Mankind shall not be free until . . .

If this is the case, the outlook for freedom is grim.

New priests and new kings would line up to replace the old before the bodies were cold. And at the first sign of trouble, or perhaps even before trouble arose, the dissatisfied, the fearful, and the insecure, in short most of us, would welcome them.

Well, yo shore flopped with that one, neo.

Oh, come now. Diderot probably didn't mean that literally (entrails are too slippery, we need rope to do the job properly). I would imagine he means that as we approach true freedom (which we will never quite reach), we will also approach a truly humanistic and anarchistic social structure. What Marx referred to as the end of history.

So, 'freedom' will be realized when we can dismember those with whom we disagree, eh?

Don't think so.

I'm not sure that is what Diderot meant. He did not make this statement in the form of an essay; the powers of his time forced him to put the statement in the mouth of a character in one of his plays.

It represents a common thread of thought, nevertheless: that those in political or religious power use it to oppress.

Of course, political positions and religious positions are two entirely different things.

Submission to any religious authority figure is strictly voluntary , so any 'power' that he has is freely given by those he has persuaded that his view is correct. Any freedom lost therefore is freedom freely given up.

On the other hand, political authority figures rule primarily by the power of the purse. Political parties that advocate higher and higher levels of taxation and spending do so to gain control over people's lives.

Short of moving to another jurisdiction (city, state or country) where such power hungry predators do not exist (where would that be?), the best solution is to work for a limited government on all levels, with correspondingly low levels of taxation and control.

Unfortunately , many people voluntarily cede their freedom to political figures who pay lip service to 'freedom', but who in practice engage in the politics of control via higher spending and taxation.

Cunningly , these Demogogues advocate primarily 'taxes on the rich', conveniently avoiding the fact that a tax upon one is a tax upon all.

(Are you sure you didn't want to put this in the Politics forum, Neo?)

The relationship between religion and patriotism is much closer than many realize.

That's a rather vague, general statement.

My vague, general response:

Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't.

without a 100% benevolent dictator a perfect society cannot be obtained. This is the idea behind religon and it always ends up twisted and perverted to enrich it's leaders.

That is, in fact how the system works.

Henry VIII dies, and Edward VI is proclaimed in the same breath:

The King is dead, Long Live the King ! ! !

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The question is a valid one, but the implications are complex. Henry VIII was brutal, and effective. His reign coincided, and not accidentally, with a significant increase in the overall prosperity of England. However, the reasons for that are less obvious than just saying that Henry VIII was good at his job. He made England Protestant, by inching a short distance (doctrinally) away from the Pope and the Roman Church. In the process, there was a good deal of gleeful slaughter, and he had the wit to hand out church property to people who therefore had a stake in the perpetuation of the dynasty and the newly established church. His father, Henry VII, had stabilized the nation after more than 30 years of ruinous war known as the Wars of the Roses. In fact, the wars were rather small scale by modern standards, and did less damage to the kingdom generally than to the powerful lords and their families in particular. More than half of the families of the Peerage were extinguished in the direct male line. This meant a shifting and division of property which eventually (and rather quickly) worked to the advantage of the "middling sort of man," those whom we would describe as the middle class. It also meant an increase in the power of the Parliament in general, and the House of Commons in particular--Henry VII needed the Parliament to prop up his legitimacy.

When Henry VIII created the Church of England, slaughtered many a Catholic Bishop, priest and friar, the resultant re-distribution of large amounts of property had the effect of stimulating the economy to the advantage of the middle class. But this was also accomplished to a large extent to the disadvantage of the lowest classes of society--the Parliament began the long process of enclosure (common lands which all the peasants had been able to sue to graze a cow or some goats, or to plant a kitchen garden, were "enclosed"--the Parliament would issue a bill to allow an individual to enclose common land to his own advantage). Furthermore, there were more than 200 capital offenses by the end of Henry's reign. Some were rather obviously arbitrary cruelty, such as the execution out of hand of "dangerous" sectaries, like the Baptists. Others were cruel in an economic way. Theft of goods to a value greater than 12 pennies was a capital offense.

When Henry VIII died and was succeeded by his son Edward VI, that latter monarch was hailed for his compassion and justice. He remitted many condemnations and eliminated some of the statutes which made death the penalty for petty crimes, or for simply holding the wrong religious beliefs. But the great flaw of monarchy is that it does not consider the "fitness" of the successor, only the blood lines. Edward was only nine when he became King, and he was dead by age sixteen. The "compassion and justice" which he exercised were only cosmetic, and England was ruled by a regency council, with his mother, Jane Seymour, eventually taking real power by vicious and successful infighting. Personally, i never mourn to greatly the blood shed by the power hungry when they lose their bids for power.

Edward was succeeded by his sister Mary, who briefly tried to make England Catholic again, which involved more bloodshed, and the seizure of lands from those who had received it from Henry on the dissolution of the church properties. Fortunately for England, she died quickly, as well (less than five years on the throne), and most of the grants of Henry VIII were restored when Elizabeth took the throne. But Elizabeth never married, which meant the succession was constantly in doubt--this resulted eventually in the judicial murder of Mary, Queen of Scots, and the eventual succession of her son, James.

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So why would monarchy be popular? Stability. For as bad as a king or queen may be, everyone knows who is in charge, and most of the infighting which results from the accession of a weak or sickly monarch impinges of the "overmighty lords" and others of the powerful. As the example of Edward VI demonstrates, it is possible to have a vicious power struggle going on behind the throne, without the general prosperity of the kingdom being endangered.

So monarchy means, usually, stability, and people are "free" to pursue their lawful ends without concerning themselves with governance. The great flaw of monarchy is that (like a box of chocolates), you never know what you're going to get. Henry VIII was sufficiently brutal that he was not greatly mourned at his death, and Jane Seymour and the overmighty lords got right down to the business of the power struggle. But Henry VIII was not even seen to inevitable--he had an older brother, Arthur, who was to have succeeded Henry VII. But Arthur died in 1502, when his brother was just 11 years old. That Henry was married to his brother's widow, and succeeded their father on the throne when he was just 16, and was an unknown quantity.

The word tyrant, for which the origin is uncertain, did not originally have negative connotations. Originally, tyrants were rulers who overthrew the "legitimate" authority of autocracies or plutocracies, and these men were not necessarily unpopular, because the rise of tyrants coincided with the rise of populist movements in Greece. Cypselus of Corinth, who is accounted the first tyrant, was said to be so popular among the common people that he could walk about the city without a body guard. Why would tyrants be popular? Because they represented certainty and stability--tyrants were only capable of ruling for very long if they were effective, and relatively free of corruption. It was only after the rise of democracy (alleged democracy--in ancient Athens, less than 10% of the adult male population were "free citizens" entitled to vote) that tyrants got a bad reputation.

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Whether in the case of religion, or monarchy, or tyranny, the attraction is the certainty. The priest tells you that he knows to a certainty that you will live forever at the foot of the throne of the Lord. To that extent, the priest has an advantage which monarchs and tyrants do not enjoy. But ultimately, the answer to Neo's question can only be answered by determining what it means to be "free."

Diderot's assertion is one I find interesting. Thanks, Set, for pointing out the need for a definition of free.