Ones religion is very personal. If you keep shoving it in our faces, someone will eventually respond and there is no where to go but down into chaos. This is not "hate" as you characterize, these are personal beliefs. I have only asked that you refrain from posting relious dogma unless you can offer emperical evidence that God or Jesus ever existed. So, please stop, now.gerald
Amazing how a treatise to love your enemies by Jesus brings out so much hatred in you folks. But after all, the is the Alinsky method in action.Choose your sides, I have chosen mine.
Quote from: Hemodoc on February 07, 2012, 08:37:16 PMDear Cariad,I would counter that the Alinsky approach only fosters more hatred and strife instead of bringing people together. It is the lack of love for the fellow man that is at the heart of discord whether by geography, color of the skin, creed, religion or simple greed. I believe God has already given us a much better way in the Sermon on the Mount:Matthew 5:38 ¶ Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: 39 But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40 And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also. 41 And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. 42 Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away. 43 ¶ Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. 44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; 45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? 47 And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? When Paul the apostle went to the executioner, tradition records that several of his guards that kept him locked with chains willingly declared Jesus their savior as well and went to their deaths beside him. That is the love of God that men are willing to live and love their enemies as is Paul's testimony. Alinsky truly teaches the opposite.Hemodoc, I have no idea why you seem to want to talk to me about religion as I have run out of ways to explain that I am an atheist/humanist/rationalist. However, since you brought up the Sermon on the Mount, I will look to others that I trust to express my feelings to you. First, Bill Maher. Same warnings about strong language and spoofing conservatives. This clip details how Jesus would fare as a Republican presidential candidate:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7KgYI8T1ygSecond, and much more intellectually, let's let Kurt Vonnegut with his military experience and degrees in chemistry and anthropology have his say:How do Humanists feel about Jesus? I say of Jesus, as all Humanists do, "If what he said is good, and so much of it is absolutely beautiful, what does it matter if he was God or not?"But if Christ hadn't delivered the Sermon on the Mount, with its message of mercy and pity, I wouldn't want to be a human being. I'd just as soon be a rattlesnake.-K. Vonnegut, A Man Without A Country, pp. 80-81Do unto others what you would have them do unto you. A lot of people think Jesus said that, because it is so much the sort of thing Jesus liked to say. But it was actually said by Confucious, a Chinese philosopher, five hundred years before there was that greatest and most humane of human beings, named Jesus Christ. The Chinese also gave us, via Marco Polo, pasta and the formula for gunpowder. The Chinese were so dumb they only used gunpowder for fireworks. And everybody was so dumb back then that nobody in either hemisphere even knew that there was another one.We've sure come a long way since then. Sometimes I wish we hadn't. I hate H-bombs and the Jerry Springer Show.But back to people like Confucious and Jesus and my son the doctor, Mark, each of whom have said in their own way how we can behave more humanely and maybe make the world a less painful place. One of my favorite humans is Eugene Debs, from Terre Haute in my native state of Indiana. Get a load of this. Eugene Debs, who died back in 1926, when I was not yet 4, ran five times as the Socialist Party candidate for president, winning 900,000 votes, almost 6 percent of the popular vote, in 1912, if you can imagine such a ballot. He had this to say while campaigning:As long as there is a lower class, I am in it.As long as there is a criminal element, I am of it.As long as there is a soul in prison, I am not free.Doesn't anything socialistic make you want to throw up? Like great public schools, or health insurance for all? When you get out of bed each morning, with the roosters crowing, wouldn't you like to say "As long as there is a lower class, I am in it. As long as there is a criminal element, I am of it. As long as there is a soul in prison, I am not free."How about Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes? Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. And so on.Not exactly planks in a Republican platform. Not exactly George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, or Donald Rumsfeld stuff.For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes. But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course, that's Moses, not Jesus. I haven't heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere. "Blessed are the merciful" in a courtroom? "Blessed are the peacemakers" in the Pentagon? Give me a break!-Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country, pp. 95-98Satire. Sarcasm. And without doubt as lyrical and as peaceful a writing as anything I've ever read or could hope to read. If you want to discuss religion with me further, place your bait in a more appropriate place. I come here to discuss racism in all its forms in this country.
Dear Cariad,I would counter that the Alinsky approach only fosters more hatred and strife instead of bringing people together. It is the lack of love for the fellow man that is at the heart of discord whether by geography, color of the skin, creed, religion or simple greed. I believe God has already given us a much better way in the Sermon on the Mount:Matthew 5:38 ¶ Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: 39 But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40 And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also. 41 And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. 42 Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away. 43 ¶ Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. 44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; 45 That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? 47 And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? When Paul the apostle went to the executioner, tradition records that several of his guards that kept him locked with chains willingly declared Jesus their savior as well and went to their deaths beside him. That is the love of God that men are willing to live and love their enemies as is Paul's testimony. Alinsky truly teaches the opposite.
From page 121 of my electronic copy of the book:Let us take one of the negative stereotypes that so many whites have of blacks: that blacks like to sit around eating watermelon. Suppose that 3,000 blacks suddenly descended into downtown sections of any city, each armed with and munching a huge piece of watermelon. This spectacle would be so far outside the experience of whites that they would be unnerved and disorganized. In alarm over what the blacks were up to, the establishment would probably react to the advantage of the blacks. Furthermore, the whites would recognize at last the absurdity of their stereotype of black habits. Whites would squirm in embarrassment, knowing that they were being ridiculed. That would be the end of the black watermelon stereotype. I think that this tactic would bring the administration to contact black leadership and ask what their demands were even if no demands had been made.
Cariad,I really don't want to get into the Alinsky controversy, but this particular scenario which I assume was written in the late 60s was just fantasy.
I suspect if this watermelon eating "mob" marched in the streets of 2012 it would gather a lot of white support and maybe even make the point Alinsky assumed the action would make. It would just be humorous to most--white and non-white alike.However, I personally spent time in southern Mississippi in 1970 working with John Perkins (a contemporary of MLK) at a school he had founded in a small town named Mendenhall, Mississippi. John Perkins was once beat up so bad that he was hospitalized for months and almost died. He returned to the school but ultimately his efforts among the poor blacks of Mendenhall failed and he moved to the capital (Jackson) for the safety of his family. Because Jackson was a major city it was easier to do his civil rights work without the constant threat of death. Even so, he eventually moved to Southern California when his health and courage finally gave out. http://www.lionshare.org/FathersoftheFaith/TheFathers/JohnPerkins.aspxWhile I was in Mendenhall it was just a given that crossing the tracks into the white part of town was a very dangerous thing to do. It was especially dangerous for people like me who the locals considered to be agitators. Over many years up until the 1990s, the local authorities murdered several dozen blacks INSIDE THE JAIL and covered the murders up as suicides. These murders were eventually ended only when the FBI finally got involved (after 20 years of foot-dragging). http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1295/is_n7_v58/ai_15533722/pg_3/ Or just google his name--there have been books written about him.I bring these experiences up because I believe, based on personal experience, that if a group of blacks in Mendenhall or likely anywhere else in Mississippi or Alabama during the 60s and 70s had tried Alinsky's suggested watermelon "gag" the results would have been catastrophic. It's likely that much blood would have been shed immediately, but if not (due to the size of the opposition) the seething hatred by many whites in those times would have found a way to retaliate against other innocent blacks. It didn't take much to instigate a lynching and white law enforcement turned its back. And, as evidenced by the article above, when public lynchings became impossible, grotesque murders disguised as something else took their place. Mendenhall just happened to be one of the most heinous examples, but this was happening all over the American South as recently as the 1990s. In those years even many white people were against Jim Crow and segregation but to speak out only invited social chastisement at least or more likely serious physical harm. My own family lived in Arkansas in the 1950s and to her credit my mother forced my father to move our family to California because she didn't want us exposed to the Jim Crow culture. I think the tide has finally turned even in the deepest parts of the Deep South and at least the bigotry is now mostly social. Perhaps in another generation such bigotry will be a thing of the past.
Cariad, I must admit that my knowledge of Arabic vowels is about as strong as my knowledge of the mating habits of the giant aardvark. I am, however, in your debt for introducing me to Bill Maher.
In any case, I will bid all a fond goodbye from this thread and you can freely go back to castigating the Tea Party and people of faith like me as you were doing prior to my first post countering the false allegations.I have no doubt that soon you will silence the religious right here in America.
Symbolism is a part of ideology which is the basis for religion. It is far easier to have someone tell you what is what than to thinking it through for yourself. In the place of a specific prophet, lecturer or philosopher, we have ideology. In time, the static thinking of the ideological will takes a toll; which is the price taken for standing against the progress of time.Joseph Campbell may be correct but I stand against all dogma, I challenge all authority, and I rail against rules; for they are the burden of the anti-intellectual.
If ideology was a substrata of daily life, held as a personal belief, perhaps none of these news items would esist.gerald the curdmugeon
Dogma, simply put, is religious ideology. Ideology is for those who are lazy thinkers.
A black person who says he is voting for Obama because he is black, and will therefore be assumed to best represent the interests of a black voter is not looked upon with scorn, disrespect, or even considered racist - but woe to the white person who says they are voting for the white candidate simply because of his race.
If "racism" is simply judging someone based on race rather than any other factors (content of character and all that), then the previous post argues that the disgraceful history of the US in the area of racial laws creates a license for racist behavior by a subset of the population.This brings to mind another question - if I vote for Romney not because he is white, but because he is less likely to give out "Romney Phones" and other transfer payments to those who cannot afford them, does the fact that this disparately impacts certain socioeconomic segments of the population make me a racist? I think not, but others may disagree.
Similarly, if you have never been a victim of racism yourself, you are not going to be as effective tackling these difficult problems that continue to plague our country.
White people who cast a vote for a white man because of his race cannot say that they hope this will lead to improvements in equality. They fear equality, which makes them racist.