by Jimmie Moglia for The Saker Blog
If, according to Oscar Wilde, truth is a matter of style, even more so history is a matter of opinion. An obvious and unnecessary remark, were it not for the anger of some when they dissent with the thoughts of others. To them I would recommend, with all the earnestness at my disposal, the recollection of Mark Twain’s topic and soothing ruling that, “In all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.”
We have no other device for returning through time, except that which operates in our minds with the materials provided by past generations. Therefore I declare myself a humble vessel, into which some ancient and nearer historians have poured the fruits of their findings.
Findings that – linked by an Arianna’s thread – constitute an attempt to ascertain some ambiguities, disentangle some intricacies, and recover the meaning of seemingly inexplicable events. Some of which are lost in the darkness of antiquity and some are current, but otherwise only explainable by wholesale attribution to the inexorable and unstoppable march of folly.
We’ll start with the Arabs of the first millennium and some related little known events. Indexes really, tiny bubbles compared to their subsequent volumes, but in which there is seen the baby figure of the giant mass of things to come at large.
The Arabs, as we know, set themselves to conquer the world with the scimitar. By the way, the word ‘Arab’ originally referred to those Bedouins in the (now) Arabian Peninsula, who owned means of transportation, that is, camels. They were the elite among the camel-less Bedouins, and called themselves ‘Arab’.
As we are (were) taught in High School, Charles Martel checked the expansionist drive of the Islamized Arabs in Europe at the Battle of Poitiers, in 732 AD.
The original rules of correct Islamic practices, covering every possible human contingency, social and individual, from birth to death, went under the now familiar name of Shari’ah. Which included the Qur’an, plus certain collections of reports (hadith). Explaining the Shari’ah to the brethren was the task of the teachers (ulama).
But as Ovid wrote in his “Metamorphoses”, times change and we change with them (“Tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis”). After the battle of Poitiers, the Islamic world, the Caliphate, underwent remarkable transformations and evolutions. Incidentally, the term “Caliphate” has been recently associated with the ridiculously cruel and bestially grotesque ISIS. As we will see later, this is a charade and a net-trap to catch human woodcocks. ISIS’ lugubrious use of the term “Caliphate,” diffused by all arts and methods of propagation and propaganda, has nothing to do with the historic Caliphate linked to the original Arabic expansion. Though, as we know, the credulous mistake sound bites for knowledge.
The dramatic evolution of early Islamic civilization led to an equally dramatic progress in all the arts and sciences that we associate with the term ‘culture’ – mathematics, geometry, architecture, chemistry (then indistinguishable from alchemy), astronomy, medicine and philosophic speculation. For example, from the astronomer Musa al-Khwarizmi, Western Europe derived the word ‘algorithm’ – recently connected with a sinister system for deleting from the public media “fakist” (from ‘fake’) information. Which is new-speak for “information unpalatable to those whom we know who they are, but should not say it aloud.”
Toledo’s mosque and Granada’s Alhambra were and are peaks and wonders of human art. Elements of Arabic architecture heavily influenced the magnificent Gothic Cathedrals that rose in Europe during the 11th, 12th and 13 hundredth.
Of particular interest to us is the evolution among the speculatively minded sections of Arabic culture. Though the Shari’ah remained the foundation of religious faith and sanctioned social customs, a cultural movement developed, a kind of Arabic intellectual perestroika called ‘Falsafah’ – a rendering of the Greek ‘philosophia.’ Accompanied by an Arabic glasnosts, that is, openness to debate, appropriately called ‘Kalem,’ Arabic for ‘discussion.’
Two characters important for this analysis were Avicenna (Ibn-Sina), d. in 1074, and Averroe’ (Ibn-Rushd), d. in 1111. Avicenna, among other things, published a 5-volume treatise on medicine, used until the 1500 in European universities. Avicenna and others translated Aristotle, Plato and various Greek philosophers into Arabic and Hebrew. That is, they introduced Greek philosophy, culture and values to the rest of Europe. St. Thomas Aquinas (d. in 1274), who extensively commented Aristotle, blending his teachings with Christian philosophy, repeatedly quotes and makes reference to Avicenna in his writings.
Averroe’, on the other hand, stood on the radical side of the Kalem. He was a Pantheist. God and the world are one, he said. Reason, not faith can explain the Universe.
Less known, but crucial for the future history of the Arabic world, was another thinker named Al-Ghazali. He summarized his views on Falsafah and Kalem in a book meaningfully titled, “Deliverer from Error.” In essence, Falsafah and Kalem – he said – will lead the Arabs astray. For only the Quran and the Shar’ia are the models, necessary and sufficient to guide the Arabic nation through the uncertainties of life with the certainties of faith.
The purported decadence of Arabic culture – or rather the lack of further development after brilliant beginnings – starts with the victory of Al-Ghazali’s ‘fundamentalism.’
One assumed, barely unsaid but broadly hinted justification for the Israeli-driven America’s destruction of Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, for the organized ‘color revolutions’ in Egypt and Tunisia, and the support for the land grab of Palestine and Palestinian genocide – is that Arabic culture is ‘inferior.’
Zionism is a socialist-atheist ideology, but it can make use of religion as needed. In the instance, for the Arabs, who are Semites, Ishmael, son of Abraham is their founder. Abraham had married Hagar, an Egyptian princess, because the other wife, Sarah, could not have children. To bypass the issue, Rabbinical theology has determined that Ishmael was a bastard because Hagar, though married to Abraham, was not Jewish. It is sobering to think that such galactic-sized BS is the ‘ethical’ justification for the slaughter of millions, and for treating the Palestinians as dirt.
The fancy of a witty orator may paint such claims in the strong colors of ridicule. For, if the Israelis could steal Palestinian lands because they lived there 2000 years before, even more so the Italians could claim most of Western Europe. For Julius Caesar conquered France, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Austria, part of Germany and most of England, up to the Hadrian Wall. Thank God, the idea did not cross Mussolini’s mind. But nefarious powers can whip up nonsense as if it were cream.
I digress… After the Arabs, the Turks took up the expansionist drive of Islam. They were checked first by their defeat in the naval Battle of Lepanto (1570). Then in 1683, the Polish general Sobieski defeated them after breaking their two-month long siege of Vienna. Collectively, we escaped becoming Muslims by the proverbial thread.
On another historical front, Western Europe, after sailing through the good and bad of the Renaissance, faced the challenges of the Reformation. Which – the Reformation – had three main protagonists, Luther, Calvin and Henry VIII with his Church of England.
Luther accepted Christianity, but all superfluous ornament was rejected by the cold frugality of Protestant churches. Agnostic art lovers admit that Catholic superstition, though the enemy of reason, is often the parent of the arts.
Henry VIII’s Church of England is not greatly different from the Church of Rome, in its structure and ceremonials.
But the Protestants, those who left England for America in 1620s, were Calvinists. Calvin radicalized Luther, especially on the issue of predestination. Life, Calvin said, is predetermined and man cannot sound the mind of God on the subject. But the unfolding of events can provide useful hints. If, via personal initiative, a man becomes rich, that’s a good sign that God will also proportionally reward him in the afterlife.
In an updated version of Dante’s Divine Comedy, the ultra-rich of this earth have the VIP seats in Paradise. Said it another way, the Calvinist God socks it to the poor, both in the earthly and the unearthly world.
This runs totally opposite to the tenets of European Christianity, for, to quote Balzac, behind every great fortune there is a crime. Or, more accurately quoted, “The secret of a great success is often a crime that has never been found out, because it was properly executed.” (Le secret des grandes fortunes sans cause apparente est un crime oublié, parce qu’il a été proprement fait.) In fact, the three deadly sins of Christian Europe are, in order of badness, Avarice, Pride and Sensuality.
The dilemma whether a traditionalist Western European Christian can be a good American Christian is not new. In 1889 Pope Leo XIII responded with a letter to a question from the American Cardinal Gibbons, whether Catholics could adapt themselves to the “American Spirit” of Calvinist inspiration. Leo answered at length and concluded that Christianity was incompatible with Americanism. Which also seems, with due modifications, the conclusions reached by today’s nation of Russia.
Furthermore, American Calvinism denies the divine nature of Christ, pays lip service to the New Testament, and relies on the Old Testament for religious inspiration and (often literal) beliefs. Readers may recall the relatively recent issue of whether American schools should teach Creationism or Evolution.
As an aside, in the early Christianity of the Roman Empire there were competing currents of thought and interpretation of the Christian religion. Important at the time was the now little-remembered sect of the Gnostics. They believed that it would behoove Christianity to completely forget the Old Testament and directly begin with the New.
The Gnostics recollected the sanguinary list of murders, of executions and of massacres, which stain almost every page of the Jewish annals. Therefore they thought it was impossible that a religion that consisted only of bloody sacrifices and trifling ceremonies, and whose rewards as well as punishments were all of a carnal and temporal nature, could inspire the love of virtue, or restrain the impetuosity of passion.
Anyway, Calvinism has its origin in Old Testament Judaism. Consequently, whereas Europe finds historical and current kinship with the moderate Arabic world, Calvinist and Judaic-inspired America sees that world as a bad reality ripe for extermination. Which explains America-Israeli’s and Saudi Arabia’s financing and setting-up of ISIS, as the perfect Orwellian enemy a’-la-carte. The unwavering skeptics may remember the Toyota pick-up trucks, still featuring the dealer’s label, shipped to ISIS directly from Texas.
And, notwithstanding doubtful claims of ‘error,’ the bombardment of ancient and precious monuments by ISIS, Saudi Arabia etc. should be considered purposeful. Palmyra, Baghdad’s magnificent museum pillaged and looted, and other monuments destroyed, were remains of ancient magnificence, symbols of a history repugnant to the Calvinist and Zionist spirit of the America that (unfortunately) counts.
Judaic-Calvinist America is anti-European, anti-Mediterranean, and an enemy of the ancient culture born in the Middle East, the Babylonians, the Assyrians, Palestine, followed by Greece and Rome. That is, the culture of Western Europe.
For this kind of America, there is no external objectivity. Reality is subjective, it is what we say it is. Principles that suggest metaphysics, or anything beyond the material, are for the birds. Dubious readers may remember the pernicious secretary of defence Rumsfeld. Who, when questioned about massive incontrovertible lies he said on Iraq, retorted in a rare moment of truth, “We create our own reality.” A mode of thought that we see almost daily in action: Assad’s chemical attacks, Putin’s poisoning of the Skripals, Russia’s interference with American elections, etc.
Picking up again the temporarily-suspended historical thread, after the Protestant Reformation, the next political European earthquake was Oliver Cromwell’s English revolution, 1642-1649.
For every momentous event, there is an official and an unofficial version. The official version claims that the rebels, the Roundheads, feared that King Charles I would restore Catholicism to England – albeit with no evidence. In the unofficial version, the roots of the revolution must be sought in the banishment of Jews from England by King Edward I, in 1290 AD.
There is an extant note by Cromwell to Ebenezer Pratt, a Jewish financier in Amsterdam, saying, “In return for financial support will advocate admission of Jews to England. This however is impossible while Charles living.”
Follows an exchange of communications between the two. The last note to Cromwell by Ebenezer Pratt says, “Will grant financial aid as soon as Charles removed and Jews admitted. Assassination is too dangerous. Charles shall be given an opportunity to escape. His recapture will make trial and execution possible. The support will be liberal, but it is useless to discuss terms until the trial commences.”
Just such an event took place in November 1647. The recaptured and tried King Charles I was executed in 1649. Cromwell readmitted the Jews to England, just as 150 years later, following similar circumstances, Napoleon emancipated the Jews in France after the French Revolution.
But unlike France, England restored the monarchy with the return from exile of Charles II, son of Charles I. Then, after the ‘Glorious’ Revolution of 1688 – so called because it was bloodless – the new King, William of Orange, came from… Holland.
Some historians hold that the real objective of the ‘Glorious Revolution’ was the setting up, in 1694, of the “Bank of England” and the institution of the National Debt, whereby lenders would secure their loans on the taxes of the country, instead of the doubtful undertaking of some ruler or potentate.
Furthermore, gold became the basis of loans, ten times the size of the amount of gold held by the bank. That is, 100 pounds in gold, held by a banker, would be legal security for 1,000 pounds of loan. At, say, 3%, therefore, 100$ in gold would earn 30 pounds in interest to the banker – with no more trouble to the lender than the keeping of a few ledger entries.
What has this to do with our story? It does insofar as, about 200 years later, the establishment of the Federal Reserve Bank closely mirrors the establishment of the Bank of England. And, as mentioned in a previous article, the Federal Reserve is proudly recognized as the achievement of a Jewish cartel of bankers and politicians.
As Dutch bankers supported Cromwell in the 1640s, American Bankers secured America’s arbitrary and unjustified military intervention in WW1, to support the tottering England, in exchange for the Balfour Declaration about Palestine.
WW1 destroyed the German, the Austro-Hungarian, the Russian and the Ottoman empires. Palestine went to England, and all the guarantees for the Palestinians (though included in the Balfour declaration), went the way of all flesh.
WW2, besides destroying Germany, also destroyed the British Empire and brought Zio-Americanism to Europe, which mixes the barbaric (im)morality of the Talmud with the absence of an objective reality. The equivalent, in politics and economy is neo-liberalism.
The ethic peddled by neo-liberal, turbo-capitalist and imperialist elites, the cult of the self, the banishing of empathy, the belief that violence can be used to make the world conform, require the destruction of the communal and the destruction of the sacred. And the elites who orchestrate this pillage, like elites who pillaged parts of the globe in the past, probably believe they can outrun their own destructiveness.
Furthermore, it is questionable whether the self-interest of a turbo-capitalist or high-finance manipulator coincides with the interests of the community, and whether the competitive winner-take-all mentality provides the dynamics of economic progress.
In the meantime… while Stalinist Communism had prevailed in Russia – that is, Communism in one country, Trotskyite Communist ideology did not die. In Western Europe Trotskyite revolutionary ideas expressed themselves with the revolution of 1968. Where the revolutionaries were no longer the proletarians but the students.
The ideologues inspiring the 1968 revolution were the Cultural Marxists of the so called Frankfurt School, which incorporated Marx, Nietzsche, and the base, degenerate, sick and disgusting Freud, with his psychoanalysis. Based on his biographies, Freud was a vindictive Marxist, fixated with money, and bent to prove that all goys are perverts. The damage he wrought on Western European culture is still to be tallied, – it’s no wonder that he became an icon of Cultural Marxism.
The objective of the 1968 revolution was the worldwide establishment of intellectual anarchism.
1968 also brought a Marx-inspired revolution to man’s inmost being. It destroyed the individual. It established American-Atlantic culture in Europe, with its accompanying infinite relativism. For when reality is what I say it is, everything goes. It was the beginning of the destruction of what there remained of the Greek, Latin and then Christian tradition.
As for to the Middle East, we should note that all the countries that Israeli-America attacked or destroyed subscribed to Ba’athism. That is, a Baath-inspired party governed those nations.
Baath, or Ba’athist means “renaissance” or “resurrection.” It began in the early 1800 after Napoleon Bonaparte’s invasion of Egypt. The nearest approximation of Baathism in Europe, are (were), the national-socialist movements in Spain with Franco, in Italy with Mussolini and in Portugal with Salazar. Ba’athism rejects political pluralism, not in principle but “temporarily indefinitely.” For how long it cannot say, because the primary and immediate aim is to advance Arab society, borrowing technology and other scientific innovations from Europe and America, but not the ideology.
Equally, Ba’athism aims at developing an enlightened, tolerant Arabic society, enhancing social progress and promoting a semi-secular ideology. As an example, Tariq-Aziz, Saddam’s Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, was Catholic. Ba’athism supports socialist economics to a varying degree, and public ownership in crucial sectors of the economy. It opposes, however, the confiscation of private property.
Ba’athist ideology does not imply state socialism or economic equality. The Ba’athists believe that moderate socialism is the only way to develop a free and united Arab society. In summary, Ba’athist ideology is nationalist but not fundamentalist.
Around 1990 new revolutionary movements arose, notably Al-Qaida, eventually transformed, through multiple rebranding into ISIS, the instrument of a new Trotskyite, world-permanent revolution.
ISIS is not an Islamic religion, it is an Islamic political ideology, a puppet in a theater where Israel pulls the strings and Zio-America pays the theater’s logistic bill, through the good offices of the other ruffian puppet, Saudi Arabia.
For the moment, as we know, the plan to completely destroy moderate Islam stalled in Syria, thanks also to Russia.
But the undeclared prize is the destruction is Europe, or rather of what is left in Europe of the Greek, Latin, Scholastic, religious tradition. With the moderate and progressive Arabic states, Zio-America used traditional bombs, with Europe they are using the population bomb.
It is doubtful whether Europe, weakened by the importation of Zio-American ideology, and by the 1968 Cultural Marxist revolution, can defend herself. Of them, whose rise we could not hinder, we solace ourselves by prognosticating the fall. But that is only wishful thinking. Sunk in hopeless dejection, Europe resembles the headless chicken, still trotting for a moment, before dropping to the ground.
2.5 billion people wait to be ferried to Europe. More sections of European cities are “zona franca.” American (Jewish) scientist, Samuel Huntington, predicted “The Clash of Civilizations” while his student Fukuyama predicted the “end of history.” Untold by Huntington is that “the clash of civilizations” is a euphemism for the Coudeneuve-Kalergi plan for the replacement of Europeans with a mongrel race ruled by “the best of the Jews” (Kalergi’s words). And that the “end of history” is the world promised to the chosen people.
All this many in the world well know, yet none knows well what to do about it. The still unaware or skeptical may eventually be persuaded via the shared network of world communications. Widespread knowledge is a challenge and a potential obstacle in the progress towards the end of history. Enter then the novel business of censoring “fake news” – namely, news unpleasant to the Kabal. It’s an Orwellian rendition of the Official Secrets Act. Which, as we know, is not to protect the secrets, but the officials.
Angry at failing to completely destroy Russia at the end of the USSR, Zio-America is seeking revenge. It succeeded in making Ukraine an enemy of Russia, which equates to Ukraine being an enemy of herself, or to Rome being an enemy of Italy. For the root and heart of Russia was the kingdom of Kievan-Rus (“Kievan” as in “Kiev,” and “Rus” as in “Russia”). Ironically, America hated the USSR because it was atheist, and now Zio-America hates Russia because it is (Orthodox) Christian.
Zio-America equally succeeded in making scorched earth of moderate Islam, but for Iran. Knowing the country well and personally, I like to believe that it will not be as easy to destroy it as they think.
There remains Russia, which, as far as we now can say or perhaps can see, may only be subdued with the Samson option (Israel’s alternative definition of WW3).
Even so, all that lives must die, passing through nature to eternity. I am innocent of the knowledge of Judaic metaphysics. There seems to be no generally shared notion of a Judaic heavenly world, corresponding to the Christian or Muslim Paradise. Their end of history coincides with a final conquest of the earthly world. Though a Judaic hell must exist, for, according to the Talmud, Christ burns there eternally in excrement. Anyway, their Jehovah-God is bitter, harsh, grim and vindictive, hence better avoided than befriended.
Dante’s Divine Comedy offers a good description of the Catholic Paradise – an intriguing though somewhat static realm. It is as if the Blessed were permanently watching splendid static images on an immense paradisiacal TV screen.
The Muslim Paradise is better suited to be understood. But 70 virgins seem excessive, I’d settle for 35. Though I am already content that, 4-billion years hence, my dust will be part of a star – and I will become veritable stardust.
Notes.
1. For more on Freud, interested readers may check the article “The Fraud of Freud” (http://10.16.86.131/?s=the+fraud+of+freud)
2. Readers affected by chronic or episodic insomnia, may watch one or more of the videos I produced on the History of Ukraine. (http://10.16.86.131/?s=History+of+Ukraine)
This was a pleasure to read, and with an abundance of information!
On a street level, where most of my life observations have developed, here in the US I have been studying for decades now and bothered about it, this issue of the “absence of objective reality.” This pervades life in cities and small towns where lately I am seeing that there is an idea that “what you can’t see, what isn’t revealed, you will never know or be able to discern.” This seems to me some sort of logical fallacy, though it might appear to be successful for a period of time, nonetheless, I still adhere where I can to, “the truth comes out in time.” While the potential moon voyages and Kennedy’s demise and such like, challenge this to be sure, so I find myself in a condition of continually not knowing.
A few years ago I chanced upon Thomas Reid who it seemed to me debunked this concept of “subjective” philosophy years ago. When I excitedly and imperfectly tried to relay my understanding of Reid to some of my fellow American friends, they let me know that “they knew that already.” Whenever I hear that, I’m reminded of teaching little children, who according to them, know everything already.
Socrates seems to suggest that innately perhaps we do know everything, but then he probably suggested also that we do not. I am currently convinced that whatever changes occur in temporal reality, it will reveal a kind never ending knowledge, and while everyday I seem to go forth to meet my personal demise at some point, nevertheless, I am comforted by the thought that there will not be an end to learning. Though I seem to dwell on the same issues for decades with little progress and small breakthroughs.
I would suggest that Heisenberg is more recent than Socrates, and Heisenberg very emphatically said that we do not know everything and we can not possibly know everything.
Do we now need to add Calvinist to the Anglo-Zionist adjective?
Michael Hoffman The Occult Renaissance Church of Rome paints a more nuanced picture. The early Calvinists and Lutherans were not the ones embracing usury, printing the Talmud etc — we have the renaissance popes– the institution– to thank for that. To be sure, the Calvinists were Judaisers in their own way. Once usury was normalized, the Calvinists took it and ran with it. Material reward was seen as having divine favor. Probably it is the same sort of thing, of people who watch The Kardassians having less compassion for the poor.
Matthew 13:24-30 (NKJV)
Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; 25 but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. 26 But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. 27 So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ 28 He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’ 29 But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.”
Great essay of the west in a nutshell.
This is one of the best short essays on the history of the western world that I have read.
Once again, Thank you, Jimmy.
Jimmie, yet another excellent piece of work. I would like to add the following. Let me return to the Persian invasions (yes there were three of them roughly ten years apart. First we had the Marathon, then Thermopylae, then Platea) on the lands of Greeks. Greek ancient historians claimed that for the second invasion King of Persia brought total of five million people. The same was confirmed by Soviet archeology professors. But, “western history correctors” decided that it was impossible, because this was Greek “fiction”. You can see the “improved” numbers in wikipedia. Just like they insisted that Trojan War never happened, until suddenly “oh sorry, it happened, damn it”. I will also add, that it is my strong belief that what is happening today to Greece, Italy and Spain is a payback for the perceived past days’ prosecutions, just them to the Arab Spring.
Jimmie, I can always count on you to dish it out like it is/was.
Small addition. The Soviet historian I am referring to is:
Vladimir Sergeyevich Sergeyev (Владимир Серге́евич Сергеев) and his book:
История Древней Греции (History of Ancient Greece), 1939
This book was translated to Polish:
Historia Starożytniej Grecji (W. S. Siergiejew). Published by Kisążka i Wiedza, Warszawa 1952
I really suggest all Russian an Polish Visitors to read it. Why? This is history book like no book in the West. Why? It’s from communist point of view. It talks about history, while it discusses social interactions between the owner and the slave. His references are, who else: Engels, Lenin.
And, no I got this book some twenty years later, maybe less.
In my mind wonderful.
Of course, calling all of America as “calvinist” is a vast oversimplification.
It may apply to the Pilgrims who landed in Massachusettes. But if we head down the coast, we find that what eventually became New York was Dutch colony, which I believe was originally known as New Amsterdam. Next down the coast comes William Penn and his homeland for peaceful Quakers known as Pennsylvania. Next on the map comes Queen Mary’s Land which was Catholic refugees fleeing the Protestant English that desired to kill them. From Virginia and southwards was the Church of England. South of Savannah, Georgia the lands were all Catholic lands of the Spanish. French protestant Hugenots settled into the coastal colonies as well, again fleeing those who would murder them on the basis of religious claims. The Catholic French led their own flanking manuevers behind the coastal colonies with their own colonies, the most notable being the French settlement at New Orleans. French speaking Quebec became part of Canada.
Ooops, and I of course forgot the Vikings bring Odin to America back before Columbus “discovered” the New World.
Would it not be fair to say that Calvinism became the religious ideology of the New England capitalist ruling class? It was reinforced because it gave the appearance of religious sanction to capitalist ideology. The ideas of the dominant ruling class tend to become the accepted ideas of the masses. In terms of a controlling national religious ideology this tends to render the many alternatives somewhat irrelevant does it not? So we can say that Calvinism rules America because the rulers wish it so. If you are poor you deserve nothing!
Since you are listing everyone, wouldn’t Luisiana (home of the French King Luis, whichever?) be French Catholic? California – Spanish Catholic? And then we have the pseudo-Christian Mormons in Utah.
Wouldn’t the Dutch be mostly Baptists (the southern non Spanish States)?
I agree with Snow Leopard, that with all the nitpicking, Calvinism rules the US.
The Dutch were quite Calvinist indeed, also those who worked at or moved to New Amsterdam.
Well, I would say that on the surface the Calvanist POV has surface value–but, in reality, the religion of the USA is money, i.e., hustling. The USA is the land of the con and their marks. Religion is something people do on Sunday and is mainly focused on faith rather than works. In many aspects of the uniquely American version of conservative theology, once one is “saved” (basically claiming to be Christian) then there is no reason to fear Hell and so people generally do what they want to do while pretending not to. I live in the South so I ought to know.
Very intriguing read. I remember several years reading up on Calvinism, and was deeply shocked especially regarding their predestination ideas.I wondered how such a movement even considers itself Christian? But how did Calvinism become so radical in the US? After all, Calvinism exists in Switzerland. The city of Geneva is Calvinist, and yet this same city did give rise to the Red Cross organisation.
So much history was covered it was a pleasure to read.
As to Al-Qaida I don’t think the author intended to imply that it started in 1990. After WW2 the CIA bought from the British the running of the Muslim Brotherhood networks (that actually supported the Nazis during the war). When Nasser in Egypt started suppressing the MB they fled with CIA assistance to Saudi Arabia and co-mingled with Wahabis. The CIA were using the MB through the Mosque in Munich in operations into Central Asia against the USSR then they later came up with the idea with Brzezinski and the Saudis to start a jihad in Afghanistan to threaten that USSR ally to draw the Soviets in. The point man to organize the MB and Wahabis in Saudi Arabia was Osama bin Laden. Later, very early in the 1990’s bin Laden traveled under CIA protection to Bosnia to organize jihadis against the Serbs (the US focused everyone with lies on the Serbs). Brzezinski and Scowcroft ran a CIA front company in Azerbaijan to ferry jihadis from Afghanistan to Azerbaijan, Chechnya, and Bosnia. This is how it is: CIA = MB = Al Qaeda = ISIS.
This one paragraph really knocked me over:
“The ethic peddled by neo-liberal, turbo-capitalist and imperialist elites, the cult of the self, the banishing of empathy, the belief that violence can be used to make the world conform, require the destruction of the communal and the destruction of the sacred. And the elites who orchestrate this pillage, like elites who pillaged parts of the globe in the past, probably believe they can outrun their own destructiveness.”
I wonder if the world will survive their hubris of destructiveness and dementia.
Don’t be to eager to demonize all non-Orthodox Christians and European nationalism too fast and without thinking carefully. Always remember what our Lord Jesus said about this judgement of humans.
https://mouqawamahmusic.net/the-russian-georgian-war-of-august-2008-was-actually-the-russian-israeli-war/
The failure of the Georgian war has only been a spur by the supporters to continue by similar-other means and ways?
http://www.pravdareport.com/author/55-1/
Let God decide who wins from latest sanctions…..”so now we have instead, economic warfare with sanctions, more sanctions and increased sanctions, trying to tie a knot around Russia’s throat and tightening it, now linking Crimea to Abkhazia to South Ossetia, to state-sponsored terrorism without a shred of respect for the law and the facts. It is by now crystal clear what the West wants….”
kudos, very good summary, touching many important points.
Of course, it would be classed as “antisemitic” or similar in any other website.
But one cannot be wrong to call a spade a spade!
A truly stunning source of food for thought — hats off and thanks, Jimmie Moglia!
”But the undeclared prize is the destruction of Europe, or rather of what is left in Europe of the Greek, Latin, Scholastic, religious tradition. With the moderate and progressive Arabic states, Zio-America used traditional bombs, with Europe they are using the population bomb.”
Yes, it’s the Zionazi-led putrefaction process of all things West including, inter alia, the creation of the modern Euro-trash. However, that doesn’t require a single non-European immigrant. While it could be that the Coudeneuve-Kalergi plan — if it’s for real and not a piece of fiction garbage a la Novichok — has some traction here, the third world immigration is strongly profit-driven; its chief aim is the return again en masse of the working poor as a social stratum in the imperialist countries.
Moreover, since modern Zio-gays are not too fond of breeding, the immigrants are perceived as the solution to this problem also.
”It is doubtful whether Europe, weakened by the importation of Zio-American ideology, and by the 1968 Cultural Marxist revolution, can defend herself. ”
Not just doubtful — it’s game over. The Zio-American ideology par excellence, neoliberalism, found for the most part a substantial, receptive audience among Western Europe’s middle classes and labour aristocracies who were very ready to become showered in private debt while the West’s fiscal and productive base was intentionally eroded. Cultural Marxism made sure that hedonism and infantilism, not welfare and progressive government policies, were heralded as emancipation.
”Palmyra, Baghdad’s magnificent museum pillaged and looted, and other monuments destroyed, were remains of ancient magnificence, symbols of a history repugnant to the Calvinist and Zionist spirit of the America that (unfortunately) counts.”
At bottom, the Zionazis are just anti-Life, pure and simple. Anything that has beauty and shows signs of ingenuity is outright anathema to them.
”Dubious readers may remember the pernicious secretary of defence Rumsfeld. Who, when questioned about massive incontrovertible lies he said on Iraq, retorted in a rare moment of truth, ’We create our own reality’. A mode of thought that we see almost daily in action: Assad’s chemical attacks, Putin’s poisoning of the Skripals, Russia’s interference with American elections, etc.”
Rumsfeld is pretty much on point. His pronoun ”we” is a clear hint at the politicians and the MSM presstitutes. The corollary question becomes what happens when this kind of stupid, arrogant lying eventually fails utterly to convince or amuse any others but themselves. Or is that their ultimate ”feelgood experience” — splendid ideological isolation?
”It is sobering to think that such galactic-sized BS is the ‘ethical’ justification for the slaughter of millions, and for treating the Palestinians as dirt.”
Very true. And also:
”Anyway, their Jehovah-God is bitter, harsh, grim and vindictive, hence better avoided than befriended.”
Ditto his devout, genocidal followers on planet Earth.
The Cathedral of Cordoba, you mean?
A couple of years ago I witnessed a group of guys dressed like Moslems weeping as they toured through it. I guess they felt like the plonking of the Cathedral into the middle of the place by the Reconquista Catholics was just not fair. Hagi Sofia, anyone?
Masterful… ‘the ring of truth’ resonates through this article. How many readers, as I do, realise the lifetime of falsified history we have been fed – whether in college or university. Thank you so much for this light,,,
Extremely informative and well done essay. A pleasure to read, though the prospects it present are grim
I think for the sake of clarity the following very important sentence is worth fixing:
“But the undeclared prize is the destruction is Europe”
(“is Europe” should be changed to “of Europe”
Thank you for a great essay
”Zionism is a socialist-atheist ideology.” Really!? Zionism is an imperialistic, expansionist, racist political movement. How is this compatible with socialism exactly? As for atheism, I think it was Harold Wilson who once intoned that ”Socialism in England has got more to do with Methodism than Atheism.” He was right but for all the wrong reasons of course.
The author also needs to explain why ‘Liberation theology’ in Latin America combined socialism with catholicism.
“”Zionism is a socialist-atheist ideology.” Really!? Zionism is an imperialistic, expansionist, racist political movement. How is this compatible with socialism exactly?”
Exactly, zionazism and socialism are about as far apart as it gets. The extremist right falsely associates everything they don’t like with socialism or the left in some way. It is simply a long time ploy by the fascist/corporate to demonise the left. Psywar.
Really liked this article. The history of Cromwell, the bank of England, the Federal Reserve in America, the link with the jew bankers, the Talmud, the Calvin-American ideology snd it’s efforts to capture/control Europe, very interesting.
Appreciated. Will certainly keep all those references to deepen my culture. Thanks again.
Excellent essay, enjoyed reading and learned much.
Apologies for minor pedantry – do you mean the mosque (mezquita) at Cordoba rather than Toledo?
No, there is mosque in Toledo as well, as there is sinagogue and cathedral, as happened in any multicultural multireligious city of ancient times.
NathalieM,
Thank you I stand corrected. I was in Toledo some years ago. Went in the magnificent cathedral, but didn’t see the mosque.
Not so spectacular as Cordoba’s but still very beautiful and valuable….
https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archivo:Mezquita_de_Bab_al-Mardum_(Toledo).jpg
Speaking on the 70 virgins – every fan of Conan the Barbarian knows to never never kiss a heavenly virgin .
The moment you do they sprout fangs,claws, and hairy chest only to devour you if sword arm is poor.
I will do my utmost to remember this advice – I am old and broken, and my sword arm isn’t what it used to be!
There is a carefully crafted misconception that identity politics derives from Marxist thought and the meaningless phrase ‘cultural Marxism’, which has more to do with liberal culture than Marxism, is used to sell this line of thinking. Not only does identity politics have nothing in common with Marxism, socialism or any other strand of traditional left-wing thought, it is anathema to the very concept. […] No socialist country, whether in practice or in name only, promoted identity politics. Neither the African and Asian nations that liberated themselves from colonialist oppression nor the USSR and Eastern Bloc states nor the left-wing movements that sprung up across Latin America in the early 21st century had any time to play identity politics. […] The idea that identity politics is part of traditional left-wing thought is promoted by the right who seek to demonise left wing-movements, liberals who seek to infiltrate, backstab and destroy said left-wing movements, and misguided young radicals who know nothing about political theory and have neither the patience nor discipline to learn. The last group seek a cheap thrill that makes them feel as if they have shaken the foundations of the establishment when in reality they strengthen it.
How Identity Politics Makes the Left Lose Its Collective Identity
https://www.globalresearch.ca/how-identity-politics-makes-the-left-lose-its-collective-identity/5650112
Very interesting amalgamation with delightful underlying ideological currents distorting (purposefully?) otherwise informational (some historical factoids I wasn’t aware of) tapestry. One Q. though: how did you manage to insert Palestine (actually non-existing term at the time) between Assyrians and Greece in the following statement: “the ancient culture born in the Middle East, the Babylonians, the Assyrians, Palestine, followed by Greece and Rome”??
You wouldn’t believe what the mongrels of Coudenhove-Kalergi would look like:
“In the big city international races are encountered. As a rule, the Urban man is a mongrel of a variety of social and national elements”…
“The precursor of the planetary man [The Eurasian-Negroid race of the future] is the Russian Slavic-Tatar-Finnish mongrel of modern Europe; because he, among all the peoples of Europe, is the race of the typical multi-soul people with a wide ranging, encompassing soul. His strongest antipode is the insular Briton, the highly bred single minded man whose strength typically lies in the character, in the will – he provides modern Europe with the most closed, perfect type: the Gentleman”.
Well, Coudenhove-Kalergi was the Eurasian mongrel par excellence himself, of Flemish, Greek, Italian, Japanese ancestry and married to Jewesses. His model for the future Europe was the recently defunct multinational Empire of Austro-Hungary.
Nevertheless, his ‘Praktischer Idealismus’ is an interesting reading. He was an apologist of technology and sort of prophet, he said that a hundred years from his time everyone would have a car and a telephone.
Abraham was not a Jew either. The exclusion of Ismael from the ‘first born’ inheritance rights was not motivated by the non-Jewishness of his mother (who is doubtful that she was a Princess) but because the first wife Sarah has eventually born a son, so legally he was the first born, even if we dismiss the promise made by God to Abraham: “And Abram said, “You have given me no offspring, and so a slave born in my house is to be my heir.” But the word of the Lord came to him, “This man shall not be your heir; no one but your own issue shall be your heir.”… God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her, and moreover, I will give you a son by her.”
When the ‘Ishmaelites’ started to move out from their desert to more pleasant surroundings, the Jews cam to them and said: We are cousins, we are both the offspring of Abraham, together we will drive out the Christians. And together they went, under the leadership of the Jews, and drove out the Emperors army. But when it came to share the spoils, the Arabs said: Sorry, but we are the first born of Abraham so if you want to have any part you must submit to our Prophet. You can figure out the rest of the story.
Dante based his Divine Comedy on Islamic work. http://www.arabnews.com/node/379417 Islam itself may be Persian in origin and not Arab as suggested by this writer: https://gatesofvienna.net/2016/08/the-sunni-shia-divide-and-islams-puzzling-origins/ And it is of interest that in creating the Taliban, Al Queda, and ISIS the USA simply took a page from the British who as we know had many Muslim subjects and practiced divide and conquer by creating the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, installing the Wahabi sect in Arabia, and creating communal war in India by pitting Muslim against Hindu and then partioning the sub-continent.
A bit of late news. The surprising announcement that Dante was inspired by Muslim ‘works’ was made by Miguel Asin Palacios in 1928 and received with the laughter it deserves. But it was remained ever since a staple food for those determined to derive the European Renaissance from ‘Islamic ‘ culture and break the ‘prejudices’ and stereotypes of a ‘confrontational’ relation between Islam and the backward Western world.
But as all things in life change, this rosy view changed more recently:
“Dante’s Divine Comedy ‘offensive and should be banned’
“It is a world-renowned work of literature and one of the foundation stones of the Italian language, but Dante’s Divine Comedy has been condemned as racist, homophobic, anti-Islamist and anti-Semitic.
The classic work should be removed from school curricula, according to Gherush 92, a human rights organisation which acts as a consultant to UN bodies on racism and discrimination.
Dante’s epic is “offensive and discriminatory” and has no place in a modern classroom, said Valentina Sereni, the group’s president.
Divided into three parts – Hell, Purgatory and Heaven – the poem consists of 100 cantos, of which half a dozen were marked out for particular criticism by the group.
It represents Islam as a heresy and Mohammed as a schismatic and refers to Jews as greedy, scheming moneylenders and traitors, Miss Sereni told the Adnkronos news agency.
“The Prophet Mohammed was subjected to a horrific punishment – his body was split from end to end so that his entrails dangled out, an image that offends Islamic culture,”* she said.
“We do not advocate censorship or the burning of books, but we would like it acknowledged, clearly and unambiguously, that in the Divine Comedy there is racist, Islamophobic and anti-Semitic content. Art cannot be above criticism,” Miss Sereni said.
Schoolchildren and university students who studied the work lacked “the filters” to appreciate its historical context and were being fed a poisonous diet of anti-Semitism and racism, the group said.
It called for the Divine Comedy to be removed from schools and universities or at least have its more offensive sections fully explained.
@https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/9140869/Dantes-Divine-Comedy-offensive-and-should-be-banned.html
More credible and documented is the thesis advanced in the second link, of the Jewish inspiration of Islam.
*Inferno, Canto 28,
“While I stood looking wholly at him, he gazed at me, and opened his chest with his hands, saying: ‘See how I tear myself: see how Mahomet is ripped! In front of me, Ali goes, weeping, his face split from chin to scalp, and all the others you see here, were sowers of scandal and schism in their lifetimes: so they are cleft like this. There is a devil behind who tears us cruelly like this, reapplying his sword blade to each of this crowd, when they have wandered round the sad road, since the wounds heal before any reach him again”.
“…of the Jewish inspiration of Islam.”
The ideology of true monotheism was first brought forth by Adam(pbuh) himself. Was Adam(pbuh) a Jew?
Also, the ideology of an “in-his-image” deity is followed by the Jews too. Islam totally rejects such a notion. So, how was Islam inspired by Judaism?
No, Islam was not inspired by Judaism, but by the Jews who reject notion of the divinity of Jesus. The ‘true monotheists’ that is. Birds of a feather flock together.
Luke 21:23
But woe unto them that are with child and to them that give suck in those days! For there shall be great distress in the land AND WRATH UPON THIS PEOPLE.”
I do believe we have arrived.
As for Calvin it was Arthur Wallis who said it best:
It is a mistake to view the sovereignty of God, as some Calvinists seem to do, as the hub of the Deity, with all of God’s other attribute’s radiating like spokes from the hub. God’s sovereignty (or ability to do what He wills) is clearly subordinate to His character of holiness and love. Because He is a moral being and has constituted man as a moral being, He cannot act without reference to His moral principles. Even a sovereign God cannot forgive the unrepentant or bless the disobedient.
Though man may be influenced from within and from without, God still holds him responsible for his moral choices. This is the consistent teaching of scripture, and we must not weaken the grasp on conscience that this provides by suggesting that since the fall man is no longer a free agent, no longer with a will of his own. This view, carried to its logical conclusion, not only has a tendency to absolve the unconverted person from his moral responsibility towards God, but by the same token to relieve the believer of his responsibility in terms of obedience and submission. Both could be tempted to take up a passive attitude and leave it to God who “works all things according to the purpose of His will.”
Nobody will not admire the Toledo Mosque or Alhambra (and Cordoba Mosque for that matter), but to say that the Arabs “introduced Greek philosophy, culture and values to the rest of Europe” is to get a bit over the top. Ditto for the influences in Gothic architecture as if the Romanesque cathedrals with their attending ‘minor arts’ never existed. The Greek philosophy ‘conquered’ Europe because it was already there. People cannot get rid of the meme of the ‘Dark Ages of Christian obscurantism’, and help swooning over Sufism.
On the other side Al-Ghazali, the Mujaddid or ‘renewer of the faith’, who, according to the prophetic hadith, appears once every century to restore the faith of the ummah (“the Islamic Community”), triumphed. No more Greek philosophy. Wahabism is another tadjid.
The Christian Paradise is indeed boring. As the Christ said: “In the resurrection, people will neither marry nor be given in marriage. Instead, they will be like the angels in heaven”.
It is true that the Arabs brought with them all the knowledge they could grasp around the vast dominions of the most successful caliphates, like it was the Omeya Caliphate at its times, extending from its capital, Damascus, to the Iberian Peninsula, which had a hub of culture and knowledge in Al Andalus, where every wise people from around the world, from any race, creed or condition, had a place to develop and spread its theories. It is also a fact that not only in Al Andalus, but also in Toledo ( see School of Translaters and Interpreters of Toledo), there was a qualified translaters school who translated not only from Greek and Latin, but also from Persian and Arab. No wonder that in Al Andalus you could find Persians, like Ibn Sina, but also Jews like Averroes, every one dedicated to develop its own field, or sometimes several fields, of knowledge.
Of course, Catholic fundamentalism finished all this, and with it, what is today Spain, started its path to obscurantism and ignorance which culminated in Franco’s fascist dictatorship, which, BTW, had nothing of tolerant, being people of different views not only deprived of their properties and even their lives by summary executions at sunrise, but, in case they wanted to remain alive, be forced to exile themselves abroad. Every other national language was forbidden to be used and taught and a harsh censure was established through media, literature, sciences and educational system..
I do no know about concrete characteristic of Baathism, but I fear that both, Mussolini and Salazar fascist dictatorships had nothing to envy from Franco’s one, for the worst I mean, not to mention that the three had an unmistakable Catholic integrist tint, thus, not secular in any way.
Anonymous
On this occasion I agree with you. To state that Arabs introduced Greek culture to the rest of Europe is surprising, bearing in mind that the Roman empire was based on the Greek Empire and Greek culture. The writer also forgets the Greek Byzantine Empire and it’s influence on Europe. Greek scholars from Constantinople introduced the Renaissance in Italy.
With respect to Paradise, I am of the opinion of trying to have the best time here on Earth, if not because nobody has returned yet to tell us how everything goes in the afterlife.
To this end, I try my best fighting for a socialist future, which I consider the most benfficial for a majority of people, in fact, no other thing I think is included, even when through metaphors to, in a certain way, encrypt his message to avoid Roman totalitarian censure and simplify it for lay people, in Jesus’ message.
Once more, comrade Moglia penned a fine article, which mirrors the desperate state of our times in the eye of a cultured beholder.
But, coming as they do from the keybord of comrade Moglia there are two points that made me cringe:
1 it is unfair on that old pillar of the Non-Aligned-Movement called Nasser, and the heroic Baathist-led Syrian Arab Republic, to compare baathism to the old fascism of Europe. The Baathists of Nasser and Assad saw an ally in the Ussr and Russia, not an enemy to plunder as auxiliaries of the Wermacht. And that is only for starters…
2 you give too much slack to England and the Anglicans. All Anglo-protestantism is the problem like root and stalk in poisonous plant. The Anglo-Calvinist is the stalk of the problem, but the root of that stalk is the Anglican, a courtisan cabal that invented a denomination, without a theological case…
Saluti da Anversa, compagno Moglia, sursum corda, as you say.
@Robert
but the root of that stalk is the Anglican, a courtisan cabal that invented a denomination, without a theological case…
Love, love this sentence. I may plagiarize it and I certainly agree! It was not birthed through any kind of inspiration of God at all though many have tried I suppose. Imagine a human king creating a church for no other reason than to impose his own will and desire and few if any bothered to even notice the gravity of the situation.
”Leo answered at length and concluded that Christianity was incompatible with Americanism. Which also seems, with due modifications, the conclusions reached by today’s nation of Russia.”
Well, given that the Pindo rendition of Christianity is so pathetically ugly — vulgarity, greed, lust, and insincerity all along the line — it’s either a matter of plain incompatibility, as Leo concluded, or that Christianity has no morale whatsoever. My verdict is the same as Leo’s, but taken to its logical conclusion: Americanism is applied Satanism, as it’s based upon self-worship and State worship. The ”church” of militant parasites.
We also have to address Christianity’s Roman Catholic creed and its time-honoured, solid, dependable presence in the service of political reaction. Franco, Salazar, Pavelic, and much of today’s ruling circles in Poland and Ukraine. But the population in these two countries is dwindling, so it’s not a very potent threat as compared to satanist Americanism.
Just a few small notes:
Arianna’s thread should be Ariadne’s thread.
“The Arabs, as we know, set themselves to conquer the world with the scimitar.” “We” do not know this. It is a gross simplfication and essentially an error. This is the trouble with a certain dilettantism that verges on the irresponsible. One can’t be expert in just anything or in everything.
If one is going to speak of a summit of Islamic art, the mention of the mosque in Cordoba takes precedence over that of Toledo.
Islamic theology is kalam not kalem. And Averroes was most certainly not a “pantheist.” Like all Muslims he based everything on the essential Islamic doctrine of God’s Oneness (tawhid), which is transcendent.
Al-Ghazali was first and foremost a Sufi, and not a “thinker.” The idea that “The purported decadence of Arabic culture – or rather the lack of further development after brilliant beginnings – starts with the victory of Al-Ghazali’s ‘fundamentalism.’ is another rather foolish simplification. At any rate, the decadence of Arab culture really coincides with the enormous destructions of the Mongols.
It is embarrassing to have to tell the author that this paragraph is pathetically bad–both ludicrous and unintelligent: “Dante’s Divine Comedy offers a good description of the Catholic Paradise – an intriguing though somewhat static realm. It is as if the Blessed were permanently watching splendid static images on an immense paradisiacal TV screen”; as is this bit of nonsense: “4-billion years hence, my dust will be part of a star – and I will become veritable stardust.” What has the dust of one’s body have to do with the immortal soul and veritable person?
It seems that some people can’t understand the history of intellectual relations between Christians and Muslims but through the paradigm of the Spanish Civil War, as a permanent fight against ‘Fascism’, of free thinking anarchism against ‘Catholic fundamentalism’. Whence their sympathies for Muslims. These people are the ignorant morons of the ‘Antifa’ and one shouldn’t pay any attention to what they say.
The danger lays with the half-learned who absorb an intentionally distorted history and become mouthpieces of ‘politically correct’ slogans wrapped in hyperbole, ‘the ‘Islamic scholar who gave us Modern Philosophy’, “Ibn Rushd – Averroes- left an indelible mark upon the intellectual history of Western civilization, Ibn Rushd’s commentaries on Aristotle have had an immense impact upon both Christian and Jewish philosophy for hundreds of years”. Aquinas wouldn’t exist without Averroes!
The truth is that Aquinas writings are almost integrally a refutation of the ‘errors’ of this “perverter of Peripatetic philosophy,”, the ‘arch enemy of the faith’, which were embraced by some Scholastics with heretical tendencies, who supposedly ‘condemned’ Aquinas for the introduction of the ‘pagan’ Aristotle. To combat these ‘perversions’ Aquinas used translations of Aristotle from the Greek, made at his request by William of Moerbeke, Bishop of Corinth during the time of Latin rule in Byzantium, for the specific reason that the translations in use were made in Spain from Arabic.
It is true that ‘Averroism’ continued in Europe among the pre-Reformation ‘enemies of the Church’, the University of Padua becoming a stronghold of it and disseminating them after the invention of the printing press, becoming the weapon against ‘Thomism’, the description of a ‘logical’, hierarchical World, created through the Logos of God ‘ordering all things in measure and number and weight’. Ironically Averroism was the base of the rationalism, materialism, utilitarianism to which the ‘West’ succumbed and is so much decried by the Muslims.
So, how come that Averroes “the man who can be given the greatest credit for kindling the renascence of the West”, was rejected and marginalized by Muslims and Christians alike? And how come that all the scientific and technological progresses that ‘Islamic philosophy’ was supposed to have brought in his area, wither after the rejection of the Greek philosophy, but flourish when Islamic philosophy was rejected? Not because the Mongols devastated Baghdad. Greek philosophy revived in the the Christian World because it was always there, despite the interruptions caused by the Islamic invasions, and disappeared in the Islamic East because it was never really there.
Dante (whose whole work is pure ‘Thomism’) was more lenient to Averroes than his co-religionists. He places him just in the Limbo. BTW, the ‘secularist theory of the state’ in De Monarchia, was not an influence of Avicenna, but an echo of the traditional Byzantine theory of the Church and Empire (the secular state) ‘symphonia’ and based on Roman Law.
I think that your comment that ghazali was first and foremost a sufi, and not a “thinker” is spot on. I have not read any of ghazali’s books that refute philosophers, but I have read (most of, not cover to cover) “ahya ul uloom”, and some of his letters where he talks about his objections against philosophers. Basically he was of the view, like all sufis, that relying on logic alone will never let you reach God, it would set you astray. He said that religious belief is not a mathematical formula like a 2+2=4, its a matter of conjecture; and appropriately called ‘faith’. In his time Muslim scholars were fascinated by philosophy, and greek philosophers were being translated, so he warned muslims about the pitfalls of relying on logic alone which is the basis of philosophy. He basically used the phlosophers tools in his books refuting philosophy so he could answer them. From the commentaries I have read he did a great job. So he could be called a mujaddid (renewer of faith) in that sense.
So to blame him for the decadence of muslim culture or as someone in the comments section related him to wahabism is unfair.
“Collectively, we escaped becoming Muslims by the proverbial thread.”
Escaped?! :)
Perhaps, but then if were not the case, so many western individuals wouldn’t be tying their minds in knots trying to reconcile what is essentially polytheism, with monotheism.
https://www.quora.com/As-much-as-I-want-to-I-cant-understand-the-Trinity-Why
https://www.quora.com/Is-the-Holy-Trinity-a-paradox-and-therefore-impossible-to-understand-logically
If you are one of those who doesn’t need to resort to tricky metaphors to comprehend Christian theology, then good for you.
—
Btw, I appreciate folks like this author, and of course The Saker, for trying to bridge the gap between the Christian and Islamic worlds. We share a deep love and respect for some of the greatest men and women who ever walked God’s earth (may the peace and blessings of the Almighty One be upon them all).
I wish all Christians who have no animus against Islam and Muslims, Peace.
Though the Trinity probably can’t be understood logically, that doesn’t mean that that people haven’t tried. One of the best “explanations” I’v heard goes as follows: Given the Unknown, we can bracket off the “known unknowns” from the “unknown unknowns.” This creates three regions: the interior of the two sets and the surface between the two.
Can quantum mechanics be understood ‘logically’?
Birds of a feather flock together? When I was younger I was amazed by nature and how little difference there was in species. I remember well seeing for the first time a flock of flamingos thousands upon thousands of them and what struck me was they all looked exactly the same. Whether male, female, the young they all share the same traits, looks everything. Waxing scientific even their genetic code is exactly the same. Later to as I learned about starlings and their fascinating song and dance routine, how they can fly in the thousands and not miss a beat and apparently their wings never touch each other as they perform their God given majesty it leaves me struck with continue awe. A oneness must exist for these incredible birds to be able to do this. Now whether this can explain the Trinity conundrum and their oneness I cannot say one way or the other but it sure makes me wonder given God’s creative majesty and ability. For as they say our world is but a reflection of the divine. I am even want to think and call butterflies those magnificent insects as miniature angels. It makes me smile to think that when God created such things He decided to make a reflection of Gabriel and Michael as what a monarch butterfly perhaps? I find that actually quite amazing and if there is any truth to this one can point to the Mothman of Virginia. Those who saw and experienced that terrible work of Satan said it resembled a giant moth. Yep, as I reflect upon that just take a butterfly and blow it up to the size of a Hulk Hogan and give it some human qualities and voila you have a description of an actual angel. But alas I’m getting off point. Nature provides for us a peculiar oneness which is certainly a reflection of the divine.
In the grand scheme of things however, it hardly matters for a persons salvation does not hinge on understanding the doctrine of the Trinity. We are called not to understand but to believe and if Christ said it then just accept it as is- period! But O no, we have to fight even to the point of bloodshed over this. That’s a real shame. To bad no one ever bothered to point out and explicitly so that their is no forgiveness of sins without the shedding of blood. Everybody’s salvation whether Christian, Jew or Moslem stands or falls upon ones acceptance of these words period.
Luke 13:3-5
I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.
Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem?
I tell you, Nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.
Even water baptism if that is all you have will not save you on that coming day.
additionally look at schools of fish tens of thousands mimicking what the starlings do. It is amazing but perhaps the greatest thing of all is the Monarch butterflies which after travelling thousands of miles end up congregating on top of one another in trees becoming essentially one? Wow! That is surely the most majestic of all.
As for salvation I guess one musn’t forget the resurrection and the question of Christ’s deity which can be fully explored by the events in the Garden of Gethsemane. I really wish that when we Christians talk about deicide the argument is essentially wrong if we do not mention to people that it was impossible for anyone to kill Christ. Jesus Himself said this that no one can take my life from me. John 10:18 Not even Caesar if he had amassed his entire roman legions against Christ it would have led to nothing but their own destruction.
Even in the Garden of Gethsemane when they came to take Him no one could lay a hand on him. In fact when Jesus answered their question if he was the one they were looking for Jesus replied ‘I am’ what occurred? They fell backwards and couldn’t touch him. Jesus then performed a creative miracle by gluing the servants ear back on to the side of his head. He then said to Peter do you not think I can call to my Father and he will put at my disposal the angels in heaven. If Jesus so willed it he could have picked up Caesar from his throne right then with his thumb and forefinger and threw him out the door of his palace and closed the door behind him and so give the Jews there earthly kingdom if that is the human race would even have survived. You know it wasn’t until Jesus said to them come take me that they had the ability to even touch him. Tell me why isn’t this ever mentioned when we talk deicide or for that matter the Divinity of Jesus? What occurred in the Garden was huge. Christ permitted them to kill Him and as he said, this I recieved from my Father. and of course what followed was the resurrection it all ties in together. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit working in unison.
We in the church however, hardly ever mention these things just harp constantly about the Jews killing Jesus. Do you think this right? Jews need to be told they could never have killed Christ if it was not permitted for them to do it and explain why.
As for the Moslems maybe that would bring some closure to Christ being God and not just some prophet.
So salvation is repentance and of course belief in Christ Jesus and His resurrection from the dead. The doctrine of the Trinity doesn’t figure into any of this. Why argue and fight over it?
The fight is not ‘over’ the doctrine of the Trinity but ‘against’ it. And it is not a ‘doctrine’ but a dogma. Attacking the Trinity you attack the divinity of Jesus Christ. Denying the divinity of Jesus you deny his Resurrection. Denying his Resurrection you deny his death. And He didn’t of old age. sickness, or suicide. He was killed.
@ Anonymous
Yes of course.
As for the idea of “The fight is not over” I would think it would be if Christianity was “one” like the Monarch Butterflies. If Christianity was a unified whole without all of the schisms and hatred and arguments that it has split it up into hundreds of denominations this issue would be solved period! Actually, this entire conundrum of the Trinity can easily be solved and summed up by our Lords own words or prayer:
John 17:20
“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
My word how do hundreds of thousands if not millions of believing people become ONE AS Jesus is with the Father? And if that doesn’t raise the question of being baptized in the Holy Spirit of God? If people have been baptized as the original apostles were in the upper room Pentecost would we not have this unity? So it must follow that many do not have His Spirit.
What the world needs to see is exactly this a Church without so much as schism period and imagine if this could actually be accomplished WOW, what we could accomplish would be fascinating.
This is why His words “a kingdom divided against itself will never stand,” and the Church unfortunately really doesn’t stand as testimony to much of anything. We have in fact fulfilled or are full-filling 2 Peter 2:2
“Many will follow their depraved conduct and will bring the way of truth into disrepute.”
Wow, priests in the RC are pedophiles?
Today most of the Church is a laughing stock to be ridiculed but I am deeply afraid one day soon God is going to visit the Church Universal and I’m afraid many Career oriented priests are going to pay a terrible price. as in
Ananias and Sapphira?
The Trinity for me is a very easy matter to understand, it really quite simple. So again how do millions of believing people become ONE AS JESUS IS WITH THE FATHER????
For a Pope or a Metropolitan or a mere pew warmer for that matter to accomplish this would be a hero of the Christian Church the likes of which has never been seen. Lets hope and pray that Ephesians does in fact come to fruition:
“Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. 16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.”
Man I got to make that trip to Mexico to see those Monarch butterflies for myself. Unfortunately, one I guess needs body armour and body guards fully weaponized for that unfortunately. That place really is becoming a lawless dangerous place.
God help us, God help, us all.
My friend,
It seems that you did misread what I said. I did not say that “the fight is not over”, in a temporal sense, that is.
I said that ‘the fight is against’ the Trinity, the fight of the opponents of Trinity, of the idea of Trinity, the ‘Unitarians’ so to speak. Their fight against the Trinity is not over yet, on the contrary it intensifies. And they are the millions who refuse to become one as Jesus is with the Father and would not be saved. Those who refuse the baptism in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Yes, they would not receive the Spirit. And a harsher punishment would be for those who after receiving it, reject it. These are the sins against the Holy Spirit. “The sons of men will be forgiven all sins and blasphemies, as many as they utter. But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of eternal sin.”
@anonymous
apologies, yes I did misread. lol
I didn’t think though that there was a conscious effort to fight against the Trinity but rather to bring some understanding and closure to a dogma that has been most confusing and unfortunately continues to be which of course it shouldn’t be. If there are those who are trying to destroy this teaching from our Lord to bad for them. They will hardly get very far.
I was originally trying to reply to chimmy
Thanks
“The Arabs, as we know, set themselves to conquer the world with the scimitar.”
Ishmael, son of Abraham is their founder. Abraham had married Hagar, an Egyptian princess, because the other wife, Sarah, could not have children. To bypass the issue, Rabbinical theology has determined that Ishmael was a bastard because Hagar, though married to Abraham, was not Jewish. It is sobering to think that such galactic-sized BS is the ‘ethical’ justification for the slaughter of millions, and for treating the Palestinians as dirt.
These two observations by the author strongly suggests he is no historian.
Firstly, the notion that Arabs “conquered the world with the scimitar” is historically untrue. If the author is going to spout off pedestrian views then readers would be very wise in questioning this man’s authenticity.
May I suggest a primer of books for him: “Greek Thought, Arabic Culture” by Dimitri Gutas; Amin Maalouf’s “The Crusades Through Arab Eyes, A History of the Muslim World to 1405 by Vernon Egger. Dimitri Gutas is a learned scholar and wrote several publications about Arab history…….Lastly, if Mogla defines Arabs in this manner, he should read, as a comparison, a number of books on the early-to-medieval history of the Church in Rome and its cutthroat, butchery and outright murder of millions.
Secondly, the author includes one of Abraham’s role in Israel’s Old Testament literature. The author’s observations are way off base even though we sense sarcasm about modern-day Zionist Israel. Justly so.
However, far greater philological, archeological evidence is to be discovered by one of the greatest scholars of the ancient middle east: the remarkable Italian professor and philologist – Giovanni Garbini. He wrote numerous books, essays and speeches on the subject. His works are freely available in Italy. But, naturally, in the US, the only text translated into English is his remarkable study named, “History and Ideology In Ancient Israel.”
If Mr. Moglia wants powerful, thought-provoking research on ancient Israel, Garbini shall not fail him.
There are some interesting strands of history put together in a large sweep of history, but strictly speaking the article is rather fanciful. The description of Calvinism is unrecognizable, and completely passes over the two most Calvinist nations (the Netherlands and Switzerland) that in no way fit the mold presented here. In the end the article is just somebody fantasizing away with regard to a patch-work of interesting historical observations, but there is no serious analysis or controls for setting out certain lines within the material. Just a trip!
The main lesson from all this history: You can be pretty sure that you have created God or Allah in your own image if it turns out that He hates all the same people you do.
Really interesting. A novel way of ‘connecting the dots’. I have read it with pleasure each day since it was posted.
This terse overview of 1,000 years of European history could be built up to the size of a small book (say 150 pages long), or to a series of more in-depth articles, to be minimally exhaustive. (A longer, too exhaustive, book might turn out too professional historian-oriented, and thus turn off popular audience.)