Weird things that change the world

[egb_hibs]

My favourite - which I think I've mentioned before; some tsar who I forget sent out emissaries to investigate the big religions of the world when he wanted to modernise Russia away from paganism. Christianity was allegedly chosen over Islam because it allowed him to carry on drinking alcohol. Imagine an Islamic Russia today and think about the ramifications of that decision and its bases!

But one I read recently, also on a religious note; there is a theory that the reformation happened because of OCD. In some religiously minded people ocd takes the form of endless worrying about sin and damnation - in fact the church has recognised and been involved in treatment of it for centuries. Moreover it seems to be a northern thing almost unknown amongst Southern European tims (feeding suspicions of mine about the darkness in celts and Anglo Saxons). Anyway, according to this theory, Luther - who was definitely preoccupied with this stuff - was a sufferer and to ease his anxieties reengineered christianity so that salvation was preordained and not dependent on ones actions - and thus the subject of his worrying. Calvin, also a bit of a fretter by all accounts, took this further.

Amazing if true, given the significance proceeding from worries of individuals. Truly the Lord works in mysterious ways, or - to save emerald green some time - if you prefer, amazing the way history turns on people's imaginings.

It' goes on and on - napoleons head cold on the morning of Waterloo allegedly befuddling his usual tactical genius, hitters neuroses about Jews sending the scientists who could have made him emperor of Europe (at least) into American arms, and so on.

Without enjoying the awful results of any particular thing, I kinda like the fact the world is directed so chaotically. I think this is probably the opposite of what drives conspiracy theorists who long for an underlying order. In the anarchy of it all, is our freedom, warts and all.

 

[Jack]

I think I like the Spanish outlook towards being a Roman Catholic, or at least what most of my Spanish family and friends have led me to believe. I might have even remained in the fold with their attitude if it prevailed here.

The bits that stick in my mind are say what you like, we'll do what we want anyway, a bit of Hibbness around that, and we all know ;-) ;-) the orphanage next to the church is full of the priests bastard children, how convenient!

To me, at least they're honest about it.

Beneath the dos cervezas por favor they are incredibly non PC.

I suspect the tsar returning from 'Catholic' Spain, with his tales of freedom, fun and debauchery, not to mention the duty frees, won the day! Not sure what the boy from Rome might have said!

 

[HaarlemShuffler]

The bits that stick in my mind are say what you like, we'll do what we want anyway, a bit of Hibbness around that, and we all know ;-) ;-) the orphanage next to the church is full of the priests bastard children, how convenient!

To me, at least they're honest about it.

Beneath the dos cervezas por favor they are incredibly non PC.

I remember thinking when I was growing up how shit it was to be Catholic (forced from an early agae), then thinking towards puberty how repressed the protestants seemed to be; you couldnae even have a drink in their church hall while my dad regularly returned jolly and all the merrier from many a 'whist' game in the church hall of the Catholic church where McEwan's Export was drink of the millenium.

I was into languages and mainly Latin ones: but along with the lingo you had to absorb a bit of the culture and history and that 'fair set me thinking...'.

Upshot: I think I am incredibly lucky to have been brought up Catholic in a land defined by the Reformation. I didn't see all the Protestant good stuff until much later in my life (late twenties/thirties).

But I have been atheist since I was 6

 

[Shades]

All Western music at one time was pretty much dictated by the Christian faith and outlawed the flat five interval (b5). In the late nineteenth century, slaves and tribes in the fields of America and Africa discovered the equal temperament system of tuning (on which all western music is based and written), built their own instruments began using the b5 interval and blues, jazz and rock n' roll was born. It was ONE note and ONE interval.

 

[egb_hibs]

[MENTION=12031]Shades[/MENTION] I saw something about that called 'the Devils chord' or some such. I don't understand enough about the mechanics of music to make any sense of your description, can you try and help a dummy out? What do you mean by interval, and how can one note be so significant to jazz etc -
Wouldn't it just change anyway if you played the same music in a different key? And what's equal temperament !

 

[Shades]

@Shades I saw something about that called 'the Devils chord' or some such. I don't understand enough about the mechanics of music to make any sense of your description, can you try and help a dummy out? What do you mean by interval, and how can one note be so significant to jazz etc -
Wouldn't it just change anyway if you played the same music in a different key? And what's equal temperament !

The devil's interval, or b5 is the two notes you hear at the beginning of purple haze. It is also called the tritone as it is the note which is exactly in the middle from the tonic to the octave (same note 12 tones higher). It's pretty evil sounding, although our western ears are used to it now and it's not considered as dissonant as it once was. Equal temperament is the system of tuning that all western music is based on. It means that, of the 12 tones which seperate the tonic note from the octave, each one is exactly equidistant from it's neighbour. The major scale, however, is not a symmetrical and evenly spaced scale and uses a mixture of whole-steps and half-steps, and contains only 7 of the available 12 tones. Chords and intervals are named according to what notes, or intervals, of the major scale they use. The Devil's chord that I think you've seen would probably be what's called a dom7b5 chord (but it would usually be called an aug4 - don't ask me why, it's complicated!).

Basically the church didn't like the sound of the interval because it's dissonant and quite evil sounding, or at least was then. Nowadays we're quite happy with it.

The reason it is so important to Blues and Jazz and by extension - Rock n' Roll, is because the interval is contained within a dom7 chord. Although it is not named in the title of the chord because the b5 interval here is the space between the 3rd of the chord and the b7th not any of the intervals that relate to the tonic - it actually contains a natural 5 . The church would use a normal major chord rather than the more harmonically complex dom7.

The dom7 chord creates a tension which has to resolve to the tonic chord. Jazzers and blues players use this tension to take the music into non-diatonic (outside of the major scale) regions, basically.

 

[Chester Perry]

My favourite - which I think I've mentioned before; some tsar who I forget sent out emissaries to investigate the big religions of the world when he wanted to modernise Russia away from paganism. Christianity was allegedly chosen over Islam because it allowed him to carry on drinking alcohol. Imagine an Islamic Russia today and think about the ramifications of that decision and its bases!

I doubt a Islamic Russia would have been allowed to grow. The Teutonic Knights would have just moved further east. Europe would be very different, Germany especially. And aren't chunks of that region not Muslim anyway ( though obv not Russia itself)

And the Poles turned down an invitation to go to the Crusades as they had heard "there was no beer, wine or mead to be found in the Holy Lands"

 

[emerald green]

My favourite - which I think I've mentioned before; some tsar who I forget sent out emissaries to investigate the big religions of the world when he wanted to modernise Russia away from paganism. Christianity was allegedly chosen over Islam because it allowed him to carry on drinking alcohol. Imagine an Islamic Russia today and think about the ramifications of that decision and its bases!

....can't see how that would have happened. Was russia pagan for the 1081 years?

But one I read recently, also on a religious note; there is a theory that the reformation happened because of OCD. In some religiously minded people ocd takes the form of endless worrying about sin and damnation - in fact the church has recognised and been involved in treatment of it for centuries. Moreover it seems to be a northern thing almost unknown amongst Southern European tims (feeding suspicions of mine about the darkness in celts and Anglo Saxons). Anyway, according to this theory, Luther - who was definitely preoccupied with this stuff - was a sufferer and to ease his anxieties reengineered christianity so that salvation was preordained and not dependent on ones actions - and thus the subject of his worrying. Calvin, also a bit of a fretter by all accounts, took this further.

Amazing if true, given the significance proceeding from worries of individuals. Truly the Lord works in mysterious ways, or - to save emerald green some time - if you prefer, amazing the way history turns on people's imaginings.

...aye, OCD did it.

It' goes on and on - napoleons head cold on the morning of Waterloo allegedly befuddling his usual tactical genius, hitters neuroses about Jews sending the scientists who could have made him emperor of Europe (at least) into American arms, and so on.

Without enjoying the awful results of any particular thing, I kinda like the fact the world is directed so chaotically. I think this is probably the opposite of what drives conspiracy theorists who long for an underlying order. In the anarchy of it all, is our freedom, warts and all.

...but ah do, likes yer last sentence.

ps.. thanks for saving me the time.

I still think yer god is one hellova lazy bassa.

 

[egb_hibs]

[MENTION=4819]emerald green[/MENTION] - I don't know where 1081 is derived from, but in any case Russia Christianised - or began to - about a century before that, towards the end of the tenth century.

 

[emerald green]

[MENTION=4819]emerald green[/MENTION] - I don't know where 1081 is derived from, but in any case Russia Christianised - or began to - about a century before that, towards the end of the tenth century.

I do apologise, I thought Roman and Greek Christianity grew pretty much in tandem. Didnt think Russia was running around pagan for a 600 plus years.

Mohammed dying around 690ad... and the earliest muslim princes etc found around 1081 (quick google)....

my favourite one though, is Hitler falling into some river / canal as cute wee nipper and gonna drown, until a good samaritan (sorry, couldna help masel) jumped in and rescued the future meglomaniac. (yes, he DOES work in mysterious ways )

 

[egb_hibs]

[MENTION=4819]emerald green[/MENTION] - you really need to know thine enemy a bit better old chap. Even England wasn't Christianised until Mohammed's day (which you have also dated wrong :glassraise: ) and some parts of Europe not until as late as the 15th century.

 

[emerald green]

[MENTION=4819]emerald green[/MENTION] - you really need to know thine enemy a bit better old chap. Even England wasn't Christianised until Mohammed's day (which you have also dated wrong :glassraise: ) and some parts of Europe not until as late as the 15th century.

Yes, lots of this I am taking from the top of my head...I did most of my religious reasoning in my early twenties.... and its clouded now :smoke:

Yip, he appears to have died 632AD. (I know, I know, he didnt really die, he ascended the heavens on a horse with wings )

Come over to my side [MENTION=101]egb_hibs[/MENTION] , I know you want to , you know you want to.

You can then convince your parents, they wont disown you

You can't have reason in all aspects of you existance, and yet.......

(but aye, note to self ; never quick google when dealing with yourself, go to the bookshelves )

 

[egb_hibs]

Yes, lots of this I am taking from the top of my head...I did most of my religious reasoning in my early twenties.... and its clouded now :smoke:

Yip, he appears to have died 632AD. (I know, I know, he didnt really die, he ascended the heavens on a horse with wings )

Come over to my side [MENTION=101]egb_hibs[/MENTION] , I know you want to , you know you want to.

You can then convince your parents, they wont disown you

You can't have reason in all aspects of you existance, and yet.......

(but aye, note to self ; never quick google when dealing with yourself, go to the bookshelves )

I have passed through your stage grasshopper. It requires too much suspension of disbelief, magical thinking etc for my tastes, not to mention all the wickedness it has caused in the world. Keep thinking on it and see where it takes yer.

 

[emerald green]

I have passed through your stage grasshopper. It requires too much suspension of disbelief, magical thinking etc for my tastes, not to mention all the wickedness it has caused in the world. Keep thinking on it and see where it takes yer.

erm.... that should be me typing that to you!!

... i do apologise, I was under the impression you were a fuly fledged jackboot cafflick. At one with abstract heaven and hell, angels, jinn, virgin births, long gone villages, etc :smirk:

 

[egb_hibs]

erm.... that should be me typing that to you!!

... i do apologise, I was under the impression you were a fuly fledged jackboot cafflick. At one with abstract heaven and hell, angels, jinn, virgin births, long gone villages, etc :smirk:

Jinn are from Islam while Jackboots are more associated with atheist ideologies old fruit. You seem a bit sketchy on all this stuff.

Let's face it, my position involves putting yer chips on one unknowable thing after which the rest is internally coherent. You've got to rationalise magic universes with supernatural properties, and the invention of infinite numbers of unknowable entities to explain away one. Then you've got to pretend to yourself that you're rational while clinging to a worldview saturated in ideas that only make sense within monotheism (e.g. good and bad, rights, equality etc), and which necessitates a whole other bunch of other stuff being illusions (love, kindness etc). And on top of that you seem preoccupied with being right and the truth, when your worldview also necessitates these things not only not mattering but also not existing in any meaningful way.

Then there's the results within history; when anyone has tried to build a society that is consistent with your form of atheism (which they never succeed in completely as it's an objective incompatible with society), those results have been murder and tyranny - not sometimes, not most of the time, but all the time. In the east they've faired a little better - they may have had the most apocalyptically violent war culture, they may have never really got to grips with the idea of an individual with rights, but at least eastern societies have been very durable based on atheist religions, albeit often accompanied with supra-natural beliefs alongside.

As i say; been where you are, moved past it. You seem more able to accommodate the make believe and contradictions than I am; but by golly you can't seem to leave this subject alone. Sorry but its been done to death from my point of view.

 

[emerald green]

Jinn are from Islam while Jackboots are more associated with atheist ideologies old fruit. You seem a bit sketchy on all this stuff.

Let's face it, my position involves putting yer chips on one unknowable thing after which the rest is internally coherent. You've got to rationalise magic universes with supernatural properties, and the invention of infinite numbers of unknowable entities to explain away one. Then you've got to pretend to yourself that you're rational while clinging to a worldview saturated in ideas that only make sense within monotheism (e.g. good and bad, rights, equality etc), and which necessitates a whole other bunch of other stuff being illusions (love, kindness etc). And on top of that you seem preoccupied with being right and the truth, when your worldview also necessitates these things not only not mattering but also not existing in any meaningful way.

Then there's the results within history; when anyone has tried to build a society that is consistent with your form of atheism (which they never succeed in completely as it's an objective incompatible with society), those results have been murder and tyranny - not sometimes, not most of the time, but all the time. In the east they've faired a little better - they may have had the most apocalyptically violent war culture, they may have never really got to grips with the idea of an individual with rights, but at least eastern societies have been very durable based on atheist religions, albeit often accompanied with supra-natural beliefs alongside.

As i say; been where you are, moved past it. You seem more able to accommodate the make believe and contradictions than I am; but by golly you can't seem to leave this subject alone. Sorry but its been done to death from my point of view.

yes egb, your completely correct. 100%

Thanks for all your help with this.


...and yes, from your point of view