole picture, much like the pushing of intoxicants, and Hollywood sluttery. Going after it directly at this point is like goring the red cape rather than the matador.
The message, Mark Citadel, is that you are a self-professed Christian BUT NOT a genuine white Supremacist AND this is only explicable when one recognizes that YOU are then but a liberal “Christian.” And this debate over homo-sexuality DOES NOT actually get to the heart of the matter, i.e., most heterosexual “white” males are de facto homos… Believers in the “right” to pleasure one’s self to death.
If YOU were truly a white Christian THAN you would understand that from the perspective of the honest secularist, YOU are a white Supremacist AND you reject this precise, accurate and exacting label BECAUSE you desire a pleasant life until death.
And the name of game in ALL OF THE WEST is to make absolutely sure that no white males embrace white Supremacy.
So, just to be clear, your assertion is that Christians are liberal unless they embrace white supremacy, the belief that due to the biological makeup of those of occidental heritage, they are a master race.
I just want to clarify.
Mark Citadel…
My assertion is that a self-professed white Christian = white Supremacist AND “master race” is the false ideation of the radical liberal ALTHOUGH there is nothing inherent to Christianity that denies the reality of a master race IF a race chooses mastery..
I recommend for everyone’s consideration this post at Virtue Online:
http://www.virtueonline.org/totalitarianism-same-sex-marriage
What has been advertised as a step forward in human rights in reality presages a serious assault on human rights, especially freedom of religious expression, and it has already been an unapologetic and serious assault on democracy.
Remember the old days when they said they just wanted to be left alone to live their lives in peace? Well that turned out to be a crock (although it is still true of some of the elderly “couples”). Today, they don’t want your tolerance. They don’t even want your acceptance. Only your enthusiastic celebration will be permitted.
>>Only STEM degrees are any use at all to employers, or therefore to students
Not entirely true. You’ve been drinking the STEM education Kool-Aid that’s been going around the past couple of decades.
I’m an employer.
I’m going to hazard a guess and say that Kristor meant valuable as a means to signal intelligence and acquire marketable skills. The liberal arts are, by definition, studies undertaken for their intrinsic value. They contain their own ends, and are not a means to anything. This is, of course, setting aside the contemporary corruption of the liberal arts and the debasement of liberal arts degrees. But, even at its best, a liberal art is useless, although arguably at the same time of very great value.
Yes. It seems clear to me that most undergraduates are pursuing credentials rather than wisdom. That’s what happens when we set things up so that everyone needs a degree to get on, whether or not they are interested in what it once signified. It is as credentials that their degrees are useless; they fail to signify. A young job candidate with an English major may indeed be educated, but his degree won’t inform me about that. This does not mean that English is not a serious discipline. It means that degrees have been debased.
Well said JMSmith. The worthiest things in life are also the most useless. Of a good friend and a car, the friend is the more valuable, the car the more useful (in part because it enables me to better enjoy friendship).
Babies. Lives in general. What are they good for?
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