I can’t disagree with that. My worry is, and has been, that the idea of ‘abstracting ourselves away from one another’ is so broad, so inimical, that it can’t help but be responsible for just about everything in human history- good and bad. Again, like gravity, you can blame alot on it, because it’s a catch all descriptor for everything we do.
What are you suggesting? If it’s just that we acknowledge that our enemies are humans with the same basic goals and fears as us, then I have to maintain that Hitler, the perpetrators of the Nanjing Massacre, and all the soldiers in 'Nam already acknowledged that very thing. They all just believed that their particular circumstances outweighed that fact. The Jews, the Chinese, and the Viet-Cong were the proverbial guy with the gun to your head who needs a drop-kick. Of course, I’m not saying what they did was justified. Now, there may be exceptions- the occasional evil sadist who just hurts people because he’s wicked. But, he’s not going to listen, and he might be a defeater for your model of humanity anyways, so I’m not considering them.
Sitting idly by, or picking a side and trying to make it win, are the only two choices in life, so far as I can tell.
I think that you are taking the back door here. I know that there are many encounters in my professional life that don’t warrant the re-evaluation you spoke about – although in my job there are a number of exceptions. But I am more than a professional person and I live in a world that offers me enough possibilities to re-evaluate. In private I don’t disconnect, although I am not always successful in connecting either, but I do try to connect and people, when they realise that my interest is genuine, do connect with me too. I think that this is what we should be expected to do in a healthy environment.
My understanding of the world is that terrorists are a minority who often don’t even have the support of the people they propose to be fighting for. They are the militant wing of almost any kind of ideology, and they generally believe to be fighting against some kind of injustice. I think that the idea that a terrorist doesn’t know that people in the west are trying to find a pleasant way to get through life isn’t realistic, after all, the 9/11 Bombers were students in Germany and were not outwardly militant. Some of them had a wife and children living in Europe – of course they knew.
I think the biggest problem here is that we try to fade out any idea that these people had anything that we could accept as an ideal. We also try to ignore the injustice that the historical record shows have been committed in our names. The attempt to make these issues black and white will not work unless you want a fascistic outlook on life, with a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism. That is what we observe the military doing when preparing our soldiers for their task, which may be necessary for such people to survive in adverse conditions, but it can hardly be an accepted behaviour in normal conditions.
This may be true for the soldier who is placed in this situation, but not for the Government who put him there. It is the belief in some kind of supremacy that gives them the supposed right (or even the duty) to “cleanse†the world. This is the level where the crime is committed and the soldiers are just puppets on strings.
I agree with Tentative, we need to leave a better legacy behind us than we have found.
I don’t disagree with you. We ought to try to do these things. What I’m saying is, nearly everybody does, including the most violent or evil sorts of people who come to mind. There may be a few people with brain disorders who can’t ever connect with anyone, but in general, people acknowledge this stuff- they go on to do bad things anyways, because as everybody knows, there are situations in which these rules of civility don’t apply.
Yes, that's correct, and my point entirely. They were aware of the principles tentative talks about, they lived by them in their day to day lives (they would be raving animals if they didn't), and yet...they blew up thousands of people. Why? Because of practicalities- they had a good reason (to them) why those people in that building on that day were exempt from the usual "mutual respect and civility" rules.
Well, let me illustrate what I mean. The Germans had sociologists, books, and politicians all proclaiming the horrors of what would happen to their society if Jews were allowed to continue running financial and entertainment industries, much less interbreeding with the Aryans. The Japanese, I'm sure, had much the same on how their society would stagnate if they didn't expand beyond their tiny island. The Veit Cong...well, they were [i]communists[/i], nuff said. In other words, yes, the people of the Government were aware of the general principals of "Them and Us are really the same in the end", but they believed they found themselves in an exceptional situation. The Nazi's came the closest to doing away with that principal, but even they did an end run around it- they could not avoid the fact that all humans deserve their mutual respect, right away they declared most of their victims to be sub-human.
"“It’s time we recognised that ours was, in truth, a noble cause.”
(President Nixon)
On 2 September 1945, nationalist leader Ho Chi Minh declared Vietnamese independence from France. “All men are created equal,” he said, “endowed with the rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
These words were taken directly from the US Declaration of Independence and were a direct appeal to the government in Washington for aid and recognition. Despite Vietnamese refusals of help from both China and the Soviet Union, the US cast Ho Chi Minh as the partner of a Chinese-led communist conspiracy and declared war on Vietnam.
In 1965, US troops landed on China Beach in central Vietnam believing they were repelling a Communist invasion from the North on the freedom-loving people of the South. One of those troops, Robert Muller, who was decorated for bravery, said: “It didn’t take long to have that explode into the myth that it was. Vietnam was a lie. It was a lie from the beginning, throughout the war, and even today as they are trying to write it into the history books.”
“A retreat of the US from Vietnam would be a Communist victory of massive proportions and would lead to World War Three,” claimed Nixon. “If we withdrew from Vietnam, the communists would control Vietnam. Pretty soon Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and all of South East Asia would be under the control of the communists and the domination of the Chinese,” claimed John F Kennedy. World War Three, of course, never materialised.
Instead, a war-ravaged Vietnam was abandoned to fend for itself. As punishment for their audacity to defeat the United States, they became the victims if a twenty-five year Western embargo. The Vietnamese may have beaten the United States, but Washington still controlled their destiny."
Bob, I can’t help but think that what you think you know about me is getting in the way of you reading what I actually write. I didn’t mean to defend the war in Vietnam anymore than I mean to defend Hitler, I talked about them in the same breath and compared them to each other. With that in mind, I don’t see what your response had to do with anything.
My response has to do with “inside/outside” or “us/them”, not with anything you think I think I know about you …
The point I made in the first post was that we have difficulty connecting because of prejudice and a different perspective of what we in the west call “terrorism” and what those the middle east may call “the struggle”. Failing to connect or disconnecting is often a step that is conciously taken, because we don’t want our perspective questioned.
On coming to Germany, I had all of the prejudices that a young british soldier could be expected to have in the seventies. My lack of education supported those views and despite my natural ability to connect quickly - leaping across language barriers, my prejudices were often my greatest problem. But then again, I was still UK orientated and “who cares!”
When I married my wife and decided to stay in Germany, I had to catch up on my education and went to German schools to do that. It was difficult at first having German as my first language and English as a foreign one, but the most fascinating experience was to have history lesson in Germany. I had assumed that Germans would defend their history in some manner, but the history teacher didn’t. He was quite blunt about Nazi-Germany, but the history of the century that led up to the “Third Reich” was even more interesting.
Having been duly “taught a lesson” and starting to look at English history, I lost much of the prejudice I had grown up with. I even “connected” with French people (a horror to my family in England) and the international society that lived in that somewhat derelict house, whether students or labourers, discussed openly the problems of the world. That is where I learnt to connect and some kind of socialist ideal grew until I became a Christian. But even then, I never quite gave it up.
Having had this experience, I have come to accept people questioning my ideals, my nationality, “my” history - even “my” church history. Of course, I am just as free to do the same, but I can avoid nationalist ideas, or even racist ones at that. That is why at times I have been confronted with Americans or the French, or even Britons, who accused me of attacking them, whilst all along, I am quoting history as I know it.
So don’t worry, I don’t attack you or anything you think I think I know about you, but what you wrote.
There is one piece of understanding that I failed to make explicit even as I hinted around at it. I’ve stated that we need to shed the illusion of us-them. I still believe that. What I failed to say is that seeing us-them as just oneness is an illusion as well. In the pragmatic world of duality, us-them will always exist. I think that is the point that Dunamis and Uccisore are trying to make - that regardless the mind’s projections, those projections are all illusory and I have presented nothing or said nothing.
That said, I like my illusion better than the us-them illusion because it asks for more cooperation and less violence. It is what we make it, and we need to make benevolence a little more likely than malovence.
I can’t help but think that we are often the victims of the logical fallacy of false dilemma. Of course there is always discrimination in choosing something that we regard as being good. But the positive doesn’t force an active negation of another choice. What I’m saying, is that if you do what you believe in, there is no need to negate the alternatives actively. For example the habit of Christian evangelists to paint their bright picture of Christianity doesn’t really need the dark contrast that these people paint, unless that alternative is viable and you need to paint it black.
Just the same, the Islamic terrorists vision of heaven is ridiculous, when the whole of the west is painted black. Both fall into the trap of polarity, because their cause has reasons for doubt. Anybody using contrasts to describe the world is revealing their own doubt. Anyone using offensive language or taking issues to extremes is doing the same, just like those who repeat “It’s true, isn’t it!” - not as a question but in the manner of an Amen.
That is why a passive “us-them” is of course always going to exist, but it is when people feel they have to act against alternatives that it becomes ugly.
How long will life allow a person to be passive? What I mean is, I agree with you so far as you go. But let's say you believe Christianity is the best religion, and you present it that way, but you avoid criticizing other faiths because you feel it would be wrong to do so. Now, what happens when your Christian community that you've worked to build is faced with an incursion of some other faith? Now, as far as I can tell, there are three basis responses to this:
Nothing at all: If you do nothing at all when your creed is challenged, then history forgets about your creed and your stuff goes extinct. Presumably, if you were sincere when you claimed that your stuff was good, then you don't want this.
Be Aggressive: Violence, smear campaigns, other sorts of attacks against the offending belief.
Be Passive-Aggressive: Hold a few more potluck dinners, talk a little louder and more often about how great your faith is, re-paint your Church to make it look snazzy, stuff like that. You still hold to your ideal of not saying anything bad about the 'competition', but the change in your actions is obviously all about beating the other guy.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that people and their choices aren't the only things in the world, life won't let you be passive: Sooner or later, there will be 1000 people and only enough space for 500, or someone with the best intentions will do something you believe will bring about disasterous results. In fact, I would go so far as to say that most lone individuals living passive lives only live comfortably if there are other people (Governments and etc.) watching out for them who are not so passive, right? I mean, the land I live on, the things I believe, the stuff I have, only exist as they do because somewhere along the line, somebody (many times wrongly) fought for them.
What you have missed out (logical fallacy of false dilemma) is to ask why your creed is challenged. Why do people suddenly have an interest in some other religion? Do they like the music better, the speaker, the community, the social behaviour? For any of these reasons the people won’t have grasped your message and you are just loosing the grey area that never had a binding relationship with your community.
If the reasons involve the Spirituality, or the teaching makes more sense, or people are looking for a community that is socially more active towards the needy, then you have problems on your hands. These people are looking for a means to express a heartfelt compassion, or are looking for insight, inspired teaching and authenticity.
In this case it would do no good to do nothing, to regard the whole thing as a competition or to be aggressive. Instead, it would be necessary to turn inward (or to do penance) and seek the living spiritual pulse that has evaded you.
Has somebody really fought for spirituality? The Bible says that those who are concerned more about “the land they live on, the things they believe, and the stuff they have†fail to see that these things all pass, but the Spirit goes on. Every time that Israel lost to their neighbours, the chronics spoke about a spiritual crisis and lack of faith. When the disciples were blinded by the beauty of the Temple of Herod, Jesus reminded them that the Temple of stone would one day be destroyed, but that the temple of the Spirit could be rebuilt in three days.
I think that this is where a great deal has gone wrong within Christianity which has brought us an exclusive and aggressive deportment. The classic idea that “we built this city on …†isn’t really Christian. It is the coalition of stubborn expansion and conservatism. The romantic tales of how the west was won are as wrong as the romantic ideas about the British, Spanish or Portuguese Empires. The real story is a fight for power, not spirituality. And the truly spiritual were very often the victims, not the winners.
Life does allow us to be reflective, meditative and introspective – instead of outwardly reacting, aggressively defending what we believe to be our right. And when someone stands in front of us, threatening our existence, it isn’t a member of some other religion, but someone who his imposing his will upon you, trying to gain power over you. Towards such people Christ has told you how to react.
The funny thing that occurs to me (only funny because it never happened) when Hitler is used as an epitome of hatred and racism, is how would America have reacted, had the language of America been German, and not English? After all, the vote was close. And where would we be today?
I didn't exactly miss that as a third option, I was considering it as a previous step; There is such a thing as honest disagreement, where both parties reflect as best they can, are open and honest with all the facts, do the requisite soul-searching, and are still each convinced that the other is wrong and ought to be stopped.
Maybe not under your definition of the term, but at the very least you'd have to admit that many people throughout history have [i]taken themselves[/i] to be fighting for spirituality or spiritual issues. I think it's safe to say that if certain wars didn't go the way they did, I would have never heard of Jesus (providence notwithstanding).
If ‘us’ doesn’t understand ‘us’, then reflections on ‘them’ are pointless.
Yet the most skillful negotiator will be the one who can get the guy to put the gun down. And the compromiser may proceed with a guy across the table who’s just stalling to have time to detonate a dirty bomb. Do the circumstances of the negotiation matter or does what the negotiators understand about themselves matter?
I thought I had addressed your questions earlier in the thread, but perhaps not. So yes. All that I’ve said implies both honesty and genuineness. Us needs to accept the same frailties and strengths in ourselves as we would project onto them. That is the realization that removes the wall between us and them.
Negotiating in good faith requires honesty and the capacity to see them as having the same needs as us.
That neither honesty or genuineness exists in particularly large quantities in our world is noted. The issue still remains: does it have to remain this way or are we capable of change?
Yes, but are we talking religion here, or politics? If it is politics, then the voter should decide after a fair and maybe hard (but non-violent) campaign. If it is religion, then there is a different path to go down – which Jesus, Buddha, Confucius, etc. have all described. However, it seems that some Christians like to lean heavily on Judaism when it comes to conflict. Jesus seems to them too weak to cope with Islam, although many Sufi’s revere Jesus.
I differentiate between Spirituality and Piety, since Spirituality is a two-fold process: the “upward movement” is inner growth, allowing oneself to be changed as one develops his/her relationship with what we refer to as “God.†The “downward movement” is manifesting improvements in the physical reality around oneself as a result of the inward change. This results in Piety, which differs according to the tradition we grow up in or take on.
I believe that especially in the last centuries people have fought for their heritage, which included their Piety, but which was seldom Spirituality. There were highlights of course, and perhaps women have had a more spiritual life than men, but spirituality “connects†whereas piety often “disconnectsâ€. Too often have Christians stood on opposite sides of the battlefield, disconnected and enemies. That isn’t possible if the basis is spirituality, mindfulness, charity, which are essentially “connectionsâ€.
Since part of this is about dealing with conflict, I’d offer a further observation.
Uccisore, It is conceivable that two ‘sides’ could attempt to resolve differences honestly and openly only to find that force was inevitable. This would be particularly true in cultural clashes. As said earlier, confict is almost guaranteed in today’s world. The shift in understanding that I’ve suggested simply changes the intent of both ‘sides’. Instead of coming to the table intent on winning for my side, I look for and assume accomodation is not just desirable, but likely. I come looking for half a loaf, not to convince you I’m right and you’re wrong. The conflicting interests are still there, but my perspective, my intentions, my expectations, all have changed. A tiny shift in understanding perhaps, but a giant change in how I approach my fellows.
Bob You mention spiritual issues and political issues as something dealt with differently or seperately, and historically and currently your observation is correct, but I would suggest a bit more. It seems to me that what we’re talking about transcends political interests and/or false piety and benevolence. If we find that realization that us is them, then we have entered the spirit of genuine caring about others. The form, the efforts made in conflict resolution will be whatever they need to be at the time. It is the spirit and not the letter of the law that we need. Of courese this has been pointed out by any number of historical figures in the past, but the fact that it was ignored doesn’t change the validity of what we need.
Sure, if the system entrenched allows any voting at all, much less voting on whatever the point of contention is. Just for everybody to live in societies where they can vote on anything at all would require a huge shift in global politics that would no doubt require a lot of bloodshed. EVen in the case of a hard fought, non violent political campaign, the "Us vs. Them" set-up is still very much present, and not at all passive (if you want your issues to win, at least). I would certainly agree that it's in a much prefered state than violence.
Do you ever say anything nice about Christians, Christian? Anyways, we can argue about the particulars about what this or that faith should be doing or should have done if you like, but I think it detracts from the point. Religion or politics, if you want your belief system to persist, a time will come when you'll have to fight for it. That's just reality.
This is probably our biggest difference. As I see it, Spirituality divorced from all dogmas, creeds, rules, history or other sorts of "It is [i]this[/i] and not[i] that[/i]" statements is essentially a sensation. A sensation, I would point out, that I can achieve much more reliably through eating certain mushrooms or sustaining certain kinds of head trauma, than through prayer or meditation. The only thing that makes these sensations a worthy persuit at all is a claim or belief that they [i]indicate[/i] something of intrinsic value. Like God, for example. Once we make that jump, and we say "I persue spirituality to get closer to God" instead of "I like the endorphin rush I get from not eating for a long time", then our spirituality becomes impossibly tied to our religious creeds, whatever they are. Spirituality is part of a relationship, then, and gets it's value from that relationship- just like money gets it's value from the fact that there are things you can exchange it for, Spirituality gets it's value from the fact that it gives validation to one's creeds.
So, we may agree in the most technical sense that nobody has fought for spirituality, but people constantly fight for what gives their spirituality worth.
Indeed, but on the historical platform, it seems to me that we need to be clear about what our habit has been and still is today. With the most powerful man in the world burning the candle at both ends, it is important for me to note that his reasoning is steered by Piety and the influence of his rich friends, but he is lacking to my mind real spiritual counsel – or the little flame that the morning bible meeting may kindle is immediately snuffed out by everyday issues.
“Caring about others†is about listening to, not just hearing the voices of those “others.†In my kind of vocation we talk about “actively listening†to people, that is, we show them we are paying attention. This is something that we don’t observe in conflict situations. It is the reason why I quoted John Pilger’s article on the outbreak of the Vietnam War – because nobody listened to Hi Chi Minh, when he quoted the US Declaration of Independence and appealed to the government in Washington for aid and recognition. We were all caught up in our caricatures of real people - can a communist be sincere? “Nuff said!â€
The present situation, if you read “The Battle for God†by Karin Armstrong, is largely a result of the west helping destroy those influences in Arab countries, which could have prevented the rise of Fundamentalism, purely because they were socialist. Western politicians were not listening and they are still not! Instead, they put their own ideas over people who are not given time to consider them. They use marionettes that are easily recognised as such.
I would have expected a “Christian†President to be someone, who listens to the needs of the poor. Not someone, who himself a marionette of people whose God is Mammon.
I do doubt that it is really necessary, but I also know that there are people working from behind the scenes to ensure that the Arms Industry doesn’t make a loss. You see, however you turn it, from the OT to the NT, it is the story of the struggle of the poor but spiritual community under the tyranny of the powerful. Since then it hasn’t changed at all. The Reformation (of which I have just heard in the Sermon this morning) was a similar struggle leading all the way up to the World Wars of the twentieth century.
The big difference is that you are talking about bloodshed in the service of “Good†– in history bloodshed was imposed on the weak. The war against Nazi-Germany and the Japanese was a fight against egomaniacal leaders who had ideas of a “Herrenrasse†that would eradicate the world of the weak. The victims are always the weak. In the moment that we aspire to protect the weak, we must ask ourselves whether we can restrict that fight to defending those people. As soon as you have powerful allies, you must make clear what your goal is and try to prevent them following their own agendas, if they are not in the interest of the victims. This is where (Christian) Capitalism has failed as dismally as (Atheist) Communism.
I say nice things about Christians all the time – to Christians, personally. Last night I was with a group of young people who have an affinity towards evangelical doctrine and we had a fine time. They accept me as a Mystic and I accept their Piety, but we agree about the social content of Gospel and none of us would entertain spreading the word in the wake of violence.
The pessimism of evangelicals is something that is sometimes disturbing, but one young woman said that my devotionals are “Good News.†Maybe it is because I keep the words “Be not afraid†in mind and show them how the love of God can be incarnate in us, just as it was in Christ. Perhaps it is because the Spirit connects, despite what the Adversary is trying to do and we have a message that sings the song of life, even at the grave.
Who divorces Spirituality from Piety? Spirituality is what sets Piety in motion, but when Piety becomes divorced of Spirituality, that is when the problems occur. The Spirit has no human language, but uses whatever is at hand. That is why Piety is full of diversity, whereas the Spirit unites. The Aramaic for God “Alaha†also means “Unity.†Your problem, which leads you to become polemical, is that you assume that the endless Reality at the centre of the word “God†could be condensed into the Bible. But the Bible even describes God in diversity, my favourite metaphor being the “quiet small voice†that follows a great and strong wind, a shaking, and a fire in which JHVH “is notâ€.
Again, you are wrong. The Spirit is not tied. “The wind bloweth where it will, and thou hearest the voice thereof, but knowest not whence it cometh, and whither it goeth.†You have the cart pulling the horse. Spirituality is the inspiration of Piety, not the other way around – at least it wasn’t intended to be that way. Piety is a sail that draws its power by being filled with the spirit, which it needs because “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness and self-control.â€
Our spiritual nature is more than the sum of assigned values. This distinction is exactly what I have tried to convey, although I mangled it badly. It is false piety and false benevolence that allows us-them to become an abstraction from which the disconnect/violence can arise.
If we accept our own spirituality, then we must see that each and every one of us has that same spiritual nature. It is this realization that allows piety, honesty, and sincerity to come from within us, and not from prescribed or proscribed external concepts.
Yes, “false†Piety is a religious fervour that has lost its spiritual basis. There are many reasons for not listening to inspiration, any one of us can tell of a time when they didn’t listen to good advice – that is the sinner in us who always manages to miss the mark. But according to Jesus, that is forgivable or better, able to be healed. Our concern has to be that mankind doesn’t cut itself off from the very sentience that helps us rise to the occasion and be what the Bible describes as the “tselemâ€, the image of God. Interestingly the word for God in Genesis is “’ĕlôhîymâ€, indicating a unity in diversity. It is when mankind fails to comprehend his unity with the vast diversity of life on this planet, that he fails to be an heir and resembles a despotic minion. He starts forming allegiances, declares that we must be for or against, us or them.
Only the unperturbed can find back to the source of that Prime Inspiration, and gain strength to face the struggle to redeem this world. And we need redeemer personalities, people who follow Christ Jesus, or who follow the Way. We need the collected and composed to find the direction of healing and wholeness.
