gee the philosophy forum is doing well!

[Iuvenalis]

I don't understand all this repartee,
Iuvenalis, you make some sense to me. However, I am not Suggesting that some puffed-up smart-alec on a soapbox in a public place will make any difference by sprouting "'philosophical arguments". But in the old days Freemasons realised that they couldn't  make any significant headway against the  "sensus Fidelium" until they'd cut it off at the knees. How they did that I don't know for sure; but after Vatican 11 it was a reality. For goodness sake let's all try to regain that gut knowledge of our Christianity!
Is it only in a remote cave (like the slums of Calcutta) that It can be achieved?

I honestly don't know what can be done, but you're correct that Masons (or Humanists more generally or which Freemasonry is merely an appendant body IMO) attacked basic sense of morality and truth philosophically, debasing and warping proper exercise of Reason by infiltrating education away from classical literature, rigorous logic, etc and making it so that the average person lacks the tools to properly analyze any situation or object. Essentially, you can present someone with a real true supposition or actual incontrovertible beauty and they simply will not recognize it, even when this is right in front of their face. Human reason and perception of truth is so debased and afflicted so as to not be able to recognize up and down, left from right, good from bad. The very foundations of Reason are warped and hideously disfigured.

This has been shown before:
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlpODYhnPEo" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlpODYhnPEo</a>

[iggyting]

I wonder the "Tower of Babel" episode not only sowed the foundation of confusion of language but also that of idea. IMO, the chaos that ensured separated races, cultures and civilizations. In the East, the major civilizations (Indian & Chinese) retained a basic metaphysical view of reality as given and went on to develop polytheistic beliefs and moral philosophical orders. In the West, starting from the Greeks, reason informed the basis of reality, apart from the metaphysics.The Age of Reason (the Renaissance) led quite seamlessly to the present Age Of Relativism. Without God or the devil, still man cannot completely disassociates himself from his sense of 'goodness' and instituted a moral order, Humanism, where man-alone is a sufficient reason. Man's benevolence replaces Christian 'agape'. What I am trying to say is that the Age of Relativism is a kind of chaos, mind and heart not in a harmonious whole. This has effected the way we think, how the arts develop, and brought about a culture of death. The Spirit of God has to move over the chaotic void again in a new creation.

[Benno]

I don't know who Bezmenov is, but there were a few dr strangelove moments in there, in terms of body language, you have to admit. 

Give him 5 minutes in a room with Chesterton, who said the same stuff in a better way, and you'd see that little bloke rocking in the foetal position, I'm guessing. 

[Oldavid]

No doubt Benno.

[Oldavid]

Iuvenalis, you're still making sense to me.
But; I think that the sea of iniquity in which we all seem to be immersed is a product of the media. Don't give up yet! I think that there are still many good honest ordinary people "out there" Who are are hungry  for a  good honest justification  for their perfectly reasonable beliefs.
On the other hand, I'm too old, Too much countryfied, too naive, too idealistic......I should live under a bridge but in this barren and dusty part of the world bridges  are hardly necessary

[Oldavid]

Gee the philosophy forum seems to be bogged.
Perhaps you need to get your whip out Benno, and liven this place up.
Or, perhaps, it's a starve the troll thing.
If it's the latter I'll post a valedictory.

[Iuvenalis]

Iuvenalis, you're still making sense to me.
But; I think that the sea of iniquity in which we all seem to be immersed is a product of the media. Don't give up yet! I think that there are still many good honest ordinary people "out there" Who are are hungry  for a  good honest justification  for their perfectly reasonable beliefs.
On the other hand, I'm too old, Too much countryfied, too naive, too idealistic......I should live under a bridge but in this barren and dusty part of the world bridges  are hardly necessary

Benno and Oldavid, of course I'm not putting the Bezmenov video as an authority on the effects of immorality upon a society.

However Benno, it would appear you missed my point completely, namely that this degeneration over the last 4 decades is no accident.

Oldavid, I have indeed given up, lest I become the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, which is always a waste of breath. The culture is too marinated in this God-less secularism and relativism. It's so ubiquitous so as to be the status quo, it is very, very hard to get someone to understnad that the very foundations upon which they think they exercise their Reason and Intellect are flawed. It's a discussion so fundamental, so right under their nose that they cannot see.

It's like trying to teach a pig to sing. It just wastes your time and annoys the pig.

[Oldavid]

Ah Iuvenalis,
You still make some sense.....But how do you think that the Apostles saw the world on Pentecost Eve? Don't give up. If there weren't some good folk out there the world would have already suffered the next chastisement ...Check Sodom and Gomorrah.
We really need some good wise and holy folk that know their Faith and can relay it in the language and idiom of the real people.

[Oldavid]

Yes Iuvenalis,
But what about the first voice "in the wilderness"? Sure he lost his head in the physical sense but he was right with it in the important things.
That's the best card that the anti-Christs have in their hand- they've got us all bluffed that we've lost anyway.
Come on, Buck up, all the good people are in the wilderness.
Perhaps Benno has gone away jumping on and rattling bridges to see what's underneath.

[Iuvenalis]

Call their bluff, you say?

[Oldavid]

No.. Ignore their bluff,
There is nothing new under the sun..
What It uses now is what It used to seduce Adam and Eve.

[Benno]

Sorry, I've been away on hols for a week - fishing off bridges rather than jumping on them, oldavid! Iuvenalis, I was only having a little joke - I agree with all that you and he said. (His mannerisms really did just remind me of that little utopian german bloke in dr strangelove! Sorry if it sounded like I was making fun of him or you or whatever)

[Iuvenalis]

Sorry, I've been away on hols for a week - fishing off bridges rather than jumping on them, oldavid! Iuvenalis, I was only having a little joke - I agree with all that you and he said. (His mannerisms really did just remind me of that little utopian german bloke in dr strangelove! Sorry if it sounded like I was making fun of him or you or whatever)

Nope, it initially seemed a little flippant, but it didn't bother me. I mean, assuming you were serious, it wouldn't have surprised me because for some reason people in general have this hard time wrapping their minds around the notion that some aspects of history are on purpose, not always collections of accidents. There are people who actually conspire.

That's all it sounded like, and it was a response that would not have been unexpected even had it been a serious one.

[Benno]

I totally agree that things don't happen by accident and that people conspire. The thing that always amazes me is how little sense the organizers of these little or big agendas have to make for it to gradually eke into popular acceptance. Little groups of people just have to push their barrow into enough places enough times and before anyone realizes it, or cares, there's suddenly a new "truth" that's been "proven", and usually an "evolutionary" kind of truth that people celebrate. Funnily enough, it's usually a "truth" that not only apes but attacks true Truth. I guess that's stating the obvious on a trad forum, after the "spirit of V2" and all, but maybe it's worth pointing out that it's always been that way and always will be, in any civilisation in any time. The process probably sped up quite a lot in the 20th century, but it's a timeless human thing, and in some sense you just have to accept it, and even maybe laugh it off. Look at the agendas that are going on today, like the normalizing of homosexuality, the false religion of environmentalism, right up to the religious and political stuff, all pushed by little groups harnessing their collective energy while everyone just rolls along getting indoctrinated by degrees, like the old metaphor of the boiled frog. I think a lot of Catholics get pretty het up in a reactionary, emotional way when they figure out that conspiracies etc exist, and maybe they should step back a few steps and see it with some humour and proportion, while still (if they feel up to it) trying to do something practical to fight against them heretics and liars and cowards and whatnot.

But to get to what you're saying - yes, it seems that ever since "reason" or what Chesterton simply called "common sense" have been pretty much done away with in the 20th century, it's a bit hard to practically DO anything about what's going on, apart from praying and doing your best. And that's all God always wanted from us any way, however crazy and amoral or whatever the world gets. 

After a week's fishing, opining like this seems really weird! 

[Oldavid]

Glad you blokes are still in the mix.
So you think that they really have got us well and truly licked then? Put the light under a bushell and retreat to a safe little ego-space?
Oh! come on, most of the time all that's needed is to say bull---- when you mean bull----; but be prepared to back up the assertion.
Jesus said: "say yes when you mean yes and say no when you mean no". I'm inclined to think that He knew a thing or two.