Anshnork

Most people now acknowledge that an Armenian Genocide did occur. I too believe that it has. However, I cannot understand why the Armienian Government is wasting SO much time and energy trying to get it "recognized." The Turks have made it very clear that they refuse to accept it, and I don't think any amount of budging will get them to, RIGHT NOW. So considering that there are MUCH more pressing issues in Armenia today, why do we continue to pursue "recognition." Why is it so important to most Armenians today?

Although I don't necessarily believe in the Bible, I honestly don't think it should be altered in this way. If it is indeed "the word of God," who are we to change it to make it politically correct?

Arthur jan- I have one more question for you. It's kind of different than what we've been talking about. Throughout your posts you have said that women and men are generally equal in intellectual capacity. Keeping this in mind, do you beleive that women should be educated? If you believe that they should, why? Since your ideal woman would be in the home for the rest of her life, she'll never use her school education, so why should she get that bachelor's degree?

Arthur- Throughout your posts, you have argued that in order for a family to function well, there needs to be a someone that makes all the final decisions (to prevent arguements and such). You have also argued that the male should be this decision-maker. When asked why, you have answered that a man would not be a "man" if he sat back and let a woman run things. However, you contradicted yourself in your last post: quote:Originally posted by ARTURian: So, it isnt about bulshit man being more supperiour or higher or better... or because he wants to prove that "he is the man"... but rather about protection, care and love towards his wife. That's all. Artur So, if proving one's "manhood" is not the reason for having the man as the final decision-maker, what is? Is it just because throughout Armenian history, the man has always been at the head of the family, and you want to continue tradition? If this is the case, do you believe that this ancient idea, which evolved in a completely different time and society, STILL applies today?

Arthur- I understand that you've had a bad experience living in a western family. However, how can you judge ALL of Europe and the United States based on the problems of ONE messed up family. It is obvious that those problems that you described occur in families (in both western and non-western, I might add), however, there are millions of other families that function much more efficiently. If the children disrespect their parents, it is not because they happen to be raised in a Western society, but because their parents did not do a great job raising them. My point is that you cannot use such a small sample to make such generalizations about western society as a whole. For when you do this, you ignore the enormous number of families that simply do not fit into your assumptions.

I agree that most of things written in this ariticle are completely true, however rather than hating Glendale Armenians for not assimilating into American culture and not "fitting in," maybe we should acknowledge them for being able to keep their own culture and identity in a society where immigrant are forced to lose their ways and "become white." If being accepted by the white community requires us to lose our identity, lose what makes us armenian, should we strive to do that? I understand that we need to become SOMEWHAT americanized in order to function in this society, as I believe Glendale Armenians have, but how far should they go? After all, they are ARMENIANS and will thus never COMPLETELY be accepted into the white community.

Arthur- You didn't answer my question. I know that you believe that men should be in charge, but I'm asking you if a family with a woman as the head could function successfully. Even if you believe it would be WRONG, do you believe it could even work? If not, why wouldn't it work. Is a woman INHERENTLY unable to be in charge of a family?

Arthur- Since I want you to answer my question so much, I will attempt to answer yours. I don't know much about the Artsax conflict specifically, but I assume it's like other wars and battles. With this in mind, I'm interpreting your question as "Why don't we enlist women into the Armenian Army?" I can think of several reasons. First of all, the Armenian army has traditionally been all-male (I believe), and Armenians today may simply be carrying on this tradition. Secondly, it is a scientific fact that the male sex is stronger than the female. It is obvious that the stonger sex would be sent into the situations where strength is of the utmost importance (battles, for example). Furthermore, although I am not positive that this is fact, some have argued that men are more physically aggressive than women. If this is the case, then it is again obvious that men would be sent to the battlefield where physical aggressiveness is necessary. Thirdly, in the past, it was extremely important to ensure that a group of people would be able to reproduce as much as possible in order to survive and continue throughout the generations. At this time, it was more important to have women than men, since it took many women to produce many offsprings and only a few men could succeed in impregrating all of them. Thus, a tribe would choose to risk losing men over losing women, and thus it was the men who were sent to the wars. I beleive this practice could simply have been continued to today. There are even more reasons I can think of, but I just don't have the time to list them all. If you care, ask me to explain them to you later. Your turn.

Arthur- If men are not SUPERIOR in any way, then what makes them the head of their family? Let's just say that a family NEEDS some sort of heirarchy in order to function successfully. Would a family with the WOMAN in the leadership position be ineffective and fail? There would still be a heirarchy, and the family would function just as you believe a good family should function, except that the woman is the head. Do you believe this is ok? If not, then why? If men are not inherently SUPERIOR in some way, then it should not matter which sex is the head of the family as long there is a heriarchy, right?

Arthur, I have a question for you. In a society where women have just as much education as men, what would give men the power over their wives? Through education, women (on the whole) will have just as much knowledge, common sense, logic, and ability as men. Why then should men have the final work on every issue? If it is not for their education, what other quality places men at a superior position? I understand that in societies like that in Armenia, women are not given nearly the same amount or level of education as men, and thus men are considered "intellectually superior." However, this hardly applies in western societies. Is it your belief that there is some INHERENT quality in men that makes them superior even despite their wives' equal or even better intellectual capacity?

I was always kind of confused about this: On January 6th do we celebrate BOTH the birth AND the baptism of Christ? Do we claim that Jesus was baptized on his birthday 30 years later?

quote:Originally posted by MJ: Dear Anshnork, As much as I understand your desire to live up to your self-described standards indicated by your nickname, I would recommend you to do few things: 1. Go back to a grade school to improve your reading abilities; 2. Work diligently on your thinking abilities - it can be improved (in principal); 3. See an ethicist capable of helping you to become more "shnorkov." As I come up with more recommendations, I would be gracious enough to share them with you. ??????? 1. What is wrong with my reading abilities? Do you say that because my previous post is seemingly unrelated to the topic being discussed? Considering that the link to the previous thread doesn't work, and that there didn't seem to be much of a discussion going on anyway, I don't think it's a crime to lead the discussion in a new direction. 2. Considering that your thinking abilities are FAR more superior to mine, my inferior mind cannot understand why you, in essence, call me stupid. 3. Somebody needs to stir things up once in a while. I was TRYING to take a DEAD topic and revive it so that some interesting conversation takes place. Sorry if I wasn't shnorkeen enough for your liking. But hey, I know I'm far from perfect, and I appreciate your "recommendations", but next time, why don't you tell me WHY you come to these brilliant conclusions, ok?

If you do not believe in saving the environment, then you should see a psychologist.... For you are suicidal.

quote:Originally posted by aurguplu: god is one and only, has no beginning, no end, no gender, no family, is not begotten, shall not beget, is everywhere at the same time (therefore does not have a physical shape, because the very concept of a shape means that the object in question occupies some parts of space and not others), is basically free from all qualities of its creation, especially humans (if you actually read the quran, you see that he is not free from anger, wrath, revenge, as well as love, compassion, etc, which are all human qualites). How can one actually trust that this is true? It is all written in the quran, but who was the author, REALLY? Where did he obtain this information? Hundreds of cultures have existed on this earth, and most, if not all, of them have developed some sort of relgion or spirituality. It is quite obvious to us today that some these beliefs were completely WRONG. And even though each system of belief would claim their knowledge came from a higher source, we can reason that somebody made up the myths. Can it not be true that our monotheistic cultures of today have been created in a similar way? Not from divine revelation, but from imaginative visions of important people?

quote:Originally posted by gamavor: If everything is set up and predestined before hand, what is the purpose of life? There are different paths and you can choose which way to go. You can not create a new path, but you can choose which way to go. If you have the power to choose, then God's power is limited. But that can not possibly happen, the Christian God is all powerful, right? How is it possible for the Bible to allow free will and maintain its assertions that God is omnipresent, omnipotent, and all knowing? And what is the purpose of life?? Why would God choose to place you on this earth? It cannot be to TEST your faith, since HE, in his infinite knowledge, would already know the outcome.

quote:Originally posted by gamavor: I still believe that God's intend was to give humans everything at no price (free will and the right to choose included), and after some time ask them for the check, according to everyone's expenses. If God really is omnipresent, omnipotent, and all knowing, how is it possible that mankind has free will? If man had free will, that would mean that God's power would be limited in some way. And if God is all knowing, doesn't He already know how each person will live his life, and have set up an eternal destiny for him? If one's actions are already planned out and his destiny determined, how can one have free will? Additionally, it is a fact that Jesus had an older brother. With such a vital element as the virginity as Mary being proven false, how can we continue to trust in the validity of the Bible?

quote:Originally posted by Thorny Rose: And of course you probably also know that Muslims claim that "Son of God" was meant to be used as "prophet" anyway and the Christians misunderstood Jesus or something. In fact, the phrase "Son of God" was used readily in the time of Jesus. It was often used by Jews to address other Jewish males, since every Jewish man was considered to be a son of God. It did not apply to ONE person exclusively. Additionally, it was also used as a way of showing respect. Thus, wouldn't Jesus' followers naturally call him "Son of God" to show their love and respect for their leader, and not to assert that he was THE SON OF GOD? And Jesus himself never actually claimed he was the son of God. So, could the Christian belief that Jesus IS the SON, actually be based on a complete misunderstanding of an early Jewish tradition? IS JESUS GOD?

Why should being an Armenian restrict us and take away our freedom? If someone marries, it should be out of love, not some imaginary honor code. And since when are we not allowed to have freedom of religion because we have "ian" attached to our last names? One should worship in church because they believe in Jesus, not because not doing so would be "the ultimate betrayal to one's ancestors." Being Armenian is not about following rules.

I love and appreciate the effort that is being placed into this program, and as an artist I may try to contribute a poster. However, one MAJOR question has to be addressed. Who will display these posters? Yes, they are beautiful and yes, they carry a good message, but with such strong political implications, what major entity will care to display them? Personally, I can't envision any "LA Times" featuring them, or the posters being placed on a streetcorner in England. Who would risk upsetting an entire peoples (the Turks)? Maybe a teacher or two in various tiny Armenian schools will tack them onto the wall, but isn't that just preaching to the choir? Plus, you don't think that the turkish peoples will be FURTHUR angered by such a "feel sorry for us" campaign, and will be EVEN more reluctant to acknowledge the genocide? With so many other problems facing the Armenian people today, isn't it about time we focused on those and move on?

This was SUCH a fascinating article to read and I thank you SO much for posting it. Is it not true that most churches today accept Arminian doctrine? It seems to me that churches would not spend so much time "spreading the word of Christ" if it was already chosen who would achieve salvation and who would be eternally damned. And why would repentance and complete faith be so important if the elect can never lose their saving grace? But then again, if it was true that mankind had free will, would that not take away from the the power of the ALL POWERFUL, ALL KNOWING GOD.

Hey guys, I have a question about something I heard on the show, and I hope some of you Armenian-history buffs can help me out. It's about the "Grikor, lucavoreech" story. I've always been told that the King became very sick and needed Grikor's help. Once I was told that the king became blind. But in the show, they explained that he had been turned into a boar. Are these all accepted variations of the story, or is one right and the others wrong?

I was just wondering which of our fellow forum-ers believe or advocate the philosophy of Karl Marx.

I believe our misunderstandings about this matter stem from the somewhat different definitions we each have of "philosophy". Correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel that your definition is something along the lines of " a logical and rational pursuit of, and analysis of the TRUTH", and with this is mind, it is obvious that the specific beliefs of Zen do not fit into this category. However, I (and much of the outside world) define Philosophy in a completely different way. Believe me, I am well aware of the methods that Zen claims will divulge the TRUTH, but those methods have NOTHING to do with whether Zen is a philosophy or not. Zen is a system of beliefs that supposedly provide insight as to how to attain knowledge of the TRUTH. This SYSTEM OF BELIEFS is a philosophy. It does not matter what the particular beliefs or methods are. The fact that Zen provides an explanation to what the TRUTH is and how to attain it makes it a Philosophy. The use of logic and reason are NOT what create a philosophy. I would also like to add that not all philosophies involve rational analysis and logic to explain and then achieve the TRUTH.

What is a philosophy? As a student of philosophy I feel confident in my ability to provide an somewhat accurate answer to this question. In my experience, philosophy has been refered to as the search for an understanding of reality- the pursuit of knowledge of the TRUTH, or wisdom- and how to behave in order to attain that truth, or how to live effectively given the nature of reality. Zen not only describes the nature of truth, but also throughly explains how to achieve it, thus falling perfectly into the explanation of philosophy I gave earlier. Because you (vahan) and others who have faith in Zen choose to believe that it is not a philosophy, the nature of what Zen is not changed, and it continues to be a philosophy to the rest of the world. Why else then, would we call the cluster of Zen, Taoism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Confucianism, EASTERN PHILOSOPHY? Also, vahan, what TRUTH have you attained from Zen? Not only have I extensively studied Taoism, and to a lesser extent Zen, I have even tried to practice. Although I think each is a beautiful philosophy and a nice way to live, I am not convinced in any way that that is TRUTH. I am just curious as to what draws you to this belief, and what makes you so confident that it's "correct".

As a newcomer to this whole board thing, I found it very refreshing to see ARMENIANS speak of RELIGION. It seems to me like it's a CRIME for an Armenian to even THINK about questioning,(or even discussing),their Christian beliefs. Is it possible that I am not the ONLY open-minded Armenian? What does this general Armenian community think about atheists? Or Marxism? And to Vahan, whose posting I found very amusing, has it not occured to you that Zen IS a philosophy (or a disease for all of mankind, as you so put it)?