Well many bad things have been done in the name of religion. You have made some good points, Frank Shaeffer. You see and speak to the abuses of religion. However Mao was not religious. He caused more deaths of than anybody. Was Stalin religious? The church bowed to Hitler Was Hitler a religious man? ... How was the War in Viet Nam religious? How is Bible Salesman Mr T***p religious? He has no religion other than the worship of himself. It sad that the Supreme Court has become what it has become., but still, isn't Joe Biden is a practicing Catholic.? Most Americans are decent people in a flawed democracy, but the oppressors are a loud minority. Is ." The " Oppressor truly religion, per se,-- (even though religions can and have been extremely culpable and patriarchal). There are some exceptions in mainline Christian churches and even among Ismaili Muslims. The USA is deeply flawed is it that fault of religion, religion that has been co-opted and tainted by those who are greedy for power and material wealth to the point that many churches have seemed to be more secular and political than religious. Church attendance is way down in the USA People really are fleeing the churches, .as the loud mouths continue their attempts at power. I say try the theology of Dr.Diana Butler Bass, an ex-evangelical, Dr Tripp Fuller raised a Baptist,, who took his doctorate in Scotland.. Try the religion of Jimmy Carter or Martin Luther King.with a nod the Quakers and other churches that participated in the Underground Railroad. Do we need to blame religion for all the ills. Perhaps it is complicated. isn't it..? I do not blame your father or you for the assault on women's reproductive rights. You were well intentioned at the time...You may have accelerated its swing but perhaps that pendulum was bound to swing.. -- there is already a big backlash to what has disturbingly happened recently. Patriarchal attitudes are a big problem, not confined to churches.. Don't get me wrong, we need the Jeremiahs. They are good for us as long as their words lead to actions and not despair. There are many things to be grateful for in this world. We need to ":Keep the Faith, and Work Toward Higher Things." Thank you, Frank Shaeffer, I appreciate you for making us think...I believe you would agree there are glimmers of hope and sometimes hard. choices to make....
The conflict in Israel/Palestine is not a religious conflict. It's an old-fashioned land grab that has galvanized religious sentiments in order to obtain its objective. The founders of the state of Israel were not religious, nor did they make religious claims. They were, for the most part, atheist and socialist making an ethnic claim on the land. The same was true for many Arabs. They weren't opposing the Jewish state in the name of Islam. Many of the Arabs were Christians. They were opposing it in the name of an ethnic Arab identity. Modern Islamic militancy is a relatively recent phenomenon. When I was growing up in the 60's and 70's, most Arab leaders where socialist and Arab nationalist. They were given to dressing up in military uniforms and assuming the airs of socialist revolutionaries. The reason the middle east is a cauldron of Islamic fundamentalism today is because the so-called secular, democratic West, along with autocratic Arab leaders in the region, discovered they could use religion to crush any egalitarian and democratic aspirations of the people in the region. The same thing is being done here at home. Religion is used to divide and distract people, to the benefit of an economic elite who would much rather have us fighting over social issues than paying attention to how the economic pie is distributed. Last, but not least, to smear those young, courageous, and deeply humane college kids for decrying the slaughter of Palestinians is simply, unconscionable.
Yes I doubt it's true that the demonstrators at Columbia and other places are supporting Hamas. They're just trying to get us to recognize the plight of the Palestinians.
I really like your point that life needs to inform religion rather than religion informing life. What does it mean when someone insists that religion must inform life? They are claiming that some religious teaching is infallible. If we instead put fallibility in the center of our view of things, then we can take what good religion offers without it being a threat. This allows for what we can call "liberal" religion.
About 40 years ago I wrote a paper comparing your father's ideas with those of Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914). He sometimes called his philosophy "fallibilism." The claim of biblical infallibility was a major "Achilles heel" of your father's ideas. It just doesn't hold up to close scrutiny. In particular, if we insist on the Bible always being accurate, we lose the ability to understand it.
Well many bad things have been done in the name of religion. You have made some good points, Frank Shaeffer. You see and speak to the abuses of religion. However Mao was not religious. He caused more deaths of than anybody. Was Stalin religious? The church bowed to Hitler Was Hitler a religious man? ... How was the War in Viet Nam religious? How is Bible Salesman Mr T***p religious? He has no religion other than the worship of himself. It sad that the Supreme Court has become what it has become., but still, isn't Joe Biden is a practicing Catholic.? Most Americans are decent people in a flawed democracy, but the oppressors are a loud minority. Is ." The " Oppressor truly religion, per se,-- (even though religions can and have been extremely culpable and patriarchal). There are some exceptions in mainline Christian churches and even among Ismaili Muslims. The USA is deeply flawed is it that fault of religion, religion that has been co-opted and tainted by those who are greedy for power and material wealth to the point that many churches have seemed to be more secular and political than religious. Church attendance is way down in the USA People really are fleeing the churches, .as the loud mouths continue their attempts at power. I say try the theology of Dr.Diana Butler Bass, an ex-evangelical, Dr Tripp Fuller raised a Baptist,, who took his doctorate in Scotland.. Try the religion of Jimmy Carter or Martin Luther King.with a nod the Quakers and other churches that participated in the Underground Railroad. Do we need to blame religion for all the ills. Perhaps it is complicated. isn't it..? I do not blame your father or you for the assault on women's reproductive rights. You were well intentioned at the time...You may have accelerated its swing but perhaps that pendulum was bound to swing.. -- there is already a big backlash to what has disturbingly happened recently. Patriarchal attitudes are a big problem, not confined to churches.. Don't get me wrong, we need the Jeremiahs. They are good for us as long as their words lead to actions and not despair. There are many things to be grateful for in this world. We need to ":Keep the Faith, and Work Toward Higher Things." Thank you, Frank Shaeffer, I appreciate you for making us think...I believe you would agree there are glimmers of hope and sometimes hard. choices to make....
The conflict in Israel/Palestine is not a religious conflict. It's an old-fashioned land grab that has galvanized religious sentiments in order to obtain its objective. The founders of the state of Israel were not religious, nor did they make religious claims. They were, for the most part, atheist and socialist making an ethnic claim on the land. The same was true for many Arabs. They weren't opposing the Jewish state in the name of Islam. Many of the Arabs were Christians. They were opposing it in the name of an ethnic Arab identity. Modern Islamic militancy is a relatively recent phenomenon. When I was growing up in the 60's and 70's, most Arab leaders where socialist and Arab nationalist. They were given to dressing up in military uniforms and assuming the airs of socialist revolutionaries. The reason the middle east is a cauldron of Islamic fundamentalism today is because the so-called secular, democratic West, along with autocratic Arab leaders in the region, discovered they could use religion to crush any egalitarian and democratic aspirations of the people in the region. The same thing is being done here at home. Religion is used to divide and distract people, to the benefit of an economic elite who would much rather have us fighting over social issues than paying attention to how the economic pie is distributed. Last, but not least, to smear those young, courageous, and deeply humane college kids for decrying the slaughter of Palestinians is simply, unconscionable.
Yes I doubt it's true that the demonstrators at Columbia and other places are supporting Hamas. They're just trying to get us to recognize the plight of the Palestinians.
I really like your point that life needs to inform religion rather than religion informing life. What does it mean when someone insists that religion must inform life? They are claiming that some religious teaching is infallible. If we instead put fallibility in the center of our view of things, then we can take what good religion offers without it being a threat. This allows for what we can call "liberal" religion.
About 40 years ago I wrote a paper comparing your father's ideas with those of Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914). He sometimes called his philosophy "fallibilism." The claim of biblical infallibility was a major "Achilles heel" of your father's ideas. It just doesn't hold up to close scrutiny. In particular, if we insist on the Bible always being accurate, we lose the ability to understand it.
Another no-holds-barred commentary. Thanks Frank!
Thank you for this helpful insight into what we are facing.