I always wince a little when I hear the word “Lord” applied to Jesus. A “Lord” draws up images in my mind of a medieval chieftain, a bully demanding that everyone else grovel at his feet. Because many human beings would like others to grovel before them, they think that is also what God and Jesus would surely want.
It is like a bunch of ants realizing that human beings were smarter and more powerful than they, and calling us “queen,” as a form of flattery. They would “praise” us with pictures where we were lying on our side all day pumping out eggs. And just as they do with their ant queen, they would leave us regurgitated ant food as an offering.
What ants would not understand is that their picture of us as ant queens would hardly be flattering. Rather than letting us speak to them from a higher understanding, they would reduce us down to their own level. Their “religion” would really be all about themselves and what they want, projected back upon us.
We do Jesus no favors when we picture him as a king. Jesus spent his entire life refusing power and status. He spent his life trying to get us to value compassion over power, and demonstrating that a kindly peasant is infinitely closer to the Way than the most powerful king or lord. The church is only able to put a crown on Jesus now because he is not here to knock it off.
A shocking new international report comparing our educational system with that of over 30 developed nations draws in question some basic assumptions many have about our schools.
Myth #1: Our educational system provides more upward mobility than any other in the world.
Myth #2: Our teachers (protected by their greedy unions) work less and get paid more.
Myth #3: Big government (via our tax dollars) funds higher education.
Myth #4: We provide excellent early childhood education.
Myth #5: We have the highest percentage of college grads in the world.
If you or someone you care about believes the above phrases to be true, please click on the link below. As the article says, “when it comes to education, proves we’re so far from being number one, that the entire idea of American exceptionalism should be called into question. Rather than thumping our chests, we should be going to school on how other developed nations, especially those in Europe, invest in education. However, we have little chance of learning until we break through the mythology that blinds us to our decline.”
To read, click here:
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/11629-shocking-report-explodes-five-myths-about-american-education
If Adam Smith and Karl Marx both came back from the dead and saw the distortions that now bear their names, it would be interesting to see which one commited suicide first. Both men assumed a set of humanistic values without which either system becomes a heartless, bloodless machine. As important as it is to lobby and vote, we must realize there is no strong chain that can be made with weak links. As long as our nation is filled with people who do not know basic civics, who have learned and accepted the standard false history of our nation, have never read another nation’s newspaper, nor learned reverence for another religion’s view of life, then it does not ultimately matter who our leader is. A nation that does not embody its highest principles, but instead counts on heroes to save them, is nearing its own death. As Eugene V. Debs used to say, as long as a Moses can lead the people into the promised land, there is somebody else who can lead them back out.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/09/25-1
Saving the world would be easy if only ignorance and arrogance were not joined at the hip. What follows is a collection of various appeals to “Speak English” made by those who have yet to master the language in the first place.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/22/13-ironic-speak-english-signs_n_1906008.html?utm_hp_ref=comedy
I was asked the following question by a facebook friend:
“I listen to my friends talk about a very human-sounding relationship with Invisible Jesus, and I certainly can’t disprove it. But I have to wonder, do we create our gods in OUR own image to heal the pain of loneliness, to assuage the fear of abandonment. Is a lot of the Christian religion a socially acceptable way to deal with a borderline personality disorder?”
Here is my answer, but feel free to give yours:
As an introvert, I don’t find images to be helpful in contemplating the unity and mystery of things, but I know many extroverts who find it helpful to project their intuitions outside themselves into human shapes and stories so they can gain a better sense of what their deepest intuitions are saying. The important thing, if one uses religious images, is to not to believe in them, but through them. The end game of religion is reality not itself
As long as you believe in the myth of your self you will need another myth to counter balance it. To lose belief in God and retain belief in our egos is like making our home on one end of a teeter-totter. To say “God is love” is a just poetic version of the core insight of relativity. It is saying that the universe is all relationship and no abiding separate substances. A good symbol will lead us to that sense of interconnectivity and then crumble into ashes.
The name of the article I have linked below is “Atheist Schism.” I find that title unfair. Like all movements, what we are currently calling “Atheism” will need to go through some growth pains. Such disagreement within the ranks is not a sign of weakness, but of health. The dominant voices of the movement have been white upper class men, but does that reveal a flaw in the movement, or does it reveal that our culture only listens to certain types of people? New voices are emerging within the movement that include women, people of color and non-Western approaches that are very different. People from the East know that nontheistic thinking is not new but has roots going back to the beginnings of history. Not only were many Greek philosophers nontheistic, but so was the Buddha himself and many other religious sages.
Not coming from that camp, I don’t get to vote on the issue, but I think the name “atheist” is a recipe for misunderstanding. Most nontheists I know aren’t against God, they just don’t believe there is one. While they are against the special claims of religion, most nontheists are not making special claims for their own group. They feel a duty to expose superstition when it invades the public sphere, but most nontheist I know have no desire to rob believers of whatever comfort or inspiration religion brings.
We live in a culture where a certain type of person rises to the top. So obnoxious white upper class men represent many movements, but they do not really speak for anyone but themselves. My idea of religion is consummated in universal love. Love does not ask another to convert to its own ways, but rejoices in the other as he or she is. Love requires all of us to have the humility to meet at the mysterious reality beyond any of our understandings. In that place of actual meeting, words fall away.
All worldviews begin in a little cocoon where members are convinced they are different from and superior to someone else. If they live long enough, they find their own center of gravity which does not need an enemy. They open up to live in peace with others as good neighbors. One particular brand of Buddhism calls this process of opening “mahayana” or the big vessel.
Even as I serve my own little congregation, I follow my nontheistic brothers and sisters online. I see people leaving the cocoon of simply being against religion, and finding their own center as free thinkers. I see their internal bickering not as a sign that their movement is dying, but as a sign of health. It means they are still going through pangs of new birth.
http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/guest_bloggers/6415/atheist_schism_/
I’m sure we would all come up with a different list, but after one post on hate crimes and another one on human trafficking, I need a humor break. So this is one writer at Huffington Post’s idea of the worst political slip ups in recent history.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/24/caught-on-tape-candidates_n_1908340.html
In a system where the bottom line is personal financial profit and not human happiness, there is no amount of watchfulness that can keep the system humane. It does not take an evil CEO to turn to human trafficking, just one who does not take responsibility for the company’s own outsourcing.
No one walking through a Walmart would feel any connection to what happens in a seafood processing factory in Thailand. Why should they? The point is that the shrimp is cheaper here, not whether a woker in in some Bangkok based company got bathroom breaks or made enough money themselves to provide food for their own families.
“Some workers were receiving so little pay after deductions that they couldn’t afford sufficient food. Before the strike, they were reportedly catching minnows and snails for meals. Despite the legal requirement that workers be enrolled in Thailand’s social security system to receive health care, the company failed to sign the workers up, meaning workers had to pay out of pocket for any medical treatment for injuries or sickness.” -John Sifton, World Policy Blog
Workers told researchers that they often lived in debt because they factory would charge them fees that ate up their salary. When workers want to leave they sometimes find it difficult because the company often seizes their work permits, health cards and passports to keep them from leaving.
” Many today are still effectively in bondage. The company still deducts fees for lodging and other necessities, and when workers receive their pay stubs, written in Thai, they can’t even read explanations of the deductions. And the company has not guaranteed that remaining workers will be enrolled in the official health care system. One company involved in the recruitment of the Cambodian workers—or trafficking, to be more exact—reportedly agreed last May to forgive debts if workers want to return to Cambodia, but in a Catch-22, the workers have to pay an additional fee to do so, and would not be able to try to get jobs with other employers in Thailand.” -John Sifton, World Policy Blog
http://www.worldpolicy.org/blog/2012/09/17/walmarts-human-trafficking-problem
You are going to love this. We all have celebrated the wonderful pictures streaming in from Hubble and the Martian rovers, but the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England, in association with the English astronomy magazine ‘Sky at Night.’ held a competion between breath taking photos taken by amateur astronomers that are mind boggling as well.
The entries were judged by a panel of astronomers, journalists and historians. The winner was photo taken in Australia called “M51-The Whirlpool Galaxy.” The other photos are a visual feast as well. Enjoy.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/21/astronomy-photos-2012-royal-observatory-greenwich-winners_n_1904191.html?utm_hp_ref=science
You think you know white working class voters? A new poll by the Public Religion Research Institute, is shaking up some of the stereotypes. For example they are just about as likely or unlikely to identify with the Tea Party as college educated people from the same demographic. Only 5% say that abortion or same-sex marriage is the most important issue for deciding their vote. More than half say abortion should be legal.
“The study also confounds those who believe white working-class voters consistently vote against their own economic interests: Those who received food stamps in the last two years preferred Obama to Romney 48 to 36 percent, while two-thirds of those who hadn’t preferred Romney.”
The poll did show that some of the stereotypes hold, but over all it gives the impression of a much more nuanced awareness than liberal elites assume. This report on the study (“Beyond God and Guns”) also muses that the GOP could very well lose this voting block if they continue their swing to the right.
http://truth-out.org/news/item/11702-beyond-god-and-guns-why-the-gop-may-lose-the-white-working-class