Stakeburning, Theocracy and Oligarchy, Church and State, and Worker Ownership

Tho J. Alle The right want to have some sort of hybred theocracy/oligarchy and call still it capitalism. They really do not know the meaning of the word. If only the workers owned the means of their production.

Mark Rego Monteiro Tho J. All That´s such a key point. Except that the very premise of the rationalist philosopher who innovated that phrase is Jesus himself, and his spiritual-religious legacy in monastic schools that became Universities. It is the very structured diversity of monastic-church-University Western Europe on Jesus´ driving core of loving spiritual integrity that produced the educated monk Luther and the Reformation. That´s what defines the predicates of the pioneering anti-slavery movement, where young college grad and dissenting Anglican T Clarkson sought out the Quakers, the proteges of informally low educated spiritual genius George Fox and well known for their unusual integrity and anti-slavery position. They succeeded by 1840, but as they started, a Christian doctor inspired Robert Owen´s pro-social biz model and activism, which all inspired the 28 workingpeople who founded the Rochdale Co-op grocery in the 1840s. That´s the foundation of Social Europe, but what Marx rejected in his political fixation and other materialist assumptions. ·

Tho J. Alle Mark Rego Monteiro religion has a bad habit of burning you at the stake.

Mark Rego Monteiro Th J. All Gee, where have I heard that before. Apparently, few like me have studied Biological Anthropology adequately to differentiate authority figures of all kinds and associate their violent tendencies with their human biology. That´s how the relatively limited "stake burnings" fit into the category of violence by authorities in China, India, Islam, and other forms of violence by authorities in historical civilizations, whether Greece or Rome. Not that clear on Alexander the Great´s executing his family rivals, slaying the enemies until his assassination at age 32? Or why King Ashoka became a Buddhist after a particularly violent battle. That´s why the development of modern University-based education is a basic fact to address. Christians developed monasticism out of the general fact of spiritual-religious experience through meditation and prayer, with Anthony of the Desert the attributed founder. Later Christians turned monastic schools into Universities, and Thomas of Aquinas Christianized Aristotle´s metaphysics around God through Jesus, not the "Unmoved Mover," along with the basic epistemological areas of Human Laws, Natural Laws, Divine Law, and Eternal Law. Descartes played his pivotal role in using philosophy, but his orientation to mechanicism quickly led to the undiscerning excessive application to human affairs, where G Vico began critiquing and asserting one anti-rationalist, anti-mechanicist alternative, now called constructivist epistemology with a Christian metaphysical touch, "truth is what people make and create, allowing for Providence." Max Weber and Georg Simmel made strong advances for anti-positivism, that human beings can´t be just submitted to description, calculation, and prediction without severe consequences, based on their values, agency, and symbolic systems. So, time to go a little deeper to see why "inquisitions" are more about human biology that was using the Christian religion hypocritically, and other religions according to biological individualistic tendencies. Human biology underlies violent tendencies, and that includes the impulses that have led humans in Christian culture to WWI, Soviet Russia´s cooperation with the Nazi Hitler, Hitler´s anti-Christian opportunistic system, Tojo´s militarism based on Western education without any accompanying linkages to Christian religion. How gentle were the Japanese? And who was Oskar Schindler? A Catholic who showed how he made an ethical choice, steeped in his business culture. Who led the end of WWII? Just some scientific intellectual? Is that who you think FDR was? FDR, and Eleanor´s variation, was raised on nothing less than the Social Gospel. Jesus´ teachings weren´t just doctrine for right or wrong and club membership to the right answers. He taught spiritual practice and loving integrity. The result was the historical resurgence of loving integrity, including the intense spiritual practice in monasticism. By now, Religious Tolerance from the likes of Grotius, Locke, and Jefferson led to the likes of Schopenhauer´s Hindu-Buddhist studies, and Swedenborgian Christian CC Bonney´s founding the effort led by a Presbyterian dissident for the 1893 Chicago Parliament of World Religions. Buddhism, yoga, tai chi, like Jungian type psychology, have helped promote alternative spiritual practices for greater understanding of the distinction between church doctrinal conduct and individual spiritual experience, practice, and growth.