BS: Separation of Church & State II

Subject: RE: BS: Separation of Church & State II
From: mousethief
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 01:22 PM

THIS COUNTRY WAS FOUNDED BY RELIGIOUS NUTS WITH GUNS!!!

The same could be said for the Soviet Union. It's hardly a cause for pride.

Alex

Subject: RE: BS: Separation of Church & State II
From: Little Hawk
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 01:59 PM

True enough, Alex. Their religion was the Communist Party and its ideology, their prophets were Marx and Engels, and their holy books "The Communist Manifesto" and "Das Kapital". Their cathedral? The Kremlin. Same basic routine, except it was an Earth-based religion rather than a spirit-based religion.

This is what the atheist fails to comprehend, generally...he is following a religion based on various material considerations. I have seen blind faith demonstrated by atheists that is positively mind-boggling...at least as rabid as the faith displayed by the common religious fundamentalist, and resting on equally shaky ground, IMO.

However, I don't think MAV was taking pride in those "religious nuts with guns" founding America. MAV has a keen appreciation of the injustices perpetrated upon North American Indians, and he has talked with me before about that. He's what you would call definitely pro-Indian when it comes to such matters.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Separation of Church & State II
From: SDShad
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 06:01 PM

Jim, thanks for the link to that article on Ladinsky. An interesting and thought-provoking read. The same author had an interesting bit in another article at the site about poetry being the most "eastern" and "sufi" of America's arts, so I don't think that his is just a knee-jerk "fundamentalist" response to perceived "new-age" translation.

So yeah, I'm aware of some of the complaints against both Ladinsky and Barks, and the accusation of "new-ageism." I don't have any volume of Ladinsky's versions of Hafiz, as I do a copy of Barks' "Essential Rumi." So with Barks, I at least know his method. He makes no claims to being a translator. He works from the translations of others, most notably Arberry, and tries to cast them in a poetical form that makes sense in a modern mystical context.

On the whole, Barks works for me. It helps that Barks is himself a decent poet. And short of learning to read Persian, I'd be left only with the option of Arberry's original translations in order to experience in some way the true light that shone in Mevlana's original ghazals. Now, I know that Rumi's originals had definite, sometimes prescribed rhyme and meter, and thus sounded little like Barks' free verse in that regard. But Arberry's insistence on keeping with rhyme and meter led to ham-handed, sing-songy, forced, pedestrian poetry that makes me frickin' cringe, as to fingernails on a chalkboard. I recognize the immense value of Arberry, but God bless Coleman Barks for wading through the man's turgid translations so I don't have to. If only Arberry had the poetical sensitivity of Edward Fitzgerald's luminous work translating the Rubaiyyat of Omar Khayyam....

Now, with Ladinsky, I know much less about how he approaches it all, but I have noticed that with Barks, the attribution is always "version by Coleman Barks," whereas with Ladinsky it's "tr. by Daniel Ladinsky." I didn't trust that that's very true even before reading that article, Jim, so I always say "version by D.L." when I'm quoting him. And it sounds from that article that Ladinsky's process may be rather less reliable than Barks'.

That said, I do still think it's safe to say that Ladinsky's take on that poem (if in fact it comes from a Hafez poem at all, which is an open question after that article) is in keeping with known Sufi precedent. It dovetails with the Barks/Rumi poem, and it's worth noting that Rumi was known to be very ecumenical: he was known to have a great love and respect for Christians, Jews, Hindus, and those of other Middle-Eastern faiths; his funeral was attended by many representatives of all regional faiths, in a returned show of respect; and there are Christian churches to this day in Iran that have quotes from Rumi over their front doors. And if anything, Hafez was even more of an outlandish fool for the Friend than Mevlana, if less profound, so it does fit.

So, I do find much spiritual food in these versions of Rumi and Hafez, but I don't see them as scripture--and I'm not necessarily completely happy with any English translations of the Bible, either!--and I do know to take Barks' versions with a grain of salt, and Ladinsky's with at least two or three....

Thread drift? What's that?

Chris

Subject: RE: BS: Separation of Church & State II
From: DougR
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 10:56 PM

Yes, Alex, and the same could be said for Cuba! Right?

Subject: RE: BS: Separation of Church & State II
From: mousethief
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 11:21 PM

I don't know a whole lot about the Cuban revolution, Doug. I'll have to take your word for it! (My education is sadly lacking; I was educated in American public schools!)

Alex

Subject: RE: BS: Separation of Church & State II
From: Little Hawk
Date: 21 Jun 01 - 11:21 PM

Definitely, Doug! The Cuban revolutionaries had a religious fervour about them that was quite extraordinary. When Fidel rode into Havana on a tank, he was greeted with the sort of ecstatic fervour you would almost expect to see at the official return of Christ, and that fervour sustained itself for some considerable time. He loved to talk, and used to give speeches to the Cuban crowds that went on for hours at a time...and he had their full attention, even their adulation.

That was long before the Warsaw Pact fell apart, and hard economic times came to Cuba. Since then, many people have longed to get out and go to the USA or Canada. All of Latin American shares that aspiration.

The mitigating grace about it all, however, is that Fidel replaced a government (that of Batista) which was so much more corrupt than his own in almost every way...

It's not surprising that he was popular back then. Batista was utterly despised by most of the people (except the rich)...and feared!

The Fidelistas are no angels, but, my friend, they are an enormous improvement over what preceded them, and over what would still be there had they not overthrown it.

Just my humble opinion, of course...having been there and seen it for myself. Too bad more Americans haven't.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Separation of Church & State II
From: DougR
Date: 22 Jun 01 - 01:27 AM

I thought so, LH.

Subject: RE: BS: Separation of Church & State II
From: sophocleese
Date: 22 Jun 01 - 08:33 AM

Pennsylvania was settled by religious nuts without guns.

Subject: RE: BS: Separation of Church & State II
From: Mrrzy
Date: 22 Jun 01 - 10:55 AM

Not all fervor is religious. "This is what the atheist fails to comprehend, generally...[s/]he is following a religion based on various material considerations. I have seen blind faith demonstrated by atheists that is positively mind-boggling...at least as rabid as the faith displayed by the common religious fundamentalist, and resting on equally shaky ground, IMO" - I agree with the statements, mostly. However, I don't think that I take it "on faith" that there is no god, although I do have a fundementalist atheist friend who claims to "believe in" the Big Bang, the way a theist might believe in The Creation. He says, however, that it is the ONLY thing he takes on faith, and I don't believe that it is religious to believe in the Big Bang. I do agree that blind faith is mind-boggling, whether it's faith in the supernatural or not. However, I would not agree that atheists are necessarily following a religion based on various material considerations. For instance, I believe in kindness. That is, I believe that it exists, and I believe it is a good thing which ought to be propagated. However, I don't consider it "against my religion" to be unkind, I consider it reprehensible.

There was another thread on this, where I was trying to explain that my kind of atheism is a belief system, and I was being told that No, it's not, it's the absence of belief. Now I'm being told it's a belief system like any other and I don't like that either. Hmm. Am going to have to think long and hard on this!

Subject: RE: BS: Separation of Church & State II
From: mousethief
Date: 22 Jun 01 - 11:10 AM

I found myself sort of sidelined by the direction the thread was going (viz., inclusivism), and wanted to try to say how things look from my POV. Feel free to ignore.

I don't know about other Christians, or about other "branches" of Christianity, or about people who might claim to be Christians but really aren't, or vice versa. All of that is outside my ability to make categorical statements about.

I do know that I am taught that Jesus Christ is the only bridge between divinity and humanity. Being fully God and fully Man, he bridges the gap between the two realms and thereby makes it possible for us mere mortals to have concourse with God.

This doesn't mean I don't value people who are not Christians, or who don't believe this the way I do. I know many, many good and loving people -- and even holy people -- who are on quite different paths from me. It is not my job to judge them, or their decisions, or their paths. I feel it is my job to do the best I can to be faithful to the path I find myself on.

I count pagans, atheists, agnostics, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Baha'is, etc. etc. among my friends.

And yet I belong to what you might call a very "exclusivist" branch of Christianity.

How can this be?

I don't know. Maybe I'm not a very good Orthodox Christian (such has been hinted here before). But I find myself in very good company, including some real luminaries of the Eastern Church like Fr. Alexander Men, who was martyred by the Soviets on the very eve of the downfall of their atheistic empire. He too refused to discount and reject others based on their religious choices, and was open to learning truth at any table he sat at, and yet he still proclaimed the gospel he was entrusted to teach.

Very often "conservative" Christians find themselves left out of a "tolerance" that tolerates everybody who olerates everybody, but subtly refuses to tolerate people who make any kind of truth claims, or who say "This is true and its opposite is false." I cannot join in the great toleration round robin and say, "your way is just as true as my way." I can say, "My way may be false and yours true," because as a fallible human I might, in fact, have it all wrong. But if I'm right, then those creeds or paths which deny the things that are right, are wrong. Which perforce leaves me out of the great toleration round robin.

Yet I do have a great love and respect for people on different paths, and don't look down on them as being of any less intellect, goodness, or even ultimately salvation, than myself. For as my one-time roommate once said, "you don't need to know the name of a bridge to cross it." And we are told in our own Scriptures that many will enter the kingdom of Heaven who didn't even know they were headed that way. Again, mine is not the judgment. Mine is only to keep my own nose clean, and try to practice the sort of faith and love that I've been called to.

This is where I am. Thanks for listening, if anybody did.

Alex

Subject: RE: BS: Separation of Church & State II
From: SDShad
Date: 22 Jun 01 - 12:38 PM

Mrzzy, re: your bit about "believing" in the big bang v. "believing" in Biblical Creation: but what about theists who instead see Creation myths as just that--not "myths" in the incorrect negative sense of "falsehood" that the word doesn't really mean, but of ancient, powerful metaphorical stories that aren't historically true--and support the truth (and potential truth) and continued inquiry of modern cosmology and biology--big bang, string theory, bubble theory, natural selection, punctuated equilibrium, fossil record, the works.

People (Christians, believers of other faiths, and nonbelievers alike) too often tend to believe that one's "belief in God" means that one literally believes in a white-haired, grumbly old sky-king looking down from a throne with some weird mixture of jealousy, rage, forgiveness, mercy, and indulgence. It's a dangerous assumption to make. To me, God isn't an actual supernatural being, but, in the 20th-century theologian Paul Tillich's words, "the depth and ground of all being." And it's the face of that God that I see in a constantly evolving, bedazzling, bewildering, and infinite creation.

But I tell ya, a lot of nonbelievers simply assume that if you have any religious or spiritual beliefs, you obviously believe factually in silly sky-king (or sky-queen) myths rather than accept the conclusions of good, hard science. With a large number of us, that couldn't be further from the truth.

Chris

Subject: RE: BS: Separation of Church & State II
From: SDShad
Date: 22 Jun 01 - 12:40 PM

My apologies, Mrrzy. I just realized I've been mis-spelling your handle several times in this thread.

Two r's, one z. Got it.

C.

Subject: RE: BS: Separation of Church & State II
From: Little Hawk
Date: 22 Jun 01 - 01:07 PM

SDShad - Precisely!!! The mistake that anti-theists usually make is that they assume people who believe in God believe in the same utterly childish and unlikely concept of God that the anti-theist has already concocted in his own imagination (or gleaned from the ravings of TV evangelists) and decided not to believe in.

My belief in God is quite similar to yours, and in no way violates or opposes a scientific understanding of life, although it does touch on a number of areas that conventional science is at present either partially or wholly unaware of.

First the scientific mind seizes upon a primitive and ludicrous concept of God. Then it decides that that must be the God that all religious or spiritually-minded people believe in...

It's so convenient to assume that the "other guy" is simply an idiot with an idiotic belief...

What I have studied leads me to believe that God is the entire summation of "all that is"...the whole continuum...including science and scientists themselves. Each little part of that whole continuum is working toward the dawning awareness that it is One and in perfect unity with the rest. When a sentient being realizes the Oneness, then kindness becomes a given, as do all the other common virtues. We have a word for that...it's called enlightenment. It's also called salvation. It is the one thing that life is really about.

So when a non-believer says to me "I don't believe in God", I have to wonder what silly god he is talking about. To not believe in All That Is would leave one literally with no ground to stand on, after all...and no mind with which to form the notion of unbelief in something, and no mouth with which to utter the words.

I could just reply "Oh, well I don't believe in that god either, as a matter of fact!" But would I be understood? I seriously doubt it.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Separation of Church & State II
From: Grab
Date: 22 Jun 01 - 02:23 PM

A thought to Mrzzy - I work for a company who has many dealings with Ford. Ford has established what they call the Ford Interfaith Network, which basically means that religions are allowed to set up their own little groups, get intranet space and so on. The idea is that if you allow employees to promote what they're interested in, they'll work better and/or be more likely to stay with the company.

We thought some of it was quite funny, especially when we saw "Religious car ornaments" on the list of topics! :-) But as you say, the appearance that this is promoted or encouraged by the company (and an email was sent round praising this in fairly glowing terms) is a bit worrying. If they make it clear that a religious group is no more important to them than a folk music group, a line-dancing club or the local bog-snorkeling league, I don't mind. When it becomes anything more than that, it starts to get intrusive.

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Separation of Church & State II
From: mousethief
Date: 22 Jun 01 - 04:53 PM

But Graham/Grab, what HARM does it do you? Specific harm, now. Any?

Alex

Subject: RE: BS: Separation of Church & State II
From: MAV
Date: 22 Jun 01 - 07:29 PM

Hey Little Hawk, Mouse et al.

Never have Ontario schools been so savaged by a "Big Brother" provincial government before...and all in the name of conservatism!

How do you figure it, MAV?

I'll stick with my local control opinion which does not sound like what your Harris is doing. I don't care what they may do it in the name of......no two communities are alike and one size does not fit all.

One case where it would "fit all" is if the state (or province in your case) were to equally fund each student and allow the parents the right to send them to the school of their choice with no government strings attached (true state vouchers).

I don't think MAV was taking pride in those "religious nuts with guns" founding America

True, that's where I believe the tradition of "scalping" came from, a bounty on Indian scalps. I only was referencing the fact as a historical prededent.

I like to believe that today's Christians in general have "lightened up" quite a bit, and I appreciate their value system and moral code (most any real religion for that matter)

I also would like to mirror the comment about those who pretend to be Christians. A so-called "Born Again" just ripped me off for $3200.

MAV has a keen appreciation of the injustices perpetrated upon North American Indians, and he has talked with me before about that. He's what you would call definitely pro-Indian when it comes to such matters

It's true, believe it or not!

The true traditional Indians I've met live their spirituality 7 days a week.

Thanks LH.

mav out

PS. I think we should stop calling ourselves "conservatives" it's way too confusing. The current status quo liberals are trying to keep things the way they are and for that reason could be considered "conservatives".

I'll accept the moniker of "Constitutionalist" any day.

Subject: RE: BS: Separation of Church & State II
From: John P
Date: 23 Jun 01 - 08:53 AM

SD Shad, Little Hawk,
I like your concepts of God, and most Christians I know would probably put forth some similar definition. As would anyone who has spiritual experiences as part of their lives, a condition that doesn't require belief in or membership in any religion. You don't, however, address the central core of Christianity, the bit that separates it from other religions or spiritual experiences. That is the concept of Christ itself, the idea that Christ died and was resurrected and somehow thereby cleansed us all of our sins. That's the part that leaves me behind, that requires "faith" or "belief" and doesn't make any sense to many of us in light of everything else we know about the world. And, it seems to me, this is a central belief that has to be present in order for someone to consider themselves a Christian.

Obviously, there are lots of other aspects of being a good Christian -- acts are more important than words, after all. It is hard to see how some the the hate-mongers can get away with calling themselves members of a religion that has love as one of its central tenets, but they do have the basic belief in the resurrection and divinity of Christ. Considering that, it is hard not call them Christians. It's just too bad they are so vocal, and so give all the rest of Christianity a bad name with people who tend toward bigotry themselves. And we're lucky they are such a small minority, or our legal code would be a very frightening place.

The Bible also clearly states that the only way to salvation is through belief in the divinity of Christ. Most denominations teach this as a basic concept. Again, most Christians I know don't have any use for that kind of balderdash, but they also know they are going against one of the basic tenets of their religion when they reject the idea. The basic arrogance of this belief is another reason why many non-Christians are put off by the whole religion. I know that most other religions teach a similar concept, but Christianity is the one that most of us have to put up with encroaching on our lives on a day-to-day basis (just to pull it back to the original subject of the thread).

John Peekstok

Subject: RE: BS: Separation of Church & State II
From: John P
Date: 23 Jun 01 - 09:12 AM

Alex, what specific harm does it do anyone to have a company officially promoting a religion? Are the top executives all members of that religion? Do they tend to promote people who are not? Even if they do promote them, are the non-Christians invited to the golf games and dinner parties where vital work-related subjects are discussed? It bothers me just because it creates a percieved conflict of interest. Most of us have run into enough Christians who don't, unlike you, have any respect for non-Christians that we are pretty gun-shy about this subject.

Several years ago I interviewed for a management job in a mid-sized company. The people who interviewed me were open about their extreme Christianity and were obviously fishing for a similar expression of faith from me. They stopped short of breaking the law by asking me about my religion, but the very clear message was that I probably wouldn't be hired if I wasn't a professing Christian. Or even if I was hired I would always be an outsider. I stopped pursuing the job, even though I was exactly qualified for it, it would have been a very good career move for me, and it would have allowed me to live and work on Bainbridge Island or the Kitsap Penninsula. As you know, that's sort of like moving to Nirvanna for a lot of folks around here.

So yes, I think that business owners and executives who bring their religion to work can easily do harm to their employees. Our laws guarantee us that employment decisions won't be based on our religion. Unless that also means our lack of religion, it doesn't really make any sense. And the only way to ensure that is to not have religion promoted in the workplace in any official way whatsoever.John Peekstok

Subject: RE: BS: Separation of Church & State II
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Jun 01 - 12:19 PM

Those to evils together means the end to humanity there.

Subject: RE: BS: Separation of Church & State II
From: mousethief
Date: 23 Jun 01 - 01:21 PM

John, you didn't say the company was promoting *A* religion. You said they were allowing people of any religion to use company facilities to meet and disseminate information. Two completely different things.

Alex

Subject: RE: BS: Separation of Church & State II
From: Mrrzy
Date: 23 Jun 01 - 04:56 PM

SDShad - Precisely, again, thanks for noticing.

John, thanks for answering mousethief so nicely. The company is promoting being religious, which may in fact be professionally detrimental to atheists, who have rights too. See, the basic issue to me is freedom FROM religion - leave it in the homes and holy places, not in my place of work, where having Bible stuff shoved onto my desktop bothers me. Sorry, but it does, whereas it wouldn't bother me on your coffee table, mousethief. It belongs there - it's your coffee table, and should I even have the honor of stepping over your threshold, I'd love to discuss anything with you, especially over some music. I would not and do not fear personal harm from indivisuals who have religion, although I have been personally accosted for being an atheist more times than I care to count.

Think of it like any other harassment - if I am offended, then even if what was said wasn't "meant that way," I have been harrassed. And just like with sexual harassment, some people are more vocal in their efforts to make (usually the Good Old Boys, but basically businesspeople in general) realize that comments of that nature just plain don't belong in the air of an office. It wouldn't have bothered me if the people in the office in question had decided to hold Bible studies together. It probably wouldn't have bothered me to find out that the company was letting them use office space - after all, I sometimes have students come meet with me while I'm at the office, and I use the tables in the cafeteria or outside - but having it ANNOUNCED ON THE INTRANET so that I would see it every time I went there for work, which I do a lot, put it in my face, and that's what I objected to. I would have minded if it had been a women's group, or a men's group, or a white group, or any group that specifically excluded any employees, even if they included me. For instance, they had a self-defense seminar. Now it turned out only women went, but it wasn't a woman's announcement.

And I have been accosted at work by fundamentalists before, too, when I had a fundamentalist (dig this) Christian Jewish boss, and he (the boss) made the evangelist lay off, as was right and proper. Some of us at lunch had been discussing this neat Nova on the origins of language, looking at theoretically unrelated languages and finding interesting "coincidences" and using them with biological data to attempt to map the origins of human language, when another colleague came over and told us we couldn't discuss this, the question couldn't even be asked, because the Bible already told us how it happened. And he meant it, too. I tried asking if it would be OK to try to figure out what had been spoken before the Tower of Babel was attempted, and he said No, because God fractured the languages specifically so that it couldn't be figured out. Now admittedly that was extreme, but it only that - an extreme, of something that ought just plain not to be tolerated. At work, that is. He'd have been welcome to say that if I'd been having that conversation inside his church, although I still think it's ridiculous. Personally. But even then, I didn't tell him so. He sat down, and we changed the subject. It wasn't harmful in any painful sense, but it was certainly curtailing of freedom...

I also have a separate question for those who don't believe in God as a supernatural being, but as somehow imbuing everything, immanent in everything, if that is a fair assessment of your position? If deity is everywhere, isn't that logically equivalent to being nowhere? Is the only thing, then, the concept of soul, life everlasting, or something? That's where I fail to ken, to grok the fullness, as it were. I believe in physics, chemistry, and electromagnetism, which gave me life and consciousness. What lives forever in humans and no other animals that we know of (I give the benefit of the doubt to African elephants) is the memory, knowledge, teachings and wisdom of the dearly departed. Like those aliens in that Star Trek (Matt, you know which one I mean), as long as you are remembered, you aren't really gone. You're dead, of course, but not gone. But I don't consider any of these beliefs to be religious... but I do find that the emphasis on the next life detracts a limited amount of energy from the efforts that need to be made in THIS life, and that is what I find so sad, and so harmful, about religion in general. I've made this point before, but every time I am awed by the beauty of a mosque, or a Gregorian chant, I am dismayed anew by the ugliness of a public school, or the tune for the multiplication tables... I just wish people would concentrate on the here-and-now, rather than the thereafter. And I don't just mean folks that go to church but don't feed their elderly neighbors on holidays. Not that there are any of those here, I would trust a mudcatter to have kindness, whether religious or not, but you know what I mean, I hope!