Hence in Europe we talk about the Benelux-countries, the Visegrad-countries, the Baltic States, the Nordic countries and so on. — ssu

I've never heard of the first two, let me look them up at Google in just one second...

The Benelux Member States of the European Union (EU) are: Belgium (BE), the Netherlands (NL) and Luxembourg (LU). — Google

I see... and how about the other one?

The Visegrad countries are the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia. They are also known as the Visegrad Four or the V4. — Google

Hmmm...

Trading blocs and political blocs can be very useful when they function. — ssu

Ah, so you believe in blocs, is that it? Like the BRICS, for example. That sort of political organization is what you believe in? That's what's best for the Nordic countries?

For Finland it was actually extremely crucial that Sweden joined NATO at the same time (even if thanks to Turkey it was a long process for the country). — ssu

Hmmm...

And it's something that many times is totally lacking from the historical narratives of "Great Power competition" where the strong defeat and conquer the weak and where Great Empires emerge and collapse. The focus is on conflict, not peace and stability. The last war between the Nordic / Skandinavian countries was fought between Norway and Sweden, which is also the last war that Sweden has fought, happened in 1814 between Sweden and Norway. Hence that is 211 years of peace between the countries, which earlier had many wars starting from the Middle Ages with basically the bellicose Sweden being in constant war all the time. — ssu

Right, because the Suomi language is not a Germanic language. The Suomi people were not Vikings. Right? The Finns and Estonians have more in common, from a linguistic standpoint?

So, on the topic of music, what do you like? What is the best music band from Suomi?

the catholicity of reason — Count Timothy von Icarus

Kierkegaard didn't believe in the catholicity of reason, he was a protestant from Denmark. He was essentially a Christian Viking, from a theological POV. That's why he emphasizes irrationality (i.e., "berserk") and the knight of faith (i.e., "berserk-er"). I guess Kierkegaard's question here would be, what theological evidence is there for the claim that human reason has catholicity? For what you call "catholicity of reason" could very well just be the "secularity of reason", or perhaps even "the secular universality of human reason".

Not sure if you see my point here. If not, I can try to make it clearer. If not, then I would explain it with the following thesis: Kierkegaard, as an individual, transcended Protestantism, and he became an existential Christian instead. A true "gentleman of faith", in his own terms. He transcended the "knight of faith" and he became a "gentleman of faith" instead. That's why he tried to re-establish contact with Regina Olsen, but it was too late.

abrogating the catholicity of reason (which is the first step on the road to misology) — Count Timothy von Icarus

For him, you mean? Or for anyone in general? If it's the latter, then I agree with Kierkegaard on this point: how do we even know that human reason has catholicity? It could just be secular universality for all we know.

One of the things that cracks me up about Kierkegard is that he seems very much motivated by the same concerns as Hegel, his arch-rival. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Well, but my thesis (another one of them, anyways) is that Hegel was an existentialist, or at the very least a pre-existentialist, just as Kierkegaard was.

He might have benefited from St. Augustine and St. Anselm's "believe so that you may understand." — Count Timothy von Icarus

What do you think of Tertullian's (or whoever "really" said it): Credo quia absurdum, "I believe because it is absurd."?

If the answer to that last question has something to do with the catholicity of reason, then I'll just ask again the same question that I've been asking: perhaps what you call "catholicity" of reason is just the secular universality of human reason?

Do yo usee the difference? — Moliere

Of course. I've debated this topic before, though not with you : )

Your position on this topic, I believe (and I could be wrong) confuses history with storytelling. It's a sort of "history from a storytelling POV". Allow me to illustrate what I mean by that, by answering some specific points that you discuss, starting with the following:

"Shouldn't" because the phenomena isn't a scientific one, but historical. — Moliere

This, is the root of our disagreement, IMHO. Having identified that, let's proceed:

while we can draw up statistics and trends and correlations this won't be what decides how a history is told, — Moliere

History is not storytelling, I would say, if I had to say such a thing as a slogan.

at least we'll be missing out on a huge part of the history of all we do is look at measurables and ignore stories. — Moliere

Again, I'll just blurt out the slogan: history is not storytelling.

There's even a whole theory of writing history dedicated to exactly that -- it's the multiplicity of stories and causes and perspectives on an event which fills out an understanding of the event, rather than a unifying theory or the necessity for agreement or universality, though. I think both disciplines look at time and causation in different ways such that you can do a history of science or a science of history, but when you try to do a science of history you don't really get any unifying theory whereas if you do a history of science you get a multi-faceted narrative that doesn't give you a Method or Theory of Science, but gives you some ideas about how to go about doing science some of the time. — Moliere

Sure. But there are other theories of writing history. How are we to settle which one is preferable? I don't think that's a purely political matter. It's a scientific matter as well. There is such a thing (I believe) as writing history in a more scientific way.

Quantitation is acceptable, of course. Numbers of people, hectares of agriculture, year Franz Ferdinand is shot are part of history.

But that doesn't make it a science. (Shop keeping requires mathematics, but running a shop is not doing science) — Moliere

I don't think that history is like shop keeping. It's more like physics. The difference between a shop keeper and a physicist (and by extension, a historian) is that the former is running a business while the later is doing basic and applied research. Historians are scientists because they do research, like the physicist does, not because he is running a business, like the shopkeeper is.

Because it's a political entity and so all statements about it will themselves be political statements — Moliere

It's an ontological entity before being a political entity. And ontology is more scientific than politics, is what I would say. Consequently, not all statements about it will be political statements. Some will, but others will be non-political (i.e., they will be aesthetic statements, meta-scientific statements, ethical statements, etc.)

Unlike biology economics will have a class-character. — Moliere

Not necessarily, because class is not the only concept that is used in economics and in the social sciences more generally. Or, in Ontologese: class exists as much as sex, gender, and ethnicity does, among other sociological variables.

That's different, though -- the physicist can't quote Emily Dickenson as a record of physics, whereas the historian can. — Moliere

Can the historian quote Jorge Luis Borges in the same sense that he can quote Emily Dickinson? If so, then he has something in common with the physicists.

it's only because history is more permissive — Moliere

How do you know it's not the other way around? Maybe physics is more permissive than history. That's another way to look at it.

What's reproducible with the Big Bang are the results of the experiments which the scientists generated using such-and-such methods, rather than the Big Bang itself. Likewise I don't need to witness the entire evolution from RNA to homo sapiens re-occur to still have reproducible results.

However, such reproducibility is not the point of delving into the causes of World War 1. Everyone will acknowledge that there are many causes, and there will often be a handful of causes that all historians agree upon. What will differ is which causes get more emphasis and "what it all means" -- the marxist historian will emphasize material conditions and internal conflicts, the progressive historian will situate world war 1 as a terrible lesson we can grow from, etc. — Moliere

The Marxist would be leaving out a lot of important sociological variables in that case, and the progressive historian would be arriving at a somewhat simplistic conclusion when he tries to formulate "the moral of the story".

And even within a particular theory individual historians will disagree on the exact narrative. — Moliere

Do I need to just say my slogan in here as well? : )

I think you may have misread what I said. — Mapping the Medium

Don't take that personally, I misread what everyone says.

Can't? No. But this is the very point that I begin to question Marx on -- whether history even can be treated scientifically, or more to the point, whether it should be done. — Moliere

Why not? There's a lot of quantitative content in history, already. We have numbers for the centuries, for the years, even days and the minutes and seconds of each day. Not that you'll take all of those into account when you write or read about, I don't know, the French Revolution, but it's like, there are some numbers here already, about a ton of stuff. What was the price of bread in the months leading up to the French Revolution? How many people lived in France at that time? How many in Paris, specifically? How many guards were at the Bastille? Etc. And then you can study larger phenomena, like, the first World War. How many countries were involved in that conflict? When did it start? When did it end? How many combatants, on each side? What was the death toll? Etc. All of this is quantifiable. Why wouldn't you then look for statistics, trends, correlations, etc.?

I wonder if the economy is more a historical rather than a scientific entity. — Moliere

Probably both. Why not? It's "a human thing" that has numbers, isn't it?

Whereas science emphasizes reproducibility and explanatory power history emphasizes the moment and the narrative. — Moliere

But think of the physicists that study the Big Bang. It only happened once. And it's not reproducible. It's not like you're going reproduce the Big Bang in a lab. Plus, physicists can explain everything that happened immediately after the Big Bang, but as for the Big Bang itself, in the strict sense,there's only speculation.

I think that treating history like science is overly broad on the part of science. — Moliere

Or perhaps history already is a science, just not a very sophisticated one in comparison to physics.

And also, historians do reference poems and novels from time periods they're interested in. — Moliere

So do some physicists, when they quote Borges in one of their papers, for example.

With respect to human experience I think poetry is an important record. — Moliere

It is, but historians aren't doing poetry when they're working, just as mathematicians are not playing chess when they're working.

I just think it's always good to dialogue with folks who are intermediate and read about these kinds of topics. I — Mapping the Medium

I think it's unfair of you to assume that the people that don't agree with you are "intermediate" and that we have not read about "these kinds of topics".

I realize now that I'm not going to connect with them here — Mapping the Medium

This is also unfair, because you can perfectly connect with us here in many different ways.

I think you're being rude in your ways, that's all.

@Count Timothy von Icarus what's your opinion on what I said ?

But here is where the similarities end. N goes the way of the gladiatorial, while K follows an existential Christianity. — Astrophel

Kierkegaard makes the point (in Fear and Trembling, precisely) that God told Abraham to do something irrational when he ordered him to sacrifice his son. Is it rational for a father to sacrifice his son? No, it isn't. That's why God's order was irrational. Still more irrational was Abraham's decision to obey God's order anyway. That, according to Kierkegaard, is true Christianity. Rational Christianity, he argues, is for the Thomist-minded masses. The gentleman of faith, or the knight of faith, if you will, it not Thomist, nor can he be Thomist, because Thomas Aquinas wanted to reconcile Reason and Faith. They cannot be reconciled, in Kierkegaard's opinion, because Faith must triumph over Reason. And while Aquinas himself concedes that point, Kierkegaard goes further, arguing that true Christianity is not for the masses, which is a point that brings him closer to Nietzsche than to Aquinas. Everyone can be a Christian, not everyone can be a knight of faith or an over-man. To be a knight of faith is to be willing to sacrifice rationality itself, not to merely subordinate it to faith. This, is the true moral lesson of the story of Abraham and God: the very core of Christianity is irrational, and necessarily so, because it is pure, unadulterated faith, uncontaminated by human reason. However, the existence of faith, of pure faith, does not demonstrate, by itself, that the object of faith (i.e., God) exists as well. What Kierkegaard is merely saying in that regard is that if God exists (and we don't know if he does), then we must irrationally believe in him, just as Abraham irrationally followed God's irrational order.

As always it depends upon how we understand the terms in the first place.

To my understanding I don't think we need to place bets either way. If neither literature nor social science nor physical science are in some sense superior to each other then there's no need to argue which one is going to win. We can engage in each at our whim. — Moliere

But then some things will be more difficult and/or they'll take more time, such as the construction (or discovery) of a way to meaningfully quantify oppression, or political power. To be sure, it's possible to quantify exploitation, but there is no comparable metric for oppression or political power (I mean, there are some proposals, but they're sort of flimsy and questionable from a methodological POV).

I certainly don't believe in scientism -- I don't see science as superior to other forms of knowledge. — Moliere

Depends on what you want to know. If you want to know what the interior of the Earth is like, you'll probably arrive at a more sensible result reading what geologists have to say than reading Jules Verne. It's fun to entertain the idea that there might be living dinosaurs inside the Earth's core, but in all likenesses there's just a lot of inorganic stuff at a very high temperature there, even though no one has ever seen it. Why would we approach history any differently?

And sometimes it's a foolish way to go about our world. — Moliere

Sure, if you're reading "Journey to the Center of the Earth" and you get mad at Jules Verne because he says that there are living dinosaurs inside the Earth's core, you kinda missed the point of the book.

With respect to history in particular I think this is true. This would be where I begin to part ways with Orthodox Marxism. — Moliere

Is there a particularly important reason why non-Orthodox Marxism can't support scientism?

Generally speaking I don't think all phenomena fit the same methodological bill -- and which is better at a time has much to do with what we're talking about in the first place. I wouldn't want the historical record of a particular cannon ball in figuring out where it will land when given such and such an amount of energy. I also would not break out thermodynamical models to explain the causes of World War 1. — Moliere

Sure. But you wouldn't approach the invention of the cannon or World War 1 as academic topics just from the point of view of poetry. That history isn't physics doesn't necessarily entail that it's non-scientific tout court.

Oh, also, I tried to track down access to the particular paper you linked and failed. I found some papers by Bunge, but not that. — Moliere

Feel free to send me a PM and I'll see if I can do something about that.

Of course there more regions to the Nordic countries too, so ask yourself, do you know all the flags and what regions they represent here? — ssu

Top row: Denmark, no idea, Norway.
Middle row: Sweden, Iceland, Suomi.
Bottom row: Faroe Islands, no idea, no idea.

I looked up the three that I didn't know: Greenland, Åland, and Sámi flag. The last one was the least familiar to me.

So you believe in the Nordic countries as something higher or greater than Suomi, and of Scandinavia? I'm not sure that I understand the point that you seem to be making here.

Are the Nordic countries part of Europe? Should they "do their own thing", in a sense comparable to Brexit?

And what's the best metal band from the Nordic countries, in your opinion? Do you listen to metal? If not, what's the best music band from the Nordic countries?

A car gets dented, it still retains its identity as being the same thing, despite that change of form. — Metaphysician Undercover

Sure. It's like my example of the caterpillar that turns into a butterfly.

I take issue with his knight of faith. — Astrophel

I read that concept of his as the "gentleman of faith", comparable in some sense to Nietzsche's "over-man", at least in an existential sense.

See his Fear and Trembling — Astrophel

He makes the case there that belief in the divine must be irrational by definition, since the divine (if it exists) transcends human reason.

Beyond the Horizon
Over the Next Hill
That's where we make discoveries
That's the Next Frontier

nations (including especially secular nations) do not tolerate the violence of Jihadism — Leontiskos

Of course not. Why would they? Secular nations delegate the monopoly of violence to a particular group of people (I.e., law enforcement). Those are the only people that can use force in a legitimate way, and only under certain conditions (i.e., proportionality, circumstance, level of threat, etc.).

If it is non-religious they won't tolerate it, and if it is religious they won't tolerate it. It makes no difference whether it is religious or non-religious. — Leontiskos

Indeed.

It's not as if the Islamic authorities can convince everyone that Jihad is part of Islam, then Jihad will be tolerated — Leontiskos

It's actually a really simple theological point to make: for Muslims, the inner jihad is more important than the outer jihad. The inner jihad is one's effort to be good, not evil. The outer jihad, however you wish to define it, is less important, by definition, and this is literal scripture, it's not open to interpretation. Of course, no one is under the obligation to convert to Islam. But if you're a Muslim, it would be heretical to say that the outer jihad is more important than the inner jihad.

Yup, it's trollish behavior.

Okay, but I don't see this as sufficient for the conclusion that Jihadism is not religious. Even if the Jihadi is not a "real Muslim," what they are doing still seems to be a religious act. On the premise that they are not a "real Muslim," their religion is a deviant form of Islam, but I don't see how this quantitatively small deviation from "true Islam" can cause the Jihadi to be non-religious. — Leontiskos

There is a theological difference between a religion and a sect, which is why there is a theological difference between religious behavior and sectarian behavior. The leader of a doomsday cult, who tells his followers that he is the Second Incarnation of Christ and that they, being his loyal followers, must commit mass suicide, is not behaving religiously as a Christian should nor as a Christian would, he is behaving in a non-Christian, sectarian way.

(slightly edited for clarity)

Sure, but no one is arguing that Jihad is not religious. — Leontiskos

Some Muslim scholars argue that jihadism, understood as the violent overthrow of a non-Muslim state, is not compatible with Islam, and it is therefore not the correct, religious interpretation of what Jihad is in the context of the Muslim religion.

I take it that "religious tolerance" means tolerating religiously motivated acts. So if you do not tolerate the punch in question, then you are not practicing religious tolerance. You are being intolerant of a religion. — Leontiskos

Unless it's not a religion to begin with, which is why this is not an entirely private matter, it is in part a public matter. If public entities (such as federal entities) don't recognize it as a religion, then it's up to the believers to prove that they are a religion, and that their specific interpretation (i.e., their specific "denomination", if you will) is indeed a legitimate religious interpretation of their own scripture.

I think the only alternative is to say, "I am tolerating religiously motivated acts by prohibiting or censuring religiously motivated acts," which is contradictory. — Leontiskos

The alternative is to demarcate, between religion and non-religion, just as we demarcate between science and non-science, art and non-art. As for the question of who should do the demarcation, that's another discussion. But I am convinced that it cannot be an entirely private matter, because it is related to public concerns.

I'm coming across so many different definitions that it's essentially rendering the term meaningless. Jihad is an actual concept within Islam, jihadism seems like it's just a pejorative that's associated with violence. — BitconnectCarlos

Tell me what part, or parts, of the following definition and characterization you don't agree with:

Jihad (/dʒɪˈhɑːd/; Arabic: جِهَاد, romanized: jihād [dʒiˈhaːd]) is an Arabic word that means "exerting", "striving", or "struggling", particularly with a praiseworthy aim.[1][2][3][4] In an Islamic context, it encompasses almost any effort to make personal and social life conform with God's guidance, such as an internal struggle against evil in oneself, efforts to build a good Muslim community (ummah), and struggle to defend Islam.[1][2][5][6] Literally meaning 'struggle', the term is most frequently associated with warfare.[4] — Wikipedia

EDIT: Furthermore,

Jihad is classified into inner ("greater") jihad, which involves a struggle against one's own passions and impulses, and outer ("lesser") jihad, which is further subdivided into jihad of the pen/tongue (debate or persuasion) and jihad of the sword (warfare).[5][7]: 13 [8] Much of Muslim opinion considers inner jihad to have primacy over outer jihad, although many Western scholars disagree. The analysis of a large survey from 2002 reveals considerable nuance in the conceptions of jihad held by Muslims around the world, ranging from righteous living and promoting peace to fighting against the opponents of Islam.[9] — Wikipedia

If you are looking for someone who brought Hegel and Kierkegaard together, then Heidegger is who you should read. — Astrophel

I think that Heidegger is just a watered-down version of Kierkegaard, to be honest. It's Kierkegaard but without the Aesthetics and the Ethics.

I think we're running into confusion over the definition of what a "jihadist" is. — BitconnectCarlos

Then by all means, clarify the confusion, I'm all ears.

What I find ironic is that most of the AIs out there can probably do a billion times better in an SAT test than a human, it probably has like a trillion IQ by human standards, and yet it has no awareness whatsoever. It has no awareness of you, it has no awareness of me, and it has no awareness of itself.

It's an AI creature that has quickly accomplished what would have taken a jillion years of evolution, plus turning out even better since it is a machine? — PoeticUniverse

I don't think so. It's a fictional creature that, like any other fictional creature (i.e., Frankenstein, Sherlock Holmes) does not exist, and will not exist, for the very simple reason that it cannot even exist to begin with.

It does not take such a sinister concept (i.e., Roko's Basilisk) to prove such a simple point.

No, I would not consider Jesus a crusader. — BitconnectCarlos

Then that is the difference between a Christian and a fanatical Christian. A Muslim will tell you that Muhammed could not be considered a jihadist either. However, fanatical Muslims (i.e., jihadists) would argue otherwise, just as a fanatical Christian would argue otherwise.

So I'm asking couldn't Muhammad be considered a jihadist? — BitconnectCarlos

And a jihadist could ask you the following question: couldn't Jesus be considered a Crusader?

By ‘game’, Wittgenstein meant a discursively produced and reproduced system ( convention) of intelligibility. I consider math to be a discursive convention as well. — Joshs

Sure, but not in the same way that chess is a discursive convention. You don't do math because you want to win some math tournament. You're doing basic and applied research. What basic and applied research are chess players doing when they play chess?

We act as though believing a bishop moves two squares up and one square over is incorrect in the same way as miscalculating the product of 25 x 347, when in fact it is an example of producing rules of a different language game than that of chess. — Joshs

My take on that is that chess is a game (or perhaps even a sport, though I personally don't think so) while math is not a game. The very expression "language game" should be retired from Philosophy of Language. It served its purpose, it now has the same epistemological status as the Aether or the Phlogiston.

Best joke of the week :up:

Fears for the feeble-minded. — Harry Hindu

The uneducated, I would say. It's more politically correct than feeble-minded.

We all died and came back to life instantly so you must have some incessant need to have someone around to argue with. — Harry Hindu

I will consider your argument for reincarnation once I am finished bringing myself into existence as Roko's Basilisk.

You folks wanna talk about Roko's Basilisk?

Is salivation then to be thought of as a mental event? — Banno

Yeah, it's magic saliva. And maybe you have no brain, have you ever seen your own brain with your own two eyes? Nope, you can't, that's by definition, so maybe you don't have a brain, maybe there is a clockwork, Steampunk machine inside your skull that makes you imagine that you have an organic brain. Right?

(I'm being ironic).

Sam26
Cool. Then the JTB definition is incomplete? — Banno

I mean...

So jihad is legitimate, but jihadism is apparently what the "bad muslims" do. But did Muhammad not use violence to expand the influence of Islam? — BitconnectCarlos

Is that a political question, or a theological question? If it's neither and it's "just a simple question", then someone might as well ask (due to parity of reasoning): So the Crusade is legitimate, but "crusader-ism" is apparently what the "bad Christians" do. But did Jesus not use violence to expand the influence of Christianity?

EDIT: Now try asking that question, but with the case of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and Pastafarians. You will notice quite a difference.

Well, that's what they were told, initially. It's what every sect gets told, because it's the simple truth: no state or country recognizes such a group as practicing a religion, as the federal government understands the word "religion". If they want to "prove it to the feds" that they are a religious group, they can do so. That is in fact how Scientology, for example, triumphed over the IRS.

But the really sinister cases are the ones involving cults, like what happened way back in Waco, Texas.

Right, but the topic of Pastafarianism specifically did end up in court, so it's not a complete hypothetical:

A federal court in the US state of Nebraska ruled that Flying Spaghetti Monster is a satirical parody religion, rather than an actual religion, and as a result, Pastafarians are not entitled to religious accommodation under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act:

"This is not a question of theology", the ruling reads in part. "The FSM Gospel is plainly a work of satire, meant to entertain while making a pointed political statement. To read it as religious doctrine would be little different from grounding a 'religious exercise' on any other work of fiction."[87]

Pastafarians have used their claimed faith as a test case to argue for freedom of religion, and to oppose government discrimination against people who do not follow a recognized religion. — Wikipedia

The reason the U.S. has a First Amendment is because those rights are often transgressed by states. — Leontiskos

Sure. But suppose the following, just for the sake of argument. Suppose that you tell me that you believe in a Flying Spaghetti Monster, and that this particular belief of yours is a religious belief, and that you are known as a Pastafarian. Suppose that I tell you that your beliefs are stupid. You cannot lawfully accuse me of religious discrimination in that scenario, because Pastafarianism is not a religion. Why not? Because no state or country recognizes it as such. If you want to say that I'm being intolerant anyways, sure. But not religiously.

How do we deal with American Christian Nationalism? Who is responsible for 'causing' it? Should it be stamped out? Should it be punished? Forbidden? Who has the responsibility for solving the problem of American Christian Nationalism? — BC

I've arrived at the conclusion that the simplest, most practical solution is to just be a reductionist about this. How so? Like this:

if your armed group wants to take over the White House for religious reasons, then, from a federal point of view, your armed group cannot invoke religious protection as an excuse to commit a federal crime. — Arcane Sandwich

In other words: if you want to take over the White House in the name of Jesus, then you can't say that you were discriminated by federal agents after they arrest you for committing a federal crime. Well, you can say it if you want to, but it won't hold up in court.

I'll just share my theory.

1) Hegel was right when he suggested that History itself ended with the Absolute Spirit.
2) If so, then Hegel is History's Last Philosopher.
3) If so, then there have been no philosophers since Hegel died.
4) But there have been philosophers since Hegel died.
5) So, Hegel was not History's Last Philosopher.
6) So, Hegel was wrong when he suggested that History itself ended with the Absolute Spirit.
7) But (1) and (6) are contradictory.
8) So, Anything Goes (i.e., from a contradiction, any premise follows)

Now, that can't be correct, at least one of the premises must be false. I think that the first premise is the false one: Hegel was not right when he suggested that History itself ended with the Absolute Spirit. Or perhaps it did, but only in the sense that Hegel's personal history ended when he died. In that case, either Hegel will reincarnate, or he will not. I say that he will not. There is no such thing as reincarnation. Therefore:

Theorem: Hegel could only have been right that History itself ended with the Absolute Spirit, if that means that his own personal history ended when he died.

That, is why Hegel was an existentialist, in the same sense as Kierkegaard. That's my theory.

Suppose a state has a law against prohibiting the free exercise of religion. — Leontiskos

But that's one of my other points: no state in the West, no country in the West, prohibits the free exercise of religion. It only establishes a distinction between what is a religion and what is just a group of people that want to be recognized as such (as a religion, that is) by the state or country in question.

And this isn't just a Western thing. Several countries in the East function in more or less the same way.