Posts by Rich of Observationz
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Hard News: Media Take: The Easter Show, in reply to mark taslov,
I don't see how the fact that all imperialist states used religion (or communism, or nowadays, anti-religion) as a justification negates the fact that Britain, specifically, used it in the 19th century to justify settling New Zealand.
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Hard News: Media Take: The Easter Show, in reply to mark taslov,
But the ideology that justified colonial atrocities *was* christianity. They believed that "heathen" people had to be "converted" and if that involved genocide, then at least their souls would be saved.
Sure, many christians, possibly a majority, have abjured those ideas over the last 100 years - but for the prior 2000, it was a clear tenet of nearly all forms of that religion.
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something that set [christianity] apart from being just another Jewish sect
Which could be simply that the Romans adopted it at the right time and enforced it on their empire.
A key distinguishing factor of christianity over previous religions is the way it justified a state monopoly of violence in an eternal context. Prior to adopting christianity, if someone opposed the Roman state, then if they failed, they’d die an unpleasant death. If they succeeded, however, they’d achieve local or global power, at least until the next guy came along.
Christianity introduced two interlinked concepts – eternal damnation and deference to the state, such that opposition to the established order became not just temporally dangerous, but also sinful. Ideal for a state wanting to bolster its power, and the foundation of feudalism as the dominant system of European governance.
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But look, they've found the tomb of Jesus. With his wife and child - oops.
(Which of course would mean that if he had offspring, there would be a succession. And it would obviously run through the Merovingian dynasty and the Grand Masters of the Priory of Sion, up to the current incumbent, Amanda F Palmer).
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Envirologue: Branding a Post-Predator…, in reply to izogi,
Taranaki, Tongariro and a bunch of other places. OK, I exaggerate, but we have a pretty high standard of path in a lot of places. Certainly compared to the rather beautiful and completely unimproved "pathway" in the pic I posted.
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I tend to the view that towards the end of the Roman Empire, pantheism was seen by the ruling classes as increasingly decadent, and failed to provide the social control advantages of a monotheist religion (if, as a Roman, you didn't like what you were told at the temple of Apollo, you could wander over to Jupiter's place for an alternative).
They saw Judaism as offering the disciplinary advantages they wanted - rigid rules, a (then) monolithic priesthood, a clear concept of eternal reward for earthly behaviour. They couldn't, however, fully accept the religion of a rather disdained subject people*, so they used it as a basis for an alternative - Judaism 2.0, later known as Christianity.
* Not to mention they wanted to carry on eating bacon.
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Bloody looxury lad...
I do think that by building wooden boardwalks a metre wide and fitted with handrails over a large chunk of the conservation estate, DoC have created an expectation that everywhere will comply with this minimum standard.
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Envirologue: Branding a Post-Predator…, in reply to Tom Semmens,
I'm not the one who suggested forcing (through the threat of violence, on which all public coercion ultimately rests) "every 18 year old [to] spend 12 months in a conservation army" .
That sounds like involuntary servitude to me, however you spell it.
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Envirologue: Branding a Post-Predator…, in reply to Tom Semmens,
How about we also plant a bit of cotton (I'm sure someplace in NZ has the climate for it) and set up an antebellum style system of agriculture using teenagers in place of Black people. Teach em a bit of respect...
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Hard News: The other kind of phone tapping, in reply to Alfie,
Yes, indeed.
Also, crashing the pips (as practised daily by every RNZ presenter) and dead air are verboten at the BBC. While the former is regarded as the equivalent of farting in church, dead air of more than (I think) ten seconds results in the Emergency Control Room taking over broadcasts.
This probably has something to do with continued Radio 4 being used by the British nuclear fleet as a signal that the UK hasn't been nuked by the Russians.
