ozzi
Hey, why are you beating upon the Calvinists?
Because they have a philosophy that tastes of ashes?
Just my opinion of course, but in additon to knowing something about Calvanism I live in a country where the chief cultural influence before this century was (in the North of the country) Calvanism. Uptight, puritanical, conformist, penny-pinching yet simultaneously ostentatious... self-rightous... ick, ick and yay, thrice, ick.
At least Catholics know how to party.
You know how they start a Dutch birthday party? With coffee. That's what you give people at 3am when you want them to bog off home! Not what you give people to greet them! And then do you know what they do at the birthday party? They sit round in a circle and have polite conversation (polite as in not very interesting; the conversational equivalent of day-time TV). About an hour and a half or two hours later (one hour if your host is feeling racey) you might get offered a beer of some wine. But you still stay sat in a circle having polite conversation. It's like solitary confinement without the benfit of being alone.
Believe me, I work in an International Call Centre, and every foreigner working here will grimace as if remembering something unpleasent and painful if you mention Dutch birthday parties.
Of course, one good thing about Calvanism is that it is so patently absurd Holland is now one of the most secular countries in the World as essentailly if Calvanists are right, God is a bastard and we are fucked anyway (if we were fucked in the first place) so one may as well have a good time and concentrate on making money (the new religion of many countries, not just Holland, but one that they seem to take especial interest in - you'll perhaps not of heard that copper wire was invented by a Dutchman and a Scotsman fighting over a penny).
Yeah, so Calvanism is icky, and as Derek point's out, van Tillians's are worse.
As you say Narkissos, philosophy of that ilk is a prime example of regligious 'rationalism'. If I could have a dollar for the number of times I have been sneered at by ass-wipe commando Calvanists doing a self-rightous self-suck on this board... they normally claim to be masters of logic and reason, which is pretty fucking stupid for anyone with major presuppositions in their belief structure... "I am right because I say I am right" was never much of an argument to begin with... but people get pulled in by the internal logic and obviously by the elitism of it all.
