The Sorrows Of Empire by Chalmers Johnson by chrisisall

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

The Sorrows Of Empire by Chalmers Johnson

POSTED BY: CHRISISALL
UPDATED: Wednesday, August 30, 2006 14:29
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Sunday, August 27, 2006 3:04 PM

CHRISISALL

Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:

That's all wanted to say.

You probably see no possible comparison between Baseball and Rollerball, do ya?

They both end in 'ball' Chrisisall

Bwahahahahaha

EDIT:
http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=3178
http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=70576
More on Chalmers, worth a look.

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Sunday, August 27, 2006 4:45 PM

CHRISISALL

DT, see if these make sense to you:
http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=70576
http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=3178

It's fascinating to peeps like me to have names and dates associated with what I already see happening, and historical precidents to compare today with...

Not a sheeple(heh heh)Chrisisall

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Sunday, August 27, 2006 7:28 PM

DREAMTROVE

Antimason

Some of the stuff I read was pre-link, but a fair number of them were from decent biblical scholars on the web, I just have to dig up the links.

There's an awful lot of BS on the web from people pretending to be biblical scholars. But there are some good ones out there. I actually don't think it's a matter of disputing the facts of the biblical history, so much as exposing the spin. David killed Goliath, but it was hardly a heroic act. The people stoned Jezebel to death on her own front steps, but they were neither her people nor a righteous mob. At least, as I understand it.

Quote:
what you fail to understand is that Genesis 6, the Sumerian cuniform tablets, the greek and egyptian multideities all tell the same story; which is that superhuman entities, ie angels, descended unto early Man and forever changed our course and destiny.

This is always a bad opener. "What you fail to understand..." Just saying. Anyway, moving on.

I don't fail, I actually knew that, I just differ in my interpretation. Genesis is a Sumerian legend. It was adopted by the hebrew, who were nomadic, and wandered to Egypt. This is hardly a shocking revelation. Same story, on a stone tablet, moving around. Similar stories show up in western paganism, and one could chalk it up to it was an easy idea to come up with, but a little bit of digging shows that it was actually added to pagan documents by malicious revisionists in the 1700s, both europagans and native americans.

Quote:
if Darwin is correct, when did Man become civilized in your opinion? whos to say we are any more civilized today?

I don't think 'if darwin is correct' is really a question, but I'll let it slide. (Darwin isn't a religious point of view competing with creationism, he's a scientist, and as much as he is a pretty good one, he's correct.)

I think it all depends on your definitition of civilization. I would say, houses, communities of houses, stone structures, agriculture, food preparation, and the only one true thing which separates us from animals: a written language - is key. Collectively these date back around 35000 years, though evolved slowly towards their current form, around 10,000 years ago. The world's oldest civilization is in northern europe, the world's oldest modern civilization is in China. The second oldest is probably Egypt, which may have had contact with the chinese around 9000 years ago, but probably got the bulk of its inspiration from europe and africa. A saharan civilization of unknown age was destroyed about 7000 years ago. (Many believe that the story of atlantis was a story of this lost african empire, and that plato's sunk beneath the sea was a mistranslation of the egyptian which should have read sunk beneath the sand)

Quote:
you might argue that this belief has been collectively a negetive experience on humanity, but you have no way to prove that;

Oh, I wouldn't argue it, that would just get my into trouble :)

(Don't need to prove it, the evidence is right there, anyone can check it out for themselves.)

I think nothing was wrong with Jesus. I'm way too detached from this subject to see it on the same level you do. To me, jesus was at least a scholar of other faiths, and was strongly influenced by zoroastrianism. He was probably an outsider to israel, ethnically speaking. I've read varying theories that he was egyptian, persian, even black african, but I think that there's a fair fit that mary and joseph may have in fact been outsiders. Outsiders bring new ideas, and sometimes those clash radically with the local orthodoxy. All of this is speculation of course.

But it's the old unmodified Yhwh who I object to. After Jesus' death, Paul made some patchy alliance with jews to create the religion as a bridge religion. Originally, i believe, it was supposed to be a new testament only faith. Paul made more of a bridging effort, and then it was bundled. That's what I got out of what I read anyways. Now that same idea has been passed on to Mohammed, through the Christians.

No one's doubting the sermon of the mount took place, etc. There's a theory out there that jesus was never crucified, but I suspect that's bogus.

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Sunday, August 27, 2006 7:31 PM

DREAMTROVE

Chris,

I'm way too sleepy right now, I'll check them out tomorrow. But I do see right off hand that some was telling me making roman comparisons to the current us position was off topic for this thread, but that seems to be what the book is about.

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Monday, August 28, 2006 2:05 AM

CITIZEN

Quote:
yeah, I know all this stuff about Bizantium, but that's a far cry from saying Rome. That's like saying America continues to exist because at some point, texas joins mexico, and after the collapse of america, mexico still exists.

It's like saying the British Empire still exists because the Australia and Canada are still about, still accept the British royal familly as Monarch have a British style parliment and speak English. There's also the US, which also speaks English.

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.

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Monday, August 28, 2006 5:30 AM

ANTIMASON

DT- i apologize about the "you fail to recognize" remark..when i re-read it i felt it came off a tad more condescendingly that i had intended. i dont claim to be a know it all, but at the same time we are definately coming from different ends of the spectrum. there will always be the christian scholars and theologians who find support for the credibility and accuracy of biblical accounts, and then those who side with the skeptics, or debunkers, and offer alternative explanations. i so far, have not been sufficiently swayed by the counter arguements, as it changes a number of variables that then have to be explained.. similar to reconstructing the official 9/11 story

my sole point is that i believe these myths to be true, simply telling the same story from another cultures perspective.

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Monday, August 28, 2006 10:05 AM

DREAMTROVE

Citizen,

Thanks for the back up. You got the essence of exactly what I was trying to say, but put it better.

Antimason,

This is the sort of thing that makes me think the gnostic bibles may be true: They were written by people who were ressearch minded.

The problem with the arguments that have failed to convince you, is that they have been agenda driven. My own research has been done with complete indifference to the impact on the christian religion, since I am not a member of any western faith. It was done solely out of intellectual curiosity about history.

I was basically led to the conclusion that some of the underlying old testament ideas which resurface in paul have at some point been spun to make them seem less evil, when perhaps they should have objectively be cast in a different light.

Essentially, looked at one way, the bible is a guide to running a well ordered society. Looked at the other way, it's a manual for an endless stream of serial warfare.

The two core prinicples here are not inextricably intertwined. The rules for a good society connect to the living christ, and some of the people before him, (and now after.) The manual for serial war is base on a lot of old testament, paul, and st. john the divine.

Serial war with the middle east is what we've had for a thousand years now. It has consumed much of the energy of western society, and is now doing so at a crippling rate. To say nothing of the effect it has had on the middle east. There ought to be a way to separate out the good from the bad here, rather than shifting all of the blame to where it doesn't belong.

Think about it this way. The Iraq war, which I call the 29th crusade, is essentially that. The first colonial expedition to the ME came onlyt 30 years after the last crusade. It never ends. But, also, if you trace the history of the crusades back, it leads right to the rise of Islam, and arguably the fall of rome. Ever since Islam has come into beingm the west has been at war with it, it has been at war with the west, because of the dichotomy in the bible, which tells both haves that there is a good side and an evil side, and each side believes it's the good side.

The people who support Hezbollah, some of them actually believe that their guy, Nasrallah, is the second coming of Jesus of Nazareth. I'm sure, in not too long, the chiristians will have their own messiah.

When you implied "hey maybe we're on the wrong side" I was intrigued. But I don't think there is a "right side" here. For a christian, the logical counter to support Olmert logically would be support Nasrallah, but all of this Revelations stuff, great war, is a post-christ fantasy of endless war, which feeds the whole OT tie in.

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Monday, August 28, 2006 12:26 PM

FINN MAC CUMHAL

In 330 AD the then Emperor of Rome, Constantine, moved the capital of the Roman Empire from the city of Rome in Italy to the newly founded city of Nova Roma, later Constantinoplus, on the Bosphorus Straight. Although the city of Rome would continue to be a financial, cultural and religious center, the new capital would be the seat of the government of the Roman Empire and administration of the Empire would be delegated from the Roman Emperor in that city from them on. When the Western Roman Empire fell into decline and was over run by Germanic tribes, the Roman Empire continued to exist because its government was not located in the west, but in Constantinople, which would not be overrun until 1204 AD.

So it is not simply a matter of Canada and Australia recognizing the British Crown and having a Parliamentary government. They would have to be ruled by the actual British Monarchy in order for the analogy to work.

Although the requirement for speaking English is not necessary, because Latin was never the Langue Franca in the East, that had always been Greek. At least ever since circa third century BC or so, when the Alexandrian Empire established Greek as the principle language in the East.

Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

-- Cicero

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Monday, August 28, 2006 1:20 PM

CITIZEN

Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
So it is not simply a matter of Canada and Australia recognizing the British Crown and having a Parliamentary government. They would have to be ruled by the actual British Monarchy in order for the analogy to work.

They are as much as Britian is.

More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.

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Wednesday, August 30, 2006 10:23 AM

ANTIMASON

DT- Nazrallah is not the return of Christ..im not sure what scriptures they base that off of..but Jesus explicitly says that all will be transformed at his ressurection; although you bring up a great point, which i have been trying to make

the scriptures are full of warnings to be aware of false christs, and destructive heresies; i believe that the occult, which is a satanic perversion of christianity, is decieving much of the world in preparation for the coming of antichrist, and the NWO kingdom of the beast. Lucifer is THE GOD of occultism, and is highly respected...and according to prophecy, will fool many of the "elect" into believing he is the returned messiah. i think this is significant, because the negetive aspects of christianity i believe, are attributed to occult influences. the KKK, or Masonry, are both good examples of how Jesus' doctrines have been altered to become something else entirely..while still claiming to be christian

i just became a christian a few years ago..but i will admit, you have to commit to it fully, there is no half-assing it; i believe that is the problem with many "believers", who then hurt our faith because it becomes represented by those who are not pouring their heart into their belief. since i feel beyond a shadow of doubt that we are entering the end of the age, i expect many to fail to recognize the true image of christ; therefore, they will be decieved upon the coming of Satan and his angels

i fully recognize the examples you make, i simply credit them to heretical doctrines, occult infiltrations and false interpretations. if the bible is correct, Satan is the spiritual ruler of the earth, and the church(believers) and Jesus' influences are under constant attack by heresies. i agree wtih you that the early Israelites acted in ways which seem to defy or contradict Jesus' messages, but the Jews were also incredibly defiant, and provoked consequences upon themselves that are evident thoughout history. im not saying i believe they deserved to be persecuted and scattered, but if the story of the bible is true, then God, who "no eye has seen", repayed those of the patraichal period according to their actions; including the "pagan" cultures, who exhibited just as perverse and degenerative characteristics as the Jews, if not more so. so its hard to say

ultimately, i dont disagree wiht much of your observations, but because i believe that the bible is indeed Gods message, i give a great deal more legitimacy to occult secret societies, like the knights templars, the scottish rite, the various "order of deaths", and any other group which alters the truths of Jesus'; including, everday citizens who falsely interpret the scriptures to support divisive, selfish or ego-centric means, which contradict the messages of the bible

we both agree about the NWO agenda, so i ask that you atleast consider, you dont have to make up your mind..just allow the possibility that the scriptures are accurate interpretations. according to prophecy, this agenda will come to fruition, and America will become mystery Babylon, of which the antichrist uses as a tool for global control. i am determined to fight this agenda, by warning others of the conspiracy taking place...so this is the best current gauge of prophecy i have, and i believe it is literal evidence of end time events being fullfilled. i cannot prove to you i am correct, i just ask that you consider the relevency of luciferian societies

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Wednesday, August 30, 2006 2:29 PM

DREAMTROVE

Antimason

Quote:
DT- Nazrallah is not the return of Christ..im not sure what scriptures they base that off of..but Jesus explicitly says that all will be

transformed at his ressurection; although you bring up a great point, which i have been trying to make

Not to us, sure, but to them, the whole thing is a matter of perspective. Every prophecy has to be interpreted. I don't fault their interpretation, its

at least as good as what I hear here, IMHO, but as a non-believer it makes no difference to me, except to see the forces at work, the sway of

the tide.

Quote:
the scriptures are full of warnings to be aware of false christs, and destructive heresies; i believe that the occult, which is a satanic

perversion of christianity,

The whole philosophy of life is like a train, and though there may be many ways to arrive at the final destination, the truth, this is the point where

I think you jump the track. Let me focus in on it.

Quote:
the occult, which is a satanic perversion of christianity,

Stated as a matter of fact. This is not the case, I am sure of it. I don't know if I'm more sure of my version, but I'm more sure that you're not

looking at this objectively. The reality is, the group of practices that you, and wikipedia, sweep into the category of "the occult" actually have

nothing to do with christianity. They're not a perversion of it, opposed to it, in favor of it, they don't talk to it over support. They don't have a

restraining order against it, they are no relation to it at all. None, zippo, nada. There is no connection between the occult and christianity, two or

more different faiths with nothing in common.

Even the biblical claim of Jezebel as evil, demonic, devil worshipping whatever is absurd. Different faiths are based on unrelated things, each

has a history of it's own, people, words, thoughts, dreams, and if you believe, spirits and the like. But no connection to your faith, regardless of

what your faith thinks of those other faiths. But this isn't just supposition on my part, it's a historical fact. These faiths all have well recorded

history with no underworld satanic chrisitan influence. In fact, they're completely alien. Many predate christ, moses, and the whole lot of them.

The christian fantasy of this connection is a belief in a set of events having happened in history that is just not so. Not only is there a complete

absense of hard evidence, but the sketchy supposed evidence of early judean influence in europe was fabricated by the nazis to support their

absurd claim that they were the true children of israel.

I hope you get this point, because without grasping this fundamental reality, your theory is going nowhere.
No point could be more salient to the situation.
Moving on...

Quote:
is decieving much of the world in preparation for the coming of antichrist, and the NWO kingdom of the beast. Lucifer is THE GOD of

occultism, and is highly respected...and according to prophecy, will fool many of the "elect" into believing he is the returned messiah. i think this

is significant, because the negetive aspects of christianity i believe, are attributed to occult influences. the KKK, or Masonry, are both good

examples of how Jesus' doctrines have been altered to become something else entirely..while still claiming to be christian

This is better. I think it's entirely possible that something similar to this will play out. It's also possible that the seed of the idea is a bad one, and

that both sides are conducting a self fulfilling prophecy based on the idea that they are the good guys. I can see a group of secular people

manipulating the myth to get people to behave in a particular way. Considering the amound of deadly sins this group is racking up, anything

goes, but I think they're degenerate great satan not because they actively chose to worship satan, but because they themselves are fallen.

Quote:
i just became a christian a few years ago..but i will admit, you have to commit to it fully, there is no half-assing it; i believe that is the

problem with many "believers", who then hurt our faith because it becomes represented by those who are not pouring their heart into their belief.

since i feel beyond a shadow of doubt that we are entering the end of the age, i expect many to fail to recognize the true image of christ;

therefore, they will be decieved upon the coming of Satan and his angels

The whole thing is a trap. I wonder sometimes if it's not more of a test, as I said before. The new jesus, the final battle, and the ultimate new

jerusalem are probably the most objectively evil ideas ever conceived. Looking at it from an outside perspective, with my own solid faith in a

pre-christian belief system which has no common roots with christianity.

Quote:
i fully recognize the examples you make, i simply credit them to heretical doctrines, occult infiltrations and false interpretations. if the

bible is correct, Satan is the spiritual ruler of the earth, and the church(believers) and Jesus' influences are under constant attack by heresies. i

agree wtih you that the early Israelites acted in ways which seem to defy or contradict Jesus' messages, but the Jews were also incredibly

defiant, and provoked consequences upon themselves that are evident thoughout history. im not saying i believe they deserved to be

persecuted and scattered, but if the story of the bible is true, then God, who "no eye has seen", repayed those of the patraichal period

according to their actions; including the "pagan" cultures, who exhibited just as perverse and degenerative characteristics as the Jews, if not

more so. so its hard to say

There's no conspiracy against christianity, and since there's a fair balance of the world's scholars being outside of fundieland, that the error

may be on the christian side. Examine the possibility. Christianity is, imho, the most paranoid world religion outside of islam, and possibly

judaism. No one is out to get you. The picture you paint of God as a paranoid/schitzophrenic makes him downright delusional. God surely didn't

impact the lives of people who didn't know him. Sorry if this seems harsh, but the bible should never be taken as a text of the literal history of earth, esp. since it really doesn't deal with earth, it deals with the arabian and sinai peninsulas, and asia minor. Nowhere else on earth except for egypt really comes into it.

You are aware that you're engaged in a radical interpretation of the text. Right? you're america is the final babylon scenario is far from what could have been intended by the authors, whose concept of the world is only a tiny fraction of the actual earth.

Essentially, from an objective outsiders viewpoint, you're taking the writings of a collection of ignorant savages and trying to discern the will of God from it. I know this is what your religion is based on, but you have to realize this from the point of view of an analytical scholar.

Let's take the whole issue aside, and say, for the moment, that you're right. In this text is a hidden message of what's to come. All supernatural issues aside, this is probably possible, so it's worth considering. Maybe the authors knew that they were implanting hypnotic subconscious suggestions into the readers, and they knew if a hundred generations of people read the book, it would lead the course of events to a particular conclusion.

Now you have the task of figuring out what that conclusion is.

Is there merit in this? Sure. The prophecy calls for the wholesale destruction of life on earth. If anything, preventing that is worth doing. Provided it's an imminent threat. I will follow you on this enormous leap of faith, even though I don't believe in your religion, because I feel the evidence in terms of the recent course of events is overwhelmingly in your favor. (not on the satan angle, or any angle, but on the this-is-where-we-are, revelations is playing out.)

But you need to look at it in as objective a scholarly manner as you can. If you follow blindly, you will undoubtedly end up supporting the wrong side. Is there evil afoot on the earth? Sure. Is that evil is going to destroy the planet if not stopped? probably. So, I don't believe in your here-after or any of that, and to me, jesus was just a guy. But, stopping this prophecy from playing out to the destruction of most of earth, most of mankind, and the creation of the sterile nightmare society in which dissent is not possible, etc., is certainly worth doing.

Quote:
ultimately, i dont disagree wiht much of your observations, but because i believe that the bible is indeed Gods message, i give a great

deal more legitimacy to occult secret societies, like the knights templars, the scottish rite, the various "order of deaths", and any other group

which alters the truths of Jesus'; including, everday citizens who falsely interpret the scriptures to support divisive, selfish or ego-centric means,

which contradict the messages of the bible

The roman catholic church was a lie created by the emperor of rome because he wanted the power that christianity had over its followers, he wanted it for himself and his empire. The knights templar and the occultists broke that hold, which surely from a fundie standpoint is a good thing, right?

Quote:
we both agree about the NWO agenda, so i ask that you atleast consider, you dont have to make up your mind..just allow the possibility that the scriptures are accurate interpretations. according to prophecy, this agenda will come to fruition, and America will become mystery Babylon, of which the antichrist uses as a tool for global control. i am determined to fight this agenda, by warning others of the conspiracy taking place...so this is the best current gauge of prophecy i have, and i believe it is literal evidence of end time events being fullfilled. i cannot prove to you i am correct, i just ask that you consider the relevency of luciferian societies

Sure, but allow the possibility that you're wrong. I know that my faith may guide my in my interpretation, but it's not a player in this field. I think this merits further discussion. Send me a personal email.

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