liberalism + religion

https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfa1/t1.0-9/10559755_10154469546980076_1674147867156501545_n.jpg

http://www.cafepress.com/plucked_strings.30359972

http://i1.cpcache.com/product/30359972/jesus_was_a_liberal_messenger_bag.jpg?height=240&width=240

http://i2.wp.com/quietmike.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/liberal-jesus.jpg

I think these people read the gospels in a more plausible way than right wing Christians do.

treesh what do u think of liberation theology

One of the most disheartening things I've ever read was in a Facebook beef with my U.S. Govt. teacher from high school. "There's no such thing as a liberal Christian," totally straightfaced.

https://soundcloud.com/0olong/jesuswas

theres always a presumption when people from outside a given religion opine on which exegetic path those within it should subscribe to, notably those who have never read a page of the qu'ran but are sure that salafism is the wrong type of islam in an intrinsic doctrinal sense rather than an abstracted consequentialist sense

tick

on one hand i like it, i think liberal religious folk should labor over the meaning + politics of their faith and not just abdicate it to the most fanatical believers. but i wonder if reductionism for a good cause is going to have a lasting impact.

i think they do that?

well some ppl at least

historically most serious doctrinal debates seem to lead to a schism tho rather than winning over the other side. with Christianity especially there's no need to convince those who disagree with you, you just join a sect with those that don't

theres always a presumption when people from outside a given religion opine on which exegetic path those within it should subscribe to, notably those who have never read a page of the qu'ran but are sure that salafism is the wrong type of islam in an intrinsic doctrinal sense rather than an abstracted consequentialist sense

this has been a golden period for this strain of liberal inanity which is subscribed to by everyone from the west's most prolific killers of muslims to the intidada left, neatly refuted here in an otherwise rote piece by tariq ali

The smugness of secular liberals who talk of defending freedom to the death is matched by liberal Muslims who waffle endlessly about how what happened had nothing to do with Islam. There are different versions of Islam (the occupation of Iraq was used deliberately to trigger the Sunni-Shia wars that helped give birth to the Islamic State); it is meaningless to claim to speak in the name of a ‘real’ Islam. The history of Islam from its very beginnings is replete with factional struggles. Fundamentalist currents within Islam as well as external invasions were responsible for wiping out many cultural and scientific advances in the late medieval period. Such differences continue to exist.

thought this would be about elizabeth breunig getting pub'd in the new republic

it is meaningless to claim to speak in the name of a ‘real’ Islam

true of p much any religion

(scientology and other recently invented faiths kind of a grey area)

thought this would be about elizabeth breunig getting pub'd in the new republic

― goole, Tuesday, 27 January 2015 00:34 (2 minutes ago)

surely not if you saw the last updated by

not a fan?

there is no reason for anyone outside america to read about the new republic, with the exception of andrew sullivan getting baited by ta-nehisi coates the other day which was fairly amusing

lately i feel like society is like wile e coyote who has sped off the cliff and not yet looked down to see there's no ground beneath him. when he inevitably looks he will fall to his death. but my hope is that maybe when he looks down and sees that there is only air below he realizes that the cliff was never holding him up at all - it was infinite divinity all along. and in which case why should the presence or absence of the mountain make any difference at all, and he can continue to run over the void.

Can you explain a little more? (I realize when its something felt or sensed maybe not so easy too). Is this something covid/protest related/heightened or goes back further?)

yeah that post is tricky to grok, but I'm on record here as saying that I think liberalism requires something of the transcendent in order to persist, and if that's what's being expressed then I agree. (which is why white american evangelicalism is so toxic: it's a religion without the transcendent. I mean, the calvinists talk of the resurrection of the body & how this earth will be transformed at the second coming, a rejection of mind-body dualism, that the next world is our world, perfected: but this perfecting can only be done by God, and this part is left out of white american evangelicalism, who have the form of the gospels but not the content, and think they can make this world anew themselves.)

I'm on record here as saying that I think liberalism requires something of the transcendent in order to persist, and if that's what's being expressed then I agree

I'm on board with that also, that spirituality, transcendence, religion, in different ways and forms are things which should be welcomed and encouraged on the left (and in liberalism)

I saw a meme the other day gleefully cancelling all the major religious texts for including slavery

That seems very 2000s nu-atheist, it’s funny that that’s still a rhetorical masterstroke apparently

there are plenty of other reasons to cancel religious texts believe you me

maybe when he looks down and sees that there is only air below he realizes that the cliff was never holding him up at all - it was infinite divinity all along.

awwww, mordy, thanks for the brief peek at your inner mystic. it's not always an easy place to make contact with. greatly worthwhile whenever it happens.