Australian Politics Forum - Actual current top religions

muso

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Re: Actual current top religions
Reply #15 - Nov 24^th, 2008 at 8:43am

I'll be controversial here and argue that China has improved its standard of living much more under an authoritarian system than it would have done under a democracy where the 2 child policy was relaxed etc.

Considering the actual participation rate in most countries in the world, is there that really much difference between a democratic system and an authoritarian one? The real difference is accountability.

The melamine scandal in China was dealt with pretty effectively. I think public accountability is starting to be important in China.

(I'm still acting as advocatus diaboli by the way ) Grin

I am a firm believer in Democracy.

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freediver Gold Member Offline www.ozpolitic.com Posts: 48839 At my desk.	Re: Actual current top religions Reply #16 - Nov 24^th, 2008 at 8:47am It's pretty easy to make an improvement if you start as low as China. So easy in fact that even a doctator can pull it off. They were starving to death a generation ago, eating locusts and bugs.
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tallowood Gold Member Offline Australian Politics Posts: 5943	Re: Actual current top religions Reply #17 - Nov 24^th, 2008 at 9:05am Actually if China improves even more they will become a democracy.
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muso Gold Member Offline Posts: 13151 Gladstone, Queensland Gender:	Re: Actual current top religions Reply #18 - Nov 24^th, 2008 at 9:51am tallowood wrote on Nov 24^th, 2008 at 9:05am: Actually if China improves even more they will become a democracy. It wouldn't surprise me if that happened.
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Sprintcyclist Moderator Offline OzPolitic Posts: 40710 Gender:	Re: Actual current top religions Reply #19 - Nov 24^th, 2008 at 10:21am muso - you could well be right there dictatorships are the most efficient form of govt. Assuming a good dictator, it could work very well. Fact is most kings are well loved by their subjects for good reason China may be headed toward a democracy.
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Classic Liberal

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Re: Actual current top religions
Reply #20 - Nov 24^th, 2008 at 10:48am

athos wrote on Nov 22^nd, 2008 at 12:50pm:

If we forget formal rhetoric and consider reality we can recognise the following top religions in the west and elsewhere:

1. The most popular religion still on rise is Dogmatic Humanism.

Humanism is (natural extension of atheism ) a religion that puts human being in the centre of universe by believing in his unlimited possibilities and power.
Humanism is at the present dominant religion in the western world.
Many institutionalized Christian religions in the west evolved shifting from original Christ teaching in to pragmatic humanism.
For example Catholic Church did it long time ago by introducing new dogma about Pope’s infallibility (sinless or Pope is a God) and so on.
With this new dogma Catholic Church actually replaced God with the human being, at least as his representative on earth.
Immediately after introducing the new dogma Jesuits had their new motto: “We don’t need Christ we have a Pope”.On the other hand the protestant Church was transformed in to even more pragmatic humanism, shall we say business Christianity by introducing their own new dogmas like Jon Calvin’s ( 1509 – 1564 ) doctrine that “ God’s grace would be gained through hard work and financial success”.
This directly confronts with Christ teaching:
“ You can not serve Mammon and God at the same time”.

what a load of dribble.

1. Papal infallibility does not signify that the pope is impeccable, i.e., that he is specially exempt from liability to sin. The pope is Human and can sin or make mistakes like anyone else. The only sinless peole ever to wal the earth according to the catholic church are Jesus and his mother Mary.

2. Infallibility is the concept that if the pope feels god has spoken to him about something he is the only person on earth who can make it an article of faith in the Church without any opposition from anyone else in the church.

3. Infallibility has only every been use ONCE in 1950 when Pope Pius XII defined the Assumption of Mary as being an article of faith for Roman Catholics.

4. the Pope is merely the representative of God, no catholic prays to the pope (if they do they are wrong according to the church), we pray to god, the pope however can pray for us to god.

Dont speak about things u do not understand.

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athos

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Re: Actual current top religions
Reply #21 - Nov 24^th, 2008 at 1:44pm

muso wrote on Nov 24^th, 2008 at 8:06am:

freediver wrote on Nov 23^rd, 2008 at 1:08pm:

I would suggest that you convince the general public of what is in their long term interests, then let democracy take care of the rest. It's a lot easier than blowing up power stations.

What if the general public is too stupid to understand?
(we're talking hypotheticals here)

I don't know where you got the idea of blowing up power stations from. It sounds a bit radical.

What if irresponsible stupid majority and elects idiotic leader who virtually can destroy country. Is it hypothetical assumption. It would be if it did not happened in America where G.W. Bush was elected twice.

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tallowood

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Re: Actual current top religions
Reply #22 - Nov 24^th, 2008 at 2:07pm

athos wrote on Nov 24^th, 2008 at 1:44pm:

muso wrote on Nov 24^th, 2008 at 8:06am:

freediver wrote on Nov 23^rd, 2008 at 1:08pm:

I would suggest that you convince the general public of what is in their long term interests, then let democracy take care of the rest. It's a lot easier than blowing up power stations.

What if the general public is too stupid to understand?
(we're talking hypotheticals here)

I don't know where you got the idea of blowing up power stations from. It sounds a bit radical.

What if irresponsible stupid majority and elects idiotic leader who virtually can destroy country. Is it hypothetical assumption. It would be if it did not happened in America where G.W. Bush was elected twice.

Bush did not destroyed America despite winning to terms. In fact a democracy has has checks on absolute power while dictatorship does not.
Take for example mad psychopath Jo Stalin. He caused killing of tens of millions of soviet citizens and destroyed lives of hundreds of millions more.
That is why democracy is way better then alternatives.

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freediver Gold Member Offline www.ozpolitic.com Posts: 48839 At my desk.	Re: Actual current top religions Reply #23 - Nov 24^th, 2008 at 2:17pm Like I said athos, demcoracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others. Why do you and muso appear to keep assuming I claim it to be infallible? In a democracy, if you don't like the leader, vote for someone else.
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muso

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Re: Actual current top religions
Reply #24 - Nov 24^th, 2008 at 2:20pm

athos wrote on Nov 24^th, 2008 at 1:44pm:

What if irresponsible stupid majority and elects idiotic leader who virtually can destroy country. Is it hypothetical assumption. It would be if it did not happened in America where G.W. Bush was elected twice.

They have learned from their mistake. The great US public couldn't make the same mistake again. Could they?

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tallowood

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Re: Actual current top religions
Reply #25 - Nov 24^th, 2008 at 2:28pm

muso wrote on Nov 24^th, 2008 at 2:20pm:

athos wrote on Nov 24^th, 2008 at 1:44pm:

What if irresponsible stupid majority and elects idiotic leader who virtually can destroy country. Is it hypothetical assumption. It would be if it did not happened in America where G.W. Bush was elected twice.

They have learned from their mistake. The great US public couldn't make the same mistake again. Could they?

Anybody can do as many mistakes as they like that's why in America a leader has limited number of terms while in USSR or China people could not get rid of mad dictators Stalin and Mao till they dropped dead.

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athos

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Re: Actual current top religions
Reply #26 - Nov 24^th, 2008 at 2:57pm

tallowood wrote on Nov 24^th, 2008 at 8:35am:

muso wrote on Nov 22^nd, 2008 at 10:13pm:

...
OK, again hypothetically we have China - a totally undemocratic country. The government of China consult with their best technical advisers who explain that unless they radically change the way we do business, the future of mankind is doomed.

Meantime in the US and Australia, we have a fully democratic process. "Big Business" interests democratically lobby government, using appropriately democratic deployment of brown paper bags (for a just cause) in order to change government policy to ensure that their short term financial security is not compromised. Now unfortunately accountants and economists alike find it very difficult to plan any more than say 20 years ahead. Meanwhile, the general population is fed subliminal information that hints that there will be massive job losses and (shock horror) house prices will plummet unless we ignore the coming crisis and take measures to tend to the very real threat that the Market will crash unless we encourage more and more consumers to use more and more resources.

In summary, the democratic view is keep feeding Mammon at all costs. The undemocratic view is to listen to the technical advisers.

....hypothetically speaking of course.

Knowing that Chinese technicians usually produce very crappy products I would not trust Chinese technical advisers to come with credible solution and as it happened I was correct. Future had shown that after the crisis had passed democratic nations enjoyed even better life style and happiness while undemocratic China get itself even in deeper problems again.

Disclaimer: All that of course was hypothetical speak as the genre of hypo dictates.

Dear Tallwood I am amused that you even don’t know ( or you don’t want to know ) that in your country you don’t have democracy? and then you criticise others because they don’t have democracy??? Isn’t it a little bit hypocritical?.

So let’s see what Plato said about democracy in his “Republic”.
Looking specifically at each government, Plato situates each government in their respectable positions beginning with the ideal state and slowly escalating to the worst possible system, which are in order as follows: aristocracy, timarchy, oligarchy, democracy, and tyranny. Plato views democracy as one of the lowest forms of government in terms of his proposal of the ideal state.

As we can see Monarchy and democracy are totally different or opposing concepts of government.
You can either have a Monarch ( monarchy ) elected by God or democratically elected leader, who is elected by populus.
So let’s see what you have.

You have a Foreign Monarch as your absolute head of state who can sack your democratically elected prime minister ( as it happened to Gough Whitlam in seventies).
Is it democracy or hypocrisy? And after that you claim you have democracy and criticise China for not not having democracy.
Do you still think that Australia is not British colony? and do you still think that Australia has democracy?

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freediver Gold Member Offline www.ozpolitic.com Posts: 48839 At my desk.	Re: Actual current top religions Reply #27 - Nov 24^th, 2008 at 3:09pm Do you agree with Plato athos?
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tallowood

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Re: Actual current top religions
Reply #28 - Nov 24^th, 2008 at 3:11pm

athos wrote on Nov 24^th, 2008 at 2:57pm:

tallowood wrote on Nov 24^th, 2008 at 8:35am:

muso wrote on Nov 22^nd, 2008 at 10:13pm:

...
OK, again hypothetically we have China - a totally undemocratic country. The government of China consult with their best technical advisers who explain that unless they radically change the way we do business, the future of mankind is doomed.

Meantime in the US and Australia, we have a fully democratic process. "Big Business" interests democratically lobby government, using appropriately democratic deployment of brown paper bags (for a just cause) in order to change government policy to ensure that their short term financial security is not compromised. Now unfortunately accountants and economists alike find it very difficult to plan any more than say 20 years ahead. Meanwhile, the general population is fed subliminal information that hints that there will be massive job losses and (shock horror) house prices will plummet unless we ignore the coming crisis and take measures to tend to the very real threat that the Market will crash unless we encourage more and more consumers to use more and more resources.

In summary, the democratic view is keep feeding Mammon at all costs. The undemocratic view is to listen to the technical advisers.

....hypothetically speaking of course.

Knowing that Chinese technicians usually produce very crappy products I would not trust Chinese technical advisers to come with credible solution and as it happened I was correct. Future had shown that after the crisis had passed democratic nations enjoyed even better life style and happiness while undemocratic China get itself even in deeper problems again.

Disclaimer: All that of course was hypothetical speak as the genre of hypo dictates.

Dear Tallwood I am amused that you even don’t know ( or you don’t want to know ) that in your country you don’t have democracy? and then you criticise others because they don’t have democracy??? Isn’t it a little bit hypocritical?.

So let’s see what Plato said about democracy in his “Republic”.
Looking specifically at each government, Plato situates each government in their respectable positions beginning with the ideal state and slowly escalating to the worst possible system, which are in order as follows: aristocracy, timarchy, oligarchy, democracy, and tyranny. Plato views democracy as one of the lowest forms of government in terms of his proposal of the ideal state.

As we can see Monarchy and democracy are totally different or opposing concepts of government.
You can either have a Monarch ( monarchy ) elected by God or democratically elected leader, who is elected by populus.
So let’s see what you have.

You have a Foreign Monarch as your absolute head of state who can sack your democratically elected prime minister ( as it happened to Gough Whitlam in seventies).
Is it democracy or hypocrisy? And after that you claim you have democracy and criticise China for not not having democracy.
Do you still think that Australia is not British colony? and do you still think that Australia has democracy?

Lovely artos, you obviously don't know that Plato never lived in Australia, in fact he didn't even know that Australia existed. But now after I have informed you cease to refer to Plato trying to prove that Australia has no democracy.

BTW, China do produce crappy things cheap but crappy. You can't drill Australian hardwood with crappy Chinese drill bits too many times before it goes blunt.

Anyway compare to idiots Stalin and Mao any of our political democratically elected leaders are saints. I know that you know it and that's why you are here and not there.

As for Gough I have already said that democracy has checks on power of individuals.

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athos

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Re: Actual current top religions
Reply #29 - Nov 24^th, 2008 at 3:27pm

tallowood wrote on Nov 24^th, 2008 at 3:11pm:

athos wrote on Nov 24^th, 2008 at 2:57pm:

tallowood wrote on Nov 24^th, 2008 at 8:35am:

muso wrote on Nov 22^nd, 2008 at 10:13pm:

...
OK, again hypothetically we have China - a totally undemocratic country. The government of China consult with their best technical advisers who explain that unless they radically change the way we do business, the future of mankind is doomed.

Meantime in the US and Australia, we have a fully democratic process. "Big Business" interests democratically lobby government, using appropriately democratic deployment of brown paper bags (for a just cause) in order to change government policy to ensure that their short term financial security is not compromised. Now unfortunately accountants and economists alike find it very difficult to plan any more than say 20 years ahead. Meanwhile, the general population is fed subliminal information that hints that there will be massive job losses and (shock horror) house prices will plummet unless we ignore the coming crisis and take measures to tend to the very real threat that the Market will crash unless we encourage more and more consumers to use more and more resources.

In summary, the democratic view is keep feeding Mammon at all costs. The undemocratic view is to listen to the technical advisers.

....hypothetically speaking of course.

Knowing that Chinese technicians usually produce very crappy products I would not trust Chinese technical advisers to come with credible solution and as it happened I was correct. Future had shown that after the crisis had passed democratic nations enjoyed even better life style and happiness while undemocratic China get itself even in deeper problems again.

Disclaimer: All that of course was hypothetical speak as the genre of hypo dictates.

Dear Tallwood I am amused that you even don’t know ( or you don’t want to know ) that in your country you don’t have democracy? and then you criticise others because they don’t have democracy??? Isn’t it a little bit hypocritical?.

So let’s see what Plato said about democracy in his “Republic”.
Looking specifically at each government, Plato situates each government in their respectable positions beginning with the ideal state and slowly escalating to the worst possible system, which are in order as follows: aristocracy, timarchy, oligarchy, democracy, and tyranny. Plato views democracy as one of the lowest forms of government in terms of his proposal of the ideal state.

As we can see Monarchy and democracy are totally different or opposing concepts of government.
You can either have a Monarch ( monarchy ) elected by God or democratically elected leader, who is elected by populus.
So let’s see what you have.

You have a Foreign Monarch as your absolute head of state who can sack your democratically elected prime minister ( as it happened to Gough Whitlam in seventies).
Is it democracy or hypocrisy? And after that you claim you have democracy and criticise China for not not having democracy.
Do you still think that Australia is not British colony? and do you still think that Australia has democracy?

Lovely artos, you obviously don't know that Plato never lived in Australia, in fact he didn't even know that Australia existed. But now after I have informed you cease to refer to Plato trying to prove that Australia has no democracy.

BTW, China do produce crappy things cheap but crappy. You can't drill Australian hardwood with crappy Chinese drill bits too many times before it goes blunt.

Anyway compare to idiots Stalin and Mao any of our political democratically elected leaders are saints. I know that you know it and that's why you are here and not there.

As for Gough I have already said that democracy has checks on power of individuals.

1. Is your country a Britis colony?
2. Do you have monarchy or democracy?
For example USA has democracy, and you?

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Do we need to be always politically correct.
In the world of universal deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

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