I saw this headline this morning: Pope worries that big powers control decision-making.
Of course this implies that the small powers should have a seat at the table to make decisions. I would like to know by what right the small powers should have a seat at the table? Because they are human? Because they exist? Because they are small? What?
Reality does not provide human being with guarantees - be it food on his table or power among men. So, he gets to make one of two choices. Either he is going to earn his food by producing it or trading for it or he is going to expropriate it or depend on handouts. Similarly, he has to earn a position of power or he has to depend on handouts. How does he do this? Either he offers a value which is attractive to those in power and thus earns the right to be among the powerful or he seeks to get into the group by inducing guilt. Inducing guilt is the classic means of getting something by offering nothing of value. Naturally the Pope, being the Pope, chose the latter.
This is the root means of Christianity, which according to Nietzche in his Geneology of Morals, comes from the "slave" morality. "I have no power and since you do not give me a place at the table, I must resort to and am justified in inducing guilt in you so that you will give me something." This is the quintessential expression of the victim mentality. What is in his being and is not stated is "And, of course, I am soooo reasonable and so meek and therefore not a threat to you or anyone."
I assert that believing this places one in the category of fools. It will require from you self-sacrifice - the sacrifice of one's values. Is it no wonder that Jesus purposefully sacrificing his life on the cross is the essential symbol of Christianity?
Saturday, April 19, 2008
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When you consider that the Church is, for many people, a symbol of human rights, you have to ask yourself, as a thinking person, what is the source of that authority? If you, like me, believe that that source of the Pope's philosophy and power is a mystical connection to something that cannot be proven to exist, is it enough then to accept the authority of the Papal institution because he is considered by many people to be good? Then you have to ask yourself what is the source of that "goodness." Everyone says you cannot argue that the Papal institution wants peace and love for all men. But is that true? Can you really assume that to be the case considering the history of the Institution...all of the history? I, as an individual, choose to look at all of that history as an indication of the value of an institution. That is my right.
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