Some of the best commentaries for any religious text are the other world religions. I will never forget my own impression, after reading great texts of the East, that I had only learned a children’s version of Christianity. Suddenly, mystics like Tolstoy became transparently clear. Far from being the loving but petty leader of my own version of Christianity, I came to understand Christ as a cosmic principle that was also expressed by sages the world over. I have yet to find a great world religion that does not have its own version of the Christian truth. In fact, every great lover of nature and humankind, even if he or she is thought to be of no religion, is singing a hymn to the same mystery. What madness to think any of us understands and has copyrighted that mystery. What greater affront to God than for any of us to claim we alone are the beloved?
“You may be 38 years old, as I happen to be. And one day, some great opportunity stands before you and calls you to stand up for some great principle, some great issue, some great cause. And you refuse to do it because you are afraid…. You refuse to do it because you want to live longer…. You’re afraid that you will lose your job, or you are afraid that you will be criticized or that you will lose your popularity, or you’re afraid that somebody will stab you, or shoot at you or bomb your house; so you refuse to take the stand.
Well, you may go on and live until you are 90, but you’re just as dead at 38 as you would be at 90. And the cessation of breathing in your life is but the belated announcement of an earlier death of the spirit.”
― Martin_Luther_King
In a recent radio show, Rush Limbaugh claimed that liberals had made up the idea of a polar vortex to justify their claim that the earth is warming. Limbaugh and other climate change deniers, often claim that unseasonably cold temperatures disprove the claims of global warming.
“Do you know what the polar vortex is? Have you ever heard of it? Well, they [the liberal media] just created it for this week.” -Rush Limbaugh
In response, meteorologist, Al Roker produced his 1959 textbook with the term in its glossary, and told those who claimed the polar vortex was made up to “stuff it.” Roker then followed up with a tweet saying “It’s meteorology 101. No political agenda.”
It is possible that Al Roker could have been more tactful, but with so much on the line it is important that a popular figure responds so forcefully to anti-science demagoguery. We’ve run out of time for evasive pleasantries. It is time to defend the earth, which means to demand that deniers either produce scientific evidence, or get out of the discussion..
http://www.salon.com/2014/01/08/stuff_it_limbaugh_al_roker_proves_that_the_polar_vortex_is_real/
“Science investigates, religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power, religion gives man wisdom which is control. Science deals mainly with facts, religion deals with values. The two are not rivals. They are complementary. Science keeps religion from singing into the valley of crippling irrationalism and paralyzingly obscurantism. Religion prevents science from falling into the marsh of obsolete materialism and moral nihilism.”
-Martin Luther King
“During the 1800s, private companies controlled the water systems of several large U.S. cities—to dire effect. Because the companies were more interested in making a profit than providing good service, many poor residents lacked access to water. As a result, cholera outbreaks were common in poor neighborhoods; water pressure was sometimes too low to stop fires, which destroyed both homes and businesses.”
-Maude Barlow and Wenonah Hauter, Sojourners
Whether one begins with pure materialism or some idea of spirit, it all ends in miracle. If I have emerged through pure material processes from a clod of earth, then everything I am calling my intelligence must exist dormant in that clod of earth. Theism and atheism are two ends of a bridge that leads to the same mystery. Whether it is Moses before the burning bush or Einstein before the atom, they are seeing the same fire.
Forget the word “religion.” Forget the crosses and menorahs. Forget the churches and temples for a moment. I want to know what rituals hold your life together. I want to know what secret song of gratitude you sing to the universe. I want to know out of what ultimate value you are living your life. And I want to ask if some part of you does not long to share all of that with other human beings in community? Does any part of you feel a responsibility to share your experiences with children trying to find their way in this bewildering world? This is what I mean by the word “religion,” but call it by any name you like. Purge it of all you abhor, but remember that you do not need to live and die with your deepest treasures unknown to any but yourself.
“Now I don’t know why he’s denying them habeas corpus. I can only assume the guys they got detained over there did something really unforgivable. Like remind Obama he was once a professor of Constitutional Law.”
“The pen is mightier than the sword, if you shoot that pen out of a gun”
“Contraception leads to more babies being born out of wedlock, like fire extinguishers lead to more fires.”
The worst thing about affirmative action is that it encourages reverse discrimination, so-called because it goes in the opposite way of how we naturally discriminate.”
“Yes, helping the poor helps keep them stuck in poverty. As Jesus said, ‘Tough love thy neighbor as thyself, get your own loaves and fishes.
Today we will begin a month long series on MLK called “The Path to Love.” In this series we will look at the scriptures behind some of his most famous speeches and sermons. We will look at the principles that allowed him to so powerfully confront injustice without losing compassion. Today we will look at what he meant by “loving our enemies.”
“Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction. So when Jesus says “Love your enemies,” he is setting forth a profound and ultimately inescapable admonition. Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies– or else? The chain reaction of evil–hate begetting hate, wars producing wars–must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love.
“A term like capitalism is incredibly slippery, because there’s such a range of different kinds of market economies. Essentially, what we’ve been debating over—certainly since the Great Depression—is what percentage of a society should be left in the hands of a deregulated market system. And absolutely there are people that are at the far other end of the spectrum that want to communalize all property and abolish private property, but in general the debate is not between capitalism and not capitalism, it’s between what parts of the economy are not suitable to being decided by the profit motive. And I guess that comes from being Canadian, in a way, because we have more parts of our society that we’ve made a social contract to say, ‘That’s not a good place to have the profit motive govern.’ Whereas in the United States, that idea is kind of absent from the discussion. So even something like firefighting—it seems hard for people make an argument that maybe the profit motive isn’t something we want in the firefighting sector, because you don’t want a market for fire.”
-Naomi Klein