Who Built The Stones?

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Re: Who Built The Stones?

Postby TisILeclerc » 7:14 am

Pelagius was a political construct?

According to some so was Jesus. Moslems tell us that he was the prophet sent to pave the way for Mohammed. Indians tell us that he is buried in India, or Tibet. And of course we have the idea that he was buried in France, or Glastonbury or that he was a warrior king who was castrated, had his lands seized and sent to be guarded at Chester or somewhere abouts. And then some say that he was either the Son of God or God himself. The One and Indivisible. Except in threes.

Rather like politics. Some say that Trotsky was the Messiah foretold by Lenin who was shot on the orders of Stalin. Trotsky was impaled on an ice axe. And the good pope Stalin lived happily ever after. Unless Trotsky never lived. He was just a political construct invented by Uncle Joe to point the way of erroneous thought and what happens to sinners.

We have the same in the Moslem world with hundreds of sects. The weak ones who believe in happy clappy things like lurve and peace man soon get the chop. But then they're all political constructs. ISIS is the CIA or Mossad in disguise, Bin Laden never existed and the Twin Towers were the work of alien Zionists to back up the devilish American regime and its dark arts.

Some say that's a load of old tosh. All made up. Political constructs and all that. And don't say it was in the papers so it must be true.

All religious and political and philosophical creeds have their dissenters. And dissenters have their own dissenters. Eventually their dissenters have to be dealt with. The Diggers and Levellers were quickly dealt with once their usefulness had run out and Cromwell wanted to 'normalize' the situation with himself at the top of the heap.

Christianity was fractured right from the beginning. Leave apart the Egyptian and other Arab and African Christian sects, there were the Jewish sects themselves who were not pleased with their religion being taken over by the Gentiles.

And then there was the good Yorkshireman Constantine who decided to be emperor and as a matter of military policy allow Christianity to come to the fore, even though he never converted himself. And the moving of the empire to Byzantium away from Rome and the subsequent Roman revolt by the Pope who wanted it all for himself.

And all the while there were the voices coming in from all over. These are the real teachings of Jesus. Not the scrabble for wealth and power that Rome goes in for. Rome even backed William of Orange in Ireland. That doesn't go down well in parts of Derry.

Pelagius was a political construct certainly. Built by Pelagius to stand for a different strand of thought. And like the Pharaohs who fell out of favour has had his face erased. Rather like Trotsky. Airbrushed out of history. He didn't exist. But I bet someone like him did. It's human nature. And the first thing the winner does is get rid of the evidence. They don't set up rebellious ideas. They can get out of control very quickly. Like a cargo cult, people will believe them.
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Re: Who Built The Stones?

Postby Mick Harper » 4:02 pm

You are getting a lot of different things mixed up here including (I get the whiff of) your own religio-political beliefs. Since I do not have either religious or political beliefs (in the ordinary sense) I will comment from that standpoint.

Pelagius was a political construct? According to some so was Jesus. Moslems tell us that he was the prophet sent to pave the way for Mohammed. Indians tell us that he is buried in India, or Tibet. And of course we have the idea that he was buried in France, or Glastonbury or that he was a warrior king who was castrated, had his lands seized and sent to be guarded at Chester or somewhere abouts. And then some say that he was either the Son of God or God himself. The One and Indivisible. Except in threes.


Yes, people believe all sorts of silly things

Rather like politics. Some say that Trotsky was the Messiah foretold by Lenin who was shot on the orders of Stalin.


I have never heard anybody saying this. Please enlighten.

Trotsky was impaled on an ice axe.


This is true, it's in Mexican court records and newspapers accounts of the time.

And the good pope Stalin lived happily ever after.


This is true up to a point. The point coming in1953.

Unless Trotsky never lived. He was just a political construct invented by Uncle Joe to point the way of erroneous thought and what happens to sinners.


On the contrary, Stalin tried very hard to disinvent him by, for example, removing every mention of him from Soviet records

We have the same in the Moslem world with hundreds of sects. The weak ones who believe in happy clappy things like lurve and peace man soon get the chop.


No. A lot of them are still there.

But then they're all political constructs. ISIS is the CIA or Mossad in disguise, Bin Laden never existed and the Twin Towers were the work of alien Zionists to back up the devilish American regime and its dark arts.


I expect there are conspiracy theorists who believe any or all of these things.

Some say that's a load of old tosh. All made up. Political constructs and all that. And don't say it was in the papers so it must be true.


Most of us decline to believe in conspiracy theories.

All religious and political and philosophical creeds have their dissenters. And dissenters have their own dissenters. Eventually their dissenters have to be dealt with. The Diggers and Levellers were quickly dealt with once their usefulness had run out and Cromwell wanted to 'normalize' the situation with himself at the top of the heap.


Yes, this is true. However I might point out that these Civil War sects are far more important now than they ever were then. So perhaps their usefulness still has not run out.

Christianity was fractured right from the beginning. Leave apart the Egyptian and other Arab and African Christian sects, there were the Jewish sects themselves who were not pleased with their religion being taken over by the Gentiles.


Agreed.

And then there was the good Yorkshireman Constantine who decided to be emperor and as a matter of military policy allow Christianity to come to the fore, even though he never converted himself. And the moving of the empire to Byzantium away from Rome and the subsequent Roman revolt by the Pope who wanted it all for himself.


Agreed.

And all the while there were the voices coming in from all over. These are the real teachings of Jesus. Not the scrabble for wealth and power that Rome goes in for.


Personally I like the scrabble for wealth and power and have unbounded contempt for the real (or indeed fictional) teachings of Jesus.

Rome even backed William of Orange in Ireland. That doesn't go down well in parts of Derry.


This is quite untrue. What the Pope did in 1689 was to back Habsburg orthodox Papal Catholicism against the unorthodox Gallic Catholicism of Louis XIV. The present population of Derry would be uninterested in (or if interested, understanding of) the Pope lining up with William III, the ally of Austria, against James II, the ally of Louis XIV.

Pelagius was a political construct certainly. Built by Pelagius to stand for a different strand of thought. And like the Pharaohs who fell out of favour has had his face erased. Rather like Trotsky. Airbrushed out of history.

The pharoahs had their faces not themselves and their works erased. Trotsky was airbrushed out of some Stalinist photographs not history.

He didn't exist. But I bet someone like him did. It's human nature. And the first thing the winner does is get rid of the evidence. They don't set up rebellious ideas. They can get out of control very quickly. Like a cargo cult, people will believe them.


This is more or less what I believe. So we are at least agreed that Pelasgius didn't exist. I do not necessarily agree that his philosophy is any great shakes but, yes, I suppose it is important that the general strand of thought he represents should be allowed to flourish.
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Re: Who Built The Stones?

Postby Boreades » 9:11 pm

I've been mulling this one for a while.

Mick Harper wrote:So we are at least agreed that Pelagius didn't exist. I do not necessarily agree that his philosophy is any great shakes but, yes, I suppose it is important that the general strand of thought he represents should be allowed to flourish.

I fear that in your headlong rush to dismiss shed loads of history as forgery, you have confused our acquiescence with agreement. Still, it's good that you are getting some exercise. By jumping to conclusions :-)

Mick Harper wrote:Most of us decline to believe in conspiracy theories.

True, and I'm usually inclined to believe in muppetry rather than conspiracy. But if your premise that Pelagius didn't exist is to be believed, then was there a conspiracy to produce a fake history of other people like Jerome who did believe he existed and his teachings were a heresy? As evidenced in Jerome's many rants on anything to do with Pelagius.

And why would any organisation (like say the church in Rome) go to such trouble to invent opponents and trouble for itself? Or are you suggesting it was somehow schizophrenic and bound to invent enemies? Along with documentation? Unless Jerome is also a political construct/forgery? In which case you are spiralling downwards from one conspiracy to another.
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Re: Who Built The Stones?

Postby Mick Harper » 9:19 pm

I believe in my own conspiracy theories. I cannot answer your questions except to say that if the Catholic Church was engaged in an ideological battle with other churches then lots of made-up characters would presumably populate the propaganda landscape. Pelasgius may appeal to us in the liberal inteligentsia but I suspect would be viewed with horror by people living in the insecurity of the post-Roman world.
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Re: Who Built The Stones?

Postby TisILeclerc » 9:55 pm

Was the Roman world secure?
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Re: Who Built The Stones?

Postby Boreades » 11:35 pm

Mick Harper wrote: I believe in my own conspiracy theories. I cannot answer your questions except to say that if the Catholic Church was engaged in an ideological battle with other churches then lots of made-up characters would presumably populate the propaganda landscape. Pelasgius may appeal to us in the liberal inteligentsia but I suspect would be viewed with horror by people living in the insecurity of the post-Roman world.


Horror? Insecurity?

That may well be a psychological projection of your own religio-political beliefs. :-)
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Re: Who Built The Stones?

Postby Mick Harper » 8:53 am

You're a pair of eejits. Nobody except the liberal intelligentsia in advanced mature democracies gives a fig about Pelasgian principles. All other societies at all other times are sufficiently insecure for security to trump all.
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Re: Who Built The Stones?

Postby TisILeclerc » 9:43 am

You'ire a pair of eejits. Nobody except the liberal intelligentsia in advanced mature democracies gives a fig about Pelasgian principles. All other societies at all other times are sufficiently insecure for security to trump all.


The Roman Church, busy describing and destroying heresies gave a fig about Pelasgian principles. Many figs in fact.

If he didn't exist the Church made him up. Invented him and his teachings.

And I don't believe that the Catholic church has ever walked hand in hand with liberal intelligentsia or democracy. And that organisation has been one of the most secure of all time. It's in to its three thousand year reich-hood and still ruling the roost.
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Re: Who Built The Stones?

Postby Mick Harper » 9:48 am

On the contrary, the Catholic Church -- the hierarchy at least -- was the liberal (or at least the ruling) intelligentsia of its time and was battling other intelligentsias -- the Arians, the Gnostics, the Dualists etc. That's the whole point of heresy-hunting. Remember, the Church unlike, say, the Roman Empire, had no physical force.
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Re: Who Built The Stones?

Postby Boreades » 10:23 am

Mick Harper wrote:Remember, the Church unlike, say, the Roman Empire, had no physical force.

Playing with semantics again?

As in, yes the Church had no need of a physical force. Because it was perfectly able to sub-contract the physical force work to Crusaders, Inquisitors, Witch Finders, etc, etc, to achieve its aims without getting its own hands bloody. What the sub-contractors got out of it is a separate issue.

Some might say this was business as usual, or business conducted by other means. But it certainly involved physical force and coercion.
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