Atheists Weaseling Around Semantics, It Is Historicist and Anthropological, But On To Empirical Theism

This shows an atheist trying to weasel semantics, assert that everyone is an atheist, and accuse Craig of playing semantics. Craig goes to the dictionary, while the ideological atheist tries to weasel his ideological talking point, as Craig calls it. Here, Craig is operating in the existing University-based framework, secularized Christian in fact. In the ideologue´s case, it´s pulling on a kind of anthropological multi-cultural historicism and trying to blend it with modern secular social relativism. Craig´s position goes further in that the Existence of God is being argued in the philosophy of metaphysics/religion, establishing that all historical and anthropological beliefs do have an empirical foundation, as in the First Cause, and extending Craig´s argument to transpersonal and transcendental views related to anthropology and psychology.

Right Wing Evangelicals Actually Reject Jesus, While Progressives Err Drinking Big Biz Cyanide As They Grab the Lifeline of Love

From John Pavolvitz´s blog · People have said that the MAGA Evangelical Church has hijacked Jesus but I don't believe that's true. They have hijacked the word Christian. Jesus is of no use to them. A Funeral for My Christianity johnpavlovitz.com A Funeral for My Christianity A friend told me that I seemed angry lately and at first it really pissed me off. I instantly mounted a spirited, vigorous defense laying out the reasons she had assessed me incorrectly but soon found myself trailing off, resigned to a harsh, unwelcome truth: She was right, or at least she was in th... 3 Comments Susan Knight Jesus is used as a weapon in their world. Reply 2hEdited Fredericka Richter DeBerry Excellent post, John. Exactly how I feel. TY. Reply 1h Mark Rego Monteiro Laura-Magnolia Robinson Morris 9 hrs · A favorite teacher who knows what JESUS REALLY TAUGHT! Take this to heart! 🙏💜 John Pavlovitz · People have said that the MAGA Evangelical Church has hijacked Jesus but I don't believe that's true. They have hijacked the word Christian. Jesus is of no use to them. A Funeral for My Christianity johnpavlovitz.com A Funeral for My Christianity A friend told me that I seemed angry lately and at first it really pissed me off. I instantly mounted a spirited, vigorous defense laying out the reasons she had assessed me incorrectly but soon found myself trailing off, resigned to a harsh, unwelcome truth: She was right, or at least she was in th... 10 Comments Susan Knight Jesus is used as a weapon in their world. Reply 8hEdited Dana Schindler Susan Knight as is the Bible. Reply 1m Fredericka Richter DeBerry Excellent post, John. Exactly how I feel. TY. Reply 7h Mark Rego Monteiro It´s a personal share of a blog piece, and nice in that way. It helps me proceed to reflect that Jesus is used merely as the object of a personal Savior, maybe let into one´s heart, as a club membership qualifier. Then it´s all Paul with hate-colored glasses, if that. So, JP´s list of the evangelical lack of the Gospel is a good one. But I´ve been addressing Progressive Christian culture a bit, and just am fresh off an exchange around a very softy video, with a UCC pastor asking, "What does God mean to you?" I came up with the phrase, after my exchange with a conservative, "erring on the side of Love." It´s erring in the sense that progressives are riding in materialist assumptions in various ways, but of course, far from being as antagonistic and toxic as the right wing evangelicals. Thus, it´s important to grasp what is wrong with the evangelicals. However, I didn´t go from atheist humanism to interfaith seeking to an interfaith UU Quaker Christian by even mostly figuring out how wrong the evangelicals are. I just kept my "eyes on the prize" of my own spiritual growth. Maybe the "erring while grabbing the lifeline of Love" captures more of the nuances of progressives. What did I do, in retrospect, or rather, what have I been doing? I reached a point, around Obama´s first campaign, where I was ready to join the Green Party. I didn´t, but was clear about the meaning of political parties, in contrast to not for profit public interest group political activism for legislation and consumer and economic activism in informed purchasing and social entrepreneurship. That is, I worked a summer stint with the PIRGs out of college, who also taught me about Ralph Nader, Sierra Club, and Greenpeace. I later learned about more, like Oxfam, food co-op stores, and credit unions. All of that was sort of activist "technical insight" that I gained, and not yet integrated fully with my spiritual-religious knowledge. My spiritual progress had already advanced by then by my recognizing that God´s love through Jesus meant learning, and I had learned my spirituality in interfaith seeking. My next step was to consciously understand that my interest in University-based modern education and social movements also was originally Christian spiritual practice, and still was potentially. In fact, secularism had made it psychosocially and culturally "transferable." Unlike airplane tickets, which are made not to be, instead being "non-transferable" among individuals. That´s how Gandhi made a fascinating journey from secular Hindu law student to theosophically inspired interfaith Christian Hindu etc. Mohammed Yunus was a Muslim with a western economics degree when he helped poor women and founded the pro-poor, pro-women Grameen Bank that spread throughout Bangladesh on a bumpy ride, inspired others, and spread elsewhere like the US itself. It´s up to 19 branches here. Wangari Maathai´s Greenbelt Movement in Africa is another, and Vandana Shiva´s work in India yet another, and the efforts go on. Jesus doesn´t need to be seen for the spectacular figure that he is for the greatest of his fruits to be spreading. However, given the way people are intimidated by Big Biz profiteering businesspeople, I think it will require appreciating how Buddha and Gandhian Hinduism, yoga, tai chi, etc lead us back to Jesus in a passionate spiritual sense for Moses et al and God. US Civil Rights and UN human rights are in Jesus´ legacy, and once we connect those dots, we can get over our feeling intimidated here in the mixed bag, smokescreen razzle-dazzle, and broken dreams of the US of A. I found a food co-op store in New York City, went on Sierra Club hikes, and appreciated Patagonia´s amazing eco-social business model, along with finding Greenpeace´s Greener Electronics and Detox My Fashion campaigns. I studied jiu-jitsu and capoeira, yoga, and found Christian Science and took unbaptized communion in Episcopal and Catholic services. All of us can do stuff like that. G Scott Heron sang "The revolution will not be televised." Well, that depends. Reply 6hEdited Steve Koschella Mark Rego Monteiro Jesus was hijacked as a political tool at around 350AD under Constantine. He has been forcibly inbred with "Christendom" ever since. Reply 2h Mark Rego Monteiro Steve Koschella So, you´re actually intending to say, in empirical terms, that Constantine, the Roman military guy oriented towards Christianity starting with his lowborn mom Helena, is who has been "forcibly inbred...." etc. It´s all Constantine´s fault. That´s definitely an important gearshift moment. However, knowledge of the truth doesn´t operate by blaming and fingerpointing. People and culture are much more complicated, and that´s why looking up psychology, sociology, and anthropology isn´t "soft social science." It´s profound and cuts like a "sword" to grasp a lot of things. So, actually, no. Constantine did ratchet Christianity into a new level of authority requiring real world adjustments, but he´s hardly been "forcibly inbred". Bio Anthro helps since Pan trog. chimps have the unnatural mammalian capacity and tendency to massacre neighboring groups when they can. Moreover, humankind universally has conflict problems, and at the level of civilization, commits violence and enslavement. That comes with some certain level of power and authority. While I do want to acknowledge your effort to recognize some history, there´s more to it. Jesus didn´t teach that he was just strolling around with a great self-help book to make people feel better while they work away in their cubicles, but he did see that things would grow in amazing ways. He said things I recognize as "go and learn..." Matt 9, and "These things I do, you too shall do, and greater." John 14:12. That doesn´t mean that it would be a free ride on a magic carpet. I knocked on doors out of college, where I had plunged my intellectual abilities into nothing less than a bronco ride from pre-med to sociology to biological anthropology. Additional historical markers help clarify the point. By 385 AD, Priscillian became the first heretic executed, and it was at the then emperor´s order. It was no less over the objections of the then pope, and spiritual leaders St. Jerome, and St. Martin of Tours. By 476 AD, the Western emperor had been overthrown and left as the King of Italy Odoacer, with the Roman church on its own. They didn´t go on a bloody binge, for one thing. In fact, some very crucial things began happening in the church now leveraged up in rank as an institution with a wide network, including the all important monasteries. That means areas for spiritual practice specialists. Cassiodorus in the 500s injected his classical learning into the monastic system. Benedict of Nursia did his amazing thing with a fine start of a reformed monastic rule. Missionaries were converting the invading tribes not with swords, but with their famous style that sometimes resulted in the famous martyrdom. Pagan kings like Clovis weren´t always so Christ-like. Neither did Clovis learn to threaten his people with monarchical "subtle" insinuation to get baptized from Constantine. So, things are already far more complex, and involve some amazing Christian demonstrations of their monastic skill as missionaries. Getting clear about the "upward gearshifts" has to begin with looking at what Christians did with ancient Greek philosophy, neoplatonic to start with. That gave Christians the start to intellectual firepower. That´s where the focus needs to be on how new "upward gearshifts" in Christian potential come in. Charlemagne reunited a big chunk of Europe from a new tribal angle oriented toward the Roman church. He beat the Saxons and forced their conversion. Well, hash that one out, but at that point, the law of the jungle in tribe fight tribe, was in play, and Charlemagne´s Christianity dealt with its Saxon conflict like it had with the Lombards. Yay, the pope crowned him the Holy Roman Emperor. How´s your history? Yet, Charlemagne spurred learning by summoning Alcuin of York and other monks. A few hundred years later and the Iberian Reconquest was on track, and Thomas Aquinas was the student of Albert Magnus at the spanking new level of learning the U of Paris. Thomas Aquinas Christianized Aristotle´s First Cause, and other things, as a pivotal development called the Great Synthesis. That percolated and marinated for a little more time, Jan Hus was burned at the stake, while Luther took his learning as a monk and nailed 95 Theses. The church wasn´t abusing its power in indulgences because of Constantine, but because of the human tendency to indulge in the abuse of power, privilege, and pleasure. Luther inspired a breakaway from that power and privilege. Descartes came along by 1640, and is identified for the mind-body split that naturalized philosophical thinking, that Pascal criticized, that worried John Locke. That´s identifies a few key points and issues that boil down to the human bio-psychosocial tendencies to indulge in the abuse of power, privilege, and pleasure. Jesus taught "seek first the Kingdom of Heaven" and "clean the cup on the inside", which Anthony of the Desert addressed in a great way with his ascetic founding of Christian monasticism. After Luther, the Protestants didn´t even keep that monastic system. George Fox, however, led the co-founding of the Quaker Friends with amazing results that need to be made more prominent in progressive culture. He stopped bowing to aristocrats, valued individuals, women, and protested injustice. The other Quaker-Friends followed suit, and in a hundred years, they initiated and inspired the anti-slavery abolition movement in a pioneering interdenominational campaign. I fast forward and connect all the dots in Gandhi, the interfaith Christian Hindu. The problem is centrally how Christian educational and scientific success has given nominal Christian merchants, soldiers, and politicians amplified and intense power. That´s where European colonization came from, and Gandhi´s context under the British Empire. Gandhi valued Jesus´ integrity to the utmost, using his orientation by theosophy to go interfaith. The interfaith and spiritual Gandhi shows how about people can respiritualize their experience for integrity in the standard of loving and just integrity that Jesus really represents. If you identify Constantine, it´s not at all his fault. Switch your focus to Anthony of the Desert to credit him for developing the monastic movement that focused on spiritual practice and led to modern University education. George Fox, whose Quakers include Lucretia Mott and Susan B. Anthony. W Gladden´s Social Gospel influenced FD Roosevelt and his vision of UN human rights. Robert Owen was inspired no less by a Christian doctor to inspire the Rochdale pioneer co-op business model. Getting clear about all that involves valuing psychology, anthropology, sociology, along with history. Process Theologian JB Cobb has a good standpoint. Historian James Hannam´s Genesis of Science is excellent. Like the Buddha says, something like Paul I recall, it´s important to apply ourselves to our spiritual work. And that´s is consistent with Jesus´ vision expressed in his teachings, "go and learn" etc. (and also this: Steve Koschella "Constantine has been forcibly inbred..."? Try, human beings are universally violent and enslave, like their chimpanzee Pan trog. cousins who slaughter neighbors, which means they, we, have bio-psychosocial tendencies to indulge in the abuse of power, privilege, and pleasure. Violence and enslavement already are visible on the smaller scales of tribal societies like Africa´s and the America´s, and at the larger scales we know so well in China, India, Islam, the Aztecs, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and so on. So, Constantine didn´t make Christianity evil. The issue of Church doctrinal orthodoxy is about two things: political/institutional authority and the truth. Expressing the truth in religion without political authority issues requires a good modern educational system. By developing a monastic system already by 320, then Universities by 1150, Christians showed an incredible capacity to work with Jesus´ legacy standard of loving integrity for Moses et al and God. Islam´s scholarship, its Golden Age, collapsed because of things like overcentralization and infighting. Constantine, meanwhile, leveraged Christianity up with access to authority. His promoting orthodox doctrine was unfortunate, but not supported in the same way by the church. When the first heretic was executed in 385, it was the Roman emperor who gave the order, not the pope, St. Jerome, or St. Martin of Tours. By 476, the Western Roman emperor had been deposed, leaving the local King of Italy, and political breakdown in the West. The church was on its own in a big way. By 600 AD, Pope Gregory sent Augustine of Canterbury to Britain talking about allowing pagan practices wherever possible. If Jan Hus was executed around 1400, then the educated monk Luther by 1520 used his education to list 95 Theses like against the problem of Rome charging indulgences. Luther inspired the Reformation as local political monarchs supported him. University-based education is a key common denominator. Hugo Grotius and John Locke used their education to write about religious tolerance, as the British also showed some interesting innovative spirit among the Puritans, with Quakers, Methodists, and more. The famous Age of Navigation and colonization was mostly gold and glory by the universal roles of humans as merchants, soldiers, and politicians who as nominal Christians used the intelligence that monastic-based Universities were developing as the fruit of Jesus´ legacy. That´s how Christianity ended absolute monarchy with US constitutional democracy and Civil Rights. University-based natural law became secular education as part of that. However, that wasn´t all just democracy, education, and hugs and kisses. Colonization by European Protestant merchants used education to create joint stock companies and to create theories of profiteering that took Adam Smith´s "free market" and cut out his editorial ethics. When Quaker Friends led the protesting against slavery, their dissident high integrity Christianity had to oppose the economic profiteering businesspeople who wanted slavery. Minister Washington Gladden in 1877 then initiated the Social Gospel by supporting labor organizing. Gladden and Rauschenbusch led influences on FD Roosevelt who did projects in Boston´ s needy low income neighborhoods in the 1890s under his Episcopalian principal. Eleanor got involved with pro-poor settlement house projects following Jane Addam´s Hull House, that she got inspired by from a British project. Anglican Sam Barnett´s Toynbee Hall.) (Steve Koschella First of all, Constantine died in 337 AD. "Jesus hijacked as a political tools... and forcibly inbred..."? "Forcibly inbred" is actually a metaphor that you´re using that has serious limitations. What has been special about Christianity, in it all? Are you clear that key "breakouts" have happened throughout history? The term "breakout" works with your metaphor, although it´s more like Jesus has been misused by hypocritical, low integrity, and worse nominal Christians in the roles of merchants, soldiers, and politicians. It is, however, spiritual practice that corresponds to high integrity figures. Emperors were not the church, however, in key ways, so you´re actually just wrong. Priscillian was the first heretic executed in 385, and it was by the then emperor´s order, and protested by the church, St. Jerome, and St. Martin of Tours. Moreover, with Julian in 360, he became a pagan and started trying to work against Christianity. It wasn´t just playschool. Political realities need to be acknowledged. Constantine was still doing quite a bit of paganism himself, and his sympathy gave Christianity legitimacy, since it had been subjected to Roman imperial persecution. So, then, while Emperors as Christians certainly used "Jesus" in mostly nominal Christianity in their monarchical-military role, what happened? Western emperors were all deposed by 476 AD in a fascinating development that left the Roman church in a novel position. The Roman church, meanwhile, was sending missionaries on their own to convert invading tribes, no less. Some became martyrs. Some popes did crazy things like Pope Steven VII putting a corpse on trial in 897. Then the Inquisitions began, but really, were mild and orderly, and so start getting thinned out as far as ruthless "massacres" go. The category isn´t "Christianity", but humans in authority as nominal Christians. Authentic Christians were practicing spirituality and developed monastic schools into Universities. Jesus´ 2 Commandments, fulfilling Moses´ were loving, and his teachings indicated spiritual practice. Thanks to Jesus´ legacy in modern monastic-derived University-based modern education, we can make important distinctions. Human beings are actually universally violent and enslave, like their chimpanzee Pan trog. cousins who slaughter neighbors, which means they, we, have bio-psychosocial tendencies to indulge in the abuse of power, privilege, and pleasure. Violence and enslavement already are visible on the smaller scales of tribal societies like Africa´s and the America´s, and at the larger scales we know so well in China, India, Islam, the Aztecs, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and so on. Chinese history has a phenomena called "literary inquisitions" based on authority figures being displeased with how writers talked about them. Entire families were executed at various points, and thousands upon thousands of deaths by execution. The Hongwu Emperor was a good example of such things. Human beings are meta-animals with bio-psychosocial tendencies. Everywhere. That is why anthropology can identify shamanism as having been important everywhere, spiritual practice everywhere, and why Jesus in Judeo-Christianity is worth calling "supershamanic." So, Constantine didn´t make Christianity evil. The issue of Church doctrinal orthodoxy is about two things: political/institutional authority and the truth. Expressing the truth in religion without political authority issues requires a good modern educational system. By developing a monastic system already by 320, then Universities by 1150, Christians showed an incredible capacity to work with Jesus´ legacy standard of loving integrity for Moses et al and God. Islam´s scholarship, its Golden Age, collapsed because of things like overcentralization and infighting. Christianity had to establish itself to move onward and upward. And Charlemagne united the tribes in Europe. By 1150, those Universities were giving Europeans new cultural development that led to the Age of Navigation and colonization, with God trailing Gold and Glory. Merchants, soldiers, and politicians led the colonization efforts. The educated monk Luther wrote up 95 Theses and stood up to Roman and new Imperial authority, and inspired a crucial split. That split led to various developments in Universities and otherwise. Constitutional democracy with Civil Rights. Merchants, then are the ones who led the Industrial Revolution. FD Roosevelt et al´s UN human rights. Merchants have funded right wing theology, and drove anti-communist militarist ideology, along with the soldiers and politicians. Ever read Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins? Then, try K Kruse´s One Nation Under God. Rev Fifield was a pro-rich preacher, but he didn´t get so important on his own. He met the executives of US Big Biz at the National Manufacturers Assoc. Ralph Nader is a big hero to help clarify the source of modern evil. Along with the Quaker-Friends who sparked and led much of the anti-slavery movement. The Social Gospel initiated in 1877 by minister Washington Gladden was pro-labor, and soon pro-Afro-Am. Constantine isn´t the problem Christianity faces. Getting clear about all that involves valuing psychology, anthropology, sociology, along with history. Process Theologian JB Cobb has a good standpoint. Historian James Hannam´s Genesis of Science is excellent. Like the Buddha says, something like Paul I recall, it´s important to apply ourselves to our spiritual work. And that´s is consistent with Jesus´ vision expressed in his teachings, "go and learn" etc.)

Free Market Capitalism Bears No Fault in a Fallen Creation? Gag Me With a Spoon, Or The Other Guy, Rather....

From comments on the youtube video: David Bentley Hart: Myths of Christian History Sean Kennedy Sean Kennedy 1 year ago (edited) 06:50 "The petty, burgeoise consumerism, which gives us...Youtube." Youtube, the very communication platform upon which Mr. Hart currently relies to discuss his own popular ideas and book offerings (i.e. books which, via mass purchase and consumption, contribute to his livelihood.) Meaning: The situation is not as neatly divisible as Marx (or Hart) would have one believe. In short: The CONTENT (petty and otherwise) of our economic system is provided by the characters of the individuals who participate in said system. Ultimately, the content is little fault of the system itself. Contrary to what Mr. Hart appears to believe, in nowise is it inherent to free market capitalism, specifically, that individual ends must be vacant of the Good, or of God. Indeed, to the contrary, such freedom in a fallen creation, a creation thus pervaded by resource scarcity, allows the fullest possible range for the individual to pursue what he/she identifies (correctly or not) as that which is Good / God. The althernative, as far as I can see it, is to impose a system of behavior designed by a central human authority, aimed at directing the masses toward the Good/God. But (1) Good luck designing such a widely applicable, yet simultaneously materially successful system; (2a) Good luck designing such a system that avoids ultimate reliance upon coercion; or stated another way: (2b) Good luck defining the Good/God in a way acceptable to all participants, so that each would gladly and voluntaritly participate, or agree that the means to be employed are those best suited to achieve the end(s) chosen. I dare say that the outer bounds of Mr. Hart's knowledge of economic science, and its necessary implications for possible and actual social arrangements, are on full display here, and are regrettably narrow indeed. Too bad he's convinced otherwise, and too bad he's enamored of the demonstrably errant ideas of Marx et al. Economic cause and effect may appear simple and straightforward, but in fact lends itself to no easily won understanding, even by intellects as gifted as Hart's (and Marx). Green Peacemst Green Peacemst 1 year ago Interesting topic. However, you overestimate the difficulty of economic cause and effect. The problem is presumption, intimidation, and distortion. David Ellerman summed it up in refining his work on co-op firms, referring to key issues like social power relations and transaction costs. Herman Daly et al formulated Ecological Economics quite well. However, asserting the problems of inequality and unsustainability is key, along with Jesus´ legacy, and then talking up existing solutions, like labels e.g. organics and Fair Trade, food co-ops and credit unions to educate consumers, break indoctrination, and spur social enterprise. Grameen Bank is illuminating, as is Gr. Shakti and Solar.United.Neighbors. in the US. European Social Market Economics is a good rule of thumb. Sean Kennedy Sean Kennedy 1 year ago (edited) ​ @Green Peacemst What's telling, however, is that neither you, nor they, possess an intimate knowledge of economic theory and its historical development. Thus, you have no idea what economics entails in its essentials. Thus, you conflate two fundamentally different scientific endeavors, psychology and economics. Unless and until one studies in relative detail the historical development of economic theory, one is bound in ignorance and the phrase "one doesn't know what he doesn't know" is apt. For instance, Aristotle posited that goods of equal value exchange against one another---that an economic exchange is fundamentally one dealing with equalities. This idea, it so happens, is incorrect. Yet it stood as truth for a millenium. Only with the Spanish scholastics of the 16th century was the fact demonstrated that exchange occurs when each actor values that which is acquired more highly than that which is renounced, else no trade happens. Nevertheless, unfortunately, the profound economic insights of the scholastic thinkers failed to prevent all manner of subsequent fallacies from once again taking root in economic theorizing. To wit, Adam Smith and David Ricardo's fatally flawed cost-of-production theory of value swept British economics and was adopted by Marx, all three of whose influence clearly still manifests far and wide today. These examples are merely a SLIVER of the intellectual particularities which one NECESSARILY need be familiar with to truly comprehend economics qua economics. Again, the thinkers you take your ideas from HAVE NO CLUE of this history, and thus also NO CLUE what correct economics entails. Indeed, if Aristotle, Smith, Ricardo, and Marx could be so wildly incorrect---and incorrect regarding such an utterly fundamental phenomenon as value---surely the presumption a non-expert ought to adopt with respect to economics is that of profound ignorance and intellectual humility. I'm persuaded by NONE of this talk of "intimidation," "fair trade," and "social power relations." Whatever it is, it's NOT economics. And to whatever extent these conceptions may happen to countenance accurate economic theory (a possibility which I SERIOUSLY doubt), this is mere accident---none of these "thinkers" would be able to explicate the necessary connections and their significance. Green Peacemst Green Peacemst 1 year ago @Sean Kennedy Oh, you misread your orthodox tea leaves, and project your own presumptions. Allow me to prepare my reply..... Green Peacemst Green Peacemst 1 year ago (edited) @Sean Kennedy Well, that was pompous and obnoxious. Which is par for the course in the orthodox economics quagmire of posturing sycophants. You sound nice and gummed up. Did you actually offer any substance, at least of one kind or another? Ah, we´ll get to that. As for “non-experts,” you happen to be talking to a guy with a masters and ample and diverse experience, which overeducated, overspecialized, and narrowly experienced pundits don´t. So. Oops for you. My qualifications are actually adequately expert. And yeah, I referred to Ellerman and Daly, who both worked with J Stiglitz and Stern at the WB. Oops for you. Me, oh, I started in Bio Anthro, and value multidisciplines and empiricism, and thanks to Intl Rel see through fallacious economic scholastic ideologizing. “Empiricism” relates to the scientific method, and economics has tried to avoid that in all its ideal theorizing, making all your creampuff “don´t know” psychology your own Jungian shadow projection. With my Bio Anthro basis, social psych observing of human interaction is fundamental. As for Aristotle, like his science, he made assumptions, not bad as you cite it. He can “posit” equal values all he wanted, the question is who and how “values” are determined. Artisans and small operators don´t wield unfair advantages normally, and can be generally thought of as giving honest accountings, which Dave Korten ascribed to Smith´s assumptions. Jolly good for him. And Smith filled his work with editorial comments warning about unequal participants. Oh my. Could that reflect “social power relations” expressed coyly in unempirical scholarship? And that´s 18th C. You cited “16th C. Spanish scholastics. Gee. Never heard of ´em. Am I lost? Sorry, already found. You ascribe an insight to them of “agent hyper valuation.” Good thing you reject psychology. Not. And there it is. And you acknowledge “fatal flaws” in “cost of production” value theories, where your attempt at reasoning and presentation resorts to “unknowability” based on defense of the inexpressible orthodoxy and ad hom against the unorthodox. Yeah, here in the real world, say, of Social Movement Sociology and Ecosocial Solidarity Economics, we note that Denmark´s socioeconomic history offers a reliable standard. They never suffered the destabilizing “encirclements” that enriched British aristocrats and was followed coincidentally by industrialization through exploitation. Labor´s salaries and hours weren´t actually by any equal valuation terms. Funny how that´s hardly on orthodox radar. And how much that corresponds to social power relations and intimidation. To wit, it´s not that you´re not persuaded. You´re deeply indoctrinated, peddlar wearing “non-expert”-colored glasses. As for Fair Trade, it cuts to the bone of your fantasy world serving an oligarchical US-led corporate profiteering model and WTO system. Ah, but Keynes just talked about interest rates, and the GDP promises unlimited growth, and Gandhi´s type of example shows how Fair Trade ecosocial business values cuts through distracting exploitative justifications. Reality check for ya, Pompous the Double-talking, Double-Book Clown. One book for the public, and the real one. Occupy Wall St. may have fizzled, but they were like martyrs. Now, why don´t you shake yourself up and read Daly´s fave JS Mill, and Mark Lutz´s background for Ellerman in John Ruskin. Jaroslav Vanek on Labor-managed econ might be jargon-friendly for ya. Daly and J Farley have a whole textbook to slice your mush-brain fat off. Any questions, junior league? Sean Kennedy Sean Kennedy 1 year ago @Green Peacemst Nothing you've just said contradicts my point. Again, without a fairly intimate knowledge of the intellectual development of economic theory, one is incapable of identifying that which, properly, belongs in the category of the economic. This includes yourself and the likes of Stiglitz. Degrees, honors, experience, and headships have nothing to do with this. To wit, your being enamored of empiricism as THE scientific method, when in fact economics is, properly, a deductive science. And, predictably, you leveling the charge of sycophantism, as every Marxian does in reply to criticism of his errors. Marx was wrong. And so are you. Voluntary exchange of property (including one's labor) is a positive sum endeavor, simple as that. To the extent exploitation DOES exist in the economy, this is due to exogenous factors which have nothing directly to do with the logic and practice of laissez-faire. To cry "unequal social power" or some such when describing the labor contract in a PURELY capitalist economy, can only be accomplished with a straight face by one tangled in Marxian fallacies, which is possible only when one is ignorant of economic theory and its historical development. Green Peacemst Green Peacemst 1 year ago (edited) ​ @Sean Kennedy By psychologically denying that reality matters, of course you can ignore contradictions and their significance. Nothing would contradict your point if you were learning from me, and not sycophantically rationalizing all in your obtuse apparently shared economic orthodoxy. Stiglitz has shown signs of empirical sanity in his advocacy of public stakeholder shares in Russia´s post-communist conversion, and a Green Natl Product. Meanwhile, you just swirl like a theory-feathered vulture. Ah, degrees are irrelevant. Well, “irrelevancy” is a quality that can be established empirically and described with verbal efficacy. Your orthodoxy is virtually irrrelevant except as a characteristic of intransigent orthodoxy and the prevailing behaviors. Your deranged disdain of empiricism has a long presence in your “miserable science,” even as it is at odds with the fields aspirations as a “science,” again, not atypically. As for labels, did I mention any Marxian dogma? No, and you project your own malnourished epistemology. Ah, but your dogma? “Voluntary exchange of property (including one's labor) is a positive sum endeavor,” except that as a social science, and upon mandatory empirical examination, “voluntary” is a psychosocial and cultural contextualized variable, not immune to context except in unreal orthodoxy embedded in an unjust reality and committed to defending that injustice. "Turning a blind eye" is another term we "Real Lifers and Reality Checkers" use for your sorry kind. And on you go with “exogenous factors” and “laissez-faire.” Indeed, corporate executives like your kind of smokescreening. How sad for you then that 1972 UN Stockholm already drew on Pigou´s “externalities,” that pesky reality. In brainlessly barking orthodox theoretical purity, you would redeem yourself if you learned from my talk of strategies as “externality adjustment market mechanisms,” but you don´t. And that is why one project in the field is called (Post-) Autistic Economics. As if I am not part of an advancing collection of movements. As for your “Marxian” blinders, I used the term “social” economics, among others, and referred to JS Mills, and Lutz´s work. He doesn´t cover Social Europe, if I´m not mistaken, but German Frankfurt School ideas and ordoliberalism also confound you, as do the rest of Social Europe, and social business models. As you keep airbrushing that mustache and pie in your face, the real world is closing in. Nicholas Stern´s Climate Change report may have made little dent, but Germany´s citizens have led a charge in renewable energy co-ops. In fact, that´s where your corporate-friendly market fantasy could give you an escape hatch back to reality. Robert Owens and the Quaker-interdenominational abolitionists inspired the Rochdale Co-op´ists by the 1840s. That´s how all that works, dear dogmatist. Your denialist rationalizing allows you to pretend you´re not running, but you better study some of that “trivial” empirical stuff about sustainability. The NIH´s Fauci deduced and predicted an epidemic in 2017, from his years of inductive data. He´s like me, not you. And the UNDP? You can´t quite sustain through your hazy psychological defense mechanisms that they include eco-sustainability measures now with their UN HDI. And accounting for the World Bank´s involvement with UN SDGs just doesn´t compute. Nice mustache and pie in your wishful historical escapist face. Sean Kennedy Sean Kennedy 1 year ago @Green Peacemst "intransigent orthodoxy" Yes, truth is intransigent. Were you familiar with it, you would see the fantastic nature of your cooperative communism. But aren't cooperatives voluntary associations? Oops. Green Peacemst Green Peacemst 1 year ago @Sean Kennedy The truth isn´t demonstrated in conceit and vanity, but is enlightening and revealed in empirical integrity, not escapist verbal posturing. It is revealed in justifications, for which empirical references intransigently push interpretations towards clarifying evaluations. You fastidiously demonstrate avoidance of any such responsible scholarship. The late Elinor Ostrom, who shared the Rijksbank Nobel, wasn´t a formal economist, and had joined Daly´s Institute for Ecological Economics, was an exceptional recipient, having done field work. The intransigent orthodoxy that you identify rides on corporate profiteering coattails, meanwhile. As for co-operative social business and market models, not your ideologically boxed "communism," tsk tsk, indeed, voluntary. A term which you can value in your cage, unable to see its historical origins in response to exploitation, and continuing significance, having been recognized amply by the World Bank, among other international institutions. Ah, but that is all fuzzy in your bubble of a purview. Highlighted reply Colin Purssey Colin Purssey 11 hours ago @Green Peacemst Wow ! You two antagonistic economics polemicists have left my head in a spin .Fascinating argument but the esoteric jargon and recondite subject matter that you both express , leaves the uninitiated , like myself , utterly confused . Thus from that vantage, I dunno who won the points ..... . Green Peacemst Green Peacemst 1 second ago @Colin Purssey "utterly confused"? You go so far as to equate me with the other guy, and more like, "utterly" ignored any and all references I made to quite empirical issues. It´s a basic insight that "neutral" folks like yourself are basically free riding on an unjust system. Time to face some facts. I had fun re-reading my stuff to note what you totally ignored. The question does ultimately fall back on who you are as a vocal audience member in this case. You apparently are not clear about the significance of 1972 UN Stockholm UNCHE environmental conference, and its meaning beyond all that it has lead to around Climate Change alone. If you´re literate enough, check out the 2005 World Bank-UNEP-NGO Ecosystem Assessment, or any more recent version of the NGO WWF et al´s "Living" Planet Report. They´re too soft in that title. It´s the Dying Planet Report. A little edgy for ya? You and your nephews and future geneaology are facing the rather unsettling implications, well, catastrophic really, of current industrial trends that are viciously and profiteeringly unsustainable. I also refer to things like Denmark´s social economy, and Germany´s, both of which innovated modern green power co-ops. I also mentioned Fair Trade and Solidarity Economics. Not quite familiar with those terms? Go take a look at the FLO´s site and their success stories, all of which is contextualized by how the commodities markets controlled by US-led profiteering mega-corporation businesspeople loved driving prices for coffee and bananas to the ground, with no regard for the small farmers. Fair Trade organizes small farmers into co-op enterprise, and obligates buyers to pay living prices and community premiums. Examples in the US´ s neck of the woods include organic and Fair Trade certified foods and things, Food co-op stores, credit unions (mostly conservative in nature), and now green power co-ops. The first successful project was Interfaith Power and Light, followed by the 2007 enterprise of two 12 year olds and a mom who founded SUN solar co-op, that has spread to 15 states so far with a low income project. Otherwise, I recommend looking up the winners of the Right Livelihood Award, like Brazil´s MST, and South Korea´s XYZ, and Japan´s Seikatsu Club, or visiting the US NCBA for co-op biz and the international org ICA for co-op biz. That should get your foot in the door, and start the detoxification process, or really, de-indoctrination.

Club Membership Christianity, to Doctrinal Christianity to My Interfaith UU Quaker Christianity (w/CS), aka Gandhian Christianity

barry charles brebner 2 days ago @Joint Electromagnetic Spectrum Operations (JEMSO) just trust in Jesus and all worries will disappear! GOD has everything under control and everything is going to be alright! Green Peacemst Green Peacemst 2 days ago @barry charles brebner You mean Jesus, as in Joint ElectroStatic Ursine Sandwiches? Oh, sorry, your username is bcb. Well, "trusting in Jesus" put as a club membership is itself an ideology. God created a physical Universe, and Jesus has played a specific role when people seek God through him spiritually. Things will be all right if you seek to follow the Commandments like "Love thy neighbor as thyself," and understand the problems of "the deceit of wealth that chokes the word." Slavery was ended when the social movement was sparked by Quaker Friends inspiring a University graduate´s spiritual revelation. Valuing individuals and women, stopping bowing to aristocrats, and protesting injustice......Jesus taught people to "go and learn" and pray in secret, not just say, "Lord, Lord." Doing the will of the Father/Parent in Heaven" is a little more relevant and empowering than mere numb club membership. barry charles brebner barry charles brebner 2 days ago @Green Peacemst ya i think i know what you mean about "club membership". It seems like many people think that being a Christian means "going to church" and reading the word of God, but actually it is way deeper than that. Being a true Christian, is a transformation, an operation of God, being born-again, washed, cleansed, given a new heart, adopted into the family of God, an act of God, a Spiritual Birth, coming out of darkness and into the glorious Kingdom of Light, the Kingdom of God. I seek the will of God by the grace of God and God empowers me so that He carries out His will through me, by faith! You sound like you have some belief, but you also sound a bit doubtful, it is hard for me to tell at this point. Being a member of the church, is a act of God because the church is the body of Christ, and all those people that are born again, Children of God are members of the Church (the body of Christ). We are the church, Jesus is the head; people do not go to church as people think and talk. But the members of the church (body of Christ) meet together, we don't go to church, we gather as the church, as the members of the body of Christ. The church of God is not a building of men, but a spiritual building, built be God. We are living stones in the Holy Temple of God. Oh and we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth to guide us into all Truth. Not everyone who calls themself a "christian" is actually a Christian. I am not sure where you stand on all this, but you need Jesus if you want to be with God. Not because i say so, but because God has said so. Ask God for yourself, if you have not already. That is my recommendation, but you have been given free will to decide for yourself. You choose your destiny. And that may not make sense, to choose destiny, but the choices that you will make God already knows, God knows your destiny but we play a role in it by the choices that we make. I hope that makes sense to you and speaks to you in a way that will have a beneficial effect. Basically, i hope you hear from God through this and are drawn to God, by the Truth. ❤ Green Peacemst Green Peacemst 2 days ago @barry charles brebner You think I sound "doubtful"? Well, given your manner of orientation, I have a different orientation that relates to what I said. I don´t use conventional church language, since I have found my path and place in God through Jesus in the need to grasp Jesus´ greatest living legacy of loving integrity for Moses et al and God that underlies globalized Western Civilization, which is University-based, UN human rights-sustainability-social movement society for structured pluralism. That´s where it´s not any doubts that I have that you´re perceiving. It´s how I am grounded in empirical theism and innovating the concepts that are needed to express that for modern society. I´d be a new church, interfaith UU Quaker Church of Christ, Gandhian, if I had the indications of support. Without that, I´m a spiritual scholar activist, and support Gandhi as the head prophet. To be clear, he was a secular Indian going for his law degree in London when his vegetarian interests led him into contact with theosophist interfaith members. They reoriented him to his own Hinduism in interfaith practice. At some point, he began reading the Bible for Jesus regularly, more modern high integrity Christians like Thoreau doing his own interfaith exploration, Ruskin, and Tolstoy. That made Gandhi the spiritual activist an interfaith Christian Hindu. No ongoing contacts with any church. Just high integrity living and activism. Now, I was an interfaith spiritual seeker already in high school, breaking from the atheist humanism of my dad. Scholar H Smith´s book World´s Religions introduced me to the Chinese Tao as "a creative continuum that is always accessible." Unitarian Universalist interfaith supported individual spiritual paths. Step by step, I got my college degree profoundly in Biological Anthropology, then in a few steps, got work in social services. In the 12 step programs for relationships CoDA and Al-Anon, I deepened my awareness and integrity at the highest modern levels of emotions, beliefs, and relationship to my Higher Power, God. Then, I began learning that the 12 steps had been inspired by the Christian movement Oxford Group. Then, I engaged with Christian Science through its Reading Rooms at first. Written testimonies. Huge numbers of them. About healing and God´s Divine presence, power, and reality for benevolence. Mary Baker Eddy´s attempts to express her powerful discovery of her spiritual religious healing abilities, intelligently. And it worked amply, and diversified. So, long story short, that´s my underlying modern kind of semantics for the Kingdom of Heaven through Jesus the Son of God and Man, for God the Creator of the Universe and original Source of spiritual-religious phenomena. As far as I can tell, existing doctrinal Bible-based approaches are all inadequate on their own. Interfaith spiritual practice has been set up by Christians (Deists or what the case) in constitutional democracy with Civil Rights and then UN human rights. Any view that neglects how Jesus´ legacy was powerfully developed in University philosophical scholarship for truth as a spiritual practice, and then was taken up by merchants, soldiers, and politicians (monarchs etc) in natural conquest is neglecting thenecessary modern non-judgmental exegesis. Jesus´ legacy has established Jesus´ centrality empirically, except driven by ideological materialists. It now needs modern spiritualization, which requires spiritual movements of individuals being empowered, in the end. The Quaker Friends have been an impressive example of a pioneering trend in classic Christian resurgent integrity. Do I have doubts? My friend in Christ, it is you who are clinging to doctrinal language that needs to be integrated with the practical language of what is nothing less than Jesus´ living legacy in University-based, UN human rights etc society with structured pluralism. Again, Gandhi represents a leading prophetic example, with George Fox´s Quaker Friends, Christian Science, Thomas Aquinas´ et al´s University empirical culture, FD Roosevelt and Eleanor´s UN human rights etc,, Rev MLK and Fannie Lou Hamer, and now all manner of activists recognized by the Right Livelihood Award, Goldman Environmental Prize, Templeton Prize, and not for profits like John Muir´s Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Oxfam, and so on. "Shine your light in front of others with good deeds to honor God" Matt 5. Oh, and the Social Gospel pioneered by W Gladden that undergirded FDR, Jane Addams´ Hull House from the UK Settlement Houses that underlay Eleanor R´s work. For starters. So, let me show you how the spirit of the letter works in spiritual modernization..... barry charles brebner barry charles brebner 1 day ago @Green Peacemst well thank-you for sharing that, and explaining to me your view point and i think that has helped me grasp where you are at (your state, condition). What i gather from what you have shared is, it seems like some sort of modern, new-age spirituality, that diminishes the importance of Christ for some "higher" spiritual insight? I do not know, it just seems to me like you are trying to say that Christianity, and Jesus is just some avenue that people went down, and it needs to be updated for modern times, because it is just some kind of human construct. That is what it seems like you are trying to say. Like any and all roads lead to God. Correct me if i am wrong about your view-point. I do try and speak simply. Jesus said, you are probably aware...I am the way, the truth and the life, no one goes to the Father except through me. But it seems like you think other-wise, and that you do not believe Jesus and the things that Jesus spoke? I relay, this onto you because i believe Jesus, and what He said is the truth and i have experienced being born-again, and i believe that Jesus is the only way to God, and not only believe but i know that this is the case. And all these other "paths" or "ways", do not go to God, but to destruction, unless one diverts off and turns around and gets onboard with Jesus and allows Jesus to get onboard with them, in them, in you! These other "ways or paths" are deceptions and the following of idols. Green Peacemst Green Peacemst 1 day ago @barry charles brebner You interpret my view as a "New Age spirituality that diminishes Jesus"? Because you think your doctrinal talk that mentions Jesus in total disconnect from the real world isn´t a betrayal of Jesus? Jesus said, "shine your light in front of others with good deeds to honor God." Matt 5. Jesus said, "go and learn...." Matt 9. Your own verbal conduct is like Matt 7:21, "'those who say 'Lord, Lord' who don´t get into the Kingdom of Heaven" which is first of all on this Earth, as in the Lord´s Prayer, "They Kingdom come on Earth as it is in Heaven." Thus, you have shown why your doctrinalism is hiding, not honoring Jesus. You are in fact snuggling with the "deceitfulness of wealth that chokes the word." Matt 13. When Jesus said, "I am the way....", what has 2000 years of his legacy shown? You need an education to talk about that knowledgably, and not just from church indoctrination. Western Civilization didn´t rise from randomness, atheists, or humanists, but Christian humanists and then monks, with some bunch of them turning monastic schools into Universities around the time of the pivotal monk Thomas Aquinas. Jesus´ legacy has been so successful that it has been stuffed in the sack of merchants, soldiers, and politicians who have misused it in colonialism until now we have the Social Gospel in FD Roosevelt´s vision of UN human rights. With most Christians like you grasping at the straws of literalism, you can´t see how it is University education that is necessary to unleash the spirit of the letter in modern times. Gandhi got a law degree, went to a vegetarian club and met theosophists who taught him a modern interfaith approach to Hinduism and spirituality. With Gandhi´s law-degreed interfaith Christian Hinduism, he became non-violent, dressed in cloth, and renamed the Untouchable caste the Harijan "children of God." Rev MLK was inspired by him. That is the will of God. That is how Jesus is the way. Merchants, etc have spread his fruits over the world in the ways of the powerhungry world, given the gifts of secular Christianity so the whole world can use them in the secular UN human rights community, and now Christians need to learn from the spiritual practices that most Christians have been deprived of because of materialism. I call the new parable the Gandhi Good Samaritan parable for Jesus, which is just to tell the story of Gandhi´s life and clarify the meaning of Jesus´ Good Samaritan parable. Time for you to learn to modernize and spiritualize your Christianity, dear proselytizer. Jesus led the Apostles in gathering grain on the Sabbath, and sent them out to heal, and all you know how to do is stay stuck in "Lord, Lord" because some church preacher told you so. I have become an interfaith Unitarian Universalist Quaker Christian, with loads of Christian Science, a kind of Gandhian Christian. Look out, because 2000 years of Jesus´ legacy of loving integrity has been misused and its time for the Good Samaritan, and Prodigal Son, reckoning. "These things I do, you too shall do, and greater." John 14. Good luck making sense out of that one. Highlighted reply barry charles brebner barry charles brebner 15 hours ago @Green Peacemst okay well, how about this. Jesus said you must be born again! If you do not mind me asking, and if you do not mind sharing the answer to this question. I'd like to ask you, are You born-again? ❤ Green Peacemst Green Peacemst 36 minutes ago (edited) @barry charles brebner If I weren´t born again, I would say things like, "forget that Jesus guy. He´s irrelevant and a myth." Instead, you see me always putting the modern context of society and us individuals in it in relation to Jesus Christ of Nazareth, for Moses et al and God. I have come to use my interfaith spiritual practice through Christian spiritual practice to assess my formal kind of educational interests. As such, I have identified how ideological materialists in three main forms are the driving form of sinful behavior in modern society, although I usually call it toxic, dysfunctional, unsustainable, and abusive of human rights in the UN community of nations. I was raised an atheist humanist for educational values by an ex-Catholic. I found myself curious about the unknown "religion" and opened the book of scholar Huston Smith (actually an interfaith Christian himself) and liked his description of the Chinese Tao, as "a creative continuum that is always accessible (to an individual)." I also walked into a Unitarian Universalist interfaith congregation and liked their pamphlet that supported individual spiritual paths. The UUs were two Christian denominations that reformed into an interfaith association that seems mostly to practice religious humanism, with reference to "Jewish and Christian teachings about God´s love to love our neighbor as ourselves." That is a major indicator about how they are, however, implicitly modernized Christianity. My being reborn in Christ thus began by involving all those threads in a growth process in the surrounding modernized implicit Christianity of the Freedom of Religion and secularized University education. I had specific existential awakening experiences. relating to various issues that were spiritual in nature, orienting me to interconnectedness in transpersonal psychological senses. Explicit Christianity never caught my interest except at a distance for most of that period. Early glimpses began as I took a trip to Philadelphia to buy a book on Quaker history. That lay around for years. My work in social services with substance abusers and their newborns exposed me to visits to a few Afro-Am neighborhood churches that I dipped into occasionally here or there. And the 12 step programs, along with Louise Hay´s innovative "New Age" loving ministry derived from Religious Science. After a few years, I noted the origins of the 12 steps in the Christian movement Oxford Group. It was, however, at that time that a context happened in which I walked into a Christian Science Reading Room. All my dramatic growth visionary experiences were met by Mary Baker Eddy´s work and legacy in the approach of an effective healing God through Christ, with God as Divine Mind, Love, etc. UUism, however, helped anchor me in the value of God´s love through Jesus´ own love for my interfaith practice. I still hadn´t found the NT verses, but understood based on my educational understanding. I later found the NT, "God will teach. Those who listen and learn will arrive in me (Jesus)" John 6:45, along with "go and learn..." Matt 9:13. My rebirth continued then with God through Jesus Christ a growing interest. Some years later, my masters degree got me to focus on the origins of Universities and social movements. After that, I married and had kids, moving to Brazil to teach where in a few years, my search for more spiritual-religious contact on the internet led me to engage with anti-theists that led me to my current level of rebirth in Christ. The realization to articulate that we live in Jesus´ legacy of loving integrity for Moses et al and God, in University-based, UN human rights-sustainability society with structured pluralism. The major problem is ideological materialism that is either hypocrisy or worse, amplifying sinful temptations into full-blown belief systems that even fund the worse fundamentalist and literalist Christian denominations of the Religious Right. Yet, there are issues in three main forms of materialism, secular, scientific, and economic. So, since I can´t start a church, I am more of a Christian prophet, a Gandhian Christian, you might say, and an interfaith UU Quaker Christian excited about Christian Science and Buddhism, and more. Jesus´ legacy needs help, and I have formulated the philosophical empirical truth of modern society to honor God through Jesus empirically. Along with the need to acknowledge empirical spiritual-religious phenomena. That´s what 2000 years of Jesus´ legacy has lead to. Not Billy Graham. Not the end of Christianity. But globalized Western Civilization with the University-based, UN human rights-sustainability society with structured pluralism that requires individuals transform from church doctrines by spiritualizing their relationship with God through Jesus. Reforming churches seems like the logical step, because right now, conservative and progressive, most churches and people are subordinated to profiteering businesspeople and the forms of ideological materialism. The interfaith angle has also crystallized even more clearly in recent years for me in all of this. I was introduced to scholar Huston Smith´s work in my dad´s library, and Unitarian Universalist interfaith in my hometown in the New York City suburbs. Alan Watts had been a famous interfaith spokesperson by 1970, doing some tai chi Taoism and Zen Buddhism primarily, for another. Joseph Campbell got some popularity, no less, more recently. Ninian Smart and Robert Bellah were more academic scholars in the area. The 1960s and 1970s unleashed other figures like The Beatles and TM, Richard "Ram Dass" Alpert, and more. Going back earlier, Carl Jung and William James did some interesting work, while the 1893 Chicago World Parliament of Religions was organized by a Swedenborgian and dissident Prebyterian, Bonney and Barrows. Even earlier, the study of Hinduism began with Buddhism as the British opened up channels in India and Asia. The Catholic missionaries had done even earlier work making the work of Christian Wolff of note. The whole nature of Christianity lights up in that insightful framework. It´s too bad that Jesus didn´t reveal more of his travels between 12 and 29, but his own appeal to the Roman centurion and non-Jewish woman with "scraps for the dogs" faith, were part of his "clean the cup on the inside" Matt 23 insights as the Jewish Son of God and Man. The inclusion of the more educated Paul, Peter´s vision of Gentile "cleanliness", and the Gospel of John with its Greek logos for Jesus as the word made flesh, are all powerful syncretism. Anti-theist scientific materialists have tried to bash Christianity as historically anti-science, twisting modern fundamentalists with their own narrow knowledge of history of the Catholic church, and the like. My friend in Christ, my educational background in Biological Anthropology and International Relations, and experience, along with some light study of things like Fr Stan Jaki and James Hannam´s historical work on science, all confirms the crucial psychosocial qualities of Jesus´ core Commandments, adjusted for human imperfections. Western Civilization was forged by a human amplification of Christian University-based tools in philosophical scholarship with empiricism, that underlies scientific natural philosophy with technology. Billy Graham may not have got to use a touchscreen cell phone, but it has been George Fox´s Quaker Friends who inspired the abolitionist T Clarkson, who all best represent Jesus for modernity. Einstein, no less, admired Gandhi, who studied the Bible for Jesus regularly. Simply put, I advocate Gandhian Christianity. Gandhi richly deserves prophetic status for his life´s work. For starters. I invite you to recognize Jesus´ legacy of 2000 years, and the need to grasp the spirit of the letter, the "will of the Father in Heaven." Again, "God will teach. Those who listen and learn will arrive in me (Jesus)." John 6:45. No less, "These things I do, you too shall do, and greater." John 14:12 (Jesus). So, "go and learn...." Matt 9:13. Because, worst of all, beware "the deceitfulness of wealth that chokes the word." Matt 13.

Does Greed Make God Play Second Fiddle?

Mark Rego Monteiro For a piece of the Universe, he´s a little presumptuous..... I´m grateful to identify as an interfaith UU Quaker Christian, aka a Gandhian Christian. Humans have actually committed all manner of violence and enslavement. Buddha deserves special recognition as a highly successful teacher of personal spiritual effort around 500 BC/E, and that we can recognize that if we seek in Jesus´ legacy of loving integrity. It´s identifying the ideological materialism that´s tricky at this point, because humans tend to fall for all of that. That includes economic materialist profiteering businesspeople who have funded Christian fundamentalists, skewing that whole seen at one angle, for starters. Reply 12h Merle Lester greed has no boundaries that is what tips the human apple cart upside down so to speak... when greed comes into play "god": plays second fiddle Reply 9h Mark Rego Monteiro I agree with you that greed is an important temptation, when it is properly acknowledged. I was intrigued to find the Buddha articulating the threesome ignorance, greed, and hatred in at least one verse, and find it compelling. I also note how greed itself is not labeled in Jesus´ NT in the Gospels, if not the rest of it. Ignorance and hatred are also important labels, which were at least developed as the monastic spiritual practitioners kicked in, with Evagrius´ eight vices, then Gregory´s Seven Deadly Sins (quick look-up: pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony and sloth). However, I´d be careful to situate greed appropriately by not reifying it, but reclaiming it and situating it in people. "Greed in people," for one. Also, I´d be clear that "greed coming into play" is very crucially contextual. Other people have their roles to play, one way or another. Whether God plays "second fiddle" is part of that context. Thus, I have valued not for profit activist groups for the public interest since I learned about them as an early interfaith spiritual seeker, the PIRGs started by Ralph Nader, Sierra Club, and Greenpeace first of all. My dad had identified "multinationals" as the target of his own anger. As I settled into work in social services in a big city, I quickly identified health food stores, and green product stores, as exceptionally meaningful business enterprises. Step by step, later as an interfaith UU Christian with Christian Science leading my entry with its healing and effective theism, I traced University education and social movements in my masters work. The anti-slavery movement specifically began around the 1780s, sparked by Quaker-Friends protesting, sparking University activity, with an essay contest spurring graduating divinity student T Clarkson to join the Quakers as a pioneering grassroots movement leader. The story actually begins, then, with the founding of the Quaker-Friends, with the remarkable George Fox having little formal education somewhere north of London, and being cultivated for his spiritual brilliance. He stopped bowing to aristocrats, valued individuals and women, and protested injustice, based around simplified worship in meditative silent waiting on the Inner Light of Christ. In modern times, I referred to ideological materialism, which more specifically might be developed as the manipulation by profiteering businesspeople of University-based and related technological developments to their greed, and applying their economic power and influence in all possible ways. I got a book Subliminal Seduction in high school, and found my dad´s book by Vance Packard, The Hidden Persuaders. Noam Chomsky et al wrote Manufacturing Consent, and A Curtis directed the doc Century of the Self, while Michael Moore began his film career with Roger and Me progressing to Capitalism and Invade Next? "God" only plays a reduced or inappropriate role according to people´s orientation. As I noticed people´s relative indifference and complancency to efforts like Sierra Club, Greenpeace, and Oxfam, I noticed that organic and Fair Trade labeling converged with health food stores and food co-op stores in their growth. Consumer and economic activism is a vigorous participatory lifestyle choice. In New York City there is a Yoga school built with its own health food store, which is a powerful association. Equal Exchange organic and Fair Trade foods itself founded an Interfaith Partner Network. For related reasons, the UN can be analyzed as the fruit of FD Roosevelt´s Social Gospel influences in high school and as an adult. FDR can be recognized for his exceptional astuteness all along in pro-social policies, leading WWII preparations and execution, and envisioning UN human rights. In a nutshell, since ideological greed has been so damaging and devious, it is time for spiritual-religious people to up their game with all the resources that are now at their disposal. That´s how pro-active constructive action is developed, and empowered. The term "empowered," not least of all, was only innovated in teh 1970s, to also recognize historical contexts.

How Do We Know We´re Lying to Ourselves? Do We Seek The Truth, and Integrity, and the Kingdom of Heaven?

George Braucht So how does one know when one is lying to oneself??? Reply 3d John Alan Shope George Braucht good question. My guess is that most of us do not know, unless or until we experience some type of painful wake up event. Your thoughts? Reply 2d George Braucht Yeah, it's deep, literally, into The Great Spirit, Soul, or whatever one's faith tradition calls God. This is the visceral or semi-conscious part of the "mind" that operates 24/7/365 from (pre-?)birth onward. The challenge is that we often learn to ignore this ever-present part of us, especially in WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich and Democratic) cultures in which we are taught to favor thinking or cognitive processes that only abstract or deconstruct "reality" with little or no regard for the liminal space that is most informative and profound. It's not merely "feelings" or "emotions" that we learn from socially-derived participatory thought but the unverbalizable sense of the divine that connects us to Everything (God). In fact, instead of being open to new or "different" ideas, many people now have their views consistently mirrored by the logarithms that select for us the similar views we're most exposed to via you-instant-tick-twit-face that further propel us into consensus "we're right, they're wrong!" thought wile distancing us from the reflective, natural and spontaneous proprioception that is the evolutionary basis of consciousness. Yes, painful wake up events can jar us there and the trick is to stay there to explore the non-verbal meaning of the experience. Of course that's just my opinion - i could be wrong. Reply 2dEdited John Alan Shope George Braucht you covered a lot of ground. Our brains are deep and complicated. Yes, our current digital culture repeatedly reaffirms and reinforces our delusions...and that may indeed sabotage our collective evolution. This may be why we have not been in contact with aliens. No life form can survive long enough to escape their own solar system 🙂 Reply 1d Holly Hope George Braucht how does one know whether they are psychotic or neurotic? Reply 5h George Braucht Technically, those require a professional diagnosis in the countries that use those terms/concepts. Practically speaking, it's the felt sense of the degree of congruence or incongruence between one's inner consciousness (mind, spirit or Self) and how our social connections view us = their feedback. Many cultures do not define those as illnesses or problems to be corrected. For example, Indigenous people value the Two-Spirited and prosocial shaman have likely existed thousands of years or since we started living in groups. Reply 4h Mark Rego Monteiro George Braucht I´m interested in the train of thought you guys played with here. You followed JAS´s comment on a "painful wake up event" along what can be classified as the corporate-consumer culture and polarized positions, before adding the bit about self-perception and social reflection for patho-psychological diagnoses. "how does one know one is lying to oneself?" was your original question, that you also added your comment about "WEIRD" lol, deconstructing, and pose a common failure to comprehensively go beyond "reality" to feelings and prevailing social constructions to sufficient divine perception. I guess I´m intrigued by the meaning of "lying to oneself", since I ultimately dedicated myself to seeking the truth, and my place in it. I´m also reminded of three of the Buddha´s key misdirections, or desire-related attachments: ignorance, greed, and hatred. "Lying" sounds like informal terminology, implying informed intent, when I´m struck more by the uninformed nature of how people fall into what seem more like delusions. People are misguided, along with being misdirected. They are widely misinformed. Thus, my experience was largely one of being, at worst, uninformed, or inadequately informed as I got oriented to education and grabbed a hold of that in high school. In the meantime, I remained open to the realm of religion although I had been raised an atheist humanist. I thus delved into skimming a chapter on Taoism to get a jump start on spirituality. I also soon wrote a letter of social criticism to the high school paper questioning Reagan era anti-Sandinista Nicaragua guerrilla terrorism by the CIA. What I´ve noticed is that my systematic truth and integrity seeking has identified the key relevance of complexity theory, mentioned by Fritjof Capra most centrally, and embedded in what gained some popularity as "Chaos Theory." Based on that, I wouldn´t go with "a painful wake-up event." That is a good hypothesis, but adjusted for complexity issues, I´d identify the need for things that reflect Piaget´s "schema," people need to develop, or have some sense of constructive and pro-active operative frameworks that make sense of things. They can be led into the deeper delusions of MAGA mindsets easily in the face of pain. I´m grateful that my dad brought up psychology with me, as much as some socialism and Marx. And the term "multinationals." The natural world sparked me with jolts of awakening experiences. I also enjoyed dipping into some Alan Watts and others in college as I wrestled with seeking a major that ended up in Biological Anthropology as I surveyed from behavioral psychology to religious ritual. Pop music, like Peter Gabriel, Led Zeppelin, and David Byrne´s Talking Head stuff included powerful images, like "Shock the Monkey," "Stairway to Heaven," and "Girlfriend is Better." Sting and The Police´s "Driven to Tears" and the like no less. Come to think of it, Byrne wrote "Once in a Lifetime" about a corporate-consumer awakening to some kind of sense of flow. I recall Wang Chung´s "Tall Trees (in a Blue Sky)" embodying the ecological sensibility. Thomas Dolby´s "She Blinded Me With Science" also reverberated some insight. The actual truth required me to seek and practice spiritual and related options. Working for environmental protection out of college for a summer highlighted protest type activity for regulatory legislation. I then taught in rural Kenya, getting some simpler societal farm exposure, and the like. As I started to explore work in a big city upon returning, I left a corporate job by getting a job in social services. As I started earning, I recognized green product stores, and researched green businesses. That and holistic classes and martial arts. We can seek truth, or as Jesus put it, "the Kingdom of Heaven." Seek it first, he said, that rang in my head despite an atheist humanist upbringing. In relation to others, I see the importance of "building bridges." By raising the profile of sustainable and spiritual lifestyle frameworks, the role of informative attraction can operate instead of merely rather dumb pain. Given the pivotal nature of economic activity, I have come to understand my spiritual practice as linked to economic lifestyle orientations. Buddhist Right Livelihood, etc covers that. Whoa, that was a doozy of a reflection.... Thanks for the chance to get into that a little bit.....

Craig´s Moral Argument: Getting to the Personal Being through Virtues and Duties

WL Craig´s argument that objective moral values prove the existence of God has some kinks in it. He phrases his argument in the negative, that "If there are no objective moral values, then God does not exist." It involves some little key points that he tends to bulldoze with his emotional appeals and appeals to other supposed authorities. In one case, he argues that moral virtues are not qualities of objects. Plato´s "good" is a quality of a person, not objects, so that Plato´s "ideal" of good must be a personal being, meaning God. Moral duty is a debt invoked by persons, not abstract principles. In neither case. Craig´s questioner is saying that he observes that we are born with these feelings as part of our human nature. Craig presents the case of a child. He asks if caring for the child on one hand, or abusing the child on another, are morally equivalent acts. Or not. The questioner says he is having difficulty linking the feelings to the case for a source of objective morality. Recalling the Buddha, he presented karma as the relationship between good deeds and bad deeds and their consequences in this life, as established by "a Spirit that dominates existence as a Law...." Craig, no less, is implicitly arguing from the perception of God the Parent´s act through Jesus the Son of God and Man, as well. In a sense, Craig is arguing in a similar way that Buddha did. Except that he identifies the personal character of moral laws which require a lawgiver. I begin to explore this below. I think we benefit by identifying Buddha´s and Confucius´ efforts of identifying moral laws. Apparently the role of the physical world created an impression that interfered with perceiving the personal character of God the Creator. That identifies an additional factor in the special role of Jesus the Son of God and Man. His assertion of God´s love, his demonstration of it, led to Christians being able to turn monastic schools into Universities, take ancient Greek proto-scientific esoteric philosophy, and make it empirical. Progressive Christians Global.Progressive Christians Global Admin · neodopstSrll51at0h1 u16fe7u5g AJf:1gnh 572Muf39093 · Paul Boghossian: Is there an objective morality? This gets into a few more reflective issues on the subject.... I had a nice bus ride yesterday, and managed to make some progress organizing and extending some of my thoughts on WL Craig´s argument that there are "objective moral values" that prove God´s existence. I see that Craig has pulled a kind of "magic trick," in making emotional appeals to popular semantics and the sympathy of others, not logical coherence and correspondence to reality. Craig has expanded the cast of his net from "torturing babies for fun" as "bad" to refer to Amnesty International and human rights in other videos. His strongest arguments were equating such moral subjects with math formulas, citing authorities, again in appeal. That, and the argument from evil, that without good, we wouldn´t know evil. As a conservative, Craig faces some restrictions and sensitive spots in his ability to expand the argument empirically. He might have to criticize profiteering businesspeople, for starters. However, we can start with some empirical contexts to help flesh things out. Infanticide for one, and incest taboos, for another. The seige of Athens by Roman Gen Sulla, for another. Sulla arrived to put down a rebellion. He was met by some Athenians who glorified Athenian cultural glory. Sulla responded, "I came to put down a rebellion, not get lectured about Athenian culture." The Athenians had blockaded themselves in, but Sulla´s men found a way to breach the wall. He was prepared to massacre the population and burn the place to the ground. However, friends of his had been arriving because of a bloody massacre by his own rival in Rome. Those refugee friends did value Athens for its culture. So, we can observe behaviors, "objectively" in the scientific sense, by observing that a human in clothing stood in physical orientation to each other (Roman Gen Sulla and his soldiers, and Athenians). One group killed others, and spared some. That´s as far as physical objectivity gets. "Objective" more loosely used can refer to impartial assessments, but in human psychosocial studies, has necessarily had to get more precise. People enthusiastic about "science", ie scientific natural philosophy, have tried to apply the "scientific method" to human affairs since Descartes. G Vico of the 1700s is known as a pioneering antipositivist and interpretivist with his development of ideas around verum factum, "the truth is what we make," today and since Piaget called constructivist epistemology. Thus, "objective" at least can mean "observable," and in relation to human psychosocial activity, is not accurate and more formally needs to be called "empirical." As for "moral values," the category actually implies "morally good" values. Technically, infanticide ancient Rome and elsewhere, indigenous human sacrifice and cannibalism, and Alexander the Great´s execution of rival relatives in monarchic bloodline status were all "acts with moral values." In those moral systems, those acts were acceptable. They were "moral values." Thus, going from "observable or reported observed acts", we go from physical to empirical human psychosocial acts. Gen Sulla in ancient Rome at Athens was a general, which is a symbolic concept reflecting a system of related norms and values. His friends, then, had slightly different values. He wanted to slaughter Athenians indiscriminately and took offense at their cultural pride. Some of Sulla´s refugee friends from Rome shared in the value of Athenian cultural pride, and were able to persuade him to adjust his own behavior to a degree. So, empirical moral values exist on a spectrum. From infanticide killing of babies to sparing the lives of others because of cultural value and affinity. For example. Empirical values of moral goodness? Sulla´s friends had certain inclinations more familiar to modern "Western" society. Buddha has a story that he told about a King Brah-ta who conquered a smaller kingdom. The king there Dir-ti fled and lived with a potter. He had a child, Dir-gu who he sent away to be educated and for his protection. One day, the barber of Dir-ti betrayed him for some money. Brah-ta led him to be executed, and Dir-ti saw his son Dir-gu in the crowd on the street. Dir-ti wanted to protect him, and said aloud, "Hate never ends with hate, only with forgiveness." Dir-gu got work, and one day, got work in Brah-ta´s royal stables. He would sing, and Brah-ta heard it and liked the singing so much, he summoned the young man, Dir-gu to be in his court. Brah-ta found Dir-gu so appealing he made him a close assistant. One day out on a hunt, Brah-ta took Dir-gu and fell asleep. Dir-gu thought, 'Now is my chance!'. He drew his sword. Then he recalled his father´s words, "Hate never ends with hate, only with forgiveness." Dir-gu put his sword back. Brah-ta then awoke, saying, "I was dreaming that Dir-gu, the son of Dir-ti, was going to kill me." Dir-gu said, "I am Dir-gu, the son of Dir-ti and the time of revenge has come," and he drew his sword again. "Spare my life!" Brah-ta said. Dir-gu said, "How can I spare your life? My life now is in danger from you! You need to spare my life!" And Brah-ta said, "And so I do." They swore never to harm each other, and in remorse, Brah-ta gave Dir-gu his kingdom back. The Buddha took the Hindu concept of karma, and saw it as a moral law, that bad, harmful deeds are followed by bad, harmful consequences for the doer. Good, beneficial deeds are followed by good, beneficial consequences for the doer. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, the expressions, "you reap what you sow" and "live/die by the sword" express the same principle. Thus, we see that people have moral capacities that relate to sources of moral orientation. Buddhism spread throughout Asia, but as in Japan, remained subordinate to the cultural priorities, directed by human meta-animal, bio-psychosocial tendencies. Thus, "moral goodness" as one category of moral value developed by the Buddha, first refers to the full spectrum of moral values. Alexander the Great, for his part, assumed leadership after his own father was assassinated by his mother´s apparent agent. Alex went on to conquer extensively out to India, but back in Babylon was assassinated by his cupbearer. The cupbearer was the son of an official in danger after being summoned from Greece to see Alex. The philosopher Aristotle, in fear for his life, fled Athens when he heard about Alex´s death. In a short time, Alex´s four top generals engaged in a civil war for forty years that split Alex´s empire in four parts. The question is, is "moral capacity" for moral goodness an argument for God´s existence? More later....

Divinity and the Concept of Love

Content unavailable Avatar jeremy Morfey • 5 days ago I have argued many times and will do so again here that the only point of religion, any religion, is to enhance one's capacity to love and to be loved. All the rest of it, the mythologies, the rituals, the beliefs, the incense and the candles, are a means to this end. Maybe it is a rationalistic approach to this, and certainly there is no conflict with the rigours and disciplines of science, but is also founded on an intangible - the concept of Love. If one can grasp that, one can grasp the essence of divinity. 1 • Reply • Share › − Avatar greenpeaceRdale1844coop jeremy Morfey • a few seconds ago I think you have the beginnings of a strong argument. "the concept of Love .... as the essence of divinity." The key that appears in analyzing the nature of "rationalism" and "science" leads to the foundations of all of that as philosophical scholarship, itself modernized originally as a spiritual practice by Christians, centrally around the monk Thomas Aquinas at the University of Paris. Modern empiricism is the spiritual philosophical method that emerged at that time, building on and transforming its ancient Greek and eclectic origins. Thus, "rationalism" as a term, like "science" needs to be clarified. Rationalism actually means an exclusionary ideology. Rational thinking is itself philosophical in nature, and the significance of empiricism, ie observational methodology, is that it underlies "science" ie scientific natural philosophy, and the rest of University-based philosophical scholarship. Scientific phil goes for the physical and its physicalist concepts, to be clear. Empiricism encompasses it all, but is what then is involved in psychosocial studies disciplines developed out of moral philosophy and Aquinas´ area of "human laws" and phenomena. How can that be captured in an empirical reference? Thanks to the philosophical empiricism in comparative religious studies, I chose the Chinese Tao described by scholar Huston Smith as "a creative continuum that is always accessible." I also benefited from Unitarian Universalist interfaith members´ use of related educational resources to create principles with which they supported all individuals´ spiritual paths, according to their principles and sources (mutual respect, etc). I was introduced directly to the concept of healing love when I was working in social services, when a colleague introduced me to Louise Hay´s technique of self-care loving self-talk. She was studying to be a minister in the Religious Science church (now by another name....) of E Holmes, and derivative of Mary Baker Eddy´s Christian Science church. Indeed, Christian Science has demonstrated amply that the study and applied visualized understanding of related concepts to Divine Love, including God as a living Divine Mind reflected in us, provides a powerful example of spiritual-religious phenomena through practice, experience, and knowledge. The specific kind of event of medically attested, medically impossible healing with spiritual religious testimony provides the legitimization of the framework not of "science" or "rationalism", in fact, but their empirical and philosophical nature as part of what necessarily needs to be labeled "multidisciplinary philosophy with empiricism", that originated in Christian University-based culture. It now operates in its naturalized, universalized form in secular society of the UN human rights community and its structured pluralism. Shifting that emphasis from ideological materialism to spirituality is necessary, with personal effort in spiritual practice for personal growth and understanding of four psychological relational levels, up to interdependence.

Is Evil the Same as Totalitarian Communism? What Did Ralph Nader Discover About Corporate Executives?

Discussing the disguised murder/assassination of Brother Thomas Merton. This is a lot to digest. The world is a dangerous place, do you think in working to preserve freedom and western civilization from communism, the organization didn’t check its power? I don’t think I got an accurate history of the world in school, or of the US. Large powerful organizations can become utilitarian, forget about human suffering. I would like to go work in the children’s shelters and on humanitarian projects someday, to learn more about the problems. I don’t know how to understand immigration, I don’t know how we can improve the governments in countries with so much corruption, seems like there have been attempts but the poverty and suffering remain, and the drug cartels. Someone told me the CIA is involved in that but I don’t understand that either. Yesterday at 8:08 PM Fri 8:08 PM You sent "The world is a dangerous place"? Well, let´s see. Who says that? When I was in high school, my dad was a Brazilian diplomat who got a PhD from MIT, then jumped ship from the Brazilian dictatorship that had been installed with CIA contacts. He went to work for the United Nations in the decolonization department. I didn´t understand all the details, and as an atheist humanist, was just getting warmed up to education. My dad had rejected religion as an ex-Catholic condemning the violence of church history. However, he didn´t dwell on that so much, but focused his anger on the "Multinationals", a big part of what I now call as a rule "profiteering businesspeople." My college education was an exploration, seeking the truth of human nature, which I did kind of intuitively. From pre-med to sociology to biological anthropology. In fact, in high school I heard about the Reagan era US support of guerrilla terrorism against the Nicaraguan Sandistas who had defeated the Somoza oligarchic regime. My short high school letter said, in essence "If the US is so great, why don´t we send teachers, instead of blowing things up?" A three page letter came in from a student at a nearby school on the cancer of communism and the domino effect. Did you know, no less, that Castro in Cuba in 1959 had to decide how to proceed? US belligerence against his pro-social interests gave him no choice at that time but to ally with the social pretenses of totalitarian Soviet Russia. Just to understand a little more of the complexities. Now, like I said, in high school I didn´t know why US militarist anti-communism bothered me. I didn´t know the context and frameworks of social justice, profiteering business, and totalitarianism that well, nor the issues of hypocrisy and integrity. My first angle of clarity after majoring in Bio Anthro became eco-consumerism, mostly ecological sustainability and public health. I worked with the PIRGs for a summer and learned about Ralph Nader, Sierra Club, and Greenpeace. PIRGs means Public Interest Research Groups. The world is not that dangerous a place, and it gets more dangerous if you "live by the sword" as Jesus taught. Augustine developed ideas about "Just War" in Jesus´ legacy, not Total War. The Quaker Friends were led in being co-founded by George Fox in the 1650s with their meditative worship on the Inner Light of Christ, and the importance of individuals and women, stopping bowing to aristocrats, and protesting injustice. Quaker Friends became known for their integrity in Jesus Christ, as the well-known company name "Quaker" suggests. James Watt invented the steam engine, that UK businesspeople turned into industrial factories. Laborers in the UK were being worked so hard, even kids, that they tried to organize unions. The aristocrats in the UK banned labor unions until 1871. Robert Owen was a successful up and coming merchant around 1790 when he learned from a Christian doctor in Manchester who was trying to help kids already working under bad factory conditions. Owen made history and a reputation for his pro-labor-social efforts. He also tried to spark utopian community projects, as a Deist. He didn´t have much success himself, but inspired a group of workingpeople in Rochdale near Manchester by the 1840s along with the effects of the abolition of slavery in the British Empire. Those workingpeople in Rochdale started the first modern co-operative, co-owned grocery store and business model. That´s the business model with integrity in Jesus´ loving standard. Now its clear in Social Europe. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNVzOsZt6ew&t=28s The Story of the Rochdale Pioneers Yesterday at 8:35 PM Fri 8:35 PM Farah I watched the video, I like coops Farah Farah Buck Peace activists argue against even just war. They say no war is just Yesterday at 9:01 PM Fri 9:01 PM You sent The USSR, Soviet Russia, didn´t hold its own, adding a key additional deflation of any "anti-communist" propaganda. "Anti-communist militarism" always needed to be defined in terms of Jesus´ loving integrity, and "living by the sword to die by the sword" would always have served, along with the clarity of "Just War" or not. The Vietnam conflict showed that, crucially. I already intuited these issues as someone committed to education, and starting to learn about the lawyer Nader´s term "public interest." Civil Society concerns, and seeking green businesses, like Credo Telecom and Patagonia outdoor wear were also early discoveries I made. Later, food co-op stores, credit unions, and green power co-ops. In the Catholic world, the Mondragon industrial co-op was founded in a fascinating situation after the Spanish Civil War and the victory there of the authoritarian Gen. Franco. A wounded Basque journalist became a priest, opened a polytechnic school for the underprivileged, taught co-op sociology, and was called in by students who became engineers. They wanted him to help them make their company a co-operative, co-owned one. It´s an amazing account. Knowing such things helps understand the problem of unchecked covert operation military power, or better, indulgence in its abuse that has resurfaced in different forms from Guantanamo to Abu Ghraib, and simply the GW Bush admin´s fabrication of false premises to invade Iraq. Besides undercutting military supplies. So, absolutely, this is about education in the real world after graduation. Note how language works. You said, "large powerful organizations can become utilitarian...." In fact, it is people in organizations, with power, privileges, and pleasure they experience. I went to Africa to teach for a year, then worked in social services with substance abusers. My second agency folded after about two years because of corruption. In social services. I have cultivated the therapeutic and pro-social development approaches that social services emphasizes, along with the range of efforts in not for profit groups, and personal growth activities. When you refer to "improving governments in countries with corruption", the issue rebounds to the US itself. The activities that further pro-social culture everywhere are those engaging in co-operative, co-ownership enterprise, also called economic democracy. Mohammed Yunus´ education in western economics he took when he returned to Bangladesh and started Grameen Bank, pro-poor and pro-woman. The US credit unions have started the World Council of Credit Unions, for what good it does. Fair Trade was started by a Dutch religious services worker, extending the co-op business model. I got my masters in International Relations and had a chance to look closely at how all that works. Columbia was a doozy. Brazil is no pie in the sky situation. However, the landless workers movement here, MST, is top notch. In a neo-aristocratic culture, MST has used law and occupation squatting to claim land all over this country and establish their co-operative farms and communities all over this large country. Around 1990, both MST and an activist Catholic interdenominational project CPT won the Right Livelihood Award. https://rightlivelihood.org/the-change-makers/find-a-laureate/comisso-pastoral-da-terra-cpt/ Sure, the CIA is not a bunch of Shao Lin monks. More recent reports about that mercenary group contracting in Iraq, Blackwater?, are all about the problem of profiteering businesspeople´s ideologies. The solution involves modernizing understanding that begins with connecting the basic dots. I had to innovate this formulation, that we live in Jesus´ legacy of loving integrity for Moses et al and God in University-based, UN human right-sustainability society with structured pluralism. Key problems are the human bio-psychosocial tendencies that reflect the tendencies of ideological materialism. Economic, secular, and scientific. Individualistic materialism. Studying the historical sociology of Universities, social movements, and the specific social movement of co-operative pro-social business in particular, and the rise of UN community of nations is full of insights into pro-social democratic society with many important insights in Social Europe, and across the US in more activist communities, whether a city like San Francisco, the mayors Climate Change agreement, Vermont, or the US NCBA for co-op biz. Comissão Pastoral da Terra (CPT) - Right Livelihood You sent Peace activists CAN, and perhaps often, are total pacificists. That has its own problems. In an era of post-Vietnam, covert ops, and the Iraq War militarism, I have no problem making the clear distinctions. Yeah, Just War is fine, like responding to Bin Laden by attacking Afghanistan. So, how did Iraq come into the picture based on totally fabricated premises with Big Oil fantasies? At a "price tag" of 100,000 plus lives and wounded, and $2.2 tn and counting? I like the Quakers, but I talk about Just War, then look at anti-communist and profiteering militarism, the Military Industrial Complex and US total lack of gun regulations, NRA style. Gandhi, the same way. I believe in Just War, and massive pacificism and thanks to Buddhism, Right Action of all kinds. Yesterday at 9:28 PM Fri 9:28 PM You sent I recommend the Right Livelihood Award´s accounts of winners, and the Goldman Environmental Prize, as well. Ursula Sladek won the GEP in 2011, as a schoolteacher in smalltown Germany, who led an organizing effort of a local co-op that did national fundraising to buy their local grid. After the USSR´s Chernobyl nuke plant blew in 1986. Germans went crazy as they can, organizing massive numbers of green power co-ops, following the Danish model, and inspiring an EU network. In 2007, before Spain or France had any gp co-ops, an amazing American story began with two 12 year olds and a mom. SUN solar co-op is now up to 15 states and a low income project. Food co-op stores are also in dozens upon dozens of places across the US, since the 1970s in many cases. Credit unions have been around since 1908, although many need a little activist input. https://www.solarunitedneighbors.org/about-us/our-history/ Our story Today at 3:02 AM 3:02 AM Farah Pollution from California's 2020 wildfires likely offset decades of air quality gains — Los Angeles Times Farah Farah Buck All the environmental policies and for nothing, because of fires. Sad. Today at 2:17 PM 2:17 PM You sent Sure, I also find that to make me feel sad. However, with the practice of spiritual self-care and loving self-talk, I also have the wisdom to understand that the obstructionism of Big Oil and Big Auto has delayed many efforts at green tech change. I´ve been aware at one level or another as I observed how much I loved biology, then the outdoors in college, and started noticing environmental protection campaigns around ORVs at Massachussetts´ beaches. My college degree in Bio Anthro, no less, involved studying the meaning of words. A guy named Stuart Chase wrote The Tyranny of Words, and actually looked at the term "communism." Etymologies can be a fun version, like "ketchup" being a Chinese word at first, then using tomatoes as an ingredient in Boston I think, with tomatoes coming from a South American indigenous word. Meanwhile, consider that FD Roosevelt said in an interview, "I´m not a communist, nor a capitalist. I´m a Christian and a democrat (small 'd')." In that way, it occurred to me that your earlier statement about the "threat of communism" reflects how devious modern greed propaganda has been. The issue of "evil" is what relates pretty directly to Jesus´ mentioning Satan, Hell, and wickedness. Making "totalitarian communism" a justification for military aggression was based on making it the enemy, and defining it as the ultimate evil. No Thomas Merton or other monastic style high integrity, as Jesus said, "Take the plank out of your own eye before dealing with the dust in others´ eyes." Scapegoating communism, and funding right wing preachers with right wing theologies that "communism is the devil" also put America´s pro-rich profiteering businesspeople off-limits. K Kruse´s book One Nation Under God discusses that, online https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/04/corporate-america-invented-religious-right-conservative-roosevelt-princeton-117030/ FD Roosevelt was influenced by the Social Gospel in his Boston high school as a rich kid. They did social missions into needy neighborhoods. Eleanor Roosevelt, no less, engaged with Jane Addams´ kind of settlement house projects in New York City. I don´t feel much admiration for the way minister Rev Fifield developed a pro-rich, anti-social gospel in Los Angeles that he presented to America´s corporate business executives already in the 1940s, according to K Kruse´s book. That was the line of development that apparently led to Nixon, Reagan and the right wing onset with Reagan of the modern full force pro-rich, anti-social GOP and the loud Religious Right. That makes me feel sad, and rather a lot more like angry. It takes useful knowledge to transform that kind of anger appropriately, and that´s what Ralph Nader, Sierra Club, the PIRGs, Greenpeace, and so on represent. Dorothy Day was a CAtholic activist of note in that way, as was Daniel Berrigan. I met one in social services, Sister Pat (Mahoney?).