More on the Gawd thing
Interesting. A friend, a rather young friend, has jumped the christian ship. After much personal thought, soul & scripture searching, she's decided to pass on the lifelong christian faith indoctrination and say howdy to tha Allah in her. Amazing. I can't say her choice would be mine, mind you, I've been down that road and it pretty much led me to paganity-"Bringing you virgin born God-men since before we started counting"-as far away from ME nomad thundergod religions as possible. In fact, I can't begin to consider changing one system of belief for the other. I go from at least being free and not female in heaven after death, even with the whole being saved only through childbirth and submission and the period curse thingy to not even bing mentioned in the afterlife. And as I suspected afterlife could mean winding up being one of the eternal virgins-reread that, "eternal" virgins, do you want to be deflowered all eternity? No thanks.-that plus the heavy burka signals no.
Oddly enough, great civilising elements came from Muslim countries. Concepts such as zero, number systems, female writers of great wit and candor, amazing art, medical advances long before europe stopped applying shit poultices to everything, all courtesy of Arabs who were largely muslim. Christians have done great things too, once we stopped slaughtering Muslims, Jews, and the doctrinally incorrect Christians. Science was embraced by all as providing the best explanation for how the world works, causing textbooks to be created since "because the deity dood it" was out of favour. Leaving humanity all to the better, since we can kill now for resources, political ideologies and whatever our peerless leaders think up.
Hm. Maybe that's why there's been a resurgence in hardcore fundamentalism. We got all enlightened, entered the age of reason and what did we get out of it? Better ways to kill and a lousy t-shirt. Ok, Macs and ipods, those are fucking awesome. Along with the Lord of the Rings. Totally worth it. But I digress. You'd think progress in understanding would be a universal thing, but, um, no. Progress in mechanical understanding isn't metaphysical understanding. I don't know why we can come up with fuel injection but can't do anything about prejudice. But is the answer a return to a rather mythological good old days philosophy, where we were supposedly better people? It's often like the entire world is trapped being a pushmepullyou, one side trying to gain more tech, more knowledge and the other side heading for some good old day that never really existed. We can off more people and damage everything on a massive scale, the ancient world had some of the most horrific methods or torture and death. Blood eagle, anyone?
I live in an America where gay marriage-which existed in both christian and pre-christian cultures- is being banned from state to state and people are actually trying to make banning it Constitutional! Wow, hating as part of the Constitution. A rich man is attempting to build a purely catholic town. Everyone who comes in will have to subscribe to a very rigid form of Catholic belief. Does he really think this will make for a pure, loving existance? Maybe someone should avail him of the gang wars between Byzantine's christians, another pure of faith city. Where is the deep, internal and personal thought that makes a religion worthwhile? Not this crazy, us vs them, 'I win, I'm right' psycho nonsense.
A young lady bucking training and family pressure to adopting a faith that speaks to you is the only example of real piety I need. It takes tremendous courage to put on a head covering-the most visible symbol of a belief system that's not popular-and face potentially negative reactions. And the fact that she's doing it for herself, not a boy she likes, not to get into heaven, or get something from god or to get votes. It's because she read the book, thought about it, questioned herself and then did the most miraculous thing of all. The free will thing. She made a choice. That's something to respect. Very few people of any faith doing respectable stuff these days. I gave her a hug and commended her on her choice.
Yeeah, I know, misanthropic my pink fuzzy ass. I can't be cranky all the time.
Oddly enough, great civilising elements came from Muslim countries. Concepts such as zero, number systems, female writers of great wit and candor, amazing art, medical advances long before europe stopped applying shit poultices to everything, all courtesy of Arabs who were largely muslim. Christians have done great things too, once we stopped slaughtering Muslims, Jews, and the doctrinally incorrect Christians. Science was embraced by all as providing the best explanation for how the world works, causing textbooks to be created since "because the deity dood it" was out of favour. Leaving humanity all to the better, since we can kill now for resources, political ideologies and whatever our peerless leaders think up.
Hm. Maybe that's why there's been a resurgence in hardcore fundamentalism. We got all enlightened, entered the age of reason and what did we get out of it? Better ways to kill and a lousy t-shirt. Ok, Macs and ipods, those are fucking awesome. Along with the Lord of the Rings. Totally worth it. But I digress. You'd think progress in understanding would be a universal thing, but, um, no. Progress in mechanical understanding isn't metaphysical understanding. I don't know why we can come up with fuel injection but can't do anything about prejudice. But is the answer a return to a rather mythological good old days philosophy, where we were supposedly better people? It's often like the entire world is trapped being a pushmepullyou, one side trying to gain more tech, more knowledge and the other side heading for some good old day that never really existed. We can off more people and damage everything on a massive scale, the ancient world had some of the most horrific methods or torture and death. Blood eagle, anyone?
I live in an America where gay marriage-which existed in both christian and pre-christian cultures- is being banned from state to state and people are actually trying to make banning it Constitutional! Wow, hating as part of the Constitution. A rich man is attempting to build a purely catholic town. Everyone who comes in will have to subscribe to a very rigid form of Catholic belief. Does he really think this will make for a pure, loving existance? Maybe someone should avail him of the gang wars between Byzantine's christians, another pure of faith city. Where is the deep, internal and personal thought that makes a religion worthwhile? Not this crazy, us vs them, 'I win, I'm right' psycho nonsense.
A young lady bucking training and family pressure to adopting a faith that speaks to you is the only example of real piety I need. It takes tremendous courage to put on a head covering-the most visible symbol of a belief system that's not popular-and face potentially negative reactions. And the fact that she's doing it for herself, not a boy she likes, not to get into heaven, or get something from god or to get votes. It's because she read the book, thought about it, questioned herself and then did the most miraculous thing of all. The free will thing. She made a choice. That's something to respect. Very few people of any faith doing respectable stuff these days. I gave her a hug and commended her on her choice.
Yeeah, I know, misanthropic my pink fuzzy ass. I can't be cranky all the time.
posted by Misanthropic Meanderings | 5:32 PM
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