Say Anything Blog

nor a reason to abandon the faiths

What does the aformentioned montage have to do with faith? Granted, the Persians that ruled afghanistan a long time ago were faithful yet held councils with all the religions and regularly had respectful discussion with those of other faiths.
But its much different when faith is used for a tool of hate, division, or to propigate mass lies like almost all religions do nowadays… save a few… not yours! Furthermore, now, vis-a-vis Britney Spears and all the Christians who are used to having others do their thinking for them, we are asked to go to war on faith, to be scared all the time on faith, to give up our money so assholes can steal it and call it keeping us safe ON FAITH! Fuck all that shit. - clearly we lack some natural laws and fundamental bits of knowledge here and there… but it is no door through which a host of other-worldly, omnicient, everpowerful/knowing characters for us to believe in can creep. Those fairy tales (don’t kid, they are) are for people who are too disturbed by mystery to fess up to it. Its weak. There is mystery. Its not God. Faith is for personal use - It has shit to do with the public or the country… that’s just called epistemic whitewashing, lying, and so forth. I know, you say God is in the constitution… God, in the constitution, is a moral foundation of sorts. Its a regress stopper. One can substitute any number of names in that place. Its just where the words don’t trickle past. A divine STFU about it okay. It just is. We need that sometimes. But not bullshit from people who merely want control. It strikes me that they are also reacting poorly to all the obvious mystery by exerting this stifling control over people. Like this child-fucker in Utah. A bit extreme… but you can see the control-compensating psychology manifest itself in watered down versions many other places. Granted some Christians mean well, are wonderufl people, have great community, and so forth… but the amount of bullshit they come to digest on a regular basis is quite worrisome.

Yun Chu said, “You must strictly not express in words what is very significant. Both dragon and snake are killed in one blow.”

Sparkie,

Dear God! (pun intended) I do hope you feel better after that little outburst.  Glad to have been of service.

Still, you are about the last person I would have expected to be so intellectually constipated over my use of the word “faiths.”

I mentioned in a comment yesterday on a different thread that I use words purposefully, and as it happens, I had quite a bit more than this country’s Judeo-Christian heritage in mind when I used the word “faiths.”

For well over two hundred years, people have come to the US believing that they would be freer here than anywhere else, that they could pursue their own dreams here and build a better life for themselves and their children.  It seems to me that “faith” is still very much alive and well, though those on the left who favor open borders and sanctuary cities are far, far to sophisticated (and smarmy!) to regard the dreams and actions of the peons as a representation of “faith.”

It used to be too, that the defense of this country and those ideals we have passed down from each generation to its progeny was an article of “faith” as well.  JFK’s Inaugural Address can be found here.  Instead, today we have those who claim Kennedy’s mantle worshipping at the altar of multi-cultural moral equivalence.

So you see, I had more in mind by using the word “faiths” than providing you with an opportunity for yet another anti-God tantrum.  Perhaps if you could manage a bit more religious tolerance yourself, the promise of a multiplicity of “faiths” would be more broadly realized for all of us.

“Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of the mind is irreparable.”

Bat

this country’s Judeo-Christian heritage

this idea is oft invoked to inspire and advocate the institutionalization of various biases that this country was set up to avoid institutionalizing. the concept of ‘freedom’ for example, or any other concept that might be invoked by those advocates above. our current concepts of them are so varied and influenced by so much (the reactions to the Commies in the latter half of the last century for example) so as to have little to do with the Judeo-Christianity and more to do with whatever any said person who employs these concepts has bumped into during their life. Perhaps some of these values are also shared by other religions. Indeed they are. The exaultation of piety, the need to accept some things on faith… and so forth. If we all leave on separate journeys, and we all begin in New York City, clearly our journeys all have something in common, but the various destinations (here an analogue for contextual employment of these various ceoncepts) can hardly be said to all be the same in any substantial manner.

It seems to me that “faith” is still very much alive and well

I am not Judeo-Christian in the slightest, however I see myself as wholly and undeniably American. As with a muslim individual who was born and raised in the US who also values freedom, and the lot, but who’s usage of these terms is wholly different than, say, yours or mine. Your attempt to construe our country is terms of some organizing principle related to two of the predominant religions represented therein is fine, I just think it holds water like a paper cup. Look to the many disagreements within the two religions you mention. Often we here, “X is what the christians think” and “that’s hogwash, its really Z”. your appraisal is great if occam’s razor is your only litmus test, but you have posited too few entities here. often, when it comes to explaning, ontological heterogeneity (or the positing of more than a few entities) is more accurate… however resisted it is and for whatever reasons.
My attack of Christianity is perfectly reasonable here. It is the tendency to accept simple, bs on faith that leads us to deny the amount of mystery that coexists with us, everywhere. Without fessing up to the mysteries and ambiguities, and positing simple, ineffective schemas, we are bound to run into grave problems, as we often do… whether left or right has the rei(g)n(s). Christianity and this appeal to ‘faith’ rejects the examination of many concepts that are much more plural than is hoped by the advocates of these simplistic, unifying schemas.

you may dismiss what i say as a tantrum, or whatever you want. carry on, for all I care, with your prosthletizing and metaphysical absurdities (God, devil, heaven, hell). just don’t expect people with something between there ears to take any of it as anything other than what it is… a psychologically motivated hesitance to fess up to mystery. Call whatever is on the ‘other side of the cutain’ whatever you want, and embue it with special powers. That’s great! You’re creative and so forth. Pragmatism should not be invoked to pass over bullshit on people. It is a very American thing (William James, Dewey, et al) but it is not usually employed like you have here, an attempt to force an underposited schema on reality. Pragmatism, more often than not, is irrelevant to reality and is relevant to use. If that’s what your after here, CHEERS! I am not one to be “used” (<- those are scare quotes).

Yun Chu said, “You must strictly not express in words what is very significant. Both dragon and snake are killed in one blow.”