The Greek in Miklagard Overture

[The Shinster]

I took my TVW booklet into school and asked my ancient history teacher what the Greek part (4:50+) of it says and he was like "Oh it's Byzantine Greek" and I was like "Uh...yeah it is..." nonchalantly, as if I already knew that (it's all Greek to me).

Anyways

"Today is the day of our deliverance (or safety) and the revelation of the age old mystery."

And also, "sui generis" means "above all else" I think, I didn't write it down after he told me so I might have forgotten it.

 

[GodAm]

I took my TVW booklet into school and asked my ancient history teacher what the Greek part (4:50+) of it says and he was like "Oh it's Byzantine Greek" and I was like "Uh...yeah it is..." nonchalantly, as if I already knew that (it's all Greek to me).

Smooth dude...smooth.
Thanks for the info! (It's all Greek to me...ha!)

 

[Crucifier]

Write the original here if you want, and I will give you a precise translation (being Greek myself )

I don't have the booklet anywhere near me at the moment, and to tell the truth, I never actually read the lyrics, since I hate the Byzantines (they where those who destroyed Greece) but from the bits and pieces I can pick up by listening to it, it doesn't sound like something that would translate to what your teacher told you....

 

[Crucifier]

Damn it, I just understood what it says:
Σήμερον της σωτηρίας ημών το κεφάλαιον, και του απ' αιώνος μυστηρίου η φανέρωσις

It speaks about the day Jeshua (or as the christians call him... Jesus) was born. It is chanted during the christmas days...

It is translated to:

Today, our salvation's chapter (begins), and the aeons' (meaning centuries old, I guess) mystery's the revelation (meaning the thophany)

In a more rough translation it basically means:

Today starts the chapter of our salvation, and the centuries-old mystery will be revealed (god will present himself)...

Damned Byzantines, we have Zeus and Odin. We don't need a carpenter as a god...

 

[The Creator of Failure]

But Jesus never claimed he was a god, but his son

P.S. The Byzantines restored Greece, it was destroyed by the Romans.

 

[Fenrisúlfr]

They called themselves the Roman Empire i.e. Βασιλεία Ῥωμαίων

 

[Crucifier]

Sorry Creator, but that is not true. The Romans did conquer Greece, making it a part of the Roman Empire, but in turn "the Greeks conquered the Romans with their civilization" like the poet says.
The Romans did not cause nearly as many destructions to Greece, as the Byzantines. Not only did they not come to destroy, their contact with our civilization, made them make huge changes to their own, in accordance to ours'.
They built temples for the Greek gods (only giving them latin names, e.g. Minerva for Athena, Jupiter for Zeus)

On the other hand, the Byzantines, came to destroy the Greek civilization, burn our knowledge, our religion, they burnt down temples, burn the statues to make plaster, tortured and killed those who refused to become christians, destroyed thousands of scientific and literature books, stopped the Olympic Games, destroyed our schools, named every priestess a witch, burning them and turning the woman into an object...

And in a cunning way, made the illiterate of that time believe that they were the saviors, who were hunted down by the Romans.

And you know what the worst thing is? People read their stories up to this day, and believe them!

e.g. a saint whose name I can't remember at the moment, says in his memoirs: "the demons living in the temples statues arose, ad in their fear of the on true God, destroyed the temple and their statues on their own, and the disappeared."
Of course that means that a bunch of insane christians took that temple to the ground, killing everyone inside, yet for more than 1700 years, they managed to hide the truth with childish fairy tales...

 

[The Creator of Failure]

I wouldn't quite agree. Until the 7th century the Byzantine Empire was still a descendant of the Roman Empire, so they were still ROMANS until the 7th century. It was still Romans who accepted Christianity and who converted native populations to Christianity. The Byzantines started proclaiming themselves Greeks around the 7th century, until then they were still Romans - having Roman culture, language, way of life, everything was as it was in Rome. In the time they accepted their Greek origin instead of the Roman, Greece was already converted.

As for the "civilization", Roman Empire was one of the worst things that has ever existed on this planet, they were nothing more but an ancient version of the USA, man of lies hungry for power, enslaving other nations and all that in the name of "helping the weak and spreading peace", always representing themselves as those who fight uncivilized, savage barbarians while they were the most barbaric people of the time.

 

[wm_crash]

Rarely does a post influct double offence, but this does it . . . .

I am of Romanian descent. It is accepted that while the Romans crossed north of Danube (first in 101, then 105 when they annexed most of what was then Dacia) as part of their expantionist agenda, they did settle and blended freely with the native population. This was no mercantile colony meant to solely serve the Roman crown (such as French settlements in America). The Romans jus expanded the empire and now simply included new territory. By 274 when Romans willingly went back south of Danube, the Romans had already mixed in with locals and really, very few people went back. Overall, one big happy party . . . . I got to meet one of my best friends because we got in a fist fight once when we didn't even know each other . . . see my point?

OK, now back to the good ole' USA where I now live. I think all countries in the world strive to be the reference power. Some do better than others. Some have different opinions on who exactly is THE reference power in the world at this point. Some have different opinions on exactly what countries are allowed to do in order to gain the status of official worldwide power. Throughout history, coutries held this title and passed it around: France, England, Spain, Turkey, Mongolia, the Romans, USA, China (apologies to those that I forget); and all fought with all means to hold onto it as long as possible. And in their time, each and every one got blamed for it. So there is nothing new there. Specifically in defense of USA, if we were to withhold all funds that go to help other nations (food, health, anti-drug efforts, etc) as well as monetary contributions in organizations such as UN, the world would be in a worse state than it is now. When you get involved in so many items, some will inadvertently not be completed with a perfect grade. It's the risk associated with not being a fence sitter.

cheers,
wm_crash, the friendly hooligan

 

[The Creator of Failure]

That's bullshit, the USA had MORE THAN 70 MILITARY OPERATIONS ACROSS THE WORLD AFTER THE WW2!!!! Why? ALL that in the name of spreading democracy, helping the weak, fighting the "bad guys" and similar stupid excuses - killing many millions, leaving even more of them without relatives and rooftops over their head - just like the Romans - country that represents themselves as the most perfect in the world whereas it brought good to NOONE APART FROM THE COUNTRIES WHO PAID FOR THEIR HELP!!!!! Have there been evil empires in the history? Hell yeah, but very few can match Roman Empire and the USA.

 

[wm_crash]

OK, I am not sure what you're asking for. The USA is not handing bullets to its enemies, but to its allies. What exactly is wrong with that? You're blaming the USA for not shooting itself in the foot and seeing its national interests before other nations' national interests. And when the USA hands out help, the least that is expected back is a firm friendship. For those countries that are in a position to offer some help back (see Poland - anti-ballistic defence) such help is expected back. USA isn't Santa and sholdn't be expect to be Santa.

For some reason you seem to imply that "good" is necessarily free. It's not! The local chinese fast food does very good by making very tasty food every day. I pay for it, but I can claim they do good. Same with the USA. There are a lot of things that have been put together in the USA and are now used everywhere in the world. Sure, people pay for what they get; just like you pay for a show ticket . . . . . the show can still be good, it just isn't free. See?

cheers,
wm_crash, the friendly hooligan

 

[The Creator of Failure]

Are you fucking blind or deaf or something? Don't make me say stupid... Here's a basic example - they say they go to Afghanistan and Iraq to protect poor who are being oppressed and spread democracy because they're having dictators. So they go there, they kill like 50 000 innocent people in each country, they steal their oil, set puppet regimes, they make everything much worse than it was before they came and they do all that in the name of HELPING the native people!!! And who did they help to? No one but themselves, that's what Romans used to do - they always venture to each country under excuse of doing something good, and they actually conquer them. What the USA do today is not exactly the same but only because today you can't just choose a target and conquer an entire country, but it is more or less a modern equivalent. Now take the same situation from Iraq and Afghanistan and apply it to 70 countries across the world. It wasn't exactly the same everywhere, somewhere only a couple of thousands were killed, but somewhere, like in Korea or Vietnam, MILLIONS. When you sum it all up, who knows how many million were killed... Now try to count how many people lost their children, parents, brothers, sisters relatives... Then add those who lost their homes and everything they had (they're much more numerous than those who got killed), then all those who became refugees, all those who became poor due to those wars... And all that in the name of helping them and spreading democracy. You know what? If their democracy is so expansive, I think I'd prefer to live under local "dictatorship"...

I got to meet one of my best friends because we got in a fist fight once when we didn't even know each other

But that fight cost no one A LIFE. What both Romans and the USA did cost lives of MILLIONS of innocent who were killed, sold as slaves, whose properties and riches were taken away... Imagine the same situation with your friend but if your grandparents and your father were killed, your mother raped then killed, your sister raped then sold as a slave and yourself being enslaved as well. Now apply that to the whole country. Would you really become friends with that guy after he did all that to you, all your neighbours, citizens and friends?

It is accepted that while the Romans crossed north of Danube (first in 101, then 105 when they annexed most of what was then Dacia) as part of their expantionist agenda, they did settle and blended freely with the native population. This was no mercantile colony meant to solely serve the Roman crown (such as French settlements in America). The Romans jus expanded the empire and now simply included new territory. By 274 when Romans willingly went back south of Danube, the Romans had already mixed in with locals and really, very few people went back. Overall, one big happy party

Now you definitely have no clue what you're saying. Roman conquest of Dacia was one of the most brutal things they ever did (like they didn't do enough of those...), it was far from being really peaceful. How did they manage to have a peaceful, newly-conquered territory? It was quite simple actually, they just killed most of its population, completely razed its capital, a big part of the population was forced to leave the country in order not to be killed, and the rest was used - to exploit Dacian gold mines. And they didn't leave peacefully either, they left in 271 only because they were forced to leave due to not being able to hold their ground against the Visigoths.

 

[wm_crash]

Nobody said USA went to Afganistan or Iraq in order to promote democracy and protect the poor. You are saying it and you are debating yourself. The reason USA went to Iraq and Afganistan is because there are anti-USA elements in those countries which are strong enough to inflict harm to the USA, and on top have shown a confrontational agenda. Period. Clearly democracy does not work for some coutries who have never had such systems in at least [insert large number] years. All of this education, reconstruction, toys for local children, etc are side deals and are not the reason for the initial attack.

And if the USA stole oil, how come my gallon of fuel was around $5 a few months ago? Mind you, since the attacks on Iraq and up until the financial bust from the last few months, fuel cost has been a steady climber. Again, USA didn't steal any oil.

Regarding history, I was taught Romanian history in Romania. Maybe you are right and Romans moving into Dacia was brutal, maybe you are not. But in all historical presentations that I have seen, it was presented that way: they came, they fought, they won, they blended in.

On the other hand, if you like dictatorships, I can suggest North Korea for you (since Raul Castro now handles Cuba, I have stopped recommending it as I have some doubts about his dictatorial skills) . . . . . you can get to play evil westerner in all of their movies

OK, I'm done commenting on this thread unless someone sprinkles some Turisas on it; as it is now, I don't think it's going anywhere good. Perhaps next time I am in Middlefinger-earth we should first have a fist fight and then sit for a beer.

cheers,
wm_crash, the friendly hooligan

 

[The Creator of Failure]

Nobody said USA went to Afganistan or Iraq in order to promote democracy and protect the poor.

You government said so. Even the operation was called "Iraqi freedom" I think, and instead of bringing them freedom as promised, they turned them into a puppet country and making everything even worse than it was under Saddam's regime. As for the oil price, the fact that the USA took Iraqi oil, as they did, doesn't mean they'd sell it to you at a lower price, they sell it for the same price as in the rest of the world, but they profit on it instead of Iraq.

 

[wm_crash]

I just want to retract my offer to sit for a beer, mostly because your blatant lies make me break a promice to stop posting on this thread.

General Collin Powell went to the UN and made a case for the invasion based solely on reasons that Iraq is a credible threat to the USA. Regardless of the accuracy of the information at that time, the reasons for war were related to USA national security. Social agenda was never presented as the founding reason for war.

The name of an operation is just that: a name. We had "Desert Storm" and believe me, the mission was not to cause stormy weather in the desert. They might as well call it "Operation Saving Three Legged Penguins from the Iraqui Rainforest" . . . it's just a reference, not a description of the mission.

As for puppet country, know that USA's right hand man in Iraq, Iyad Allawi, lost the election to representatives of an Islamic party. So much for puppets, eh?

You were obviously not a Kurd or a Shi'a under Saddam. Things weren't bright, they just weren't shown on your TV. Not everything is worse.

For oil price, you don't make sense again. If the gas price (oil derivative) were in the hands of the US government via its stolen oil, they would have lowered the gas price at the pump so as they (Republicans) can avoid losing the election based on a poorly performing economy (like they did lose it in the end). At the same time, the oil purchases from Venezuela and Iran would have gone down. None of that happened, so it follows that the US had no control of Iraqui oil stock.

Overall I think you just like saying bad stuff about the USA for no reason. Next time try objectivity.

cheers,
wm_crash, the friendly hooligan

 

[The Creator of Failure]

You're wrong about the oil, the USA cannot control the world's price, but they import Iraqi oil without paying... I don't know the word, the money you have to pay when importing/exporting something, so they get it without much loss.

Yes, the Kurds and... those others, I don't know the plural form XD were being oppressed under Saddam's regime, but overall the situation was much better than it is now - people in general were safer before that, and remind me how many were killed since the American invasion? Much more than under Saddams regime. And everyone with a half-size of a normal brain knows that Iraq was invaded because of oil, quit that crap about them being a threat for the USA; in case you didn't know, the UN are pretty much controlled by the USA so they only needed a stupid excuse that sounds good in public and every their operation would have been approved. Oil was THE reason; threat to the USA was an excuse.

The government in Iraq was replaced just recently; they've had enough time to exploit everything they wanted from Iraq during the last several years under the puppet regime.

 

[wm_crash]

Yes the USA can control world oil price if indeed it was stealing oil. If USA steals oil from Iraq, then it buys less from legitimate oil exporting nations. Market demand goes down, price goes down (basic economics). However, a lower oil price wasn't seen. I already made the point that free/stolen oil from Iraq would have had specific consequences. Those consequences have not been seen. Therefore, the USA didn't have anything to do with stealing oil.

"Overall" is a nice word to throw around when you don't know the details. Iraq was invaded because it was perceived as a security threat. For your oil argument, if you can divide numbers, take the cost of suporting the war and divide that by the number of free barrils of oil we "stole". See what the your pretend stolen oil was really worth. Let me know when you have the numbers, I am very interested.

The UN is not controlled by the USA. That is exactly why we did not get a UN resolution to invade Iraq. See???

You also seem to blame ALL deaths in Iraq on the US presence. When Shi'a and Sunni kill each other, it's not America's fault. When Kurds and Sunni kill each other, it's not America's fault. It is the fault of the Saddam regime who has allowed an attitude of austerity and distrust to evolve amongst the various religious/ethnic groups in that country. The one thing that the USA does push for is for a government that can represent all interests of Iraq. You can't fault USA for doing that!

cheers,
wm_crash, the friendly hooligan

ps - as an editorial remark, items like "everyone with a half-size of a normal brain knows that" is childish and seems just a desperate attempt to boost the validity of your arguments . . . feel free to leave them out in your replies

 

[The Creator of Failure]

Nah, we could carry this to eternity and neither of us will change his opinion. It's pointless.

But still, Iraq qas invaded because of oil, everyone knows that XD

 

[wm_crash]

It was never a matter of attempting to change the other's opinion, but a matter of seeing facts objectively. Your oil claim has nothing to stand on. In spite of factual arguments, you just like to repeat it over and over . . . . maybe someone will believe you. I don't. Most of my friends don't . . . some do, but unlike you, they can have a coherent corner case argument.

cheers,
wm_crash, the friendly hooligan

 

[The Shinster]

Wtf.

GTFO out of my thread.