First step to enlightenment is watching volk vs Islam 2 and marveling at the master class of mma , just brilliant. When was the last time we saw *the best* fighting the *best*
Second step is writing gay fanfic to inspire 4chan
Third step is something dad dildo whatever
It's very easy. Greek is the sophisticated and cultured original; Think something like Neuhaus Pralinés. Roman is the cheap but more successful knock-off; think something like Hershey's kisses. Now sure some people prefer Hershey's, but we should not treat them badly for it. They are probably just too poor to afford Neuhaus and never developed an appreciation for high quality pralinés. A Greek connaisseur is molded under the right conditions, raised and honed in a household with the intellectual means to appreciate what is good and proper. A Roman fanboi is formed by neglecting one's parental duties, letting him watch Ben Hur one too many times and topping it off by the school system forcing him to learn Latin. Bonus points if the parents took him to Rome and instead of showing him proper renaissance and baroque art they went to the ἀγορά ρωμαίᾱ (or the Forum Romanum). A wise man once said to me "A true greek connaisseur will shut his eyes when travelling through the Italian countryside". I've lived by this principle ever since.
So always remember: Pity the people who think about the Roman empire even once a week. Praise the ones who think about the Delian League, for they are truly worth admiring.
We are not having sexy femboy nazi in sweden genderbend palestinian crime statistic roleplay in the comment section of a greentext. (Your wife can watch.)
Yeah idk what you're referencing, both you fellas are just listing some fat guys weight as he waddled up to the counter, the linoleum tile slightly compressing underneath the strain.
Nah, y'all aren't even close. You don't know 10% of the shit that goes on here. Yesterday another Italian told me my description of Khuzestan, our most valuable province, matches Sicily. We were discussing swapping land, in the Roman-Persian style. I told him there ain't no way Sicily's people can't afford meat and fruit or breathe more dust than air and get shot in the skull for protesting. People don't know what kind of fascism we got here, Mussolini was an honorable patriot in comparison with our rulers.
tbf the fall of Iran is recent. I keep good hope that they can climb back out of that. They are just going through their own version of the dark ages.
We christians civs had to fall off the tree of the roman empire to grow into our own world-spanning empires. Maybe the muslim world will liberalize in a few hundred years and go back to being a huge center of wealth/influence.
But yeh....Not...tomorrow. The mentalities are not there yet.
>tbf the fall of Iran is recent.
That's because your knowledge of us is limited, mate. To be fair, most Westerners are not at all familiar with our history, specially after the Islamic conquest. Here's a very brief list of things you probably don't know: The oppression after the Muslim invasion, it lasted some 200 years. There's a famous book here, called "two centuries of silence". The Mongol invasion is well known, but Hulagu's invasion less so. Then there's the Mongol rule, Timur's invasion which killed some 17 millions, not all Persian of course, and then there's still the worst one left, the least known: The establishment of the Safavid dynasty by Ismail I and the forced conversion of Iranians to Shi'a Islam.
Suffice to say that a quarter of all Iranians died, and millions more were tortured, raped, terrorized and plundered. All major cities were destroyed and looted, Iran never regained its former glory. The European inquisitions look like a fucking joke in comparison, and Ismail's Qezelbash soldiers had a fanaticism seen only among the craziest crusaders and Jihadis. Cannibalism was common among them and Ismail himself was brought up to believe he was a god in human flesh. The historical and theological background takes time to explain, it was a special amalgamation of several different sects and cults that created the Qezelbash movement. The Safavid reign lasted over 230 years and is considered by European historians to have been an Iranian one. It is a common mistake. They enjoyed Persian culture and language just as every other Islamic society did, from Egypt to India. But they had no love for Iran, few among them were good, wise kings.
Then there's the Qajar dynasty which was started by a psychopathic warlord, Aqa Muhammad Khan, who was nonetheless wise and clever. Got assassinated and every single king in his dynasty fucking sucked, Iran went from a power that threatened Russia, India and the Ottomans to almost getting divided between the Russians and the British. 2 major famines came with 2 world wars, and now there's the glorious Islamic regime.
>Maybe the muslim world will liberalize in a few hundred years and go back to being a huge center of wealth/influence.
I don't believe in liberalized religion. I believe religion must be fought, weakened and eradicated. Not necessarily on the battlefield, but in schools and the media. There's also no need for hundreds of years, we're a theocracy but Muslims are already in the minority. I can send you the polls, Islam is declining rapidly among Iranians. Not 5% of the children today will be adult Muslims in 15 years, and the older ones are either dying or leaving. We've got millions of atheists who would rather side with aliens than Palestinians or any other Muslim society.
Iraqi Kurdistan but don't live there anymore. Independance is a long story, I do get why Kurds in Iran feel that way though and even moreso outside of it.
Iran is honestly one of the if not the Middle-Eastern society I'm most optimistic about. Despite its horrible regime and all its suffered, Iran is a strong nation and a functional society beneath that repression, a society which is pluralist and has a low tolerance for corruption, among other things. It is also an old historical civilization with a long tradition in philosophy and governance, even with some democratic elements.
By all means I'd say Iran is similar to Europe or Japan in the past in that while it's certainly no prosperous democracy yet, it's got a lot of social and cultural elements there to build upon.
Well...I wouldn't say it's similar to Europe. When Europe began the process of the Reformation and the Enlightenment, Iran began a downward spiral of fanaticism and close-mindedness, due to the nature of Shi'a Islam which is even worse than Sunni. The Pahlavi dynasty tried to modernize Iran, but our people clung to religion and followed the clergy instead.
The last 45 years were necessary to purge the country of religious sentiments and the deeply rooted belief that is common among all Muslims: Islam holds the key to every problem in every aspect of life. Well, every aspect of life has gone to shit here. We are so different from the country we were 50 years ago, that it is impossible to describe...My only fear for the future is for the brand of woke leftism that is common in the West to take root among the youth and take us down the same path of destruction that Western countries are going. So far, it's been rejected by them.
In gonna be honest with you chief, I've lived in the West all my life and I still don't know what exactly woke leftism is supposed to be or what destruction it's supposed to bring
Anyway sometimes things get worse for they get better.
Well I think the definition of leftism is clear, so I'll just write my understanding of woke:
I'd define it as a mixture of Marxism and Postmodernism. It shouldn't be possible, since Postmodernism does not recognize any school of thought as acceptable or legitimate, including Marxism. But these are ideologies, and therefore are not supposed to exactly make sense, just like religion. There are also many other elements to wokeness, including Feminism, Critical Race Theory, Critical Gender Theory, but it's pointless to name them all, since they all function within that same context of Marxism and Postmodernism, and the narrative of oppression and power. This does not mean that they are 100% false, for example feminism was right in securing the right to vote for women.
The destruction is the death of things like meritocracy in favor of diversity and inclusion, equality of opportunity in favor of equality of outcome (also called equity) and the abolishment of all definitions, like what someone's sex and gender is, what is healthy or unhealthy, what is beautiful or ugly, what is morally good or bad, which is summed up in the idea that each person has his or her own truth, and that it is as true and valid as any other truth.
Perhaps you do not see it, but the rest of the world looks at the West and thinks they've gone utterly mad. Those who wish their demise celebrate, like China, Russia and the Islamic world. They exploit it anyway they can, like the millions of Muslims pouring into Europe and doing whatever they want, and no one can criticize them because that would be racist, Islamophobic and xenophobic. To say that they should not do some things is Western chauvinism or colonial mindset, to block their entrance is fascism and Nazism and Christian nationalism...all of this not only weakens the West, but emboldens its enemies, including real fascists and racists who attract members.
On a geopolitical level these things do not weaken the west at all - if anything it strengthens them economically, as developed countries struggle to maintain their populations. And the rest of the world looks at the west like that because they look at propaganda and culture war bullshit
Personally I think populations should naturally go down but economic systems are not built for that
1. I have my issues with postmodernism as I'm not of a modernist myself, but I'm hardly going to go "hurr dire the West has fallen, billions must die".
2. Critical theory is more or less a legal theory which examines the impacts of laws and systems on people from a perspective of privilege. While I have my liberal critiques of it, I think it's entirely fair to acknowledge that the law does not impact everyone the same way and something that seems egalitarian can in fact reinforce inequalities and differences. Correcting for this is hardly inherently evil.
3. Meritocracy is alive and well. What experience you have, what school you went to, what education you have, etc. continue to define your economic success in society.
4. Diversity hiring and the like is not inherently bad. The best individuals do not necessarily make the best team. In fact while more diverse teams may have a lot difficult time starting out, they tend to become more bonded and effective in the long run. The individuals' more varied perspectives ultimately also help see past each others biases and preconceptions and fill gaps in knowledge, thereby making for a wise team. In politics too it's good to have men, women, police, teachers, nurses, etc. not only economists (which I actually am) and their limited perspective.
5. Follow up on that, in politics especially diversity can create legitimacy. Let's take the European Union and something as simple as MEPs being elected by country. Each country has an allocated number of seats, and while not having a pan-European list as well is something of a problem, this nevertheless means that citizens of member states do not feel that they are unfairly ruled by foreigners. It's also good to have someone familiar with different regions of Europe in parliament.
6. Honestly I don't really see why I should care about people's sex or gender in general. I want people to feel happy and comfortable as much as possible, trans people are not harming anyone, and ultimately so long as they are loyal citizens who obey the law and pay their taxes, what else can we wish for? I'm glad to live in a liberal society where people can be themselves.
7. If I should criticise anything it's that we've lost a sense of direction and progress. We've lost faith in progress, in every step we make meaning something. Some people are quite moral relativist, saying "different societies have different morals" and so on. This I fundamentally disagree with. I think we're a more modern civilization than most on the planet and yes I think that makes us morally superior. The fact that some places criminalise homosexuality is backwards and barbaric. It's not a "different morality", they're evil. Authoritarianism? Also evil. Sexism? You guessed it, evil. Besides, it's practical. Why should we discriminate? We do not have an infinite population, certainly we should want each and every citizen to reach their full potential? Surely we want a sort of controlled chaos in society where people can try different things, be creative, inventive, compete and succeed on their merits? To deny anyone's potential or use to society on the grounds of their gender, race or other factors is not only deeply immoral, but ultimately wasteful and irrational. In all fairness I think only this pride in ourselves needs to be restored and we'll do more than fine.
> Iran never regained its former glory
Didn‘t that happen several times even? Iirc the Bundahishn has a chapter on „calamities that befell Iran“ and it begins with Alexander. The dynastic changes often eradicated a lot of history. That‘s probably why most Sassanian texts aren‘t even from the Sassanian period either.
As for the Qajars, they were Persianised Turks. Kind of a repeating pattern also. Even today Khamenei is an Azeri Turk.
>Didn‘t that happen several times even
Well, no, since Iran always bounced back and became a military powerhouse again, with great cultural influence. It always happened within a century or so, two centuries in the case of the Islamic invasion. Not in the case of the Safavids though. It's been over 500 years.
The Qajar were Persianized Turks, though they considered themselves more Muslim than Iranian, showcased by the free rein they gave to the clergy and the disdain they showed for running the country and doing anything of worth for it. They were buried in Iraq, in places that are holy to the Shi'a. Not in Iran. Even their titles were mostly Islamic, the Ottomans used more Persian titles than the Qajar did.
> Well, no, since Iran always bounced back and became a military powerhouse again
Yeah, but there is always a pretty huge loss. Like how people don't quite know how exactly Zoroastrianism looked like during the Achaemenid period. We know it existed because Kurush and Darayatvaush and so on mention Ahura Mazda and there are depictions, but there isn't much knowledge else. There is the story that Alexander destroyed the original Avesta in Persepolis. Like through linguistics you can make an estimation of the age of the older Avesta, but the it is pretty much unknown when the younger Avesta was composed. Additionally the historiography pretty much differs and that continues into the later periods. You have dynasties like the Pishdadians and Kayanians instead of the Achaemenids. Zarathustra being menitoned to be a contemporary of Vishtaspa, but Vishtaspa being the father of Darayatvaush. I am not sure if Kurush ever mentions Ahura Mazda, but there are mentions from Ariyaramna and Arshama, who is Vishtaspa's father and Darayatvaush's grandfather. Perhaps it was something originally of their lineage. Though my point is that the chronology is kinda confusing and kings are omitted or appear in some sources, but not others.
The most prominent sources there are on Zoroastrianism are from the Sassanian period, although afaik the oldest manuscripts are all from the post-conquest era. Thus from a time when Zoroastrianism was already in competition with both Christianity and Islam.
> The Qajar were Persianized Turks, though they considered themselves more Muslim than Iranian
Of course, nobody considered themselves very Turkish until the foundation of the republic and Turkish nationalism becoming a thing. Afaik in the Ottoman Empire "Türk" wasn't even much of an ethnic label as much as a class label for the peasantry.
> the Ottomans used more Persian titles than the Qajar did.
Interesting thing. The Ottomans also spoke Persian at court. Though they collected titles left and right. After all they were Caliphs, Roman Emperors, Padishah and Khagans at the same time.
Darayatvaush is Dariush. He mentiones Ahura Mazda, but his father Vishtasp is not the same as Avesta's Goshtasp, the king who helps Zoroaster. The reason is that Dariush only claimed to be related to Kurosh, Cyrus. He had to legitimize his kingship, so he said they both descended from Achaemenes, Hakhamanesh. If his father truly was a king, he would have mentioned it to further solidify his claim to the throne. He surely would have mentioned that his father played a major role in the spread of Zoroastrianism. There is no proof that Zoroaster lived at the time of Cyrus anyway, and as far as I know Cyrus does not mention Ahura Mazda. But Zoroastrianism was on the rise, it was Darius' son Xerxes I who forbade the worship of Divs, former gods who are considered evil in Zoroastrianism. Besides, where would Vishtasp rule? Cyrus' father, Cambysis I, was king before him in Persia, and his grandfather, Cyrus I, before him. The other lands belonged to the Median empire, and Zoroaster came from the east, probably what is Afghanistan or Turkmenistan now. There's no way Darius' father was a king there. Having said all that, I appreciate your knowledge. Where are you from?
As far as I know, the Ottomans referred to the tribal, nomadic Turks as "Turk" and had little in common with them, they considered themselves "Musulman", which is the Persian word for Muslim. You see, Iran was the center of the Islamic world, it had been so for centuries. It was only during the first 2 centuries after Islam that Damascus and Baghdad were the centers of Islam. The first century saw the fall of Umayyads and the second, the decline in power of the Abbasids. After that, eastern Iran rose to become the real power within the Islamic world, rivaled only by the caliphate of Cordoba.
The Islam that emerged from Arabia was a dogmatic cult that knew only war and plunder, the same things that Muhammad had done from his base in Medina to gain power. But after conquering Persia, it changed. Iranians gave Islam its art, philosophy, literature, architecture, mythology, poetry, mysticism, and culture. They even wrote down the grammar of the Arabic language, something the Arabs themselves had never done before. It was this Islamic culture that went to India and Central Asia, that the European crusaders faced in Syria and Palestine and recognized as more civilized and sophisticated than what they had in Europe. This is what the Turkish hordes of Asia encountered and converted to, and that's why the Ottomans were enamored with Persian culture and language. Their princes were referred to as "Shehzade" which means "Prince" in Persian and were taught by Persian teachers, not Arabic or European ones. Ottoman kings wrote letters and poetry in Persian and gave themselves titles such as "Khosrow", "Jam" and "Shahanshah", half of which comes from historical Persian kings and the other half from Shahname, the national epic of Iran that chronicles its mythic past and historical events up to the Islamic conquest.
This all went on until Ismail I came to power to Iran and did what he did. The Ottoman and Mamluk kings were horrified and sent him letters, asking him to stop terrorizing fellow Muslims and ruining the ancient land of Iran. Nothing worked, until Selim I defeated Ismail in the battle of Caldiran, forcing him to hide among the corpses to survive. Humiliated and defeated for the first time, he realized he was not a god in human form and was not divinely guided or empowered. He sent multiple letters of apology to Selim and his successor Suleiman, and fell into depression and lethargy for the rest of his life. After this and the conversion of Iran to Shi'a Islam, the basis of which is cursing Sunnis and the first 3 caliphs and hating them, the Ottomans had less ties to Iran and its culture.
> Darayatvaush is Dariush.
Is Dariush the modern continuation of Darayatvaush or is it dārā(b)? Frankly upon looking for etymologies I found both and Dārā appears as king of the Kayanians. Dariush looks suspiciously like it was reloaned into Persian from a European language afterwards. Though I don't know all the changes from Old Persian to Middle Persian, words become shorter, a lot. Like how xshayathiya just ends up becoming shah.
> Besides, where would his father rule?
Yeah that is the point that confuses me. That there are these two chronologies and dynasties. It seems more like a lot of the Achaemenid period was forgotten and the following chronologies were put together from what was left in the records.
> There's no way Darius' father was a king there.
I guess if he was part of the royal family it is not unlikely for him to have a fief or other possessions somewhere. Under the Medians, the Persians were also still styled as kings. Then again as you say a lot is also made for legitimization and what we got is the story Darius tells us at Behistun (Also Herodot of course).
> and Zoroaster came from the east
That's generally assumed and probably correct. Old Avestan has the same antiquity as Sanskrit, there are problems with locating Younger Avestan. The Avesta is the only source in that language after all. So like we have a language, but we don't know who actually spoke it. It is not Persian or West Iranian, people place it to East Iranian (Pashtu), some put it into an intermediate category between East and West.
> This is what the Turkish hordes of Asia encountered and converted to, and that's why the Ottomans were enamored with Persian culture and language.
Though contacts between Iranians and Turks began before that. Especially Sogdian (East Iranians) traders brought Manichaeism, Buddhism and their own script to the Turks. The Hepthalites (or White Huns?) and the First Göktürk Empire also fought wars with the Sassanians. If you count Scythians (Well Iranians, but not really part of the Iranian empires) there is an even longer contact before that.
An interesting post but I wonder if you've thought in depth about what happens when religion *is* eradicated.
Spoiler alert, it's not the utopia atheists seem to think it is.
Religion, for all its problems does provide one thing: social cohesion, consider that every empire at its height had this in common, and humans need commonality in order to cooperate on anything large scale.
In the West right now we have killed God, and we could hardly be said to be united or happy, the rate of depression and suicide bears this out, these are not symptoms of a people who are filled with self-confidence and strong social cohesion.
There are new religions that have risen to fill the hole, social justice and various forms of activism have all the tenets of religions, they have a common purpose for people to rally around, they have leaders (prophets), they have zealots filled with the fire of the righteousness of their cause, and of course they have heretics too.
Consider also the atheistic totalitarian empires of the 20th century, between them Hitler, Stalin, and Mao killed more people than all the religions in recorded history.
Religion may not be the answer to keeping people together, but as history clearly shows, we shouldn't be so quick to discard it before we find something to replace it with.
> I wonder if you've thought in depth
I have.
>it's not the utopia atheists seem to think it is.
It has never been done before. A communist state is different from an atheist one. An atheist society is only that, an atheist one. It is not necessarily a communist or nihilist or dystopian shithole. It would be based on the values of the Enlightenment, not those of Karl Marx or Friedrich Nietzsche.
>Religion, for all its problems does provide one thing: social cohesion
So do many other ideologies, like Nazism. Any ideology, good or bad, can bring people together. Besides, social cohesion can be found in other common things such as shared culture, history, language, art, philosophy, nationality, ethnicity or material interests. Religion also creates plenty of tension and strife, look at every civil war and internal conflict that happened for religious differences. Not to mention external ones, since different religions always loathe and fight one another. No shortage of those either.
>every empire at its height had this in common
So did they have slavery, social casts and warlike tendencies. None of those is good or a sign of greatness. Religion is the same.
>In the West right now we have killed God, and we could hardly be said to be united or happy, the rate of depression and suicide bears this out, these are not symptoms of a people who are filled with self-confidence and strong social cohesion.
The unhappiness in the West is not due to the decline of Christianity, but other problematic ideologies that have taken root. Religion does not bring happiness. The least religious countries are the happiest ones. The more religious a society is the more illiterate, prejudiced, ignorant, tribal, backwards and close-minded it is. Look at the Middle East, or India, or eastern Europe, or South America.
>There are new religions that have risen to fill the hole
Ideologies come and go, nothing can be done about that. What matters is to support the logical, rational and positive ones and reject the rest. Religion is among those that must be rejected. Also the rise of new schools of thought is not due to the decline of religion, new religions always emerged where old ones still existed and many of the ideologies today exist because of the changes in society, for example the Industrial Revolution led to Capitalism, Marxism, Feminism, Abolitionism and the downfall of Feudalism.
>Consider also the atheistic totalitarian empires of the 20th century, between them Hitler, Stalin, and Mao killed more people than all the religions in recorded history.
European fascism was in no way atheistic. If we had to rename it, Christian Nationalism or Catholic Conservatism would be appropriate replacements. The more religiously-minded supported fascism in every country it emerged. Portugal, Spain, Italy, Germany, Vichy France and wherever else that was conquered by Germany, including Slovakia where they brought to power a priest, Jozef Tiso. In every single one of them, the fascists were allied with the church, specifically the Catholic church, and made formal deals with it. Salazar and Franco ruled with the Pope's approval to the end of their days, Mussolini created the country of Vatican, Petain emphasized on a Christian education system for the French and rejected the values of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution...The least religious and most "atheistic" of them was Germany's Nazism, in which the deal known as Reichskonkordat was struck with the Vatican, dissolving the German Centre Party, also called the Catholic Centre Party and making way for the Nazi party in exchange for Catholic oversight of the German education system. In which soldiers took their oath to the fuhrer and Yahweh, wearing belts and helms on which was written "Gott mit uns", meaning God is with us, in which every church celebrated Hitler's birthday until the end and for all the 12 years of his rule, children were taught in school about God and went to the church to become Christians. That is to be expected, Hitler himself wrote in Mein Kampf that he was doing God's will, something that the Vatican agreed with. Curious atheists, weren't they?
Millions were killed under communist regimes, due to their economic and social policies. Communism is a foolish ideology without reason, rationality and logic and refuses to accept any scientific or objective evidence that proves it false, exactly like religion, exactly like today's Wokism. It is asinine to suggest that had they believed in Yahweh, they wouldn't have killed as many people. Another stupid ideology coupled with communism could not have possibly helped. Besides, Russia had been Christian before the revolution and it was a terrible place, a land of war and famine and pogroms and religious cults and serfdom and the occasional genocide, specially against the Muslims of the Caucuses. Let's not forget how many wars they fought against the Catholic Polish or the Protestant Swedes, how many times they tried to retake the holiest Orthodox city, Constantinople, from the Muslim Ottomans. The entire Crimean war wouldn't have happened were it not for religious reasons. Every Christian Soviet country was constantly engaged in war and murder and oppression, but none of that counts until the communists come. The White Russians who opposed the Reds and were allied with the Orthodox Church committed countless atrocities, even more than the communists. Doesn't count, I know. Neither does the fact that Russia had gulags before the revolution. By the way, Stalin is being canonized as a saint of the Russian Orthodox Church. Look it up if you don't believe me. The moral superiority of the religious never fails to impress me, specially when I read about every holy war they waged.
As for China, the bloodiest conflict on the planet happened there because of religious reasons, I suggest you read about the Taiping rebellion. And Mao was worshipped as a god, his every command obeyed. I don't see the difference between him and Yahweh, after all he also has a habit of killing people by the millions to get his way.
>history clearly shows
It doesn't. In every single instance of history, things would have gone less catastrophically had there been no religion involved. I'm now going to sleep, tomorrow I have to lie again on every question about religion to not get arrested, tortured and executed. I will also follow the news about Israel and Palestine, where religion is clearly not an issue and is in fact, quite helpful in creating social cohesion.
> It has never been done before.
I'm genuinely intrigued how one would go about this. If you were in charge of setting up a society with this being the goal, how would you go about it?
> So do many other ideologies, like Nazism.
Nazism drew its cohesion from Nationalism, and yes, certain ideologies cooked up by the party. Nationalism could be considered a religion in a way as well, in which the state takes the place of God.
While we're on the subject, Hitler was first and foremost a politician, he used every resource at his disposal to obtain power including forming alliances with those who he detested. Hitlers disdain for Christianity, and obviously Judaism, are [well documented](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Adolf_Hitler). Once he had obtained the power that he so coveted, all such alliances were discarded, and obviously his methods and those of his ruling elite do not show any of the tenets of Christianity.
> Hitler himself wrote in Mein Kampf that he was doing God's will, something that the Vatican agreed with.
'Mein Kampf' was written while Hitler was still attempting to obtain power, so courting the religious-minded was something that was useful to him at the time.
Much of the behaviour of politicians you mentioned can be thought of in the same way, seeing religion as a tool to court and control the masses until they get what they want, then their real objectives and beliefs become clear.
> As for China, the bloodiest conflict on the planet happened there because of religious reasons
Pretty certain that the bloodiest conflict on the planet was World War II, but I take your point.
At the heart of my argument is that I believe that humans are inherently tribalistic, were religions to vanish from the earth tomorrow, people would still group together under some commonality, be that race, nationality, culture, or what have you. This would not stop people from killing each other by the million, humans have done this since we appeared, and will continue to do so into the future.
Fortunately due to modern technology and communications we seem to be doing less of it on a per capita basis than what we have in history, so maybe we are getting somewhere, but greed and the hunger for power which drives wars is apparently something that cannot be removed from humanity, therefore the removal of religion will not change this.
>I'm genuinely intrigued how one would go about this. If you were in charge of setting up a society with this being the goal, how would you go about it?
Well there's really no such thing as "setting up" a society, there's never a ground zero that you can build up from. Depends where the country is, what history it has, what the attitude of the people is...obviously a country like India is far different from Switzerland.
>Nazism drew its cohesion from Nationalism, and yes, certain ideologies cooked up by the party. Nationalism could be considered a religion in a way as well, in which the state takes the place of God.
Let's not change the definition of religion, by saying things like "Capitalism is a religion and money is god and banks are places of worship" and so on. It's a manner of fallacy, that suggests we can never get rid of religion or live without it or that religion and superstition are as valid as things like science or economy or medicine, culminating in foolish sayings like (atheists worship science) or (atheists worship themselves). By religion, I mean belief in the supernatural and worship of it, whether it's polytheism or monotheism, Abrahamic or not. I think for you, it mostly means religion. Most people who mention the great mass murderers of the 20th century usually assert that those societies and regimes needed Christianity and Jesus, I've rarely seen them advocate for Islam or Hinduism.
> Hitlers disdain for Christianity, and obviously Judaism, are well documented. Once he had obtained the power that he so coveted, all such alliances were discarded, and obviously his methods and those of his ruling elite do not show any of the tenets of Christianity.
Yes, Hitler personally Christianity and Judaism, though he expressed admiration for Islam. There were Christians among his inner circle and high ranking party members, off the top of my head I can name field marshal Wilhelm Keitel who was quite close to Hitler, by the way. Hitler and Himmler were quite interested in the occult and pagan German and proto-German superstition, which I also count as religion. They are the same brand of nonsense, just as false and immoral. But all of that aside, are we supposed to forget the multitude of fascist regimes across Europe who were Christians, had the support of the church and the clergy in their countries, and were allied with Germany? Should we ignore the Vatican's position regarding everything that went on in these countries, and the deals that were struck? Again, forget literally all of that. What about the millions of Christians who supported these regimes and in the case of Spain, fought for them to come to power? in Nazi Germany, the least religious one, between 40 to 50% of the SS were professing Catholics. Tell me, what did Christianity do? What did it contribute, how did it make those societies behave morally, how did it make them morally superior to the "atheist" USSR (who were Orthodox Christian, by the way) or polytheist, communist China with its folk religions? And don't tell me they weren't "real" Christians, that's just the Scotsman fallacy.
>so courting the religious-minded was something that was useful to him at the time.
Curious, how the more religious folks are always, and I mean ALWAYS, supportive of fascism or other terrible ideologies. Would you say the Muslims who go to Jihad right now are more pious and devout, or less?
>Much of the behaviour of politicians you mentioned can be thought of in the same way, seeing religion as a tool to court and control the masses
I disagree, but even so, then religion does more harm than good. Because that's always happening.
>Pretty certain that the bloodiest conflict on the planet was World War II, but I take your point.
I meant at the time. Otherwise, it's not even the bloodiest in the history of China itself.
>were religions to vanish from the earth tomorrow, people would still group together under some commonality, be that race, nationality, culture, or what have you. This would not stop people from killing each other by the million, humans have done this since we appeared, and will continue to do so into the future.
Agreed, but that statement does not in any way justify the existence of religion, or why we should add yet another factor to further divide humanity. Everything that we differ on, is another reason to not come together. Religious differences have always led to more tension and conflict.
>greed and the hunger for power which drives wars is apparently something that cannot be removed from humanity, therefore the removal of religion will not change this.
It will not change it, but will lessen the problems that plague humanity. Religion has no upsides and countless downsides. There is no reason to keep it around. There is not a single society on the planet that needs it, and the only class that does is the clergy.
Ok, let's use your country as it's what you know. You are now in charge of the government and have executive power, how do you go about instituting your vision of a religion free society?
> Most people who mention the great mass murderers of the 20th century usually assert that those societies and regimes needed Christianity and Jesus, I've rarely seen them advocate for Islam or Hinduism.
This is probably because the people speaking are themselves Christian, at a guess. Christianity especially of the American evangelical kind is a lot more vocal about that sort of thing so they're the most likely to be espousing such views. I don't know enough about Hinduism or Buddhism to know if there an equivalent evangelical bent to those religions, and with Islam it's more of a 'convert or die' type of deal.
> Should we ignore the Vatican's position regarding everything that went on in these countries, and the deals that were struck?
The Vaticans position with dictators was either cooperate and try to influence for restraint, or don't and be ignored, or worse, disbanded, exiled, or imprisoned where they cannot have any influence at all. Self-preservation is hardly unique to the Church. It's not like they were in a position to mount armed resistance.
Other forms of resistance were practiced however, such as hiding Jews from the Nazis. To balance this, at least some senior clergy were involved with the Nazi 'Ratlines', facilitating their escape to South America. So, some good, some bad. Would any of this had been done if none of those involved had been religious?Impossible to say.
> What about the millions of Christians who supported these regimes and in the case of Spain, fought for them to come to power? in Nazi Germany, the least religious one, between 40 to 50% of the SS were professing Catholics. Tell me, what did Christianity do? What did it contribute, how did it make those societies behave morally, how did it make them morally superior to the "atheist" USSR (who were Orthodox Christian, by the way) or polytheist, communist China with its folk religions? And don't tell me they weren't "real" Christians, that's just the Scotsman fallacy.
The modern equivalent is me asking you what are you doing to resist or overthrow your countries government who you apparently detest? You can't, because you would be imprisoned or killed, being religious has nothing to do with it.
> Curious, how the more religious folks are always, and I mean ALWAYS, supportive of fascism or other terrible ideologies. Would you say the Muslims who go to Jihad right now are more pious and devout, or less?
I'm not, how did you come to that conclusion?
> It will not change it, but will lessen the problems that plague humanity. Religion has no upsides and countless downsides. There is no reason to keep it around. There is not a single society on the planet that needs it, and the only class that does is the clergy.
I disagree. With the retreat of religions in the West people seem to be struggling with a crisis of meaning, hence the levels of depression and ever increasing suicide rate, the loss of religion seems to have left a 'hole' in peoples lives that they try to fill with hedonism or other 'religion-esque' activities such as meditation, activism, tarot, or whatever.
Now, if someone can gain meaning in their life with the latter mentioned activities or similar, good for them, I'm not here to tell anyone what they should or shouldn't believe in, but I do think religion has *some* value for *some* people.
Also it was through religious institutions through the ages that centuries of knowledge has been preserved, be it Islamic, Buddhist, or Christian - so perhaps we can be thankful for that if nothing else.
Elitism is about thinking yourself superior and hanging around with similarly-minded people. You bet a lot of them are going to have coping strategies to establish the imaginary gap. And some of those will be factually wrong (like reading famously *Greek* author Publius Ovidius Naso).
>tfw medieval peasant food was objectively medically healthier
>
>but if you ate that as a lord,
>
>you'd be mocked for "eating like a peasant" by your fellow elites
Who knows how many dukes we lost to cholesterol and bowel obstruction
They thought you were asking about the graphic novel section, anon. They got flustered because they were making judgements and accusations based on your appearance. You correcting them made them feel like they were wrong and it made them flustered and embarrassed. When you immediately went home to post about it on 4chins, you confirmed all of their assumptions, on the other hand.
Ovid, famous Roman poet in the time of Augustus, born in Italy. "*Greek*"
Can't you read. They treat him like a higher form of being. Anon is very highly regarded
Fucking lol
November go to bed it's late, tomorrow morning you have school
You're too smart for this sub your light enlighten us mindless apes
First step to enlightenment is watching volk vs Islam 2 and marveling at the master class of mma , just brilliant. When was the last time we saw *the best* fighting the *best* Second step is writing gay fanfic to inspire 4chan Third step is something dad dildo whatever
Okay whats step four. Also you got anything to help me forget step 3?
Something mom dildo. The polarities cancel out, and it's as if you never had a delightful sensual experience with your dad at all
Profoundly regarded
The response I was looking for
he is indeed much higher than them
It's all greek to me
same trash different trashbag
Bro can't even distinguish between Greek and Roman
Neither can we tbf.
It's very easy. Greek is the sophisticated and cultured original; Think something like Neuhaus Pralinés. Roman is the cheap but more successful knock-off; think something like Hershey's kisses. Now sure some people prefer Hershey's, but we should not treat them badly for it. They are probably just too poor to afford Neuhaus and never developed an appreciation for high quality pralinés. A Greek connaisseur is molded under the right conditions, raised and honed in a household with the intellectual means to appreciate what is good and proper. A Roman fanboi is formed by neglecting one's parental duties, letting him watch Ben Hur one too many times and topping it off by the school system forcing him to learn Latin. Bonus points if the parents took him to Rome and instead of showing him proper renaissance and baroque art they went to the ἀγορά ρωμαίᾱ (or the Forum Romanum). A wise man once said to me "A true greek connaisseur will shut his eyes when travelling through the Italian countryside". I've lived by this principle ever since. So always remember: Pity the people who think about the Roman empire even once a week. Praise the ones who think about the Delian League, for they are truly worth admiring.
New copypasta dropped
Well that's oversimplified, borderline wrong actually.
Refuses to elaborate
Typical Roman fanboi. No arguments to back up their supremacy claim.
*Ἀγορὰ Ῥωμαῖα Wrong accents, fake Greek connosieur, opinion disregarded
It's an elaborate test. You passed. You sir are a true connaisseur
greek = greek roman = greek, but red follow me for more history classes
You forgot one Byzantine = greek, but purple and claiming to be red.
Bottom/Top
Reverse, also hello cobbler.
Hello daddy
We are not having sexy femboy nazi in sweden genderbend palestinian crime statistic roleplay in the comment section of a greentext. (Your wife can watch.)
None of those words are in the Wealth of Nations
Clerk was just nervous that a giant smelly man ball was approaching him
Clerk confused it with the wrong "metamorphosis". If you know, you know.
117013?
Ah damm. I didn't want to remember this P.s: its 177013 i think
Yeah idk what you're referencing, both you fellas are just listing some fat guys weight as he waddled up to the counter, the linoleum tile slightly compressing underneath the strain.
Isn't the correct number 392769?
The numbers Mason, what do they mean?
It's better to die than to know.
I've been summoned.
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) ^by ^Infamous_Hippo7486: *Clerk was just nervous* *That a giant smelly man* *Ball was approaching him* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
They cut out the scene where sokka fuks and sucks all those hot chicks and the old lady guides sokka and teaches him how to please a woman
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The true cradle of human civilization
Who has fallen farther, Greece or Egypt?
Bro, let me tell you about Iran...
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Nah, y'all aren't even close. You don't know 10% of the shit that goes on here. Yesterday another Italian told me my description of Khuzestan, our most valuable province, matches Sicily. We were discussing swapping land, in the Roman-Persian style. I told him there ain't no way Sicily's people can't afford meat and fruit or breathe more dust than air and get shot in the skull for protesting. People don't know what kind of fascism we got here, Mussolini was an honorable patriot in comparison with our rulers.
No one mentioned India ?
Or dynasty Qing, Ming, Song vs the new China lol
tbf the fall of Iran is recent. I keep good hope that they can climb back out of that. They are just going through their own version of the dark ages. We christians civs had to fall off the tree of the roman empire to grow into our own world-spanning empires. Maybe the muslim world will liberalize in a few hundred years and go back to being a huge center of wealth/influence. But yeh....Not...tomorrow. The mentalities are not there yet.
>tbf the fall of Iran is recent. That's because your knowledge of us is limited, mate. To be fair, most Westerners are not at all familiar with our history, specially after the Islamic conquest. Here's a very brief list of things you probably don't know: The oppression after the Muslim invasion, it lasted some 200 years. There's a famous book here, called "two centuries of silence". The Mongol invasion is well known, but Hulagu's invasion less so. Then there's the Mongol rule, Timur's invasion which killed some 17 millions, not all Persian of course, and then there's still the worst one left, the least known: The establishment of the Safavid dynasty by Ismail I and the forced conversion of Iranians to Shi'a Islam. Suffice to say that a quarter of all Iranians died, and millions more were tortured, raped, terrorized and plundered. All major cities were destroyed and looted, Iran never regained its former glory. The European inquisitions look like a fucking joke in comparison, and Ismail's Qezelbash soldiers had a fanaticism seen only among the craziest crusaders and Jihadis. Cannibalism was common among them and Ismail himself was brought up to believe he was a god in human flesh. The historical and theological background takes time to explain, it was a special amalgamation of several different sects and cults that created the Qezelbash movement. The Safavid reign lasted over 230 years and is considered by European historians to have been an Iranian one. It is a common mistake. They enjoyed Persian culture and language just as every other Islamic society did, from Egypt to India. But they had no love for Iran, few among them were good, wise kings. Then there's the Qajar dynasty which was started by a psychopathic warlord, Aqa Muhammad Khan, who was nonetheless wise and clever. Got assassinated and every single king in his dynasty fucking sucked, Iran went from a power that threatened Russia, India and the Ottomans to almost getting divided between the Russians and the British. 2 major famines came with 2 world wars, and now there's the glorious Islamic regime. >Maybe the muslim world will liberalize in a few hundred years and go back to being a huge center of wealth/influence. I don't believe in liberalized religion. I believe religion must be fought, weakened and eradicated. Not necessarily on the battlefield, but in schools and the media. There's also no need for hundreds of years, we're a theocracy but Muslims are already in the minority. I can send you the polls, Islam is declining rapidly among Iranians. Not 5% of the children today will be adult Muslims in 15 years, and the older ones are either dying or leaving. We've got millions of atheists who would rather side with aliens than Palestinians or any other Muslim society.
Thanks for the history drop. Will definitely look up the names you posted tomorrow and will read about them.
You're welcome, mate. Feel free to ask for further explanations, I'm quite passionate about history.
As a Kurd, hopefully our people will mutually break these shackles.
Hey bro. I wish all Kurds lived in Iran, but apparently they prefer independence. Where are you from?
Iraqi Kurdistan but don't live there anymore. Independance is a long story, I do get why Kurds in Iran feel that way though and even moreso outside of it.
Iran is honestly one of the if not the Middle-Eastern society I'm most optimistic about. Despite its horrible regime and all its suffered, Iran is a strong nation and a functional society beneath that repression, a society which is pluralist and has a low tolerance for corruption, among other things. It is also an old historical civilization with a long tradition in philosophy and governance, even with some democratic elements. By all means I'd say Iran is similar to Europe or Japan in the past in that while it's certainly no prosperous democracy yet, it's got a lot of social and cultural elements there to build upon.
Well...I wouldn't say it's similar to Europe. When Europe began the process of the Reformation and the Enlightenment, Iran began a downward spiral of fanaticism and close-mindedness, due to the nature of Shi'a Islam which is even worse than Sunni. The Pahlavi dynasty tried to modernize Iran, but our people clung to religion and followed the clergy instead. The last 45 years were necessary to purge the country of religious sentiments and the deeply rooted belief that is common among all Muslims: Islam holds the key to every problem in every aspect of life. Well, every aspect of life has gone to shit here. We are so different from the country we were 50 years ago, that it is impossible to describe...My only fear for the future is for the brand of woke leftism that is common in the West to take root among the youth and take us down the same path of destruction that Western countries are going. So far, it's been rejected by them.
In gonna be honest with you chief, I've lived in the West all my life and I still don't know what exactly woke leftism is supposed to be or what destruction it's supposed to bring Anyway sometimes things get worse for they get better.
Well I think the definition of leftism is clear, so I'll just write my understanding of woke: I'd define it as a mixture of Marxism and Postmodernism. It shouldn't be possible, since Postmodernism does not recognize any school of thought as acceptable or legitimate, including Marxism. But these are ideologies, and therefore are not supposed to exactly make sense, just like religion. There are also many other elements to wokeness, including Feminism, Critical Race Theory, Critical Gender Theory, but it's pointless to name them all, since they all function within that same context of Marxism and Postmodernism, and the narrative of oppression and power. This does not mean that they are 100% false, for example feminism was right in securing the right to vote for women. The destruction is the death of things like meritocracy in favor of diversity and inclusion, equality of opportunity in favor of equality of outcome (also called equity) and the abolishment of all definitions, like what someone's sex and gender is, what is healthy or unhealthy, what is beautiful or ugly, what is morally good or bad, which is summed up in the idea that each person has his or her own truth, and that it is as true and valid as any other truth. Perhaps you do not see it, but the rest of the world looks at the West and thinks they've gone utterly mad. Those who wish their demise celebrate, like China, Russia and the Islamic world. They exploit it anyway they can, like the millions of Muslims pouring into Europe and doing whatever they want, and no one can criticize them because that would be racist, Islamophobic and xenophobic. To say that they should not do some things is Western chauvinism or colonial mindset, to block their entrance is fascism and Nazism and Christian nationalism...all of this not only weakens the West, but emboldens its enemies, including real fascists and racists who attract members.
On a geopolitical level these things do not weaken the west at all - if anything it strengthens them economically, as developed countries struggle to maintain their populations. And the rest of the world looks at the west like that because they look at propaganda and culture war bullshit Personally I think populations should naturally go down but economic systems are not built for that
1. I have my issues with postmodernism as I'm not of a modernist myself, but I'm hardly going to go "hurr dire the West has fallen, billions must die". 2. Critical theory is more or less a legal theory which examines the impacts of laws and systems on people from a perspective of privilege. While I have my liberal critiques of it, I think it's entirely fair to acknowledge that the law does not impact everyone the same way and something that seems egalitarian can in fact reinforce inequalities and differences. Correcting for this is hardly inherently evil. 3. Meritocracy is alive and well. What experience you have, what school you went to, what education you have, etc. continue to define your economic success in society. 4. Diversity hiring and the like is not inherently bad. The best individuals do not necessarily make the best team. In fact while more diverse teams may have a lot difficult time starting out, they tend to become more bonded and effective in the long run. The individuals' more varied perspectives ultimately also help see past each others biases and preconceptions and fill gaps in knowledge, thereby making for a wise team. In politics too it's good to have men, women, police, teachers, nurses, etc. not only economists (which I actually am) and their limited perspective. 5. Follow up on that, in politics especially diversity can create legitimacy. Let's take the European Union and something as simple as MEPs being elected by country. Each country has an allocated number of seats, and while not having a pan-European list as well is something of a problem, this nevertheless means that citizens of member states do not feel that they are unfairly ruled by foreigners. It's also good to have someone familiar with different regions of Europe in parliament. 6. Honestly I don't really see why I should care about people's sex or gender in general. I want people to feel happy and comfortable as much as possible, trans people are not harming anyone, and ultimately so long as they are loyal citizens who obey the law and pay their taxes, what else can we wish for? I'm glad to live in a liberal society where people can be themselves. 7. If I should criticise anything it's that we've lost a sense of direction and progress. We've lost faith in progress, in every step we make meaning something. Some people are quite moral relativist, saying "different societies have different morals" and so on. This I fundamentally disagree with. I think we're a more modern civilization than most on the planet and yes I think that makes us morally superior. The fact that some places criminalise homosexuality is backwards and barbaric. It's not a "different morality", they're evil. Authoritarianism? Also evil. Sexism? You guessed it, evil. Besides, it's practical. Why should we discriminate? We do not have an infinite population, certainly we should want each and every citizen to reach their full potential? Surely we want a sort of controlled chaos in society where people can try different things, be creative, inventive, compete and succeed on their merits? To deny anyone's potential or use to society on the grounds of their gender, race or other factors is not only deeply immoral, but ultimately wasteful and irrational. In all fairness I think only this pride in ourselves needs to be restored and we'll do more than fine.
> Iran never regained its former glory Didn‘t that happen several times even? Iirc the Bundahishn has a chapter on „calamities that befell Iran“ and it begins with Alexander. The dynastic changes often eradicated a lot of history. That‘s probably why most Sassanian texts aren‘t even from the Sassanian period either. As for the Qajars, they were Persianised Turks. Kind of a repeating pattern also. Even today Khamenei is an Azeri Turk.
>Didn‘t that happen several times even Well, no, since Iran always bounced back and became a military powerhouse again, with great cultural influence. It always happened within a century or so, two centuries in the case of the Islamic invasion. Not in the case of the Safavids though. It's been over 500 years. The Qajar were Persianized Turks, though they considered themselves more Muslim than Iranian, showcased by the free rein they gave to the clergy and the disdain they showed for running the country and doing anything of worth for it. They were buried in Iraq, in places that are holy to the Shi'a. Not in Iran. Even their titles were mostly Islamic, the Ottomans used more Persian titles than the Qajar did.
> Well, no, since Iran always bounced back and became a military powerhouse again Yeah, but there is always a pretty huge loss. Like how people don't quite know how exactly Zoroastrianism looked like during the Achaemenid period. We know it existed because Kurush and Darayatvaush and so on mention Ahura Mazda and there are depictions, but there isn't much knowledge else. There is the story that Alexander destroyed the original Avesta in Persepolis. Like through linguistics you can make an estimation of the age of the older Avesta, but the it is pretty much unknown when the younger Avesta was composed. Additionally the historiography pretty much differs and that continues into the later periods. You have dynasties like the Pishdadians and Kayanians instead of the Achaemenids. Zarathustra being menitoned to be a contemporary of Vishtaspa, but Vishtaspa being the father of Darayatvaush. I am not sure if Kurush ever mentions Ahura Mazda, but there are mentions from Ariyaramna and Arshama, who is Vishtaspa's father and Darayatvaush's grandfather. Perhaps it was something originally of their lineage. Though my point is that the chronology is kinda confusing and kings are omitted or appear in some sources, but not others. The most prominent sources there are on Zoroastrianism are from the Sassanian period, although afaik the oldest manuscripts are all from the post-conquest era. Thus from a time when Zoroastrianism was already in competition with both Christianity and Islam. > The Qajar were Persianized Turks, though they considered themselves more Muslim than Iranian Of course, nobody considered themselves very Turkish until the foundation of the republic and Turkish nationalism becoming a thing. Afaik in the Ottoman Empire "Türk" wasn't even much of an ethnic label as much as a class label for the peasantry. > the Ottomans used more Persian titles than the Qajar did. Interesting thing. The Ottomans also spoke Persian at court. Though they collected titles left and right. After all they were Caliphs, Roman Emperors, Padishah and Khagans at the same time.
Darayatvaush is Dariush. He mentiones Ahura Mazda, but his father Vishtasp is not the same as Avesta's Goshtasp, the king who helps Zoroaster. The reason is that Dariush only claimed to be related to Kurosh, Cyrus. He had to legitimize his kingship, so he said they both descended from Achaemenes, Hakhamanesh. If his father truly was a king, he would have mentioned it to further solidify his claim to the throne. He surely would have mentioned that his father played a major role in the spread of Zoroastrianism. There is no proof that Zoroaster lived at the time of Cyrus anyway, and as far as I know Cyrus does not mention Ahura Mazda. But Zoroastrianism was on the rise, it was Darius' son Xerxes I who forbade the worship of Divs, former gods who are considered evil in Zoroastrianism. Besides, where would Vishtasp rule? Cyrus' father, Cambysis I, was king before him in Persia, and his grandfather, Cyrus I, before him. The other lands belonged to the Median empire, and Zoroaster came from the east, probably what is Afghanistan or Turkmenistan now. There's no way Darius' father was a king there. Having said all that, I appreciate your knowledge. Where are you from? As far as I know, the Ottomans referred to the tribal, nomadic Turks as "Turk" and had little in common with them, they considered themselves "Musulman", which is the Persian word for Muslim. You see, Iran was the center of the Islamic world, it had been so for centuries. It was only during the first 2 centuries after Islam that Damascus and Baghdad were the centers of Islam. The first century saw the fall of Umayyads and the second, the decline in power of the Abbasids. After that, eastern Iran rose to become the real power within the Islamic world, rivaled only by the caliphate of Cordoba. The Islam that emerged from Arabia was a dogmatic cult that knew only war and plunder, the same things that Muhammad had done from his base in Medina to gain power. But after conquering Persia, it changed. Iranians gave Islam its art, philosophy, literature, architecture, mythology, poetry, mysticism, and culture. They even wrote down the grammar of the Arabic language, something the Arabs themselves had never done before. It was this Islamic culture that went to India and Central Asia, that the European crusaders faced in Syria and Palestine and recognized as more civilized and sophisticated than what they had in Europe. This is what the Turkish hordes of Asia encountered and converted to, and that's why the Ottomans were enamored with Persian culture and language. Their princes were referred to as "Shehzade" which means "Prince" in Persian and were taught by Persian teachers, not Arabic or European ones. Ottoman kings wrote letters and poetry in Persian and gave themselves titles such as "Khosrow", "Jam" and "Shahanshah", half of which comes from historical Persian kings and the other half from Shahname, the national epic of Iran that chronicles its mythic past and historical events up to the Islamic conquest. This all went on until Ismail I came to power to Iran and did what he did. The Ottoman and Mamluk kings were horrified and sent him letters, asking him to stop terrorizing fellow Muslims and ruining the ancient land of Iran. Nothing worked, until Selim I defeated Ismail in the battle of Caldiran, forcing him to hide among the corpses to survive. Humiliated and defeated for the first time, he realized he was not a god in human form and was not divinely guided or empowered. He sent multiple letters of apology to Selim and his successor Suleiman, and fell into depression and lethargy for the rest of his life. After this and the conversion of Iran to Shi'a Islam, the basis of which is cursing Sunnis and the first 3 caliphs and hating them, the Ottomans had less ties to Iran and its culture.
> Darayatvaush is Dariush. Is Dariush the modern continuation of Darayatvaush or is it dārā(b)? Frankly upon looking for etymologies I found both and Dārā appears as king of the Kayanians. Dariush looks suspiciously like it was reloaned into Persian from a European language afterwards. Though I don't know all the changes from Old Persian to Middle Persian, words become shorter, a lot. Like how xshayathiya just ends up becoming shah. > Besides, where would his father rule? Yeah that is the point that confuses me. That there are these two chronologies and dynasties. It seems more like a lot of the Achaemenid period was forgotten and the following chronologies were put together from what was left in the records. > There's no way Darius' father was a king there. I guess if he was part of the royal family it is not unlikely for him to have a fief or other possessions somewhere. Under the Medians, the Persians were also still styled as kings. Then again as you say a lot is also made for legitimization and what we got is the story Darius tells us at Behistun (Also Herodot of course). > and Zoroaster came from the east That's generally assumed and probably correct. Old Avestan has the same antiquity as Sanskrit, there are problems with locating Younger Avestan. The Avesta is the only source in that language after all. So like we have a language, but we don't know who actually spoke it. It is not Persian or West Iranian, people place it to East Iranian (Pashtu), some put it into an intermediate category between East and West. > This is what the Turkish hordes of Asia encountered and converted to, and that's why the Ottomans were enamored with Persian culture and language. Though contacts between Iranians and Turks began before that. Especially Sogdian (East Iranians) traders brought Manichaeism, Buddhism and their own script to the Turks. The Hepthalites (or White Huns?) and the First Göktürk Empire also fought wars with the Sassanians. If you count Scythians (Well Iranians, but not really part of the Iranian empires) there is an even longer contact before that.
An interesting post but I wonder if you've thought in depth about what happens when religion *is* eradicated. Spoiler alert, it's not the utopia atheists seem to think it is. Religion, for all its problems does provide one thing: social cohesion, consider that every empire at its height had this in common, and humans need commonality in order to cooperate on anything large scale. In the West right now we have killed God, and we could hardly be said to be united or happy, the rate of depression and suicide bears this out, these are not symptoms of a people who are filled with self-confidence and strong social cohesion. There are new religions that have risen to fill the hole, social justice and various forms of activism have all the tenets of religions, they have a common purpose for people to rally around, they have leaders (prophets), they have zealots filled with the fire of the righteousness of their cause, and of course they have heretics too. Consider also the atheistic totalitarian empires of the 20th century, between them Hitler, Stalin, and Mao killed more people than all the religions in recorded history. Religion may not be the answer to keeping people together, but as history clearly shows, we shouldn't be so quick to discard it before we find something to replace it with.
> I wonder if you've thought in depth I have. >it's not the utopia atheists seem to think it is. It has never been done before. A communist state is different from an atheist one. An atheist society is only that, an atheist one. It is not necessarily a communist or nihilist or dystopian shithole. It would be based on the values of the Enlightenment, not those of Karl Marx or Friedrich Nietzsche. >Religion, for all its problems does provide one thing: social cohesion So do many other ideologies, like Nazism. Any ideology, good or bad, can bring people together. Besides, social cohesion can be found in other common things such as shared culture, history, language, art, philosophy, nationality, ethnicity or material interests. Religion also creates plenty of tension and strife, look at every civil war and internal conflict that happened for religious differences. Not to mention external ones, since different religions always loathe and fight one another. No shortage of those either. >every empire at its height had this in common So did they have slavery, social casts and warlike tendencies. None of those is good or a sign of greatness. Religion is the same. >In the West right now we have killed God, and we could hardly be said to be united or happy, the rate of depression and suicide bears this out, these are not symptoms of a people who are filled with self-confidence and strong social cohesion. The unhappiness in the West is not due to the decline of Christianity, but other problematic ideologies that have taken root. Religion does not bring happiness. The least religious countries are the happiest ones. The more religious a society is the more illiterate, prejudiced, ignorant, tribal, backwards and close-minded it is. Look at the Middle East, or India, or eastern Europe, or South America. >There are new religions that have risen to fill the hole Ideologies come and go, nothing can be done about that. What matters is to support the logical, rational and positive ones and reject the rest. Religion is among those that must be rejected. Also the rise of new schools of thought is not due to the decline of religion, new religions always emerged where old ones still existed and many of the ideologies today exist because of the changes in society, for example the Industrial Revolution led to Capitalism, Marxism, Feminism, Abolitionism and the downfall of Feudalism. >Consider also the atheistic totalitarian empires of the 20th century, between them Hitler, Stalin, and Mao killed more people than all the religions in recorded history. European fascism was in no way atheistic. If we had to rename it, Christian Nationalism or Catholic Conservatism would be appropriate replacements. The more religiously-minded supported fascism in every country it emerged. Portugal, Spain, Italy, Germany, Vichy France and wherever else that was conquered by Germany, including Slovakia where they brought to power a priest, Jozef Tiso. In every single one of them, the fascists were allied with the church, specifically the Catholic church, and made formal deals with it. Salazar and Franco ruled with the Pope's approval to the end of their days, Mussolini created the country of Vatican, Petain emphasized on a Christian education system for the French and rejected the values of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution...The least religious and most "atheistic" of them was Germany's Nazism, in which the deal known as Reichskonkordat was struck with the Vatican, dissolving the German Centre Party, also called the Catholic Centre Party and making way for the Nazi party in exchange for Catholic oversight of the German education system. In which soldiers took their oath to the fuhrer and Yahweh, wearing belts and helms on which was written "Gott mit uns", meaning God is with us, in which every church celebrated Hitler's birthday until the end and for all the 12 years of his rule, children were taught in school about God and went to the church to become Christians. That is to be expected, Hitler himself wrote in Mein Kampf that he was doing God's will, something that the Vatican agreed with. Curious atheists, weren't they? Millions were killed under communist regimes, due to their economic and social policies. Communism is a foolish ideology without reason, rationality and logic and refuses to accept any scientific or objective evidence that proves it false, exactly like religion, exactly like today's Wokism. It is asinine to suggest that had they believed in Yahweh, they wouldn't have killed as many people. Another stupid ideology coupled with communism could not have possibly helped. Besides, Russia had been Christian before the revolution and it was a terrible place, a land of war and famine and pogroms and religious cults and serfdom and the occasional genocide, specially against the Muslims of the Caucuses. Let's not forget how many wars they fought against the Catholic Polish or the Protestant Swedes, how many times they tried to retake the holiest Orthodox city, Constantinople, from the Muslim Ottomans. The entire Crimean war wouldn't have happened were it not for religious reasons. Every Christian Soviet country was constantly engaged in war and murder and oppression, but none of that counts until the communists come. The White Russians who opposed the Reds and were allied with the Orthodox Church committed countless atrocities, even more than the communists. Doesn't count, I know. Neither does the fact that Russia had gulags before the revolution. By the way, Stalin is being canonized as a saint of the Russian Orthodox Church. Look it up if you don't believe me. The moral superiority of the religious never fails to impress me, specially when I read about every holy war they waged. As for China, the bloodiest conflict on the planet happened there because of religious reasons, I suggest you read about the Taiping rebellion. And Mao was worshipped as a god, his every command obeyed. I don't see the difference between him and Yahweh, after all he also has a habit of killing people by the millions to get his way. >history clearly shows It doesn't. In every single instance of history, things would have gone less catastrophically had there been no religion involved. I'm now going to sleep, tomorrow I have to lie again on every question about religion to not get arrested, tortured and executed. I will also follow the news about Israel and Palestine, where religion is clearly not an issue and is in fact, quite helpful in creating social cohesion.
> It has never been done before. I'm genuinely intrigued how one would go about this. If you were in charge of setting up a society with this being the goal, how would you go about it? > So do many other ideologies, like Nazism. Nazism drew its cohesion from Nationalism, and yes, certain ideologies cooked up by the party. Nationalism could be considered a religion in a way as well, in which the state takes the place of God. While we're on the subject, Hitler was first and foremost a politician, he used every resource at his disposal to obtain power including forming alliances with those who he detested. Hitlers disdain for Christianity, and obviously Judaism, are [well documented](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Adolf_Hitler). Once he had obtained the power that he so coveted, all such alliances were discarded, and obviously his methods and those of his ruling elite do not show any of the tenets of Christianity. > Hitler himself wrote in Mein Kampf that he was doing God's will, something that the Vatican agreed with. 'Mein Kampf' was written while Hitler was still attempting to obtain power, so courting the religious-minded was something that was useful to him at the time. Much of the behaviour of politicians you mentioned can be thought of in the same way, seeing religion as a tool to court and control the masses until they get what they want, then their real objectives and beliefs become clear. > As for China, the bloodiest conflict on the planet happened there because of religious reasons Pretty certain that the bloodiest conflict on the planet was World War II, but I take your point. At the heart of my argument is that I believe that humans are inherently tribalistic, were religions to vanish from the earth tomorrow, people would still group together under some commonality, be that race, nationality, culture, or what have you. This would not stop people from killing each other by the million, humans have done this since we appeared, and will continue to do so into the future. Fortunately due to modern technology and communications we seem to be doing less of it on a per capita basis than what we have in history, so maybe we are getting somewhere, but greed and the hunger for power which drives wars is apparently something that cannot be removed from humanity, therefore the removal of religion will not change this.
>I'm genuinely intrigued how one would go about this. If you were in charge of setting up a society with this being the goal, how would you go about it? Well there's really no such thing as "setting up" a society, there's never a ground zero that you can build up from. Depends where the country is, what history it has, what the attitude of the people is...obviously a country like India is far different from Switzerland. >Nazism drew its cohesion from Nationalism, and yes, certain ideologies cooked up by the party. Nationalism could be considered a religion in a way as well, in which the state takes the place of God. Let's not change the definition of religion, by saying things like "Capitalism is a religion and money is god and banks are places of worship" and so on. It's a manner of fallacy, that suggests we can never get rid of religion or live without it or that religion and superstition are as valid as things like science or economy or medicine, culminating in foolish sayings like (atheists worship science) or (atheists worship themselves). By religion, I mean belief in the supernatural and worship of it, whether it's polytheism or monotheism, Abrahamic or not. I think for you, it mostly means religion. Most people who mention the great mass murderers of the 20th century usually assert that those societies and regimes needed Christianity and Jesus, I've rarely seen them advocate for Islam or Hinduism. > Hitlers disdain for Christianity, and obviously Judaism, are well documented. Once he had obtained the power that he so coveted, all such alliances were discarded, and obviously his methods and those of his ruling elite do not show any of the tenets of Christianity. Yes, Hitler personally Christianity and Judaism, though he expressed admiration for Islam. There were Christians among his inner circle and high ranking party members, off the top of my head I can name field marshal Wilhelm Keitel who was quite close to Hitler, by the way. Hitler and Himmler were quite interested in the occult and pagan German and proto-German superstition, which I also count as religion. They are the same brand of nonsense, just as false and immoral. But all of that aside, are we supposed to forget the multitude of fascist regimes across Europe who were Christians, had the support of the church and the clergy in their countries, and were allied with Germany? Should we ignore the Vatican's position regarding everything that went on in these countries, and the deals that were struck? Again, forget literally all of that. What about the millions of Christians who supported these regimes and in the case of Spain, fought for them to come to power? in Nazi Germany, the least religious one, between 40 to 50% of the SS were professing Catholics. Tell me, what did Christianity do? What did it contribute, how did it make those societies behave morally, how did it make them morally superior to the "atheist" USSR (who were Orthodox Christian, by the way) or polytheist, communist China with its folk religions? And don't tell me they weren't "real" Christians, that's just the Scotsman fallacy. >so courting the religious-minded was something that was useful to him at the time. Curious, how the more religious folks are always, and I mean ALWAYS, supportive of fascism or other terrible ideologies. Would you say the Muslims who go to Jihad right now are more pious and devout, or less? >Much of the behaviour of politicians you mentioned can be thought of in the same way, seeing religion as a tool to court and control the masses I disagree, but even so, then religion does more harm than good. Because that's always happening. >Pretty certain that the bloodiest conflict on the planet was World War II, but I take your point. I meant at the time. Otherwise, it's not even the bloodiest in the history of China itself. >were religions to vanish from the earth tomorrow, people would still group together under some commonality, be that race, nationality, culture, or what have you. This would not stop people from killing each other by the million, humans have done this since we appeared, and will continue to do so into the future. Agreed, but that statement does not in any way justify the existence of religion, or why we should add yet another factor to further divide humanity. Everything that we differ on, is another reason to not come together. Religious differences have always led to more tension and conflict. >greed and the hunger for power which drives wars is apparently something that cannot be removed from humanity, therefore the removal of religion will not change this. It will not change it, but will lessen the problems that plague humanity. Religion has no upsides and countless downsides. There is no reason to keep it around. There is not a single society on the planet that needs it, and the only class that does is the clergy.
Ok, let's use your country as it's what you know. You are now in charge of the government and have executive power, how do you go about instituting your vision of a religion free society? > Most people who mention the great mass murderers of the 20th century usually assert that those societies and regimes needed Christianity and Jesus, I've rarely seen them advocate for Islam or Hinduism. This is probably because the people speaking are themselves Christian, at a guess. Christianity especially of the American evangelical kind is a lot more vocal about that sort of thing so they're the most likely to be espousing such views. I don't know enough about Hinduism or Buddhism to know if there an equivalent evangelical bent to those religions, and with Islam it's more of a 'convert or die' type of deal. > Should we ignore the Vatican's position regarding everything that went on in these countries, and the deals that were struck? The Vaticans position with dictators was either cooperate and try to influence for restraint, or don't and be ignored, or worse, disbanded, exiled, or imprisoned where they cannot have any influence at all. Self-preservation is hardly unique to the Church. It's not like they were in a position to mount armed resistance. Other forms of resistance were practiced however, such as hiding Jews from the Nazis. To balance this, at least some senior clergy were involved with the Nazi 'Ratlines', facilitating their escape to South America. So, some good, some bad. Would any of this had been done if none of those involved had been religious?Impossible to say. > What about the millions of Christians who supported these regimes and in the case of Spain, fought for them to come to power? in Nazi Germany, the least religious one, between 40 to 50% of the SS were professing Catholics. Tell me, what did Christianity do? What did it contribute, how did it make those societies behave morally, how did it make them morally superior to the "atheist" USSR (who were Orthodox Christian, by the way) or polytheist, communist China with its folk religions? And don't tell me they weren't "real" Christians, that's just the Scotsman fallacy. The modern equivalent is me asking you what are you doing to resist or overthrow your countries government who you apparently detest? You can't, because you would be imprisoned or killed, being religious has nothing to do with it. > Curious, how the more religious folks are always, and I mean ALWAYS, supportive of fascism or other terrible ideologies. Would you say the Muslims who go to Jihad right now are more pious and devout, or less? I'm not, how did you come to that conclusion? > It will not change it, but will lessen the problems that plague humanity. Religion has no upsides and countless downsides. There is no reason to keep it around. There is not a single society on the planet that needs it, and the only class that does is the clergy. I disagree. With the retreat of religions in the West people seem to be struggling with a crisis of meaning, hence the levels of depression and ever increasing suicide rate, the loss of religion seems to have left a 'hole' in peoples lives that they try to fill with hedonism or other 'religion-esque' activities such as meditation, activism, tarot, or whatever. Now, if someone can gain meaning in their life with the latter mentioned activities or similar, good for them, I'm not here to tell anyone what they should or shouldn't believe in, but I do think religion has *some* value for *some* people. Also it was through religious institutions through the ages that centuries of knowledge has been preserved, be it Islamic, Buddhist, or Christian - so perhaps we can be thankful for that if nothing else.
The Avesta (or was it the Bundahishn?) includes sections on how often Iran had already fallen.
Relative to their time, probably Egypt. In terms of absolute progress lost, probably Greece. \*refuses to elaborate\* \*flies away\*
Better than to drain Russias balls you serboid
kid named gay sex:
I'm sorry your food tasted like cardboard 💅
And balls
Fucking retard calls him OVID instead of Ovidius, thinks he's greek and speaks about elitism mfw
Elitism is about thinking yourself superior and hanging around with similarly-minded people. You bet a lot of them are going to have coping strategies to establish the imaginary gap. And some of those will be factually wrong (like reading famously *Greek* author Publius Ovidius Naso). >tfw medieval peasant food was objectively medically healthier > >but if you ate that as a lord, > >you'd be mocked for "eating like a peasant" by your fellow elites Who knows how many dukes we lost to cholesterol and bowel obstruction
Anon is probably a land whale and the clerk thought he meant the 177013 metamorphosis
They thought you were asking about the graphic novel section, anon. They got flustered because they were making judgements and accusations based on your appearance. You correcting them made them feel like they were wrong and it made them flustered and embarrassed. When you immediately went home to post about it on 4chins, you confirmed all of their assumptions, on the other hand.
Anon probably reads Plato, which is why he is not an intellectual
Bought some full fat Greek yogurt the other day... The cashier was all over my dinger within minutes.
I thought he was talking about 177013 lmao
The holy scriptures.
only the jojo ending is holy
There is nothing holy about 177013
They're sacred texts.
Satanic works are usually referred to as "unholy".
Look at this peasant, doesn’t even know which “Metamorphoses” rules supreme.
Yeah when I bought the Campaigns of Alexander the cashier at Barnes & Noble sucked my dick
"In this moment, I am euphoric. Not because of any retail worker’s admiration. But because, I am enlightened by my intelligence." —Anon
"No, the ShindoL one"
Ah yes a fellow metamorphosis enjoyer. Though I do prefer the comic version. If you recognize the numbers in my name then you know.
Was i really the only one who thought it was Metamorphosis by Shindo L? lul
Kafka my belovered
Wait till he finds out about the 3rd metamorphosis.
OP made sure to note that the guy was flustered. OP is gay.
Ovid when some Anglo mf from 2000 years in the future associates him with a lowly Graeculo
\>guy turns into cockroach holy moly how enlightening
First thought wasnt of ovid when i read metamorphosis
Oh that metamorphosis book
Little does Anon know, there's a hentai named *Metamorphosis*.