“”In the Republic, Plato defines justice in terms of order or harmony. Justice in the individual is the ordering of the will and the appetites by the supreme reason. Justice in the state will be the ordering of the different elements of society in terms of reason or philosophy by a ruling elite, or even one philosopher-king. The characteristics of this society are—not unexpectedly—totalitarian. The “Guardians” who are at once the military, police-force, and rulers of Plato’s state must live in a material and sexual communism. Any physically unfit or unlicensed children must be disposed of, via abortion or infanticide. There is no rule of law since the philosopher-kings are the walking embodiment of law. These rulers are the supreme law competent to use falsehood to achieve their will. There is no conception of personal freedom here. The interests of the many are completely subordinate to order, to the one, to the philosopher king. This is Plato’s justice. ”
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“Sinnigen and Boak remark, “Neo-platonism was more than a philosophical system; it was then a religion and like Oriental cults, preached salvation.” The character of religious Neo-Platonism is not difficult to see. The great goal is to scale the ladder of being and attain to the ecstatic experience of becoming one with “the one” i.e., the beatific vision.
Neo-platonism dissolves the many into the one. Politically, this leads to totalitarianism.”

“Paradoxically, individuals who possess a strong dose of the feeling function can be quite cool and dispassionate when it comes to matters of the heart…especially when it comes to considering other people’s feelings. The subjective nature of the feeling function can make someone with a superior feeling function have high expectations about how others should behave towards them and yet be quite insensitive to the feelings of others.”

“Thinking and feeling are ‘judgmental’ functions, that is an individual makes decisions by reasoning what is in one’s best interest, or by feeling out what is ‘right’.”

So, given that respecting property rights is an aspect of what is done right, and that these property rights are eternal, it is more rational to conclude that there is one source of property rights, than there is of more than one source.

After all, everyone has property rights, and when those property rights are not respected, one standard applies. Instead of one standard for the well to do, and a different one for the paupers.

For that is the crux of the matter, which Muslims deny because they have one standard for the dar al Islam and a different one for the dar al Harb.

Thanks for the answer.

1) On Socrates, I went overboard on the charge of sedition, you are right, trouble-making is more accurate. Also, it is true he wanted attention, and should have been left babbling. He served Athens in the military with distinction in his youth, though. The You Tube video recommended above by (27. Gaffe Price) is enlightening.

2) On Jung, correct. Of the followers of Guru Freud, he was the most brilliant, and the one closer to the Spirit. However, I believe credit should be given to Freud for many of his initial discoveries. For those interested in the ideas of Jung in relation to evil, allow me to quote from a letter he sent to Bill W, co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, just a few months shy of his death at the age of 85:

“I am strongly convinced that the evil principle prevailing in the world leads the unrecognized spiritual need into perdition, if it is not counteracted either by real religious insight or by the protective wall of human community. An ordinary man, not protected by an action from above and isolated in society, cannot resist the power of evil, which is called very aptly the Devil. But the use of such words arouses so many mistakes that one can only keep aloof from them as much as possible.”

3) I don’t know much about Joyce, and have not read his Ulysses or other works, however it occurs to me that he should be given some credit for not toying with the Communist idea and the Lenin/Stalin rabble as many of his intellectual contemporaries, such as Reed, Gide, did between the 2 world wars.

Socrates, no, he did not call Athens for its shortcoming, but was arrogant and antidemocratic, wanted to bring back a king and destroy democracy in Athens, looked down on the plebe, thought common men could not govern themselves, but had to be governed by the likes of him that were superior, the Athenians were right in not putting up with him. Stop Wikipediaing yourself.

find it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFXuGIpsdE0

Bless my soul! Is my face red! I completely conflated William James and James Joyce! In my youth we called this a brain cramp. I don’t much like James’ philosophy, and the system of modern psychology which he was instrumental in launching is indeed failing as I pointed out – and on which we agree. But he was no idiot. I had intended to insult an entirely different person: the complete nut job and idiot James Joyce. I just about fell out of my chair when I read your entry and realized my mistake! Perhaps you will disagree with me here, too (though I hope not!) but I’ll stand by this insult: I’m quite clear-headed now.

As an aside, psychology would have fared better if Jung had been followed rather than Freud. But it still would have failed. Its assumptions are wrong.

On Socrates, he and Plato have, at least to a degree, been overrated. Certainly if Plato had ever gotten his ideal Polis it would have been an oppressive nightmare. The Athenians were right to reject this. But I still am not following you. How is what Socrates did sedition? Unless any disagreement with the status quo is sedition. And if he were guilty of sedition he would then have deserved death. No. The Athenians should have gone on doing what they had been doing for years: let him run around prattling on, not working, being a poor husband and father (as he himself admitted) and generally making a fool of himself. And yet even through all of this he did give something valuable to the world, for there is some wisdom in what he said and he exposed many errors and false assumptions.

We can diverge, no problem, I like that, I respect your opinions and ideas.

1) [There is no “Mother.” God the Father is the ONLY God.]

Of course there is only one God. But he is both Father and Mother, as we mortal creatures have a mother, this creation also has a Mother. The Mother is the creative principle of God, that’s it. That’s is what we Hindus believe, as I am a follower of Sanatana Dharma. The Upanishad proclaims it clearly, in Sanskrit: Brahma Ekam Eva Advitiyam, meaning, God is One without a second, if this is not absolute monism, what is?

2) [The earth is a ball of dirt. (One that I’m very fond of and that we should all take care of, but a ball of dirt, nonetheless.)]

No, this is the wrong believe of the Abrahamic religions, including Islam, with their punishing philosophy, eternal damnation, and all that nonsense. The earth is Ananda, joy, and nothing but God himself, actually there is nothing that is not-God. The spiritual evolution here is toward the manifestation of the Almighty Father on earth, as Sri Aurobindo and the Mother proclaimed. Not some heaven somewhere, but here.

3) [Jesus Christ is indeed THE Son of God (not A son of God) and the only BEGOTTEN of God]

I respect your opinion, but it is erroneous, everyone is a son of God, aren’t me made in his image? I respect Jesus as an Avatar, there are very few, but I am not a Christian, and actually find Christianity wanting, dogmatic, and childish, and I also hope you respect my beliefs.

As soon as religion becomes “organized” it loses itself.

4) [William James was an idiot: he spoke of things he clearly did not understand. “Psychology” is a pseudo-science, bad philosophy and useless in changing the human condition. All of the statistics prove this.]

William James was brilliant, he understood more than you think. However, on your assessment of psychology, I somehow agree. It can hardly be called a science, and it has tons to learn from the ancient psychology of the Hindus. The subconscious that Freud “discovered” has been known, influenced, used for cures, in Yoga for thousands of years.

5)[That Socrates was a jerk I will not argue. But you cannot mean that based solely on this he deserved exile or death! His trial was clearly corrupt]

You are correct, the trial was corrupt and manipulated, and he should not have been given the poison, but hardheaded as he was, he had many chances to leave, but chose “eternal life” in the history books. However, he should have been exiled from Athens long before, for sedition and trouble-making.

The examples you mentioned…what have they to do with monotheism? I thought that was the disagreement at first.

[I am saddened that I had to spell it out for you, because I thought you would have had the intellectual honesty to arrive at it on your own, not to mention the intellectual horsepower not to rely on the work of others, Miami Man.]

Don’t be saddened, my dear.

Property rights…bla, bla, bla, OK.

Socrates, no, he did not call Athens for its shortcoming, but was arrogant and antidemocratic, wanted to bring back a king and destroy democracy in Athens, looked down on the plebe, thought common men could not govern themselves, but had to be governed by the likes of him that were superior, the Athenians were right in not putting up with him. Stop Wikipediaing yourself.

Now we must diverge:

There is no “Mother.” God the Father is the ONLY God.

The earth is a ball of dirt. (One that I’m very fond of and that we should all take care of, but a ball of dirt, nonetheless.)

Demons, and their master, are being bound by the angels of Light and the spreading of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Jesus Christ is indeed THE Son of God (not A son of God) and the only BEGOTTEN of God; He is not like any of us; He is uncreated; He is God Himself. (John 1:1-18). More to the point He said that He was. (Luke 22:70-71, John 5:16-18, 8:58). He also said, “No one comes to the Father but through Me.” (John 14:6). So it is inconsistent to say He is “The Prince of Peace” and then to say that these things are not true, for this would make Him a liar, and peace never comes about through lies; indeed it cannot. Either Christ was telling the Truth and He is the only Way to the Father, or else He is a liar and is no prince of peace, no good teacher at all, or else He is a lunatic (believing Himself to be God when He is not) with the same result as the former. You must take Christ at His word and thus worship Him as Savior and King, or else utterly dismiss Him as a liar (i.e. the Devil himself or a servant of the Devil (John 8:44), or a lunatic. This business of His merely being a good teacher or one guru or god among many is bosh. (I believe (with near certitude) that C.S. Lewis first framed this argument in this way in (with slightly less confidence) Mere Christianity, but I did not want to delay the writing of this note until I could verify it. (Much to my dismay many of my books are packed in boxes and may as well be on the moon.))

Spirituality is simply one aspect of our (individual) being (if indeed it is at all correct and useful to so divide ourselves up into parts) as is our sexuality, psychology, mental cognition, etc. In this sense it cannot rightly be compared to religion which is a set of ritualized social interactions by which we express our spirituality with each other. True religion does indeed bring us closer to God, which is its purpose. False religion has us worshiping demons, or perhaps if we’re lucky, nothing at all. So the issue is not “organized religion” but True Religion.

Christ did not condemn organized religion, then, but rather the manipulators of the perfect religion of the Torah, in this specific case the lawyers, not the Pharisees (Luke 11:46, ff.). Having fulfilled the Covenant of Sinai He established a New Covenant and the perfect religion of the New Testament (its practitioners, including yours truly, not being perfect, however). This is the Kingdom of Heaven of which you spoke, and we both benefit from its sanctifying power and wait for its perfection at the end of the age. This is too complicated to deal with here.

William James was an idiot: he spoke of things he clearly did not understand. “Psychology” is a pseudo-science, bad philosophy and useless in changing the human condition. All of the statistics prove this. And being based on Naturalism it is dying its natural death and devolving into mere psychiatry – i.e. drugging the mind, thus killing the soul in the vain hope of gaining some cessation of angst and evil.

That Socrates was a jerk I will not argue. But you cannot mean that based solely on this he deserved exile or death! His trial was clearly corrupt. More voted for his death sentence than for the original conviction! Is it true that we should allow no one ever to disagree with the status quo?! I have never heard of the book you cite, but I’ve read Plato (in Greek no less). You cannot be serious. You are reacting emotionally. Your writings thusfar indicate that you are better than this.

A new petition to the U.S. Senate seeks help to free Maryam Rustampoor and Marzieh Amirizadeh, two Iranian women who have been jailed for being Christian.

The petition cites the “clear violation of globally recognized principles of freedom of religion and conscience” and argues Iranian leaders have made “numerous public claims … that they represent a just government.”

It states:

We, the undersigned, whether conservative or liberal, right-wing or left-wing, Christian or Muslim, American, Iranian and righteous people from all across the world, all who agree that human rights, women’s rights, freedom of religion, conscience and a value for all human life are universal principles demand of the Iranian government to release Maryam Rustampoor and Marzieh Amirizadeh immediately without charges.
WND reported earlier when the women, in a display of raw courage, told an Iranian government prosecutor they not only are Christian, but it is up to God to whom He talks.

Rustampoor, 27, and Amirizadeh, 30, have been held in Iran’s prison system since March 5, when they were taken into custody because of their faith.

According to a report from the Christian ministry Elam, during a hearing, the women dramatically refused to deny their Christian faith.

(Story continues below)

They explained that God had convicted them through the Holy Spirit.

Sign the petition now.

“It is impossible for God to speak with humans,” a prosecutor, identified only by the single name of Haddad, stated.

“Are you questioning whether God is almighty?” Amirizadeh asked him.

To which Haddad then replied. “You are not worthy for God to speak to you.”

“It is God, and not you, who determines if I am worthy,” she said.

Eventually Haddad instructed the women to go back to their prison cells and think about their options, and to return to court when they were ready to comply.

“We have already done our thinking,” the woman said, according to Elam, a ministry founded in 1988 by senior Iranian church leaders with a vision to serve the growing Iranian Christian community.

The ministry later reported that the women’s lawyer confirmed his clients “are not prepared to lie about their faith under any condition.”

The women, who have been increasingly ill in prison because they lack proper medical care, have been told by prosecutors they will be executed as “apostates,” solely because of their Christian faith, the petition states.

Author and petition organizer Joel Richardson, whose “The Islamic Antichrist” exposes Western Christians to Muslim traditions and beliefs, told WND he is supporting the petition to bring attention to the women’s plight.

“I just want to bring this to the forefront of everyone’s attention,” he said. “I’m hoping we can get people from across the political spectrum involved. If not, it only reveals their hypocrisy about a fundamental human rights issue.”

According to an Elam ministry statement on the special Free Them website set up to publicize the case, testimony of the two “continues to spread across the world.

“Their unwavering faith has challenged countless believers. Because of Maryam and Marzieh’s example, many Iranian Christians have become even more courageous as they follow Jesus in a hostile environment,” the ministry said.

“Maryam and Marzieh are aware that Christians all over the world are praying for them. They are encouraged to realize they have not been forgotten, and they have a message for you:

“Thank you for praying for us. We are humbled and strengthened by your prayers and we are determined to remain faithful to Jesus even unto death.”
Richardson told WND he is happy to help in any way he can.

“I’m entirely open to travel Tehran to talk to somebody about this,” he said.

Richardson’s book makes the case that the biblical Antichrist is one and the same as the Quran’s Muslim Mahdi, an expected one in that religion.

Richardson is the co-author with Walid Shoebat of “God’s War on Terror: Islam, Prophecy and the Bible” and co-editor of “Why We Left Islam: Former Muslims Speak Out.” “The Islamic Antichrist” is published by WND Books and is available autographed in the WND Superstore.

On a blog for the Voice of the Martyrs, there was a suggestion for prayer for the two.

Under Islamic law, the penalty for apostasy is death. According to reports about the punishment system within Iran, for women the execution often is preceded by rape.

Reports say both women have been subjected to solitary confinement as well as extended interrogations already, with health problems resulting.