A great and brave man.
Mandiba
A great and brave man.
Category: philosophy
separation of Church & State
Yep.
That’s a no brainer.
The separation of church and state is the distance in the relationship between organized religion and the nation state.
If you value freedom, including religious freedom, you should support the separation of Church & State.
The government should have no involvement in your religion as they should have no involvement in your sex life. So long as you abide by the secular laws of the land.
If your religious practice breaks the law, you go to jail. If you cannot live with that, you must leave the nation. Immigrate to a theocracy, perhaps.
Some American Christians are intolerant.
The kind constantly quoting the Pledge of Allegiance.
The Pledge of Allegiance of the United States is an expression of fealty to the federal flag and the republic of the United States of America, originally composed by Francis Bellamy in 1892 and formally adopted by Congress as the pledge in 1942.
The official name of The Pledge of Allegiance was adopted in 1945. The last change in language came on Flag Day 1954 when the words “under God” were added.
Here’s the original version (1892) of the start of the pledge:
“I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
I got on to this topic after seeing right wing Americans irritated and hateful over this incident from Jan 2013.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
A school Cultural club read the Pledge of Allegiance in different languages, one of them Arabic. In that one replacing “God” with “Allah”.
To me the Pledge is just words on paper. Not sacred. Even less a sacred cow than the U.S. Constitution.
Here’s the funniest commentary on the Pledge of Allegiance I’ve seen.
The Whitest Kids U’ Know – Pledge of Allegiance
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Mike Howarth – Carpe Diem
I met Mike online to hike the Manasulu Circuit in the Himalayas last year. A super trip.
He’s now “cycling the length of South America from Ushuaia, Argentina the southernmost city in the world to Catagena, Columbia the most northerly city in South America. A journey of 18,000kms.”
Respect.
Mike:
What I wanted wasn’t material wealth, the latest gadget, the latest status symbol. I wanted adventure. I wanted to see and explore these wild and remote places I had read about in books and seen on maps, the the stuff of boyhood dreams. …
My new life is a simple life. A life pared down and distilled in to only the things I am prepared to carry, to lumber over mountain passes or carry across a desert. Each item carefully considered, selected on its relative merits of form, function and mostly importantly weight. Vanity discarded for pragmatism, there are no luxury items …
materialistic people less happy
New research finds materialistic people are less happy in large part because of their lack of gratitude.
There are several theories regarding why materialistic people feel less gratitude. …
The dunes are MINE, all MINE. 🙂
(via io9)
Mandela – Long Walk to Freedom
Long Walk to Freedom is an autobiographical work written by South African President Nelson Mandela, and published in 1995 …
The book profiles his early life, coming of age, education and 27 years in prison. Under the apartheid government, Mandela was regarded as a terrorist and jailed on the infamous Robben Island for his role as a leader of the then-outlawed ANC. He has since achieved international recognition for his leadership as president in rebuilding the country’s once segregated society. The last chapters of the book describe his political ascension, and his belief that the struggle continues …
His childhood name was Rolihlahla, which is loosely translated as “pulling the branch of a tree”, or a euphemism for “troublemaker“.
Indeed, many of the most winning anecdotes are stories of how the now sainted man bungled, cheated or lied.
Mandela oversaw the formation of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate crimes committed under apartheid by both the government and the ANC, appointing Desmond Tutu as its chair. To prevent the creation of martyrs, the Commission granted individual amnesties in exchange for testimony of crimes committed during the apartheid era. Dedicated in February 1996, it held two years of hearings detailing rapes, torture, bombings, and assassinations, before issuing its final report in October 1998. …
Though Mandela was influenced by his older contemporary, Gandhi, he did not subscribe to Gandhi’s non-violence. Nelson felt that non-violence worked in India because the British government was reasonable. But that it would not work in South Africa government.
I’d previously read the interesting and controversial book by his warder/censor James Gregory, Goodbye Bafana: Nelson Mandela, My Prisoner, My Friend.
Mandela said that he actually didn’t know Gregory very well. But did state:
“He was one of the most refined warders. Well-informed and courteous with everybody. Soft spoken. Very good observations. I developed a lot of respect for him.”
They made a film I’ve not seen of Gregory’s book.
I’ve also not yet seen the 2013 British/South African biographical film – Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.
Click PLAY or watch the trailer on YouTube.
Always Look On The Bright Side of Life
It’s amazing how often I think of the Monty Python song. 🙂
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
The Bible: A Biography
The Bible: A Biography (Books That Changed the World) by Karen Armstrong (2008)
… the world’s most widely distributed book and its best-selling, with an estimated six billion copies sold in the last two hundred years. But the Bible is a complex work with a complicated and obscure history. Its contents have changed over the centuries, it has been transformed by translation and, through interpretation, has developed manifold meanings to various religions, denominations, and sects.
… acclaimed historian Karen Armstrong discusses the conception, gestation, life, and afterlife of history’s most powerful book. Armstrong analyzes the social and political situation in which oral history turned into written scripture, how this all-pervasive scripture was collected into one work, and how it became accepted as Christianity’s sacred text, and how its interpretation changed over time. …
Great idea.
A biography of The Bible.
Karen Armstrong is expert. I respect her opinion.
At one point she asks, Why so much hatred in sacred texts?
Joshua 8 – “The Capture of Ai; Blesses and Curses at Mount Ebal” …
1-2: The LORD said to Joshua, “Do not be frightened or dismayed. Take all the fighting troops with you, go and march against Ai. See, I will deliver the king of Ai, his people, his city, and his land into your hands. You shall treat Ai and her king as you treated Jericho and her king; however, you may take the spoil and the cattle as booty for yourselves. Now set an ambush against the city behind it.”
18: The LORD then said to Joshua, “Hold out the javelin in your hand toward Ai, for I will deliver it into your hands.” So Joshua held out the javelin in his hand toward the city.
24-25: When Israel had killed all the inhabitants of Ai who had pursued them into the open wilderness, and all of them, to the last man, had fallen by the sword, all the Israelites turned back to Ai and put it to the sword. The total of those who fell that day, men and women, the entire population of Ai, came to twelve thousand.
29: And the king of Ai was impaled on a stake until the evening.
The Koran is criticized as violent.
I’d make the same criticism of our current version of The Bible. It was translated into Latin more by one man than any other — Sophronius Hieronymus (Saint Jerome 342-420).
Did Jerome get it right?
There are all kinds of stories like the Capture of Ai out of line with my understanding of the teachings of Jesus Christ.
Slavery. Polygamy.
Anyone who takes the Bible literally has not read it.
Work or Play?
Kelley Durbin-Williams linked to this great truth:
“The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him, he is always doing both.”
leave bitterness and hatred behind
It takes a big man to do so.
Proud to be an African
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Thanks Kraig.
