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It only took Christians 1800 years to get what Christ really meant about slavery. I wonder how much longer it'll take to grok all that other stuff about loving your neighbor, helping the poor, etc.
That's good enough for me, but I'm one of those egalitarian liberal types and don't take many of the conservative troupes about defending ins utions all that seriously.Read in an effete, urbane, Yankee sneer...
"If you want to be great, you must be the servant of all the others. And if you want to be first, you must be the slave of the rest. The Son of Man did not come to be a slave master, but a slave who will give his life to rescue many people." (Matthew 20:26-28, CEV)
"Whoever wants to be first among you must be the slave of everyone else." (Mark 10:44, NLT)
It only took Christians 1800 years to get what Christ really meant about slavery. I wonder how much longer it'll take to grok all that other stuff about loving your neighbor, helping the poor, etc.
Sure, those passages and verses were read out of context.
In the civic arena, Jim Crow lasted for a century despite the Civil War amendments.
dupe
Probably when some realize there wasn't a Book of Rand.
LOL, right below this thread is:
Pew Poll: A majority of Americans believe torture is often or sometimes justifiebbd
Only way to top that is if there was a thread about Gay marriage.
True. We've lost our way. Especially if this is a 'Christian nation.'
MB, when I read this article I wondered if anyone would have the guts to put it one this forum. Thank you for doing it.
I have thought for a long time that if secularists were less dogmatic, they would get a lot further. Instead, they allow the religious right to characterize them as atheists to the detriment of the nation.
That article was, I believe, cautious in the extreme. I spoke to my married son about the article today. I told him how pleased I was that he was not in this state for his son to be inculcated with the right-wing extremism, although two of my grandchildren are. I have decided to send money to the Republican running against the right-winger fron the Houston areas for the Board of Education. I had never considered doing that before I read in this article that Texas textbooks inform about 46-47 of the states. Even when Texas students do so poorly in standardized tests vs. other states. I was simply appalled.
I disagree altogether with the interpretation that these people give to the separation of church and state. I was raised Roman Catholic in a Roman Catholic school in decidedly Protestant Southern state (not Texas). It was quite a financial burden for my family, but it was always our position that we were lucky to be living in a country that allowed our religion to be practiced freely when so many did not. Nowadays, evangelical protestants want me to support their right to a religious education under the pretense that we were, historically, 'Christian'.
I disagree with the history and I disagree with the interpretation of the Cons ution and I disagree with the religious interpretation of the founding fathers. The whole thing is absurd, IMHO. Utter nonsense!!
Over Valentine's Day dinner my spouse and I discussed what it would mean to us financially to send our grandchildren to a school that did not suggest that our constirution inculcated Christianity as a state religion. What rubbish!!!
Well, the weird thing is how the erstwhile defenders of liberty seem threatened by heterogenity.
As for guts, this is the internets. It's rather relative. I was a little surprised this hadn't been posted yet.
This article does show the true mission of public education. Should we only be concerned when one group of fanatics seek control of its pedagogy?
"threatened by heterogeneity"
The "defenders of liberty", themselves missing no liberties, are often "religious" and religiosity strongly correlates with racism/heterogeneity.
"Should we only be concerned when one group of fanatics seek control of its pedagogy"
Democracy only works when people agree to be civil and seek the common good, in good faith. Because it's simply impossible to police/enforce everything, everybody, everywhere.
The Repugs, Movement Conservatives, and their militant "religious" extremists have really ed up/terrorized America since the 1970s with their smash-mouth, eliminationist, We're Number One politics and "religion".
Probably because you are so much smarter than everyone else. Take what you want from the words. I guess google the word slave in the nt and use every reference. Your argument that these were references the slave owners used to suppress the slaves, I think you proved your point. However if you had read all those in full context, you would see it differently I believe. The slaves didn't have to be converted to christianity. They chose it. Also the slave owners, did not have church services ran by them, atleast no record of it. They invited the local pastor.
Like I said before, Christians were the first to break the barriers of racism. Before, every culture didn't even eat with each other, let alone talk and work with other cultures. Christianity were the first.
New Timely Study Links Religion and Racism, Duh.
http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/...nd-racism-duh/
If you say so. By which I mean, "no."
Just as one could easily prove that race wasn't terribly important to ancient Greeks (Antony and Cleopatra being just one example of North African and European trade/fellowship/romance, Alexander and Roxane of European and Persian), one could easily say much racism has been perpetuated by the Bible, from OT endogamy to the application of Biblical poetics that align good with light and evil with darkness.
In fact, one could say that the concept of race didn't even exist during the early years of Christianity. It's a fairly recent social construct that goes back only a few centuries.
If you said that then you'd be wrong. The customs, language and culture that these tribes had, were everything to them. It was unheard of to speak to someone of a different group, let alone eat, and pray together.
Anthony lost his base for hooking up with cleopatra if im not mistaken. Mostly you are talking about a political factions taking over a group of people. This has nothing to do with groups coming together. In those class systems, I doubt greeks were allowed to live with and associate with the other groups.
You're conflating customs, language and culture with racial categories, which came out of an Enlightment Era emphasis on taxonomy and a desire to justify treating certain groups of people as little more (or less) than beasts of burden.
You are mistaken. Antony spent too much time lollygagging with Cleopatra, which was all the rope Caesar needed to hang him. And the Greeks were hospitable to just about anyone thanks to their abiding pre-Christian belief that Zeus walked among men, and would punish anyone who mistreated him.
As to fellowship between groups... was there no trade between Mediterranean countries? I agree that families of different religions would be unlikely to marry into one another, but that is an issue distinct from different races coming together -- which would have been rather easy given the enormous variety of races brought under the political, economic, and often religious banner of as during their imperial age.
Not for nothing, but have you ever read any pre-Christian history? Or do you always assume that everything good finds it's source in the Bible? Even with a lack of proof to support yourself?
Last edited by admiralsnackbar; 02-15-2010 at 11:04 AM.
racism
1. a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one's own race is superior and has the right to rule others.
Now look up "race" to see why Bartleby is still right.
There are also those who try to say that the unnamed God is the God of Christians and Jews, but that is never said either.
Ben Franklin was a Deist and not Christian, though his at ude towards Christianity was described as "moderate" compared with his contemporaries.
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