Since you're choosing to believe, why not retvrn a little farther and believe in your culture's traditional religions?
Do you really think that your culture is the same as that of pre-Christian Europe (assuming that's your heritage)? No, not at all. The Europeans nations have been Christian for 1500 years, plus or minus a couple hundred, depending on the place. The cultures that we have been in, or that we were in at all recently, have been thoroughly steeped in Christianity. Those pagan men of 2000 years ago may have been your ancestors, but they were not really a part of your culture, your nation.
No, no, the place to return, at least, for the American (if it is returning to our roots that we are doing), is to traditional American mainline Protestantism, the religion of sober, hardworking men with large families clamoring after divine truth and a pious life. The old denominations have been captured by lefties, but there exist remnants to be found.
Felagund
2mo ago
Well, not quite unfalsifiable. Proving a contradiction would falsify. And, of course, at the last day.
Felagund
2mo ago
And Christians consider pagan "gods" to be very different from the true God, in that they are creatures acting only due to God's (temporary) self-restraint vs. being the creator of everything and ground of existence itself.
Felagund
2mo ago
Thanks for bringing this back! I think this last happened when it was on reddit and I was only a lurker (still have no reddit account).
Felagund
2mo ago
The first one was the spatial one, right? I found that one to be a breeze (well, it took some focus to hold everything in my head, but I was nearly always confident that I got everything right), but was really struggling the whole time for the icon recognition one. Interesting that we disagree there, rather than the same things being harder/easier for everyone.
Felagund
2mo ago
Oh, absolutely. I also have the same tendency to focus too much on the latter things. I was reading Richard Baxter (a moderate and controversial puritan) two days ago, and found the next three or four pages after where it says section 3 to be pretty convicting. It's okay to be motivated to know about God and to defend his truth, but those shouldn't be the only things.
"I have ever observed that a violent passion called Zeal for a mans opinions, which he counts Orthodox, is so easie and natural, that there needs little means to kindle it: Nay, all the means that can be used will scarce allay the inordinate rage of it: But a Zealous love of God, and delight in him, and a Zeal in him for holiness, and against sin, and a Zealous love to Gods Truth as they hold forth Christ and Glory, and guide us to duty, this is so contrary to the nature of man, that no means is sufficient to excite it. O how easily without Grace, and against Grace do Carnal Ministers, and professors make a huge bussel in the world for their opinions, compassing Sea and Land to make a Proselite!"
And I'll cut the quote off there, even though it continues on with similar force. Do read the whole passage, it's not that long.
Felagund
2mo ago
Yeah, you were very competent in the one discussion I remember us having.
Felagund
2mo ago
I'd recommend historic protestantism. So neither modern evangelicalism, nor the woke mainlines. If you DM me your area, I could probably find some churches that have a reasonable chance of being good.
Felagund
2mo ago
Okay, @hydroacetylene, who's going to become the next pope?
Felagund
2mo ago
Huh, odd, the percentiles seemed fine for me as compared with standardized tests like the SAT, and you're one of the people on this board who feel a bit smarter than me.
Felagund
2mo ago
Full: 149
Memory: 143. I was way better at the patterns than the icons. (VM: 84/85. EM: 18/26)
Verbal: 149. Probably could have gotten a touch more if I were more strategic on the vocabulary. (V:31/34) (A:23/27)
Sptaial: 144 (MR:17/17) (CP:15/18)
Felagund
2mo ago
Yeah, if they believe in papal authority, it would follow that they have to believe and do all the rest.
Felagund
2mo ago
I find myself drawn to high church Protestantism
Nice! What sort of church do you attend?
(I'm Presbyterian/Reformed.)
Felagund
3mo ago
I'm not satisfied with them leaving, unless to Namibia or something. That would be the death of the Afrikaner people. And really—how many peoples are there left upon the face of the earth who are better than they?
I'd be happier to see a stronger push for separatism, whether that be cape independence, or an Orania-style volkstaat. But any effort will be hard to win people over and coordinate and maybe slow. I don't know how much time is left. It helps, surely, that the private security outnumbers the military, and just the sheer size of the country. And the Solidariteit movement is good. Any victory will have to come through institutions that are not the government. But the white population is just so spread out that it makes it hard to do things.
Felagund
3mo ago
Depending on how you measure. There'd already been a little intermarriage centuries before.
Felagund
3mo ago
They wanted to establish some white enclaves at the end of apartheid, iirc, but the ANC wouldn't have any of it.
Felagund
3mo ago
in fact the Afrikaans predate most of the black population
Eh, that's not quite true. The bantu populations were already in South Africa, just not in the western half. I guess it is true in the sense of ethnogenesis—e.g. Zulus as Zulus, instead of a variety of Nguni tribes—but they were still around.
Felagund
3mo ago
The south african private security industry is larger than the military and police force combined, if I remember correctly.
Felagund
3mo ago
I'd also be interested. What I've seen people of saying things like this in the past, it's seemed like people notice Vance's overlap with their community, but don't really understand him, and so misinterpret him and what he's doing.
And where did those European traditions come from? If the game here is simply to trace back as far as we can, then we should look at the first man. What did he believe?
I would suggest that he walked in the garden with the LORD, sinned and was expelled, and fathered us all.
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