The Christian’s statement is one that I just responded to on Facebook, but it accurately reflects the reasoning I have had to deal with again and again… so, once and for all:

Christian: I think our disagreement lies in the following tension; you see truth as subject to the law of logic. I see logic as subject to the truth of Jesus. Is that a fair assessment of our positions?

Me: Everything is logic. Including all of your reasoning. It’s all based on the concept of logic, even if it does not make logical sense. You are suggesting that reason itself could be flawed, despite the fact that the sentence you spoke is a form of reasoning.

When you question the process of questioning, you render the question ridiculous. When you reason that reason might not be reasonable, you are merely being unreasonable. That’s fine (and crazy!), except our conversation and any conversation is based on reason. We can’t talk outside of logic. It’s not possible.

I can see you responding to this with ‘See! That is unquestionable!’

No. It is perfectly questionable, the question just doesn’t make sense.

Jesus, on the other hand, can be questioned in a perfectly sensible manner.

Regarding the Christian use of ‘slave terminology’.

I actually think ‘slave’ terminology is healthy.

Christianity emphasized that their kind of freedom was not just freedom - it was a particular kind of freedom, the freedom to live like Christ. There doesn’t seem to have been a concept of an absolute freedom that could ever be obtained - mostly (I suspect) because its founders understood the topic of Desire so well, and you cannot both understand desire and keep some notion of freedom or free will. But Christianity did offer the only coherent kind of freedom: the freedom to tame desire [to make oneself more like Christ].

If the movement that was Christianity is ever going to happen again - in the sense of a large-scale rejection of the present system followed by egalitarian, nonviolent communities - we will need something similar to this slave terminology, e.g. ‘slave of love/egalitarism/whatever’. If it emphasizes the fact that it is freeing people from the previous system without counteracting that with something like slave terminology, it will easily devolve into what anarchy is popularly seen as: a movement that stands for some vague concept of chaotic freedom that sounds great but means nothing. The fact that almost every political party ever will say they are for freedom should be evidence enough of this.

As for whether it is healthy to call all non-Christians slaves of Satan; even if you’re making a symbolic statement, it just comes across as a bizarre and ignorant generalisation. But it is one of those things which can be a good thing to believe but not to say that you believe (a possibility that many Christians are against, believing that being offensive in this way is something to do with Christianity). What I mean is: It is quite a good thing to recognise that a person is ‘sinning’ because they can’t help it, i.e. they are a slave to Satan, but it is usually stupid/unhelpful to point out to this person that they can’t help sinning… they will generally react badly, either because they don’t believe they are sinning or because they believe in free will.

EDIT: You might like The Debate Space on Facebook

aflameoffreedom asked: A nonviolent communist, is that real lol? Do you support a state, the dictatorship of the proletariat?

No. I don’t support any form of authoritarianism, and therefore no concept of state in which the state is treated as sovereign. I’m not against government if we simply define that as how humans organise themselves - I’m not against organisation. But I don’t believe that a period of authoritarianism could possibly help bring about a stateless communism. I’m a anarcho-communist, and believe that imposing a good system on people who don’t want it is stupidity. Of course the rich will never want it - but this won’t matter when no one else wants it. The system will just cease to be once the rest of us stop wanting it.

‘You have come to see me because I am in the news everywhere, I am in Newsweek and talked about in the US Congress. But the majority of these ideas come from Indian propaganda. They make me out to be the biggest and most evil terrorist. These people you talk about as evil – no court tried them. No evidence was ever put against them. There was no investigation – nobody was ever tried in the courts in Pakistan. I was tried here six times – each time they decided I was not a terrorist. The last court never tried to put evidence against me.’ - Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, 2010

If the U.S. can announce a reward of $10 million for the [capture] of Hafiz Saeed, I can announce a bounty of £10 million [for the capture of] President Obama and his predecessor, George Bush.’ - Lord Nazir Ahmed, 2012

‘Lord Ahmed is reported to have made the call after the US offered a £10m bounty for the conviction of the founder of a Pakistani-based militant group.’ - BBC News, Today

Hafiz Muhammad Saeed (Urdu: حافظ محمد سعید; born 1950) is the amir of Jama’at-ud-Da’wah,^[1] a charity organization that is widely considered to be a cover organization for Lashkar-e-Taiba (Wikipedia)

‘This is one of the biggest falsehoods – that I was said to be the founder. This is the result of Indian propaganda. The Lahore High Court thoroughly investigated this accusation and they found it was not true.’ -  - Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, 2010

‘He said that there is no case against him, adding that Pakistani courts already have acquitted him from all cases… Hafiz Saeed said that he has no relation with the Lashkar-e-Tayyaba.’ - Sana News, South Asian News Agency, April 14, 2012

‘Pakistan says it still needs evidence before it can act against Saeed.’ - NDTV, April 4, 2012

‘Hafiz Saeed, the leader of a Pakistan-based group blamed for the 2008 attacks on Mumbai, has demanded proof after the US announced a $10m bounty on his head. In an exclusive interview with Al Jazeera, Saeed said the US move was prompted by the fact that he had been organising rallies against the re-opening of supply lines through Pakistan to NATO forces in Afghanistan. “We are not hiding in caves for bounties to be set on finding us,” Saeed said. “I think the US is frustrated because we are taking out countrywide protests against the resumption of NATO supplies and drone strikes.’ - Al Jazeera, April 3, 2012

‘In January 2009 the JuD spokesperson, Abdullah Muntazir, stressed that [Jama’at-ud-Da’wah] did not have global jihadist aspirations and would welcome a peaceful resolution of the Kashmir issue. He also publicly disowned LeT (Lashkar-e-Taiba) commanders Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and Zarrar Shah, who have both been accused of being the masterminds behind the November 2008 Mumbai attacks.’ - Wikipedia

Update:

“I never said those words. I did not offer a bounty. I said that there have been war crimes committed in Iraq and Afghanistan and those people who have got strong allegations against them – George W Bush and Tony Blair have been involved in illegal wars and should be brought to justice. I do not think there’s anything wrong with that.” (Lord Nazir Ahmed)

25 July 1938
20 Northmoor Road, Oxford

Dear Sirs,

Thank you for your letter. I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people. My great-great-grandfather came to England in the eighteenth century from Germany: the main part of my descent is therefore purely English, and I am an English subject — which should be sufficient. I have been accustomed, nonetheless, to regard my German name with pride, and continued to do so throughout the period of the late regrettable war, in which I served in the English army. I cannot, however, forbear to comment that if impertinent and irrelevant inquiries of this sort are to become the rule in matters of literature, then the time is not far distant when a German name will no longer be a source of pride.

Your enquiry is doubtless made in order to comply with the laws of your own country, but that this should be held to apply to the subjects of another state would be improper, even if it had (as it has not) any bearing whatsoever on the merits of my work or its sustainability for publication, of which you appear to have satisfied yourselves without reference to my Abstammung.

I trust you will find this reply satisfactory, and

remain yours faithfully,

J. R. R. Tolkien

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