right-wingers show us most dangerous BOOKS ever

[Freddie53]

Originally posted by madame_zora@Jun 5 2005, 06:21 AM
I think the concept of goodness must be to some extent understood or the disection of the conversation could be unnerving. I think it would be well to understand that while both religion and morality offer paths to what is considered right and that these spheres CAN overlap, it is neither automatically so nor are they mutually exclusive. Also, it is necessary to understand that both fields are completely subjective, there being no right answer to what is right that is universal. Morally, one person may find it preferable to be a vegetarian and that would be right for him to follow that path, but that doesn't mean that those who eat meat are wrong. This is a concept that is often less understood by members of religous groups who are taught to believe that their path is the only one in the right. Sure, believe what is right for you and act on it, that's a beautiful thing, but once someone claims to KNOW that their path is the only one in the right, they are automatically wrong. No one has a monopoly on truth, righteousness, or morality. We all find our way based on what our individual searches reveal to us.

[post=317998]Quoted post[/post]​

Jana,

Excellent post. I would point out that I believe there are absolutes in morality and religion. The problem is that no human has the ability to state without any doubt those truths. How many denominations of Christians? Well into the hundreds. There are three main branches of Judaism. And how many groups of Muslims are there. Two main groups for sure. There are Hindus that are completely vegetarian and then there are Hindus that aren't and do eat meat.

So who amongst us is going to stand up and give us the perfect answer to everything? The answer is no one. We each make our faith journey in this life. It is full of troubles and triumps, confussion and clarity. mistakes and moments of moral triumph.

We each do the best we can. And only some power higher than humans has the ability to judge us from a universal and eternal standpoint.

My personal belief is that that higher power is a loving merciful God who is still creating. I believe that God gives humans the freedom to make choices both good and bad and there are consequences to our behavior for sure. And this physical world is not perfect. I do believe in an afterlife that is perfect and that is the one that God is working on as I write.

There is room in the tent for everyone regardless of religion or no religion. Being inside the "tent" is a personal choice. All are invited. I firmly believe that all are invited to live with God forever.

Do I believe in the basic tents of Christianity? Yes I do. It works for me and gives me what I need in this life. That is not to say that some other religion does the same for some other person. Only that person knows the answer to that question. But then in the end the only person that I have to answer for is myself. I really don't answer for someone else. That is between God and that person. Come to think of it, that is true for everyone.

 

[madame_zora]

You know, I read these threads and smile inside at how cool the people here are to open up this way to each other. We expose our views, never really knowing how they are going to be received and yet we usually manage to come around to a place of "live and let live, and I still celebrate our differences". If churches would be able to do this with each other instead of leaving it to individuals, I mean actually PREACH PEACE (like Jesus did) and proactively encourage their members to learn about the beliefs of others, we might actually have a shot at getting along. It's mainly ignorance that breeds discontent, well read people tend to be far less angry.

 

[GottaBigOne]

I'm very angry!!!!
Oh wait I don't read so good.

 

[cypher13]

Originally posted by jonb@Jun 2 2005, 12:44 AM
I'm surprised the Communist Manifesto got almost twice as many votes as Mein Kampf. Not many fans of Marx among school shooters. But then again, these are neocons, and Hitler was one of Prescott Bush's buddies. I'm not surprised by The Feminine Mystique: No one wants to deal with the fact that American kinship makes every man a king, no matter how much of a loser he is outside the home.

And what, pray tell, is a communist physicist? What does ideology have to do with atoms?

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Even as recently as when I was in grad school....the late 1970s/early 1980s, young physicists were closely watched. I can remember the FBI dropping by quite frequently and interviewing us about one another's reading habits and favorite topics of discussion, among other things including sexual tendencies.

When asking them why this was done, they would say that this was in preparation for a security clearance, "which all of you will need." Yes, we would need that if we worked designing weapons which, to my shame, I did do for awhile in one of my two jobs as a real physicist.

As long as one can link weaponry with physics..or chemistry...or whatever scientific discipline, there will be a political taint to it. Sad, but true. During the war, the Nazis had a stillborn nuclear program and all the physicists involved were rounded up under "Project Alsos." They were held at Farm Hall and ALL their conversations were recorded to be used as evidence against them at a future war crimes trial. Max Von Laue was knownb to be anti_Nazi from the very start, he was let go; C. F. Von Weiszacker was an ardent Nazi, and was treated differently, though, as far as I know, he was never tried. I could be wrong on this point, as I has little interest in such matters.

When genetic weapons become the norm - and they will- because human perversity knows no limits, genetic engineers will be watched closely, too. In fact, they probably are being wacthed closely now, just as chemists were in the first world war.

Alas, I was - and am - a theoretician, not an experimentalist. Nothing wrong with experimentalists, you just don't want them marrying into your family, so goes the old joke - and all physicists' jokes are old jokes. Theoreticians tend to be politically liberal and free thinking, while experimentalists and politically conservative, in fact, conservative in all respects, based on my experience. For example, there was a source of music...and it played all classical music...all day long...I suspect it was KDFC's SCA feed, but I never bothered to confirm this...the theoreticians loved the music while the experimentalists always cut the wires.

So, I suppose to some limited ways of thinking, there are communist physicists. Pierre Joliot-Curie and J. Robert Oppenheimer both died for their sins.

Funny thing though: even though I made those films in the 70s, when I was an undergrad, and there was clearly mob involvement, even though my grandfather was hauled before HUAC, even though Paul Robeson used to visit us for dinner regularly....I got a sercurity clearance!

Couldn't get one now, though. Heh heh heh

 

[cypher13]

Originally posted by chicago1155@Jun 6 2005, 07:18 PM
Some of the books I understand are on the list, conservative or not.

Marx, if only he read the ninth book (on tyrrany) of Plato's Republic he would have saved the 20th century so much misery.

Keynes' Economic treatise is also another disaster (ie. see Europe).

But to have John Dewey's, Democray and Education on such a list strikes me as ignorant. They obviously never read the book. My daughter actually goes the the school he founded at the Univ. of Chicago. The problem with Dewey is that he has had no influence on American education, except the libraries that use the Dewey Decimal system.

Robert - The Lonely Moderate

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John Dewey and the Dewey Decimal System!

Oh dear!

I am sure Karl Marx digested everything in philosophy up to his time. Reading Karl Marx is like wading through an ocean of semi-congealed Jell-O...VERY difficult going and while I made it through Finnegans Wake, Marx defeated me and I am not ashamed to admit it.

 

[jonb]

Actually, Marx's essential idea is that some people work for their own money, some people work to make money for others, and some people don't work at all and make money off of others. The third will eventually be so few and the second so many that the second will revolt.

The real problem comes in what happens after that. The supposed end of the state.