Religion
Related: About this forumSome observations
For the last two months I have been on a retreat. On purpose I have been without radio, TV, e-mail, internet, DU, newspapers or even much conversation about what has been going on in the political world. I needed to see the world with fresh eyes. We were in Muslim countries, nations of the former Soviet block--including Russia and what was East Berlin, in the Christian capitals of Scandinavia, and throughout the mid-western Bible belt of the United States. I have garnered a few religious impressions during these weeks
We would all be poorer without the marvelous inventiveness of the Muslim world. The Blue Mosque in Istanbul matches for beauty any of the European cathedrals. The Muslim world has also given us: coffee, the tooth brush, algebra, the first universities, surgery, the first flying machine, optics, the crank, musical notations, hospitals, an ethical sensitivity and much more. Unfortunately this progress stopped dead when some centuries ago Islam became preoccupied with religious fundamentalism.
For centuries Mother Russia found her meaning in the Orthodox Church. When the Soviet took over and installed both a political and atheistic fundamentalism, a grayness descended from which Russia has yet to recover. A wise old woman in St. Petersburg opined that for centuries the church offered a solid cultural ethos. Then came atheistic communism, and when that dissolved Russia was left with no sense of who she was. From that vacuity she has not yet emerged. She currently has no story which tells her people just who she is.
For centuries the Scandinavian nations were steeped in a Christian ethos. In recent years they have drifted into a liberal secularism, which still relies on a Christian ethical system, but has abandoned doctrinal and ecclesial control. All surveys tell us that these previously
Christian socialist nations are the happiest healthiest, best-educated, most-contented people on the globe.
Much of the American mid-west and south has reverted to an angry Christian fundamentalism. Massive evangelical churches are everywhere. We saw, along a major highway, two mammoth white crosses visible for twenty miles and unconnected with any religious institution. Scattered throughout the land were billboards linking religion to a virulent opposition to Obama and the Affordable Care Act.
While for decades we have believed that the world has grown much smaller, it has also been narrowed through a variety of religious, economic and secular fundamentalisms. When any society or social group is squeezed into believing that it has all the truth, which is what fundamentalism is all about, it is bad for everyone else. The more we have seen of the world, the truth of that axiom becomes increasingly obvious. A healthy society is best served by a mixture of religion and secularism, as well as by a variety of economic and political notions, capitalism and socialism, including an openness to multiculturalism. At best ours really is a very large multifarious world, and we had better learn to accept each other.
In the words of Edna St. Vincent Millay:
The world stand out on either side,
No wider than the heart is wide.
Above the world is stretched the sky,
No higher than the soul is high.
The heart can push the sea and land
Farther away on either hand
The soul can split the sky in two
And let the face of God shine through.
But East and West will pinch the heart
That can not keep them pushed apart;
And those whose soul is flatthe sky,
Will cave in on him by and by.
Angry Dragon
(36,693 posts)So in your view where do we go from here??
Thats my opinion
(2,001 posts)The implications are astounding. Fundamentalism in all its forms--religious or secular--is shockingly divisive. On this trip I was not in Palestine, but the same can be said of Jewish fundamentalist sects. Now that they are supported by American fundamentalist Christians, the threat to justice for anyone is thwarted.
In the political world the relationship between right-wing politics and fundamentalist religion is deadly. It grows even more complicated when joined by the Ayn Rand breed of non-religious fundamentalists. While I doubt if anything will turn around those states controlled by right-wing Christians, the battle will increasingly be between right-wing Christians and much of the rest of the religious enterprise.
That arena--not here--is where most of my effort it put. Only by implications does that conflict have political implications.
Those in my orbit know that we can no longer allow religion to be defined by fundamentalists. Few in "religion" see anything beside the Christian right-wing, partly because they don't want to see it. But believe me, it is alive and well.
Angry Dragon
(36,693 posts)their voice is so loud and constant
One hardly ever hears a voice from sane believers
The only voice being heard is from non-believers because they refuse to let religion define the secular arena
The only way to fight the fundies is to yell as loud as them and as often
Thats my opinion
(2,001 posts)Angry Dragon
(36,693 posts)They have to fight and attack
The time to turn the other cheek is over or they stand the chance to lose their religion
trotsky
(49,533 posts)but you still refuse to listen and accept it. In fact, I believe you have me on ignore because your need to tune out anyone telling you something contrary to your opinion is so strong. But for the audience's benefit:
You just said: "Few in 'religion' see anything beside the Christian right-wing, partly because they don't want to see it."
This is 100% WRONG. Those of us in this group that don't fawn over your every post are big fans of liberal religion - especially as a replacement for conservative, fundie religion. What we don't want is to see your religion slip into the same role that fundie religion has today: as the justification for policy. Your faith influences your political positions? Great. Glad to hear it. But when it comes to making policy and writing law and setting an agenda, what we do needs to be based on experience, on reason, on common sense.
NOT religion. No matter what flavor.
Thats my opinion
(2,001 posts)But I have decided not to engage in the endless sorts of things left over from DU2 and continuing right up to this morning. I will continue to read you and others, but will no longer reply
Goblinmonger
(22,340 posts)They are things that you said there that you continue to say here. That has been pointed out to you multiple times. You just refuse to come to grips with it.
And you do know that passive-aggressive patterns are not good methods of conflict resolution.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)as being wrong?
It's not that we "don't want to see (moderate/liberal religion)", it's that we don't want you to simply substitute liberal for conservative religion. That's not the answer. That's not the approach. The only way forward is secularism. Let your beliefs motivate you - fine. But they can't be the reason for the policy or the law.
Adsos Letter
(19,459 posts)The very crux of the issue.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)quite NON-religious Scandinavian countries without having to assert that they are that way only because they USED to be Christian, or that their "liberal secularism ... relies on a Christian ethical system," whatever that means.
No, I kid. I know what that means. You still believe that religious ethics are superior to secular/atheistic ones, as you have made clear time and time again.
So much for your trip opening your eyes.
We'd all be so much better off if the Scandies were still killing, raping and looting their way across Europe.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)Hi okasha. Thanks for the... uh... whatever. Because no Christian has ever killed, raped or looted.
okasha
(11,573 posts)Unfortunately, that's not a rational option:
French Revolution.
USSR.
Chinese Cultural Revolution.
trotsky
(49,533 posts)Run along now.
I haven't either said or implied what you attribute to me.
Sorry to muss your corner of the playground.
JNelson6563
(28,151 posts)They had their version of gods. What drove the invasions across Europe was a shortage of resources. Once they learned what easy pickin's there were to be had they went home, rounded up the troops "Uncle Olaf wants you!" and headed off to keep the momentum going.
The "Scandies" followed others that came before like the Romans. They certainly raped and pillaged their way across Europe and they always had their belief system in place including, at one point, if I remember correctly, Christianity.
Isn't this fun? I could talk history all day. Love the stuff.
Julie
Goblinmonger
(22,340 posts)gives a pretty good indication of how Christianity was interjected into their religion as well as giving us a glimpse of what the Scandinavian religion was all about.
okasha
(11,573 posts)that the Christian refereces in Beowulf were interpolated by the monk or monks who wrote it down. They were not contemporary with the original poem.
Goblinmonger
(22,340 posts)and I understand that. But it reflects the time in which they were being converted to Christianity and how the monks used this as propaganda.
okasha
(11,573 posts)It reflects the time when England was officially Christian, the great oral tradition was over, and literature of any kind was most likely to be preserved in monasteries, if anywhere. The good brother who copied the text inserted the Christian references to make a rattling good story acceptable to a literate--ie., largely clerical--audience. Unfortunately, we no longer have access to the version that was chanted in Saxon mead-halls. It was probably a good deal more, er, robust.
okasha
(11,573 posts)Nice post, but you're tilting at a windmill. Nowhere did I say the Vikings were atheists.
Goblinmonger
(22,340 posts)that Christianity turned them into something better which is also historically incorrect. Unless you want to argue that it took many centuries to do so.
okasha
(11,573 posts)European trade, and European alliances. It certainly didn't stop wars or territorial invasions such as the Danes made on England, but the indiscriminate raiding pretty much came to an end.
cleanhippie
(19,705 posts)But here you are, spouting the same old "how could anyone live without religious values" crap.
rrneck
(17,671 posts)Last edited Wed Aug 8, 2012, 03:22 PM - Edit history (1)
You enjoyed a tour of countries that have progressively discarded the trappings of Christianity that were attached to a human morality developed long before the birth of Christ. That appears to be a sort of attachment to ideology shared by the fundamentalists whose backwardness you decry.
cbayer
(146,218 posts)The calls to prayer in Istanbul were magical, weren't they.
Glad you had a good trip.
mr blur
(7,753 posts)Well, you seem to have found exactly what you expected/wanted. Odd that.
dimbear
(6,271 posts)BTW, tell us the details about the Muslims' first flying machine. I'm very curious to know the details.
Thats my opinion
(2,001 posts)Who knows what is truth and what is something else from the 9the century. But at least here is the recorded claim.
Ibn Firnas of Islamic Spain invented, constructed and tested a flying machine in the 800's A.D. Roger Bacon learned of flying machines from Arabic references to Ibn Firnas' machine. The latter's invention antedates Bacon by 500 years and Da Vinci by some 700 years.
About 875, Abbas Ibn Firnas built a flying apparatus placing feathers on a wooden frame -- creating the first documented record of a very primitive glider.
One of the two surviving versions of his flight states, "Having constructed the final version of his glider, to celebrate its success he invited the people of Cordoba to come and witness his flight. People watched from a nearby tower as he flew some distance, but then the glider plummeted to the ground causing him to injure his back
"
The second account adds that, after failing to land successfully, Ibn Firnas claimed that he had not noticed how birds use their tails to land and that he had forgotten the tail on his flying apparatus.
The back injury prevented Ibn Firnas from trying again. Grounded, he went on to create a mechanized planetarium with revolving planets that also simulated thunder and lightning, and evolved a formula for manufacturing artificial crystals. Soon after in 888 however, he died -- primarily as a result of an ongoing struggle with his back injury from the flight.
dimbear
(6,271 posts)Adsos Letter
(19,459 posts)Something about "injuring his back." Seems just mundane enough to be true.
skepticscott
(13,029 posts)Uh, you do...when it suits you and promotes your agenda. And when it suits your agenda to paint things as fuzzy and unknowable and to admit any poorly supported claim as totally credible, then you'll push that.
Uplifting, indeed.
onager
(9,356 posts)Google "Abbas Ibn Firnas" and you mostly get the credulous account we're given upthread.
There's an eerie similarity to all those accounts. Not too surprising, since many of them are posted on staunchly pro-Islamic propaganda "We Invented Everything!!!" sites.
I found one on the same webpage as "The Myth of the Holocaust." Whoops!
According to the Wiki: The 9th century Muslim Berber inventor Abbas Ibn Firnas covered his body with vulture feathers and 'flew faster than a phoenix" according to a contemporary poem. Despite a lack of contemporary accounts and the similarity to Icarus, it is still considered by John Harding to be the first attempt at heavier-than-air flight in aviation history.
And who is this expert, John Harding?
John Harding is the author of many books, including several sporting histories. He has also worked on various TV and radio programmes and continues to contribute articles to a variety of publications as well as regular on-line pieces for the Professional Footballer's Association web-site, GiveMeFootball. He also teaches Creative Writing for Birkbeck College. He lives in London.
That's from Amazon, where you'll find the Abbas Ibn Firnas anecdote in this book:
Flying's Strangest Moments: Extraordinary But True Stories from Over 1100 years of Aviation History (Strangest series)
http://www.amazon.com/Flyings-Strangest-Moments-Extraordinary-Aviation/dp/1861059345
onager
(9,356 posts)Also lots of leftover land mines.
Your Other Ways of Knowing might come in handy.
Starboard Tack
(11,181 posts)It's always refreshing to read your uplifting posts.