[QUOTE=Grestarian]
The name the astoundingly zealous suicide pilots chose for themselves, Kamikaze, is therefore “God-Wind” or “Wind of the Gods” and was chosen because they planned to be like the gust/breeze/wind in front of a hand that is quickly sweeping opposing tokens off a game-board (or strategic map).
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Actually, it’s a reference to the attempted Mongol invasions of Japan in the 13th century. The Mongol armies of Kublai Khan were about to land on mainland Japan and thoroughly outnumbered them, prospects were very grim but two separate times providential typhoons wrecked and dispersed their fleets, allowing the Japanese to easily mop up.
In other words, the gods had sent the very wind to save Japan and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. The parallel with the last ditch, desperate suicide plane plan is obvious. And all the more poetic/appropriate that planes are passengers on the wind, like perfect cherry blossoms, yadda yadda.
Nitpick: The word “kamikaze” more accurately translates to “Divine Wind” – the Japanese do not believe in God (or “gods”) per se, though they do have a very strong tradition of panentheism.
Yes, they care, they care a lot. They care about hurting women, and about pushing their religion on everyone else.
It’s at least as much about the religions in question. Religion is a disease, it uses its human hosts to spread itself. They seek power so they can impose their religion by force and kill those who don’t believe, because as servants of the religion that dominates them that is their function.
Yes. They were supported by Christians all over the world before WWII because they supported God over the Ultimate Evil of atheism. And they made a point of killing Jews, traditional enemies of Christians.
I disagree. Religion isn’t a cause, it’s an excuse. There are all sorts of violent, authoritarian, sociopathic characters using Religion as an excuse for doing things they would do anyway, even if Religion wasn’t an issue … oppress women, enslave the primitive, kill the competing bankers, control the weak-minded. All of these things have happened throughout history for reasons of competition (for resources and mates), establishing dominance, eliminating threats … all the reasons bipedal apes have for fighting enemies and oppressing the weaker gender or class. Part of the time, they blame Religion, part of the time, they just come out and say “Let’s go conquer those guys”.
Religion is an excuse, not a cause. Of course, an excuse needs to sound credible, so there will be plenty of examples of some megalomaniac swearing up and down that they are raping, pillaging and burning witches “for God” … it’s just an excuse to placate, pacify the yokels.
No, it’s a cause at least as much as it’s an excuse. Religion uses people more than they use it. It is very good at turning people into essentially automatons who serve it, even to the point that they harm or kill their friends, their children or themselves for it.
And claiming that it isn’t a cause of the evil committed in its name is just another way it protects and propagates itself.
I agree but here’s the thing: There is no arguing with God, His word is final as far as the fanatics are concerned.
If you take away the God element and force the Oppressors to use secular reasons for their nonsense, there is more room for reason. At least there is a debate to be had or middle ground that can be achieved.
<sorry, I know this was ages ago but I got here late>
I disagree with this.
Most atheists are of the so-called “weak” variety. It’s not that we would ignore any evidence for god, like a guy in a sitcom told to “deny everything”.
I am an atheist right now because there isn’t a jot of support for the god hypothesis but many reasons to support that it is a man-made myth.
But if supernatural shit starts kicking off, particularly including characters mentioned in the bible, then sure I’ll start to reconsider that position.
Also of course at that point pragmatic options such as pretending to love god come to the fore (leaving aside for a moment if god requires sincerity). Pascal’s wager doesn’t work primarily because there are an infinity of supernatural agents that could exist and any behaviour both damns you and saves you in an infinity of realities. But once a particular faith actually has supporting evidence, then pragmatic game theory behaviour like this starts to make sense.
The Mormon take on this is that we were all created as spirit children first in the “preexistence,” so the one-third of the spirits going with Satan are really our fellow spirit children of Heavenly Father and the Heavenly Mothers.
Jesus and Lucifer are two of our brothers and presented differing plans, which resulted in the Great War.
Up through the late 1970s, the church teaching was that Blacks were “fence-sitters” in this war, and not valiant, so they were cursed with black skin and could not hold the priesthood. They have backed off from that.
I think of Satan vs God, Inc. as the “War between the states” (or American Civil War) of the celestial dimension. The winner writes the history books, so to speak. There are two sides to every conflict. If you identify with Satan for being rebellious and proud, you should probably identify with the Confederacy for the same reasons.
Regarding the Mormons, the Catholic Church backed off on No Meat on Fridays except during Lent, and even then, it’s not as stern a directive, to my knowledge, as the earlier “Fish on Fridays” I grew up with. Churches adapt to changing times … if it’s really not working, it will change. I expect Roman Catholic female priests and sanctioned gay marriage is just around the corner.
When I think of killing someone, your son specifically, by torture, I don’t think “forgiving” or “liberalized”. To me, killing someone by nailing them to wood to die a slow painful death is pretty angry, stiff and mean.
Heck, imagine even a person nowadays doing taking a dog or cat and nailing them to a piece of wood to die in the sun. Would they be a considered a forgiving person or a mean person?
I was not talking about big crimes like rape ,killing,torture ,home invasion ,robbery ,shooting or beating someone up.
But the misdemeanor crimes society calls it ( not god) today even no crimes ( modern society) .Things like , Do not take the property of others ,Do not be false to the married relation ,Stealing ,Gluttony ,lust ,greed ,Sloth ,Envy ,pride so on.
If you a government trying pass death penalty or life in prison for misdemeanor crimes or social norms taboos people would laugh at you today.
No one knows how god interprets it or the difference of it.Other than it is a sin.
Smart ass collage kid would = pride and Envy.
Some one eating three times day or more = Gluttony?
Some one living $300,000 home wanting better home = greed.
Some one that does not work 10 hour shifts is lazy or is it 8 hour shifts = sin.
Some one having sex more than two times in week = lust?
No one knows how god interprets it or the difference of it.
If the worst I’ve heard of god is true (inescapable slavery, evil means justify the ends philosophies, profound ignorance, etc) then I would find Satan the morally superior being. But if God truly were all powerful, going in with Satan would mean I was guaranteed to lose. So no, I’d pick the abusive relationship with God over the eternity in hell with Satan.
I can see some vague room for a “Heroic rejection.” Like the soldier who throws himself on a grenade, or the patriot who goes willingly to be hanged – like Christ himself! – there is something admirable about someone who will simply stand up to tyranny, even at vast (infinite!) cost.
As mortals, it’s asking an awful lot. But as angels? Can one kow-tow to monstrous evil and remain angelic?
FWIW, I don’t interpret the story as pointing to the monstrous evil of God, but to his lesser evil, his flawed nature. He fucked up. He built a system that rebelled against him, and he blamed it and punished it for not being perfect. That clearly indicates that he is not perfect.
It’s like the golfer who throws his irons into the pond after a nasty hook. We can easily understand his emotional tantrum – who among us hasn’t done something of the same nature? – but we cannot admire it, and we most certainly cannot worship it as “perfection.”
