Whatever religion mt and co are practicing, I'm not convinced it's Christianity. Or if it is, it's some dark inversion of it, where everyone else has to die for the salvation of the (vaccinated) wealthy god-kings of the GOP.
Mtierney, good morning. I hope you’ve been have a good day despite some of the digs on MOL.
Following on from my last comment, it’s Holocaust Remembrance Day over there now, too. And I know you’re sympathetic to many of the issues involved in WW2 matters including some of the Holocaust matters. Did you hear about this Tennessee school board banning the reading and study of the graphic novel Maus, which won a Pulitzer Prize and retells the survival story of the author’s parents? Not suitable from grade 8s and above, they said, not in our school or anywhere, in our opinion. Unsuitable language and nudity - yes, nude mice!!
Mtierney, good morning. I hope you’ve been have a good day despite some of the digs on MOL.
Following on from my last comment, it’s Holocaust Remembrance Day over there now, too. And I know you’re sympathetic to many of the issues involved in WW2 matters including some of the Holocaust matters. Did you hear about this Tennessee school board banning the reading and study of the graphic novel Maus, which won a Pulitzer Prize and retells the survival story of the author’s parents? Not suitable from grade 8s and above, they said, not in our school or anywhere, in our opinion. Unsuitable language and nudity - yes, nude mice!!
Yep we discussed that a little while ago, last year. But this is recent and relevant to a current event, as well as a prominent writer and true events. And it’s in a different thread, as it concerns faith-based genocide, something to which we’re all opposed.
@joanne, I don’t mind the “digs” re typos, but it is when they use Shovels in response, it gets creepy. Most of MOL will be using their shovels on the snow this weekend, so that’s a blessing.
When I worked at Seton Hall University back in the ‘90s, its School of Judeo-Christian Studies was a growing institution. South Orange/Maplewood would hold a memorial service on Holocaust Day, as did other communities in Essex County. I remember when survivors would be in attendance. Sr. Rose Thering was a power-house in the efforts to never forget. So many amazing remembrances of those days! Sister Rose, I recall, back when I knew her, had made some 20 trips to Israel over her career. My husband and I made that journey — it is a looong plane ride!
@joanne, I don’t mind the “digs” re typos, but it is when they use Shovels in response, it gets creepy. Most of MOL will be using their shovels on the snow this weekend, so that’s a blessing.
With the obligatory acknowledgement that we're all here on MOL of our own free will -- as you note, when there's snow, people shovel. So can you be surprised that when you post, people feel obliged to bring out the shovels?
When I worked at Seton Hall University back in the ‘90s, its School of Judeo-Christian Studies was a growing institution.
I'm glad I won't ever have to work with you over at Seton Hall. Knowing what you say and refuse to defend here it would be hard to reconcile your outward appearance working in a Catholic institution. It is a fundamental tenet of our faith that we are all imperfect but that we are urged to try to follow Christ's example.
This quote from Elizabeth Seton's writing is a good reflection on your input here. You know the general principle: that God is everywhere. On the throne of His glory among the blessed indeed, but also throughout the whole universe which He fills, governs and preserves, ruling it by wisdom and grace. This we learn in our infancy, as in all of our memory in childhood. Yet in the practice of life, we live along as if we scarcely remembered that God sees us. From Collected Writings Volume IIIa, page 392
Honestly, I would probably go easier on MT if she didn't claim to be religious. I have a... strained... relationship with the institutional church. A major reason for that is the feeling I increasingly got that I took it all far more seriously than the folks wrapping themselves the most tightly in the mantle of faith.
Organized religion, of whatever flavor, often serves some important human needs while bypassing others. A famous literary exposition of this occurs in the Grand Inquisitor Scene in Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. If anyone should be interested, here's a summary of it in Wikipedia.
@joanne, I don’t mind the “digs” re typos, but it is when they use Shovels in response, it gets creepy. Most of MOL will be using their shovels on the snow this weekend, so that’s a blessing.
Just came back in from some shoveling. It's funny, not a single one of the millions of snowflakes I shoveled tried to argue in favor of kidnapping children to deter border crossings.
Re the acceptance of Catholics in your political system: we’ve always been taught that since your initial Pilgrim founders were Protestants fleeing Catholic persecution, Catholic citizens were viewed as a little bit suss.
You are mistaken. The Pilgrims were persecuted by the Church of England. The fled to the Netherlands where there was religious freedom, but decided that they didn't want their children becoming Dutch so migrated to North America.
You are mistaken. The Pilgrims were persecuted by the Church of England. The fled to the Netherlands where there was religious freedom, but decided that they didn't want their children becoming Dutch so migrated to North America.
At least that is what I remember being taught.
I think Joanne is directionally right, but you're more accurate.
"Puritans were dissatisfied with the limited extent of the English Reformation and with the Church of England's toleration of certain practices associated with the Roman Catholic Church"
So within the broader anti-Catholicism of English Protesantism, the Puritans felt the need to be even more anti-Catholic. Ideological purity tests driving groups to splinter off into more extreme directions are nothing new to North American politics.
What I've always found fascinating is how New England -- literally founded by extremist religious ideologues, evolved into a major center of political liberalism. My theory has always been that literacy and education drove this -- puritans were super intolerant, but also placed a high value on education. I think it's difficult to maintain a high level of intolerance over time while also pursuing broad intellectual engagement. Also, of course, the fact that the New England economy centered on trade -- also difficult to be narrow minded while trying to sell to as many people as possible.
It's a theory anyway, and one could poke holes in it without a great deal of trouble -- plenty of wealthy New England merchants grew wealthy from the slave trade, after all. Maybe it's a just-so story. Still, I feel there's some important connection here between education and a reduction in intolerance over time?
Religion has killed more people than it has saved…
By a REALLY wide margin. Of course, in the eyes of the religious, some of those people were "saved" by being killed while others were "saved" by doing the killing. Its an ugly business all the way around.
Religion has killed more people than it has saved…
Where I'm at with religion is that I see it as a form of cultural expression. Somewhat analogous to languages. It provides a framework for people to interpret and describe their experiences, and is part of creating and maintaining collective identities. So, again, roughly in the same space as language -- speaking English gives you a different understanding of the world and a different identity than speaking Spanish. And being able to speak in more than one language gives you a broader ability to understand and speak (which holds true for religion as well I think -- being conversant in more than one religious tradition is a good way to broaden and deepen one's understanding of human experience).
That's a big reason why I can't say I've fully cut ties with Catholicism, or that I ever will. To the degree that it claims any kind of exclusive hold on the true nature of reality, I reject that. And some of its specific claims about reality I also reject, either because they're plainly inconsistent with the evidence of the world around us, or because they're internally inconsistent. All the supernatural stuff I'm over because of the former, and the ingrained misogyny because of the latter (how can any kind of permanent hierarchy of human beings be defended if one also is claiming all are equal before God?).
But there's still a lot I find really helpful and useful. As a cultural practice, it provides me with a connection to others, both living and in the past. It's provided me with frameworks for thinking through ethical questions. I don't stress out over whether it (or any other religion) is "true" or not -- that's come to see a nonsensical question to me, like asking if Hamlet is "true", or if French is "true".
So similarly the idea that "religion" has killed people is kind of a nonsensical claim to me. I think people act in all sorts of ways and then explain themselves according to their cultural frameworks. A lot of people in history have been embedded in some religious tradition, and so I suppose it'd be accurate to say "more people who have killed others have justified it with the language of religion than not."
My problem with people like mtierney is that they're fundamentally lazy and dishonest. She'll claim she's Catholic, then embrace horrifying positions like kidnapping children, and not put it any work to examine this contradiction, or even acknowledge it. I'm not saying that if one claims a religious, moral, or ethical tradition one must agree to every claim of that tradition -- as I just admitted above, I certainly don't. But then you have to do the work of figuring out what you agree with, what you don't, and why. You have to do the work of figuring out your own values, in other words.
I think Joanne is directionally right, but you're more accurate.
What I've always found fascinating is how New England -- literally founded by extremist religious ideologues, evolved into a major center of political liberalism. My theory has always been that literacy and education drove this -- puritans were super intolerant, but also placed a high value on education. I think it's difficult to maintain a high level of intolerance over time while also pursuing broad intellectual engagement. Also, of course, the fact that the New England economy centered on trade -- also difficult to be narrow minded while trying to sell to as many people as possible.
I always enjoy joanne's reflections, partly because it's worthwhile to get an outsider's view. AND all those words! "It’s [leaners] another term for bludgers" - and i'm off to Google!
(Also still giggling off and on over English dialects "Strine" and "Fraffly")
I’ll check my library for Wordy Shipmates. And thanks for reminding me of the Holland connection pre-sailing to your shores. (I’m horrified at how much I’ve forgotten!)
I was brought up with a very gentle form of Fraffly, which the predominant form of Melburnian accent in those times. Pretty much what you might hear spoken on the ABC, although perhaps not quite as British. As ‘New Australians’ my parents, especially Mum, delighted in those books as well as They’re a Weird Mob. And Willard Espy’s books on US English. Honestly, when you’re bored, switch your Guardian settings to Australian edition and read the BTL comments - you’ll laugh aloud at the various names for the PM and Cabinet Ministers (Dark Lord is always Peter Dutton). You don’t seem to pun pollies’ names in the same way…?
(he’s sooo nice to look at, or was [not sure of now])
somewhere, someone is dead because they didn't wear a mask.