Why did Caesar cross the Rubicon?

Via: https://www.reddit.com/r/CatastrophicFailure/comments/b85jb3/glider_crash_in_poland/

Passenger (front seat) : 1 broken arm

Pilot (back seat) : minor injuries

The article they link however doesn't list injuries: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6863975/Terrifying-moment-glider-clips-tree-nosedives-ground.html

Now, while I'd love to learn to fly a glider (beyond money, the best place "locally" is Caesar Creek Soaring Club, which is about 3 1/2 hours from me), and I might be out of my element here... it looks like he was going way too fast on his approach. Not sure what the situation was that caused him to come in that fast.

Also looks like he should have went down from the field a bit further, then turned to it, as it seems like he still had enough height left to go another few hundred yards down, turn around, and get lined up.

The video doesn't show if he had the wing spoilers deployed or not. Now I know some say don't deploy spoilers on the turn (though this guy seems to debunk that to some degree https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tC-Yqp-uHo0), so he'd have had to make the turn, then deploy at the last second... again getting to the fact the turn to the landing strip was made too early.

Again, I'm probably out of my element here, but I'd think, had he waited to make the turn to the landing strop, lined up, then deployed the wing spoilers, he'd have been able to bring her down a bit easier... of course he'd probably still have too much speed. That's what I want to know, where was the speed coming from, did he bring her down super fast, was he or the passenger on a time crunch?

They missed a number of other things GOP Jesus clearly must have said...

"Blessed are the warmongers."

"Blessed are the vain and narcist."

"Totally judge others, or I'll judge you." GOP Jesus points to his eyes, at the crowd then back at himself and back at the crowd. "I'm watching you."

They could have expanded the healing the sick section to have him say something like "heal the sick, but don't care if the debt crushes the life out of them, tell them they should have gotten a better job".

"They who have much on Earth will have more in Heaven, those who have little will be given even less."

"Don't be a light unto the world, be one of if not the reason most people leave the faith or are turned off the faith if they aren't in it."

"Many others will come in my name and say they are doing things in my name... they are totally real and fully approved by me."

And my personal favorite of GOP Jesus' teachings. "Let those who have sinned, totally throw stones, especially stones of hatred, bigotry and discrimination."

EDIT to add:

Oh and "don't render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar, do all you can to keep as much for yourself, to hell with the public good... but don't forget to render unto me."

And of course "Ignore Sodom's sin, focus only one of the small supporting things they did, sexual immorality, and ignore the other supporting things like being hostile to foreigners, hate foreigners with all your heart, have no compassion for them. And when you read 'And this is the sin of your sister Sodom.' Ignore the sentence after that, because the Father was crazy that day. 'For she was a land of plenty and did little to help the needy and the poor in her borders.' Pfshh... as if. If you are a land of plenty, I tell you now, don't help the needy and the poor."

Realistically, no church should have 'status'. We are supposed to separate church and state, not support them by giving them exceptions to the laws of the land. Additionally, I can think of no 'church' that has a commandment that says "Thou shalt have special status and not pay taxes also."

If I recall, any church that considers Jesus to be a spiritual leader should be fucking "render(ing) unto Caesar what is Caesar's." It's hypocritical for them to do otherwise.

Hahaha... seriously, what kind of passive aggressive bullshit is that? "Ignoring the theoretical underpinnings of socialism, because I've decided that that's waffling, I say Jesus was a socialist." Next time, maybe just write TL;DR and make a farting noise while rolling your eyes.

You can't dismiss the actual meaning of the word Socialist as 'semantics', if you're talking about whether or not something is socialist. That doesn't help the discussion.

In order to use socialism as you appear to be doing, you would have to first:
- ignore the history of socialism and its political development,
- ignore the entire body of academic work, current and past, on socialism, and
- ignore how the word socialism "IS used now, like it or not" in actual socialist or semi-socialist countries

By doing that you end up at your definition of the word, yes. But you had to take a pretty long detour to get to that point

Marx's quote on religion is pretty straightforward - it can be, as you say, open to interpretation, but it's generally agreed that he didn't say that your Jesus was a stand-up socialist. He is more commonly taken to mean that religion is a false response to the real suffering of the oppressed; religion provides a fiction of suffering and a fiction of redemption/happiness, that will never translate into real change. It makes the oppressed feel like they are bettering their lives, while actually keeping them passive and preventing them from changing anything.

The slightly larger context of the quote is this: "Das religiöse Elend ist in einem der Ausdruck des wirklichen Elendes und in einem die Protestation gegen das wirkliche Elend. Die Religion ist der Seufzer der bedrängten Kreatur, das Gemüth einer herzlosen Welt, wie sie der Geist geistloser Zustände ist. Sie ist das Opium des Volks."

I don't know how to make that more plain, but I can try. Religious suffering is on one hand a response to real suffering (wirkliche Elend, by which one would mean a materialistically determined actual lack of freedom, resources, physical wellbeing, etc), but it is also a false reaction against that real suffering. Real oppression creates suffering to which there could be a real respones, but religion instead substitutes in false suffering and false responses - it tries to tackle real suffering with metaphysical solutions. He goes on to say:

"Die Aufhebung der Religion als des illusorischen Glücks des Volkes ist die Forderung seines wirklichen Glücks."

This, too, seems pretty straightforward to me, but you might see 4 or 5 different things there. Religion teaches the people an illusory form of happiness, which doesn't actually change or even challenge the conditions of suffering, and must therefore be tossed out, for the people to ever achieve real happiness.

A fundamental difference here is that religious goodness is internally, individually, and fundamentally motivated. 'Good' is 'Good', and you as a Christian individual should choose to do Good. A goal of Marxism is to abolish that kind of fundamentalism and replace it with continuous criticism; creating a society that always questions, together, what good is, through the lens of dialectical materialism.

You might recognize this line of thinking* from what modern Europeans call the autonomous left wing, or what Marx and Trotsky called the Permanent Revolution, which Wikipedia helpfully comments on as "Marx outlines his proposal that the proletariat 'make the revolution permanent'. In essence, it consists of the working class maintaining a militant and independent approach to politics both before, during and after the 'struggle' which will bring the 'petty-bourgeois democrats' to power." Which sounds great, except it can also lead to purges, paranoia, and informant societies.

My entire point is that socialism and Christianity are entirely different beasts. One is a rich, layered mythology with an extremely deep academic and political history, but no modern critical or explanatory components.** The other is an academic theory of economics and politics, with all the tools of discourse of modern academia in its toolbelt, and a completely different critical and analytical goal.

TL;DR? Well, Jesus (in a lenient interpretation) taught that we should help the weak. Marx explained that the people should organize to eradicate the conditions that force weakness onto the people. Jesus
taught that greed would keep a man from heaven, Marx explained that religion, nationalism, tribalism and commodity fetishism blinded the people to its common materialist interests. Jesus taught that the meek will be rewarded for their meekness, and while on earth we should render unto Caesar what is Caesar's; Marx explained that meekness as a virtue is a way of preventing actual revolutionary change, and that dividing the world into the spiritual and the materialistic helped keep the people sedate and passive, which plays right into the hands of the Caesars.

*I'm just kidding, I know you don't recognize any of this


**There probably are modern scholars of Christianity who adapt and adopt some of the tools of modern academic discourse; I know too little about academic Christianity.

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I don't understand what you mean about the police.
Unfortunately, recently, much more effective opposition to freedom of choice has come in the form of ridiculously transparently designed, unscientific, non-medical laws requiring completely un-needed expensive medical equipment and irrelevant abilities (like 'admitting privilege' at the nearest hospital, as if the hospital won't take an emergency patient without a Dr. 'admitting' them).
I have never heard of any campaign to sabotage execution machines or assassinate executioners or wardens. I guess THAT kind of "state sanctioned murder" is OK, but the kind science and law has repeatedly and conclusively said is NOT murder... people involved in that get threatened, harassed, and sometimes murdered themselves....by the "anti-murder" people. WHAT?!? I am glad that most of those people do lack the 'courage of their convictions' as you put it.
Ahhh, but aren't these actions are diametrically opposed to these people's stated ideology, of love and tolerance for other people's ideas and customs?...and doesn't giving to Caesar what is Caesar's means following the law (as I've had it described), and thou shall not kill mean no murdering Doctors...ever? (I'm assuming they are a Christian group, if this one isn't, then ascribe my comments to those that are)

What if others fervently believe the Greeks were correct, and it's really proper to not consider a baby a person until they are one year old, until then it's fine to just leave them outside to die or toss them off a cliff? (I'm not really saying that we should go back to that, I'm just pointing out that there are extremes on the 'pro-choice' or 'anti-unwanted children' side with historical and religious context to back them up). We would say it's fine to hold that ideology (well, legal to hold that ideology, maybe not fine), but certainly not legal or fine to act on it.

I feel that it's not meaningless to criticize a person's inappropriate actions, no matter the 'reason' for them, if it's backed up with consequence. Most people, as you noted, don't have the 'strength of their convictions' to risk going to jail, or even public ridicule for acting inappropriately, even if they sincerely believe it's for a good reason.

There's a simpler way of looking at mental illness or the lack of true freedom, in all her hydratic forms-Religions' a way to get a shitload of peeps to render their souls and Krugerrandz unto Caesar-like entities like preachers, priests, and governments.

What one makes for and of themselves with which to add to the grid, is all that matters in this lifetime-After this world comes pure energy and the bread you've cast comes around again-Make any sense there, god little gee?? True spirituality is coming to grips with time, space, and matter and the influence your perceptive apparatus has on the whole.

I would say diplomacy as a solution to Islamic jihadism is as naive as was diplomacy with the nazis. Pakistan's current rule of law is the death penalty for blaspheming the name of the prophet, and not only is that too secular for the taliban jihadists, it is so intolerably so that they are waging a war against civilians over it. The proudly claim credit for shooting children on school buses, and proudly note their intent to finish Malala off if given the chance. What kind of diplomacy do you expect to see followed exactly?

Should Pakistan's military and police really refuse to meet the countless taliban attacks on civilian targets with no use of force? Should they really just proceed to try and talk to the criminals prosecuting these crimes every single week? I think it's a strategy doomed to horrific failure, and one that invariably leads to far more death and suffering.

History doesn't exactly bare out that ignoring dictators and extremists leads to them just giving up and playing nice. Brutality was terribly successful and effective for the Pharoahs. Same for the Caesars. Same for Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Kim Jong Il and on and on and on. There comes a point when failure to face evil with force just emboldens and strengthens it.

Here is Card's preface before any of the Quotes TYT laid out:
"So as a science fiction writer and a student of history, allow me to spin a plausible scenario about how, like Augustus Caesar, Napoleon Bonaparte, Adolph Hitler, and Vladimir Putin, Barack Obama could become lifetime dictator without any serious internal opposition."

It is absolutely clear that he does NOT state this is a prediction of the future he expects. Meanwhile Cenk painstakingly sets up that the quotes are Card's rallying cry against what he expects to happen in the next few years. That's lying.

Card's statements prior to that were nothing any more severe than what all manner of people decried Bush and Cheney for and worse. Plenty of people talked at length about 'what if' Bush doesn't step down, or Cheney doesn't step down. I think it horrifically unfair to now leap down Card's throat for the same.

It's the projected "sky" ceiling at Caesars Palace in Vegas.

You tell me that you understand science, and were once very scientific, then you drop --excuse me-- a giant turd like this. I could as easily say, "If the Theory of Evolution is correct, then all living creatures are evidence of Theory of Evolution's correctness," and it would still be a meaningless statement because if we already know something is true (as in the premise), then evidence is redundant. It's precisely when we don't know something that evidence becomes useful. This is probably the hardest part about talking to you -- your weak grasp on how science and logic work. And don't take this as an internet ad hom. I'm being straight with you, really. It's not your strong suit. Own it.

Actually, I think that it is you who is demonstrating a weak grasp of logic here. It seems that what I was getting at went right over your head. What you've done here is rip my statement out of its context, and then claimed I was using it in a meaningless way that I never intended. It is a straw man argument, really, and yes you did use ad homs. A giant turd? Saying that its really hard to talk to me because of my weak grasp of science and logic? Come on. I had thought that our dialogue had transcended these kind of petty caricatures.

In context, the statement is designed to get you think outside the box you're in and weigh both sides of the issue equally. It's not an argument in itself. The statement that if God exists, everything that exists is empirical evidence for God is a logically valid statement. If God exists, everything you're looking at right now if proof that He exists. Obviously, this statement by itself doesn't help you determine whether God actually exists or not. You could just as easily say that if God doesn't exist, everything that does exist is proof that He doesn't exist. Therefore, the question is, how would you tell if you're in a Universe that God designed?

The real question is, why is either possibility more or less likely than the other? You haven't addressed this, but simply have taken a leap of faith in favor of your atheistic naturalism. You say, I don't see the Planner, and I didn't see the Planner make this Universe, therefore it is not designed until proven otherwise. The problem with this is that you can't even begin to justify this assumption until you can explain why either possibility is any more likely than the other. You can't say you don't see any empirical evidence because it might be staring you in the face everywhere you look. To analyze how either possibility is more likely than the other you have to discard your assumptions about what you have seen or haven't seen and think about this on a deeper level.

Taking it a step deeper, the fact is, you would only expect to see exactly what you do see, because you are in fact a created being. A created being should expect to find himself existing in an environment capable of creating him. The crux is though that this environment is also finely tuned. You should expect to see what you do, but you should also be surprised to find that it is finely tuned. It a bit like being taken out for execution in front of a firing squad of 100 expert marksmen 3 feet away, and finding yourself alive after all of them opened fire. You should not be surprised to find yourself alive, because obviously you would have to be alive to find yourself alive, but you should be surprised to find that 100 expert marksmen missed you from 3 feet away. In the same way, you should be surprised to find yourself to be a created being in a finely tuned Universe.

What you have on your hands is a Universe full of empirical evidence that it was or wasn't designed. There are only two possibilities; the Universe was either planned or unplanned. Again, how would you tell the difference? What would you expect to see which is different from what you do see? What would make either possibility more likely? That is the point. A finely tuned Universe should tip the scales of that evidence, if you are being honest about what you can really prove.

Supernatural creation is easier to understand, but just about any other explanation is as or more plausible. When you consider some of the extreme coincidences that are required for us to exist, it stretches the mind. But we've had billions of years to evolve, and if we're talking about the whole universe, it could be that 10^one trillion universes with different physical properties have formed and collapsed, and when a balanced one finally came out of the mix, it stuck around, and here we are.

It could be, except there is no evidence there is. Why is it you that can imagine an infinite number of hypothetical Universes with no evidence, but you object to supernatural creation as somehow being less plausible than that? There is no evidence that it is less plausible, you simply assume it is. Sure, if you use your magic genie of time and chance you could imagine just about anything could happen. Scientists agree:

Given so much time, the impossible becomes possible, the possible probable, and the probable virtually certain. One has only to wait: time itself performs the miracles.

George Wald, Nobel Laureate, Harvard
Physics and Chemistry of Life p.12

The odds of any of this happening by itself far exceeds the number of atoms in the Universe, and there is no actual proof that it actually could happen by itself, but you still believe it to be more plausible. Why is that? In the end, why is it plausible that anything would exist at all? Why isn't everything equally unlikely in the end? Notice what George Wald said? He said time itself performs the *miracles*. He said that because the existence of life is nothing short of a miracle, but even knowing that, you would still say God is implausible. I think these arguments are what is implausible.

Look at how these scientists come to the same conclusions as you have:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/physics/blog/2012/03/is-the-universe-fine-tuned-for-life/

They acknowledge there are only two possibilities, one being God, but since they hate that possibility more than they hate embracing the anthropic principle, they go with that instead, having absolutely no evidence to base that conclusion on. They simply don't want to acknowledge the obvious, which is that a finely tuned Universe is *much* stronger evidence for an omnipotent God than it is for multiple Universes.

I would take a declarative statement about him, and see what implications it had, what predictions it made, then see if they were testable, either theoretically or practically. Like theoretically if God is omniscient, it means he knows everything, and if I can find an example of something he absolutely cannot know, then I've proven he's not omniscient.

What God says is that as the Heavens are higher than the Earth, so are His ways above our ways, and His thoughts above our thoughts. He also calls the wisdom of this world, foolishness. So God has directly said that it is only by His revelation and not our understanding that we can come to know Him. A limited temporal creature, trying to disprove Gods existence with his own corrupt reasoning is kind of laughable, isn't it?

In any case, it's easy to think of things God doesn't know or can't do. God doesn't know what it feels like to not exist. God can't remember a time that He didn't exist. God can't make a square circle, or an acceptable sin. This doesn't prove anything. A better definition would be, omniscience is knowing everything that can be known, and omnipotence is being able to do everything that can be done.

Or practically, if God answers prayers, then I can test that statistically. Now, you say that God refuses to be tested, but that also means that if people are sincerely praying, but someone else is measuring the effects of those prayers, that God will choose not to answer those prayers, "Sorry! I'm being tested for, so I can't help you out today." This puts the power of denying God's prayers in the hands of scientists -- ridiculous. So there's two tests for God.

Or perhaps He had sovereignly arranged for only insincere prayers or prayers outside of His will to be prayed for at that time which would give the results of the test the appearance of randomness.

This is self-fulfilling prophecy. The only reason the Jewish people came back to form a country again is because their holy book said they were entitled to do so, divine providence. Like Macbeth likely never would have become king of Scotland if he hadn't been told so by the Weird Sisters.

The Jews are historically from Israel, and there is archaeological evidence to prove this. The reason they came back to Israel is because it is historically their homeland. Given the opportunity, they would have come back to Israel with or without the bible saying they were entitled to. The point is that they were predicted to come back, not only around the date that they did, but their migration pattern was in the exact order, their currency was predicted, their economic and agricultural condition was predicted, and many other things.

I'm no biblical scholar, but I found three places where the destruction of Jerusalem is predicted. The first is in Micah 3:11-12, where it simply states that it will happen at some point. It doesn't say when, nor describe any of the circumstances. The second one I found is Daniel 9:24-26, where there's some detail that sounds kinda like Jesus, except that it was supposed to happen within 70 weeks (16 months) of when God spoke to Daniel, roughly 530 years BC. Or if you understand that the signal to begin the 70 weeks hadn't been issued yet, then Jerusalem was to have been build a mere 16 months before it was destroyed by Titus, which clearly isn't the case either. It also predicts the end will be by flood, but it was by fire, and then manual labour of soldiers, if Josephus' account is to be believed (he wasn't impartial).

The 70 weeks are not concurrent, first of all. Second, Jesus is the one who predicted the fall of Jerusalem:

Luk 19:41 And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it,
Luk 19:42 saying, "Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.
Luk 19:43 For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side
Luk 19:44 and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation."

I would have to accept Jesus as messiah before I could accept this argument. And if I had already accepted him as messiah, then the argument would be meaningless, just like the one about the universe as evidence for God's existence.

I'll rephrase this by saying, that Jesus fulfilled dozens of prophecies about the coming of the Messiah. Clearly, the impact of that Jesus has had on the world matches His claims about who He is. Consider this quotation by Napoleon:

"What a conqueror!--a conqueror who controls humanity at will, and wins to himself not only one nation, but the whole human race. What a marvel! He attaches to himself the human soul with all its energies. And how? By a miracle which surpasses all others. He claims the love of men--that is to say, the most difficult thing in the world to obtain; that which the wisest of men cannot force from his truest friend, that which no father can compel from his children, no wife from her husband, no brother from his brother--the heart. He claims it ; he requires it absolutely and undividedly, and he obtains it instantly.

Alexander, Caesar, Hannibal, Louis XIV strove in vain to secure this. They conquered the world, yet they had not a single friend, or at all events, they have none any more. Christ speaks, however, and from that moment all generations belong to him; and they are joined to him much more closely than by any ties of blood and by a much more intimate, sacred and powerful communion. He kindles the flame of love which causes one's self-love to die, and triumphs over every other love. Why should we not recognize in this miracle of love the eternal Word which created the world? The other founders of religions had not the least conception of this mystic love which forms the essence of Christianity.

I have filled multitudes with such passionate devotion that they went to death for me. But God forbid that I should compare the enthusiasm of my soldiers with Christian love. They are as unlike as their causes. In my case, my presence was always necessary, the electric effect of my glance, my voice, my words, to kindle fire in their hearts. And I certainly posses personally the secret of that magic power of taking by storm the sentiments of men; but I was not able to communicate that power to anyone. None of my generals ever learned it from me or found it out. Moreover, I myself do not possess the secret of perpetuating my name and a love for me in their hearts for ever, and to work miracles in them without material means.

Now that I languish here at St Helena, chained upon this rock, who fights, who conquers empires for me? Who still even thinks of me? Who interests himself for me in Europe? Who has remained true to me? That is the fate of all great men. It was the fate of Alexander and Caesar, as it is my own. We are forgotten, and the names of the mightiest conquerors and most illustrious emperors are soon only the subject of a schoolboy's taks. Our exploits come under the rod of a pedantic schoolmaster, who praises or condemns us as he likes.

What an abyss exists between my profound misery and the eternal reign of Christ, who is preached, loved, and worshipped, and live on throughout the entire world. Is this to die? Is it not rather to live eternally? The death of Christ! It is the death of a God."

Nope. Eternal means within all time. It implies that such an entity wouldn't necessarily exist outside of time. Maybe you meant a different word, but "eternal" doesn't describe whoever created time, if words have meaning.

Words do have meaning. Check any dictionary; the definition I used is there:

e·ter·nal/i't?rnl/
Adjective:

Lasting or existing forever; without end or beginning.
(of truths, values, or questions) Valid for all time; essentially unchanging.

What is this (especially the bits in bold) based on? It this biblical? Your intuition?

Isaiah 29:13

The Lord says: "These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men

1 Samuel 16:7

But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart

You can give God all of the lip service you want, but He is only interested in what is in your heart.

Yes, the Lord will test your sincerity:

1 Peter 1:6-7

In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.

These have come so that your faith--of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire--may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

Also, if God knows everything, then what could he possibly be "testing" for? You only need to test things if you don't already know. And if he does know, the he's just messing with my head, in which case, it's not a test.

The metaphor that is used for testing is that of impurities being refined out of gold or silver. Tests are to prove your sincerity, not necessarily what God knows.

>> ^messenger

Yeah, not very impressive when all the slices are lop-sided.

I can never comfortably eat Little Caesar's again. The last time I ordered bread-sticks there, there was a lot of very long hair running through the entire row of bread. It was sickening.

You saw sagacious Solomon
You know what came of him,
To him complexities seemed plain.
He cursed the hour that gave birth to him
And saw that everything was vain.
How great and wise was Solomon.
The world however did not wait
But soon observed what followed on.
It's wisdom that had brought him to this state.
How fortunate the man with none.
You saw courageous Caesar next
You know what he became.
They deified him in his life
Then had him murdered just the same.
And as they raised the fatal knife
How loud he cried: you too my son!
The world however did not wait
But soon observed what followed on.
It's courage that had brought him to that state.
How fortunate the man with none.
You heard of honest Socrates
The man who never lied:
They weren't so grateful as you'd think
Instead the rulers fixed to have him tried
And handed him the poisoned drink.
How honest was the people's noble son.
The world however did not wait
But soon observed what followed on.
It's honesty that brought him to that state.
How fortunate the man with none.
Here you can see respectable folk
Keeping to God's own laws.
So far he hasn't taken heed.
You who sit safe and warm indoors
Help to relieve our bitter need.
How virtuously we had begun.
The world however did not wait
But soon observed what followed on.
It's fear of god that brought us to that state.
How fortunate the man with none.