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| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Lainey |
Posted - June 12 2003 : 4:57:11 PM
This is what I have been saying, Ilse. If there's to be a future for Europe - a neo-renaissance - she must acknowledge & rediscover her traditional greatness which was brought forth through Christianity.
I strongly hope the constitutional preamble is changed to reflect this essential statement of identity.
Omission in Euro Text Would Distort History, Says Christian Leader
Giorgio Salina Criticizes Draft Preamble of Constitution
ROME, JUNE 11, 2003 (Zenit.org).- If the present draft of the European Constitution is not changed, it would mean silencing the "incontestable and irrefutable" truth about Christianity's contribution to the continent, says an official.
"Suffice it to visit any city of our continent, to enter any museum, to read the literature of any country, to prove" the historical contribution of Christianity, said Giorgio Salina, a vice president of the Convention of Christians for Europe.
He was commenting to ZENIT about draft preamble of the European Constitution, presented May 28.
The draft is inspired "by the cultural, religious and humanist heritage of Europe, which was "initially nourished by the Greek and Roman civilizations," and later "by philosophical currents of the Enlightenment," the text explains.
Christianity "has contributed to make Europe what it is, from the Roman era to our days, to the founders of the New Europe: Konrad Adenauer, Robert Schumann, Paul-Henri Spaak, Alcide de Gasperi -- all Christian politicians," Salina said.
"How can a new and welcoming common home be built without appreciating -- what is more, ignoring -- such an important part of the cultural, spiritual and social heritage of our history as is Christian humanism?" he continued.
Salina mentioned that the preamble states that "our Constitution is democratic because power is not in the hands of a minority but of the whole people."
"After having preached for years tolerance, support and defense of all cultural positions, including minority ones, 'zero tolerance' is accorded to those who do not think as the prevailing culture," he said. Rather, they would do away "with any reference to God, and not just Christian roots."
Reference to Christianity, Salina observed, "would have found men and women of all religions in agreement, in other words, millions of European citizens who, evidently, are not considered as forming part of the whole people."
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| 17 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Bill R |
Posted - August 03 2003 : 7:43:47 PM
Ah. It's clear to me now. To quote Lainey:
"The United States is a democratic republic governed by a constitution that not only defines the role, powers, & limitations of our governing bodies, it provides for the basic protection of every US citizen & guarantees minimum due process standards.
It upholds the principle of self-government, states the right to sovereignty, rejects the concept of a supranational body that would overrule or nullify the fundamental rights of US citizens, & is in complete accordance with international law.
The International Criminal Court, despite its face value appeal as a protection against war crimes, genocide, & inhumane atrocities, is a political body that has the potential to undermine these rights. The Rome Statute remains vague & allows room for enormous political abuse. The Court is not a war-time judiciary body that is specifically defined in its purpose or powers (as was The Nuremberg Court). It is a standing Court - permanent & with no safeguards against abuse nor recourse to appeal. The Court itself has the power to act as an international police force, ultimate judge, & theoretically biased jury.
It appears to be the ultimate expression of all that is wrong with a One World Government. The potential for political vendettas & suspension of basic freedoms is too great to embrace this Court as a legitimate institution.
It makes NO sense for the US to ratify the ICC Treaty. Even members who have signed on are uncomfortable with its vague powers & several have not ratified."
I think that says it all, and says it well. As far as invading the Hague.........not likely. However, were we to not participate and sign the agreement as we appear to be determined not to do - which I totally agree with - AND the Hague in their arrogance were to detain American citizens on some trumped up charge of some Third World Sh*thole.......AND were I young enough still - damn right we'd invade and I'd be clamoring to be on the tip of the spear.
I may be becoming an isolationist......but that's insofar as letting other countries determine their own fates, and take care of their own problems. NOT to the point of allowing some other nation to abuse Americans abroad, or attack us at home - by proxy or directly.
My definition of isolationist is "we'll take care of our own problems here, you (generically stated) take care of your own problems there. Don't ask for our help, as you will get none, and we won't have to listen to you (again stated generically) b*tch and moan and be ungrateful afterward. And no, you don't get any of our money in aid, either. Go it alone. And we shall too. That pretty much sums up my attitude these days.
Rather than admit to yet even MORE entanglements with other countries and other problems, I'd be real happy to see us sever all but the absolutely necessary alliances.
Thing is, the world has never been able to make up it's friggin mind. "Help us, oh help us!" Then hate us in return, or turn on us in return, or turn a deaf ear to OUR security issues when WE need help and alliances. Or "Give us all the money your citizens can bear, but keep your nose out of our business and expect no gratitude, loyalty, or help in return of any nature" kind of diplomacy has become repugnant to many Americans, I think. The world seems to believe it owes us nothing. And that's fine. We, in return, owe the world nothing.
At any rate, the REASON we don't join is clear. It's as clear as the nose on your face. No way are we allowing some Third World craphole, or some jerk like Saddam Hussein, drum up charges out of think air and their hatred of the US.
Yes, I am a man of parts, for sure. 
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| Ilse |
Posted - August 03 2003 : 7:02:23 PM
We've been discussing this in this thread:
http://www.mohicanpress.com/messageboard/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=64
It's about the Netherlands hosting the International Criminal Court, and the US not liking that thing very much. So, they moved on to threaten a very loyal ally with invasion and agression. And wonder why the world does not like America? |
| Bill R |
Posted - August 03 2003 : 5:55:59 PM
Okay, I'm a dummy. What's the Hague Invasion Law? Or are you talking about Alexander Haig perhaps? He'd invade ANYBODY! 
Seriously though, what's the Hague Invasion Law?
And you are right to fear the US. Can you believe I am saying that? ME? MOI? It's getting so I fear my own government these days. I used to be of the philosophy "My country, love it or leave it". NOW I am of the philosophy "I love my country, but fear my government". NO matter WHO is in charge. ya know? 
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| Ilse |
Posted - August 03 2003 : 5:22:21 PM
Yeah, I know what you're talking about  You know, with the history of heart disease in my family, I really ought to quit, but I can't do it!!  I'm weak...
But hey! As long as we're in the Lion's Den, I'll give ya a political thing too 
quote:
It's not Holland or the EU I fear. It's this one world village crap with all it implies.....
I don't fear the one world, yet, but I do fear the US. They have the The Hague Invasion Law, don't they? |
| Bill R |
Posted - August 02 2003 : 7:00:38 PM
Yes! It is indeed. And they go so well with wine or booze, after dinner, first thing in the morning, after you-know-what (though at my age if confined to only then, I'd be damn near a non-smoker! ), when you are bored, when you are angry, when you are depressed, when you are excited, when you are tired trying to stay awake, when you are trying to wake up and get moving and alert.......pretty much all the time, eh? Darn right it's hard.  |
| Ilse |
Posted - August 02 2003 : 5:00:03 PM
Yes, I know! Still, awfully hard to give up the smokes, yes?  |
| Bill R |
Posted - August 02 2003 : 1:31:32 PM
No, I'm still in the den of iniquity along with you Ilse. Betty and I have not as yet quit smoking. It was more a reference to how newly committed non-smokers, after smoking for 30 years, suddenly get enormously more militant about it than those who have NEVER smoked! Like some of the "born agains" - fanatical. Referencing my earlier post about how fanatical that must have sounded. End of Days? NWO? When I read it in the light of a new day, even I thought it sounded a bit "Jim Jones-ish"!!! |
| Ilse |
Posted - August 02 2003 : 1:18:31 PM
quote:
I am getting to be quite the isolationist these days.
Non-smoker, Bill????? Congratulations!  I've been thinking more and more about quitting recently, but haven't managed the nerve, yet.  |
| Bill R |
Posted - August 01 2003 : 6:47:09 PM
Hmmm. Now reading over my post before yours, that does sound a bit strident doesn't it? God save us from newly made non-smokers, born again or newly awakened Christians, and reactionary Republicans, eh? :) Guess I went a bit overboard in making THAT original point!!
Ah well. |
| Bill R |
Posted - August 01 2003 : 6:43:10 PM
"The EU constitution is not about the USA, the UN, or the "NWO". It is about the EU. I can give you one, just one, okay, explanation why there would be no mention of a Christian heritage in it; and that is that is awfully important for the USA to have their loyal NATO ally Turkey become a member of the EU. They lobbied hard enough for it."
Well, that makes sense then. Though why we have any right to lobby for anybody's admission to, or what is included in a Constitution for, a EUROPEAN Union is beyond me. I am getting to be quite the isolationist these days.
"Frankly, I don't see why America should be concerned about this, as long as there isn't a mention of building a military power like the US. And there is no such mention in the draft constitution. And, unfortunately, it won't get in there in the future"
Well, I don't think the U.S. IS concerned about it. I'm not even really, unless it be used as a precursor and precedent for a UN Constitution which would try to supercede an individual country's Consitution - MINE. Not concerned about military applications or verbage in an EU Constitution either.....more concerned about a "back door" method by UN for getting all the little "feel good" programs rammed down our throat here in the U.S. that don't fly because we have our own little pesky Consitution. We have enough folks trying to water down, revise, or just plain ignore some basic guarantees in our own Consitution. It's not Holland or the EU I fear. It's this one world village crap with all it implies.....
Besides which, I think my context was I was more fearful of that precedent than a threat posed by Masons as to NWO.
Good to hear from you Ilse. Hope things are well on that side of the pond. |
| Ilse |
Posted - August 01 2003 : 5:14:41 PM
Copyright © 2002 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com
A new start for Europe
IHT
Saturday, June 21, 2003
Sixteen months ago, to the accompaniment of grand proclamations and high hopes, the European Union began an ambitious effort to write itself a constitution. The Convention on the Future of Europe wound up last week with toasts of Champagne and a thick draft that was presented on Thursday to the EU leaders meeting in Thessaloniki, Greece. What was meant to be a moment of grand self-congratulation is looking more like the start of an arduous and painful struggle.
That does not necessarily mean the exercise was a failure. In fact, Europeans should be heartened by the fact that the convention managed to produce a draft at all. But the document still needs that sense of a unified mission and spirit that would encourage the many nations of the continent to proudly proclaim themselves citizens of Europe.
The very notion of a unified set of rules and guiding principles for a collection of countries as diverse as Europe's is staggering. These are not 13 sparsely populated colonies, faced with a common enemy and seeking a more perfect union, but 15 independent states - soon to be 25, with a total of 450 million citizens and an economy almost as large as that of the United States - each with its own ancient and unique history and language, and each with its own distinct idea on what a more perfect union entails. Some are still monarchies, some were under Communist dictatorship not long ago. Some are large and rich, some small and poor; many still remember waging war against each other. If there was any illusion about the unity of the Union at the start of the exercise, it was brutally dispelled by the bitter divisions over the American war in Iraq.
That Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, the former French president who chaired the convention, succeeded in forging the innumerable compromises reflected in the draft is no small achievement. The problem is that the 400-plus articles are in many ways just that, a patchwork of compromises that leave too many issues in dispute, and too much of the complexity and ambivalence that a constitution was supposed to eliminate.
The weakness is best illustrated by the fact that the draft proposes two presidents, one for the Council of the European Union, comprised of all EU heads of state, and another for the European Commission, the purportedly independent executive comprised of commissioners appointed by member states. There is also supposed to be a EU foreign minister, though even Lilliputian states have the right to veto any decision on foreign policy or defense. Many of the fundamental differences that dogged the convention are still there - Britain resists anything that smacks of a federal European state while Germany resists anything short of that; Spain insists on keeping the disproportionate vote it gained in past negotiations; most other countries have other objections.
Most of the changes proposed in the draft would take effect in 2009, and the constitution is still supposed to pass through an "intergovernmental council" that will start in October and work through the following May, when the 10 new members arrive. What is critical now is for the leaders gathered in Thessaloniki to signal that they do not intend to declare political war over the draft, but that they are determined to work out their differences and transform the convention's work into the "new point of departure" for the old continent that Giscard proclaimed 16 months ago.
Copyright © 2002 The International Herald Tribune
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The EU constitution is not about the USA, the UN, or the "NWO". It is about the EU. I can give you one, just one, okay, explanation why there would be no mention of a Christian heritage in it; and that is that is awfully important for the USA to have their loyal NATO ally Turkey become a member of the EU. They lobbied hard enough for it.
Frankly, I don't |
| Bill R |
Posted - July 23 2003 : 8:21:00 PM
I'm MUCH more worried about a European Constitution AT ALL, more so than any text in the preamble. One Constitution for the entire European Community? What next, one World Constitution superceding OUR Constitution? Sounds like the NWO is well on it's way. Doesnt that scare anybody? Does me. Of COURSE there is no reference to Christianity in the Preamble of this scary document........the whole idea of NWO is to abolish Christianity and impose UN domination over everybody......Socialists win the end game. Am I nuts, or is this not a precursor for End of Days? Maybe the Fundamentalists have a clue after all.......up to the point they WANT end of days to happen tomorrow? |
| CT•Ranger |
Posted - July 22 2003 : 9:07:31 PM
"European Christianity's "Failure to Thrive"
Why Christendom, born with an imperial bang, is now fading away in an irrelevant whimper.
By Collin Hansen | posted 07/18/2003
We're not going to stop any presses by declaring that Christianity has suffered serious decline in Europe—the place where apostles preached, and where Aquinas, Calvin, Luther, Barth, and countless other spiritual luminaries called home. Witness, to take just one example, the current sad turmoil in the Anglican Communion between the theological liberals of the statistically stagnant British mother church and their conservative brethren in rapidly growing, vibrant African and Asian dioceses.
Until recently, many Western academics accepted the sociologists' "secularization thesis," which asserts that intellectual advance and economic modernization lead people and nations past a need for faith, to a more enlightened and more secular mode of life. Europe's ongoing and increasing contempt for organized religion has been their prime example, while the growth of Christianity in countries such as Nigeria and China have been dismissed as a primitive stop on the road toward a godless society.
Perhaps no nation more proudly flaunts its secularism than France. The land that launched the millennium of Christendom by crowning Charlemagne Holy Roman Emperor in 800 has morphed into a staunchly secularist state, opposed to even the most cursory mention of Christianity's historic influence in the European Union's recently drafted constitution. Over the years France has exemplified the convergence of academic skepticism and popular unrest that has produced empty church pews across the continent.
But events have thrown the secularization thesis into disrepute—to the point where few now defend it in its original form. At the crux of this intellectual shift is one piece of glaring counter-evidence: the United States of America. American Christianity has survived and thrived despite suffering many of the same factors that have proved so troubling to Europe. Americans have been dragged into modernity by scientific advance, brutalized by modern mechanized warfare, battered by urban squalor, seduced by consumerist materialism, and bombarded by anti-Christian critiques from a secularist media and academic establishment. But through it all, they have clung to faith and resisted the destructive ideologies that so deeply scarred twentieth-century Europe.
Alexis de Tocqueville, one of the most famous links between France and the United States, illuminated American Christianity's cultural resilience. During his trip to the United States in 1831, he found a vibrant, flourishing crop of denominations and churches. These, he insisted, "all agreed with each other except about details." All agreed, too, that "the main reason for the quiet sway of religion over their country was the complete separation of church and state." Tocqueville claimed that throughout his stay in America, he met "nobody, lay or cleric, who did not agree about that."
While no single factor can exhaustively explain the stark differences between these Western strongholds, the contrast between Europe's long legacy of government-sponsored religion and America's historically recent and unique separation of church and state provides one wide window on European Christianity's decline.
Constantine Launches the Long Era of Church-State Unity
Constantine's conversion in 312 looms large for the study of church-state relations. During the early church era Tertullian famously said, "The blood of martyrs is the seed of the church," but after Constantine saw his vision at Milvian Bridge the empire that formerly shed Christian blood began conquering behind the cross. Suddenly, Christian faith became a stepping-stone to secular success, and those who yearned to become truedisciples began to feel they could only do so if they first escaped the compromised "Christian" cities into desert caves and monas |
| Lainey |
Posted - July 10 2003 : 03:10:03 AM
Have a wonderful time, Vita! (Five weeks on the Isle of Erin?!!!!  How neat! I think I'll call you in late August ...)
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| ladylight |
Posted - July 04 2003 : 3:54:15 PM
Yup, queenie, we've had our 27th! How time flies. We are still like two teenagers, who've eloped against their parents' will.
God willing, Inshallah, we will fly to the Isle of Erin on the 14th of July, for a 5-week stay, and we shall really celebrate it then.
Inshallah. :-)
Blessings to you and yours
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| Lainey |
Posted - July 03 2003 : 02:08:58 AM
Hey, Vita!
I'm not talking about primitive, isolated, uncivilized, tribal Europe (which was a far more brutal place than many admit & Europe's darkest days were of this time). I'm referring to a unified, civilized GREAT Europe - following the Roman/Greco empires, its whole identity & greatness came through Christianity - and the whole world benefited from it. If Europe has a future it must recognize this (despite her great apostasy).
Regarding patriarchal vs chauvinistic cultures/religions; I appreciate your distinction. Did you know there were several women Church "Fathers" of antiquity? Of course, Judaism has had several great, great women as well. Islam, though Fatima was highly regarded & inspired the Fatimads, really did not produce great or outstanding women.
Of related interest is the Quran's mention of only one women by name - Mariam - Miriam, Mary ... the Blessed Mother of Christ who is venerated in Islam. And I LOVE your affection as you always express it of Mother Mary.
(Did you just celebrate an anniversary? Yes? Congratulations!) |
| ladylight |
Posted - June 28 2003 : 6:20:25 PM
Europe's roots were Pagan, Queenie...
And Christianity's darkest days were also Europe's darkest days.
Of course, when I say Pagan, I don't mean any of the Eastern, male-chauvinistic Pagan religions, either.
I speak of Europe when it heeded the Mother Goddess.
Christianity, just like Judaism and Islam, IS a patriarchal religion. Ah-hem, please note that i do not say male-chauvinistic, just patriarchal. I feel closer to Christianity because of Mother Mary. She may well be the Mother Goddess survived, nevertheless she does add the warmth, and kindness, and gentility I seek in MY version of the faith.
Blessings to you, and yours
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