Letters to the Editor
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coffee out my nose...
Aldous Schenk and Bob Freukes, you literally made me laugh out loud. Nicely done. And Stephen Hirsch, thanks for a thoughtful and revealing commentary on the hypocrisy of faith by adornment as opposed to faith by adherence.
pamela
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Show the Complete Ensemble
Do-do-do-do-Doo
Inspector Gadget
Do-do-do-do do-doo
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What is it with the anti-religious hatred?
As a spiritual but not religious person, and an intensely political person, I am amazed to read the vitriol being spewed out by a few of the letter writers against Hirsch's article or anyone talking about religion. Did you all get beaten up by a rabbi or raped by a priest when you were young or something? I have my own contempt for corrupt people who use religion to con people and make themselves rich, but that is clearly not what Hirsch or the other letter writers are doing, and my own observation of human behavior suggests that that is still the exception, and not the rule.
But speaking of that, it's more amazing still to realize that the folks who are so attacking the very mentioning of religion will go on and on about politics. Ha! Since when did politics become the sphere of human activity that is going to save the species? What makes these folks think anyone wants to hear their rants about politics anymore than they want to hear others breathe a word about religion? Talk about short-sighted intolerance.
Nonetheless, it's a good discussion. I'm with guy who notes that "Wisdom comes from learning from all people" (the bad actions as well as the good, I assume). I am also with the guy who said he sometimes hates the internet. It seems this all-too-impersonal form of communication allows people to say things that no one would ever tolerate if they were in the same room. We need to seriously deal with that if the internet is ever going to become a vehicle for truly progressive organizing.
And thanks to Salon for hosting this discussion, and for posting Hirsch's article. It was a good one.
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Wow.
I love religious intolerance coming from so-called progressives. It's as fun as religious hypocrisy.
Religious folks don't have to shut up, and I hope they won't. Since their lives (and votes) are influenced by their beliefs in a number of ways, it helps me to know what those beliefs are.
Wanting people who disagree with you to shut up and go away for a hundred years sounds a lot like the kind of people I thought we were trying to defeat.
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What's in a hat? Try Abramoff and 9/11
The same belief in absolute truth motivated Abramoff, Stephen Hersh and Mohammad Atta, not to mention the Spanish Inquisition.
Western Monotheism continues on and on being the source and justification for the most loathsome and anti-human behavior imaginable.
The Bible contains the first history of genocide in the world that I know of.
The Israelites were "ordered" by G_d (sic) to kill ALL the Amalakites. All meant all... Including women, children, babies and even domestic animals.
King Saul brought the Amalakite king back to Israel to execute him, and some captured flocks to sacrifice to G_d for his victory.
The "Prophet" Samuel informed Saul that since he had disobeyed G_d by leaving ANYTHING alive, even for a while, he would soon lose his kingship.
The ethics and morality displayed by this ONE G_d here, are emblematic of the liberties all "true believers" have accorded themselves throughout history. After all, if there's only one G_d and I know what he wants done, then it is justified by definition... No questions asked.
So Abramoff ripped off the "goyim"... So???? Believe me, a LARGE percentage of the Hat-Wearing Ultra Orthodox Jews feel this way. Similarly, for a LARGE percentage of fundamentalist Muslims, 9/11 was their greatest hour since they kicked the Crusaders out of the "Holy Land".
One day maybe humanity will awaken from this holdover of primitive tribalism and realize that we are ALL equally ignorant of what's "really" going on. None of us has a direct line to an existing or non-existing G_d.
Then disgusting behavior can properly be chalked up to what really underlies it... Sociopathic human selfishness and sadism. No more "I did it for the glory of G_d."
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Psychics, Stalin, and Sincere Snarkiness
First: who said that Abramoff was motivated by his Judaism?
Abramoff, like most of us, enacts many identities, often exclusive of one another. His lobbying was no more “Jewish” than mining is “Christian.” I would also ask (Mr. Wouk) that you not ascribe feelings to a “LARGE percentage” of anyone, let alone “Hat-Wearing Ultra Orthodox Jews,” amongst whose ranks—and I’m just guessing—you do not number. Are you a pollster or a psychic that you claim to know the feelings of a group of people? I will go further and say that a LARGE percentage of Ultra Orthodox Jews barely know who Abramoff is. They are, as the Hirsch points out and experience indicates, a very insulated community, fairly unconcerned with the goings-on in D.C. I’m not a pollster, but I know a lot of Black Hats, as we call them.
Second: Before you, Mr. Wouk, or anyone really, starts saying that religious fundamentalists are responsible for such-and-so atrocity and that religion is at the heart of thus-and-so conflict, please remember that the single greatest organized force for intentional and systematic death ever has been Communism as practiced by Joe Stalin. Including the people he sent to die in WWII, he is responsible for more than 50 million corpses. Half of that number were killed NOT in conflict with the Nazis, and of those, many (especially Ukrainians) died of starvation. So there’s your areligious Utopia of Reason. In a place where Christianity was banned, Jews persecuted, and the faithful of every persuasion hid their religion from the state (and most of their neighbors) tens of millions of people died by the edicts of their rulers.
Third: (and I’ll stop enumerating here), please say this with me, Mr. Wouk, “met-a-phor.” The Books of Moses are not a history text, they are a morality tale, a legend based loosely on the oral history of very old tribe. I know very few outside the orthodox community who believe that the slaying of the Amalekites took place. Are there parts of the Five Books that are difficult to understand today? Sure. Allowing slavery, for one. All the stoning for another. The very idea of sacrifice for a third. But here again, I pose the baby/bathwater conundrum. Do you say “The golden rule is crap because a few verses later it talks about stoning someone who works on the Sabbath.”? I would hope not.
Next. The Jews salvation was not owed to their fashion. I had never heard of the dress as the saving grace as much as holding on to our names. Either way it points to the same thing, though, and that is that we maintained our identity in the midst of another nation. And the only reason to do so is because we valued that identity. The Jews redemption came about because they saw a value in being Jewish, in holding on to their values. And the manifestation of those values (perhaps modesty, perhaps the aversion of ostentation or gluttony) was in name and/or dress. Again I ask: are these values ones to be mocked or embraced?
And this points to the larger question that none of the humanists wants to answer: what of the values of kindness, modesty, frugality, sharing, being-thy-brother’s-keeper, humility, acting justly, and studying the world and its wonders is so threatening either to humans or to the world they inhabit?
Forget for a moment all about God. It doesn’t matter to me who said these things, it matters only that when you practice these virtues, you make your passage through this life easier and more pleasant, both for yourself and for the others in it.
As I said in a previous post, religion has two parts, one is your relationship with God, the other your relationship with other people. What is it about practicing any of the virtues I listed that scares you so much, Mr. Wouk?
Finally, let me say that I am completely a po-mo (postmodernist) and do not see any tension between maintaining that identity along side a strong sense of belonging to a religious community. Since one of the tenets of postmodernism is a fragmented sense of self and a disbelief in metanarratives, doesn’t it seem antithetical to say that religion is wrong all the time? Isn’t that a metanarrative (that of antireligion?).
Whatever. Ms. Schwartz: would you accept a snarky observant Jew? What if my snarkiness were sincere?