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Re: Will the Real Religion please Stand Up?

Posted: Sat May 06, 2006 6:58 am
by Tobiahsgirl
Quote:Malls are a good way to group together commerce. You know, downtowns were a great way to group together commence, so this argument in favor of malls is a little thin. My father commented in the sixties that shopping at the strip mall (didn't have enclosed malls in Ohio then) was the new form of Sunday worship.How does anyone live in America and not think Money is Our God? I've never heard of people worshiping flint (exchanged and used for making points) or wampum, though of course people saw spiritual significance in the return of the sun, the miracle of seeds, etc. Money is a means to an end for you and for me, riverc0il, but it's a lot more than that for many, many people, from people with little who hoard even that and envy everyone else to those with billions who want more, more, more.Some of the people who write on these threads are incredibly literalistic. I have got to assume that we don't have too many poets, writers, or other artists contributing here. When someone uses a word with artistic license or writes a very clever piece (such as Esack's) intending to make us think, it is read with the utmost dreariness and lack of imagination. I would like to recommend "Daily Afflictions," a little book by Andrew Boyd, to all of you to hone up your rusty senses of humor.

Re: Will the Real Religion please Stand Up?

Posted: Sat May 06, 2006 9:52 am
by Tobiahsgirl
Now that I think about it, I have to believe that Riverc0il was being terribly ironic. So ironic I didn't laugh. Sorry. A number of theologians have suggested that your god is not the one you talk about or say you believe in, but is whatever is central to your life, what you spend the most time pursuing, what is most meaningful to you. Hahahaha, for some people this appears to be Money! (I hear Pink Floyd in the background.)

Re: Will the Real Religion please Stand Up?

Posted: Sat May 06, 2006 10:16 am
by Dissident Heart
river: But such comparisons of capitalism to religion is quite frankly tough to swallow and kind of silly.I think Esack's comparison of Capitalism and Religion is worthy of serious consideration, even if his analysis is light on specifics. He's not the first to make the comparison. Marx identified what he called Commodity Fetishism in Capitalism, where commodities aquire abstract values and special powers...forces that define human relationships, goods and services, and what is worthy and meaningful in society. Of course, Marx saw this as a detrimental process that devalued human and natural resources and alienated people from their labor, their communities, and themselves...in essence, an Idolatry.Dr. Harvey Cox is professor of Christian Ethics at the Divinity School of Harvard University and has spent a lifetime examining the relationships between the religious and secular worlds. In this article from the Atlantic Monthly 1999, he makes a strong case for "The Market As God" and Capitalism as Living in The New DispensationalismQuote:Discovering the theology of The Market made me begin to think in a different way about the conflict among religions. Violence between Catholics and Protestants in Ulster or Hindus and Muslims in India often dominates the headlines. But I have come to wonder whether the real clash of religions (or even of civilizations) may be going unnoticed. I am beginning to think that for all the religions of the world, however they may differ from one another, the religion of The Market has become the most formidable rival, the more so because it is rarely recognized as a religion. The traditional religions and the religion of the global market, as we have seen, hold radically different views of nature. In Christianity and Judaism, for example, "the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and all that dwell therein." The Creator appoints human beings as stewards and gardeners but, as it were, retains title to the earth. Other faiths have similar ideas. In The Market religion, however, human beings, more particularly those with money, own anything they buy and-within certain limits-can dispose of anything as they choose. Other contradictions can be seen in ideas about the human body, the nature of human community, and the purpose of life. The older religions encourage archaic attachments to particular places. But in The Market's eyes all places are interchangeable. The Market prefers a homogenized world culture with as few inconvenient particularities as possible.Esack quotes the Buddhist scholar, David Loy in the brief excerpt I included above. Loy, speaking at a conference titled The Religious Consultation on Population, Reproductive Health & Ethics offers this lecture Religion and the Market from which the following quote is taken:Quote:Later chapters in this book explore the ways Buddhism and other religions diagnose and attempt to resolve this problem. If we contrast their approaches with market indoctrination about the importance of acquisition and consumption -- an indoctrination that is necessary for the market to thrive -- the battle lines become clear. All genuine religions are natural allies against what amounts to an idolatry that undermines their most important teachings. In conclusion, the market is not just an economic system but a religion -- yet not a very good one, for it can thrive only by promising a secular salvation that it never quite supplies. Its academic discipline, the "social science" of economics, is better understood as a theology pretending to be a science. This suggests that any solution to the problems they have created must also have a religious dimension. That is not a matter of turning from secular to sacred values, but the need to discover how our secular obsessions have become symptomatic of a spiritual need they cannot meet. As we have consciously or unconsciously turned away from a religious understanding of the world, we have come to pursue this-worldly goals with a religious zeal all the greater because they can never be fulfilled. The solution to the environmental catastrophe that has already begun, and to the social deterioration we are already suffering from, will occur when we redirect this repressed spiritual urge back into its true path. For the time being, that path includes struggling against the false religion of our age.So, I think there is something worth considering from these Muslim, Christian and Buddhist perspectives regarding the Religious elements of Capitalism. I think Capitalism, like any all-encompassing ideologies that propose definitions of human nature, the good society, worth and value, meaning and purpose...involve many of the same machinations of Religion: faith, worship, sacrifice, missionary zeal, heresy and orthodoxy, sacred temples, and elaborate theologies.

World Government

Posted: Sun May 07, 2006 1:36 pm
by tarav
The idea of a world government fascinates me. On a simple level, I feel that a world government is what we need to survive. However, I must confess that I haven't given it enough thought to really imagine how such a government would operate. I couldn't argue for or against it. On p 150 Harris states, "...we need a world government." Harris sems to feel we need a world government to rescue the world from religion. He may be right. Does anyone have any thoughts on a world government? Could it liberate us from tribalism? Is it just a nice idea that is impracticle or impossible for some reason?

Arab world and book talk

Posted: Sun May 07, 2006 1:45 pm
by tarav
Harris reports, "...Spain translates as many books into Spanish each year as the entire Arab world has translated into Arabic since the ninth century." The italics are mine. Oh man, that just made me stop reading and reflect on that fact. Wow.

Re: Arab world and book talk

Posted: Mon May 08, 2006 7:37 am
by Tobiahsgirl
Once again, Dissident Heart, let me thank you for the fascinating references. I've been proofreading (mostly fiction) for years and years, and my eyes had little energy left over for good reading. I think Esack chose to say with humor what Cox and Loy state more seriously, but my impression of him was that he is a human being who takes what should be taken seriously with seriousness but without grimness. I want to read the things you mention when I'm done slogging through The Origins of Totalitarianism and Eichmann in Jerusalem.

Re: Ch. 4 - The Problem with Islam

Posted: Sat Sep 02, 2006 4:51 pm
by Chris OConnor
The Islamic world supports and condones those suicide bombings. I just watched another show about this subject today. Throughout the Palestinian territory there are hundreds of government funded posters and billboards encouraging and praising martyrdom behavior. Most Palestinians celebrate and praise the killing of innocent Israelis.

Re: Ch. 4 - The Problem with Islam

Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2006 2:43 am
by GOD defiles Reason
nickelplate416 : "It wasn't my intention to start a debate on the Israel/Palestine conflict,"I can see that." and I will not take sides here "Clearly."Yet they didn't respond by randomly blowing up schools, buses, buildings or planes, killing dozens or hundreds of civilians in the process." You didn't see what Israel "supposedly" just did to Lebanon a couple of months ago?Quote:Might *reality* also be part of the problem? What is the "reality" of the number of civilians killed by Israel, compared to the number of civilians killed by it's neighbors?What is the "reality" of Israel's existence? Is it a Jewish homeland? Or is it Arab/Muslim land?I think my questions were pretty neutral. It shouldn't matter what bias one may have, (whether it's state induced or home grown) anyone should able, and any freethinker should be willing, to compare what flash cards are being shown by the corporate owned liberal media, to what's actually been happening on the ground -- in "*reality*". And see how it statistically looks on the scales -- without "choosing sides."Chris: "there are hundreds of government funded posters and billboards encouraging and praising martyrdom behavior. Most Palestinians celebrate and praise the killing of innocent Israelis"They were like parades, I tell ya!! Edited by: GOD defiles Reason at: 9/4/06 4:22 am

Re: Ch. 4 - The Problem with Islam

Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2006 11:37 am
by Chris OConnor
I'm sure there is a powerful message behind that post, God defiles Reason, but I'm missing it. Care to explain?My point is that the Muslim world supports and encourages their people strapping bombs on their bodies and detonating them in public places killing innocent men, women and children. Do you also support suicide bombings?

Re: Ch. 4 - The Problem with Islam

Posted: Mon Sep 04, 2006 3:33 pm
by GOD defiles Reason
Chris: "I'm sure there is a powerful message behind that post, God defiles Reason, but I'm missing it. Care to explain?"Check into those questions yet? Chris: "Do you also support suicide bombings? "Do you also support Nazi style reprisals?