Comments by "Jim Luebke" (@jimluebke3869) on "Human Dignity and Western Civilisation | Dave Rubin | #CLIP" video.

"The deep thinking that all culminated..." If someone doesn't think that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, what exactly is it? "The collected intuitions of millennia" is the next best explanation, as far as I can see.
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I think that Dave makes some very good points about the teleological importance of having children, to being human. However, his story involves some very salient points about how he is using technology to reproduce. If he were to follow the traditional teachings he is approaching now, his becoming a father would not involve so many abortions. It's fair to take these things into account when we compare lifestyle to another, and determine if one "misses the mark".
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@maciamay1393 I'd hate to see the world you'd prefer, where deprecating killing and stealing is considered "nonsense". I'm a little afraid we're seeing the world you seem to prefer, where forgiveness is considered "nonsense". It is not a good world.
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@maciamay1393 And you should read the New Testament sometime. Not only that, you should listen to how the Bible is taught in the church these days. Your decrying "tribal nonsense" is a far worse case of deliberate mischaracterization -- of Christian teachings, faith, and practice. You should be ashamed to even attempt to hide behind that rhetorical trick.
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@maciamay1393 St. Paul, nasty? 13 If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. ..... You prefer the words of Christ, I guess. Like these? 4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? 5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.
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@maciamay1393 No. You can't get the Bible to say, "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit", or "Old Marley was as dead as a doornail", or "Four score and seven years ago", because it never says anything like that. I suppose you could take some verses out of context to try to make it prove a given thing, but it doesn't work very well, all things considered. Are you trying to claim allegiance to reason / logic / evidence instead of religion? It's not working all that well for you here. I'm kind of surprised that you expect anyone to find any of the arguments you presented all that convincing, especially if they've attended an actual church service and listened to what was actually said. To be fair, my using reason / logic / evidence against you, even considering mine was more accurate in terms of reason / logic / evidence, isn't working that well either. You could very easily construct a fairly devastating argument against me (personally) using the verses that I quoted to you. See? The Bible's handy that way. ;) You should take it more seriously. It works better than what you've left yourself with.
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@maciamay1393 How exactly am I "twisting morality"? I'm just using evidence and reason to show that your anti-Christian arguments are incoherent, and misrepresent Christianity in very obvious ways. Someone could reasonably say that what you've done here (and continue to do) is ignorant stereotyping, to the point of bigotry. Just how is John Anderson "spreading misery through politics"? Anderson is one of the most dignified, considerate, open, and friendly politicians I have ever come across. His behavior is about as far from "toxic" as I have ever seen. If he's spreading this to the rest of the world, this world will be a better place.
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@maciamay1393 There are certainly cases where humans, bound by their language and understanding of concepts like time, could only do their best. I once asked in Bible study why, if the book of Revelation was about Rome, St. John would have referred to the Sea of Galilee (a landmark from his childhood and the livelihood of his village) as the "Sea of Tiberius" in the last chapter of his Gospel? It turns out St. John by this point in his life was dictating the actual transcription of his Gospel to another, who used the signifier he was familiar with. It shouldn't surprise anyone that the artifacts of human language, which (as you point out) are based on human observation, may only be able to talk around certain subjects (the nature of God, etc) which require whole books of their own to discuss. Another interesting side-effect of this, is the way that Christian civilization is almost inevitably influenced by the books that we use to understand Latin and Greek. Christians are accused of being violently expansionist conquistadores, by nature; nothing could be further from Biblical teaching. However, the best way to get a schoolboy to learn Latin (if he's not the rare bird who thrives on Cicero, Seneca, and other high-minded authors) is to present him with Caesar's straightforward belligerent propaganda piece, "The Gallic Wars". (The book is as good as Sun Tzu or Machiavelli, in terms of ruthless advice on how to build an empire.) I'm convinced that the British Empire was built by Julius Caesar's intellectual heirs.
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@maciamay1393 I'm from California originally... trust me, the "Hypocrisy, child molestation, paranoia, selfishness, [and] cruelty" just gets worse, without Christian values to stand fast and say that it's wrong.
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@maciamay1393 By the way, without a strong American military alliance, Australia would be speaking Mandarin within a decade. Your policy priorities do not seem to match your desired outcomes. Unless you like the Chinese system -- am I wrong to assume you don't?
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@maciamay1393 "absolute rubbish" You simply can't back that up, looking at the facts as they are.
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@maciamay1393 "Expanse" sounds like an accurate description.
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@maciamay1393 Your choice regarding what you think, of course. But when your decisions are wrong, it makes the world a worse place.
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@maciamay1393 You've made me extremely curious -- what outlets do you get your news from? One invasion that you missed, is the invasion of Vietnam by China not long after the United States left. More invasion threats you may or may not have paid any attention to, are the current-day Chinese threats to invade Taiwan. China has also in the last few weeks threatened to use nuclear weapons against Japan "repeatedly". So much for "peaceful" China. Are you old enough to remember the Cultural Revolution, with its tens of millions of casualties? Just curious. You know that there has never been any comparable human rights abuse in the US, right? Also, you know about the Uyghurs, don't you? The chance of an Australian (or German, or Japanese, or Korean, etc) being killed by an American GI today is minuscule. I'm sorry, but that's just libel. Your numbers about priests are absurdly high. As a matter of fact, the percentage of priests guilty of the crimes you cite, is actually smaller than the percentage of public schoolteachers guilty of the same crime. It has been interesting (as a Protestant) to watch the Catholic soul-searching on this subject. I have seen little or no soul-searching among public officials about teachers guilty of this. The only stories I hear on that subject, are the ones about teachers that aren't fired for it. Again, I'm curious -- where do you get your news from? It seems to me you might want to broaden your sources.
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@maciamay1393 It's a semantic stretch to think that "expanse" is a good way to refer to the sky? Why do you expect that sort of a statement to be convincing?
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@maciamay1393 "No use talking to someone who has a fixed belief system that requires rearrangement of the world and everything in it to suit" I don't know, you're not so bad to talk to. =) It's interesting to see what goes into your point of view, anyway, and what your blind spots are. Knowing the facts to present to someone wondering which one of us is correct, is a simple enough matter. Religion and nationalism are actually on the rise, and not just in Afghanistan. India and Turkey are turning their backs on secularism, in favor of nationalism and religion. In China and Africa, Christianity's numbers are climbing by the tens of millions. (China's also nationalistic, you have to admit.) European countries that embrace nationalism and their religious heritage are watching their populations climb again; countries trending towards atheism are watching their populations dwindle or collapse. The populations (mostly religious, themselves) replacing the collapsing countries, are probably looking at that collapse and very reasonably thinking, "Huh, let's not make the same mistakes they did. Ending the anti-family and anti-human policies is the obvious first step, and may even be all it would take." (Religion generally shields people from making those mistakes, by the way.) In fact, atheism and globalism are in retreat. Kabul demonstrated beyond any doubt that the globalist Democrats and the rainbow flag they flew are disgraced, and far from "the adults in the room", utterly feckless. Keeping Bagram until the withdrawal was done, would have made it straightforward and orderly. If we'd maintained logistical and air support for the Afghan army, the Taliban wouldn't have had a chance. That's simple enough for pretty much anyone to see. I suppose there is some reason to hope that you reconsider your positions here (the evidence you present is pretty thin), but it sounds like you're even older than I am. I'm still curious where you get your news from. Where would that be?
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@maciamay1393 Did you know that the Muslims have so much trouble with science and reason because the "burning and torturing" was what the Rationalists (Mu'tazila) did to the devout? Look up "Minha" sometime. You have to get pretty far down the Google search results before you get to the reference to the historical event, though. Google is like that. By the way, you could reasonably point out that the inquisition was primarily political in nature rather than strictly religious. They do tend to be, I have to admit. I agree that communism is in decline. China's pretty much fascist these days. They're likely to try some invasions soon, though. For Australia's sake I hope they won't go as well as their invasion of Tibet. (Are you old enough to remember that? Just curious. I'm still a little surprised you see China as peaceful.) Although, I expect America's strong enough to fend them off, especially with the help of Japan (which is sliding out from under its pacifist constitution), India, and people in Australia who have a clearer notion of China's expansionist ambitions. So sit back and try not to get in the way, we're going to have our work cut out for us in the next ten years or so. You're welcome to help out as well, of course.
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@maciamay1393 I've given away I don't have much respect for one-world globalists? Fair enough. Strange that people call themselves "globalists", when they're a tiny sliver of North Atlantic elites, who don't have all that much power or influence outside of that context or region. I'm still trying to figure out whether it's a relic of the post-WW2 American order, or a relic of even older Eurocentric imperial ambitions. Afghanistan was a clear loss for them. By the way, is "my starts" a Strine expression? It looks a bit like a careless use of Google translate.
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@maciamay1393 Eh, you never know who you're talking to on the Internet. Question -- what gives you the idea that it's the nationalists who are the warmongers, in America? There's a pretty broad isolationist streak in American nationalism. That's why we were pulling out of Afghanistan in the first place. The globalists wanted to stay.
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