Why did the Holy Roman Empire have to fall?
What was the point of it even existing in the first place when it was not Holy, not Roman and not an Empire?
>>1104287
It fell because it was a bizarre Model Civilization that couldn't survive the development of Nationalism.
Horo is a best
>>1104296
>what is Germany
Why were most philosophers unmarried and childless?
transcend base pleasures
acquire knowledge
>>1104276
that's a pretty spooky
>>1104272
Because philosophy is gay.
Will someone explain Watergate to me, and why it was such a big deal?
>>1104268
When you have the medias on your side, you can make anything a big deal.
>>1104268
The President paid to cover up a break in at the Democratic Nat'l Comm Hqtrs at the Waterfate hotel in Wadhington DC.
>>1104268
>tfw Nixon was less crocked than every guy in office since Reagan
>these were Hitler's greatest """allies"""
Loving every laugh, why did he even bother with allying with Hirohito, what exactly would he gain?
>>1104091
He thought Japan could waste British and French resources in Asia and hoped they'd invade the USSR from the Pacific, which they never did.
Even the Ustase were of more use than the Italians
>>1104105
Killing serbs is always of use
First stage of his life as a Muslim
His name is Muhammad Ibn Muhammad Ibn Mansour. He was born in Sohag the Capital of the Province of Girga in Upper Egypt in the Year 1871. As it was the tradition that time, he went to study the Qur’an at a school annexed to a Mosque run by a good teacher, Sheikh Massoud El Azzazi. He studied and learned the Qur’an by heart in a few years. He showed intelligence and diligence. His father sent him over to a nearby town to study since it had an Islamic Center frequented by students from all over Upper Egypt. The center had a famous Sufi teacher: Sheikh Aly Badr El Alaam.
When he started his studies, his teacher was very impressed by his intelligence and dedication and coached him towards more discipline and knowledge.
Mansour spent 10 years devouring the books of learning. He mastered the Arabic Language, Prose, Poetry, Sufi principles, the Qur’an, Hadith, logic, the explanations of Muhammad's Contemporaries’ writings, philosophy, history, Sahih Muslim and Sahih Bukhari and a great number of Sufi books.
Second stage of his life as a Muslim
Mansour finished his education and went back to Sohag around the end of 1891 where he spent his days reading and exploring the Qur’an and Hadith and the Sufi principles and Allah's revelations.
He was a man of few words and spent the evenings contemplating and praying following the ways of the great Sufis.
He then spent time writing poetry and prose to express his devotion to Islam and the Prophet, and gave his opinion on religious issues. That was the time he became popular and changed his life from an introvert to an extrovert and had a lot of friends and acquaintances. He was asked several times to lead the religious prayer (Imam) in the main Sohag Mosque.
He also started an Islamic School with some of his friends. The school was filled with students who came to seek his wisdom and knowledge since its inception.
Exploring Christianity
In 1893 he decided to explore Christianity. He was driven by a desire to strengthen his faith and zeal in Islam and his desire to defend it.
He studied some of the old manuscripts: "Finding the truth" which was written by El Hindi to contest and debate Christianity and Christians.
He asked his spiritual leader Sheikh Ali Bader if he could invite Christians to debate with him on Christianity and Islam. The Sheikh was not in favor of the idea, replying that we are bound by our book which respects the Christians and Jews' beliefs. Mansour explained to his leader that Allah's will is to debate those who are not Muslims. Bringing them to Islam is the duty of every Muslim.
His leader accepted the argument and told Mansour that he was afraid that Mansour would be spending his time debating with Christians and not enough time studying Islam and purifying himself.
This was not accepted by Mansour. It looks like the Holy Spirit touched his heart towards truth and deliverance.
Mansour talked to a Christian by the name of Michael whom he was acquainted with. Michael told him I can't debate or discuss these issues since I am not religious. He suggested talking to a Christian Orthodox priest. The priest debated with him but could not convince him. He suggested a blind religious man who could help him more. The man told him that he should go to the Anglican Church during the service and accompanied him there. Mansour was amazed at the peace and dedication and attention of the congregation. He was impressed by the depth and the spirituality of the prayers, hymns and the reading and study of the Bible. Mansour, like most Muslims thought that Christians were spending their time praying to and idolizing icons and statues of Jesus and the Apostles which he believed is paganism
After the service, a date and time for a meeting was agreed upon. They met and the discussion proceeded to subjects like the oneness of God and the Trinity.
He spent the time in futile arguments with no end in sight. After the discussion he felt the superiority of Islam over Christianity. The Christian priest told him that we all seek God and suggested that in his prayer to seek the truth. Sheikh Mansour felt offended and answered: "Do you think I doubt my faith? I pray five times a day to Allah because I seek him and believe in him and his Islam".
When he went home the Holy Spirit moved him and he decided to give the advice of the priest a try. He spent a great deal of anguish and turmoil trying to explore the truth and was never sure if he lost his faith or is getting closer to the truth. He had to justify it to himself that all the religions are equal and it is up to man to choose since they all lead to the truth. He started frequenting the Anglican Church more often and was listening one day to a preacher, who came from Alexandria to Sohag. He was very moved by the Bible verses:
God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord. 1 Corinthians 1:9
Whoso offers praise glorifies me: and to him that orders his conversation aright will I show the salvation of God. Psalms 50:23
What's the difference?
>>1104023
None.
>>1104023
Gays, divorce, nationalism and the 4th crusade.
One has been at the helm of Western civilization since the fall of Rome; the other is backwater slav wizards and bogans with no historical merit, relatively speaking.
I can't decide if this is a question for /his/ or for /lit/, or if it doesn't belong in either.
How much blame does the Pharaoh of the Exodus deserves for being a hard-ass about letting the Israelites leave Egypt, when it was God, apparently, that 'hardened his heart' to the idea in the first place?
Furthermore, how much blame do the characters of the Aeneid deserve for their actions, when the gods (Juno/Venus) keep on meddling with their heads all the time? e.g. Dido is actuated by Venus' love potion; the war in Latium is triggered by Juno and Allecto.
I can't think for myself so I need others' opinions.
>>1104020
none, Yahweh hardened his heart to show off
>>1104020
>Pharaoh
Pharaoh was fucking retarded, but in a way that is not unreasonably so. He had to maintain his standing as the morning and evening star, why should he let some smarmy kike from the desert tell him to release his impossibly large workforce due to some divine mandate. Was he not the incarnation of a god himself? Why was Yahweh any more powerful than the hundreds of gods that the Pharaoh or Egyptians were aware of? To bow before Moses would be an indication of weak power and weak gods, you don't want the state being all kinds of messed up after hundreds of years of the same political caste system.
However, when you have nation-destroying plagues that will fuck your shit up, then it's probably wise to maybe relent a bit, as opposed to making your people suffer at the hands of a pissed of desert wargod.
>The Aeneid
Dido is inherently portrayed as a tragic figure, despite Rome's beef with Carthage. Dido was merely a stepping stone and a pawn for the rise of Rome, and Virgil is very sympathetic in her portrayal. Roman virtue was all about how you basically have to simply suck it up and do things that are pretty shitty overall, so showing how the Gods are making Aeneas be a dick to people is supposed to inspire virtues that are good for ruling/governing. However, Aeneas could have gone about deceiving Dido in a less assholish way admittedly.
>>1104038
I always presumed this phrase is misunderstood. I think it implies God's actions hardened the Pharaoh's heart indirectly, otherwise it makes no sense for him to keep testing the gyppos if he's halting it in the first place.
>>1104020
https://youtu.be/-tVTEyuCKn4
Can we have an actual, meme-free discussion of spooks?
No, spooks are not a spook.
Spooks are just the Buddhist concept of anatta with the Self immunized from the same critique because "Muh feelings"
Its literally just saying "In addition to phenomena, which is real and exists, human beings create a vast web of abstractions and social conventions that are purely imaginary and exist only due to group consensus" or "social constructs" in faggot jargon.
Stirner hit upon this idea, but immunized the self as a creative nothing instead of a collection of aggregates because again, "Muh feelings".
>>1104018
this thread is a spook
Spooks aren't the interesting part, though. The interesting part is the philosophy behind them.
Was greater Syria ever a recognized concept historically or academically?
Like greater Iran was?
>>1103999
Nice trips
Yes, it was a concept in Crusader and later Ottoman times, though it didn't have political independence
The French took the idea when they gained colonial control of the reason
>>1104009
And what made "Syria" Syria?
>>1104046
Sykes Picott.
A lot of countries in the Middle East (even in Africa despite not having to do anything at all with the Picott treaty) have the same borders as colonial divisions.
Many of these borders are delimited by merely geographical features. A lot of rivers, mountains, etc, are borders in the Middle East. If not, imaginary lines created to simply separate a chunk of land from the other.
When these colonies gained their independences they kept their original colonial borders instead of regrouping different peoples under the same flag.
The result is what you see today. In Iraq for example, Kurds Suniis and Shiites are under the same flag because Iraq's borders are esentially the same of colonial Iraq (except for Kuwait is rightful Iraqi clay).
What is the cause of this autism?
>>1103923
Feudal boundaries in a modern world. There are a couple micro enclaves in western Europe. Most the rest of the world lacked that regions stability.
>>1103923
Feudal banter.
>>1103923
>enclaves within enclaves
Literally terminal autism
ITT: Post times we laughed at god
>dedicate chastity to christ in exchange for musical genius
>some hedonistic newfag shows up that could fuck every half decent looking female and also makes music that makes mine look like utter shit
>he defiles my name at a masquerade ball
>set him on a path of self destruction
>he dies
Grazie Senore
Salieri bless. The king of mediocrity.
That film is a legit 10/10. The extended cut is flawless.
>>1103830
>/his/ - Television & Film
Can someone make an essential political philosophy reading list?
>>1103750
start with the greeks
The opium of the intellectuals
The open society and its enemies
>>1103750
The Epic of Gilgamesh, and continue from there until Atlas Shrugged
Why Marxist-Leninist leaders in Eastern Europe hated?
Was it because they were socialist or was it because they were representatives of the oppressive Soviet empire?
the latter
I mean there was probably division between left and right in those countries but the whole "being Russia's bitch" thing sort of soured the whole marxist thing for everyone.
>>1103721
no homo bruv
>>1105847
Homosexuality is a decadent bourgeois disease, Soviet men will International-kiss out of brotherly love and camaraderie.
Who's the earliest serial killer we know of?
Let's define a serial killer as someone who kills multiple people for self gratification. So no assassins or bandits
pic unrelated
>>1103604
Well, I'll start this off with an obvious choice. Jack the Ripper.
Let's see who can beat it.
>>1104037
Elizabeth Bathory ;)
>>1104043
Gilles de Rais -__-
Why did the Russians replace a neglecting father (The czar) with an abusive one (Stalin)? Because of the West? But again, communism is a Western ideology.
And why is this pattern repeating itself? They either go full dictatorship or full chaos with nothing in between. They either embrace the West and even glorify it or hate it and isolate themselves. They either submissively bear the yoke of the government with extreme humility and only when they are literally starving they rebel with extreme fury and violence.
What are the causes of this? Is it paternalism? Is something in the Russian DNA making them more gullible and vulnerable to exploitation? The effects of thousand years of autocracy? Or is it the opposite: Extreme rebelliousness which can only be put down with force.
As long as these questions aren't answered there won't be peace. A cold war or a cold peace at best.
The British and Germans funded a revolution to get their old enemy, the Russian Monarchy, out of the picture. See: The Great Game. Imagine what Britain could do without Russia fucking around.
Then Hitler came along and the US needed to check German expansion so they propped up the Soviet Union. Dumb Russians keep Germany occupied on the East (The work to feed, supply, arm, and equip the Soviet Union profited US industries anyways), while America and Friends whack at them from the west.
After WWII, the Soviet Union had received enough aid and gobbled up enough territory that it could more or less stand on it's own two feet, and by then it was too late for anyone in Europe to stop them.
Russians had very little to do with it. Foreign funding and geopolitics did.
>>1103560
Wall Street funded the Bolsheviks.
>>1103580
They lost everything. In the 50s and 60s socialism was extremely popular, Russia had nukes and a ton of allies including China. If they played their cards right, they could be a prosperous superpower.
De-stalinization was one mistake. Not providing consumer goods another. It's ridiculous and hypocritical. "Stalin was a dick for being so harsh, but you still can't have toilet paper." It doensn't make any sense.
