[Peace-discuss] Faith and fanaticism

[Morton K. Brussel]

Are you not getting a little ahead of the game with your Clinton-Bush- 
Obama war crimes? BOb is not yet there. --mkb
On Dec 19, 2008, at 12:55 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:

> Read history critically.  Even comforting illusions should yield to  
> facts.  The
> world is everything that is the case; it does not depend on how we  
> think about
> it.  The maxim "One of the tragedies of life is the murder of a  
> beautiful theory by a brutal gang of facts," ascribed to various  
> people, perhaps originates with La Rochefoucauld.
>
> Human are just those animals who take up the world in language, and  
> all language is ironic -- it approaches its object asymptotically.   
> But the naturalistic fallacy is in fact not a fallacy.  The fact/ 
> value distinction doesn't work.
>
> So a reference to "Clinton-Bush-Obama war crimes" in SW Asia is as  
> much a matter of fact as similar references to "Kennedy-Johnson- 
> Nixon war crimes" in SE Asia or "Hitler-Goering-Himmler war crimes"  
> in Russia, even though the first -- with only a million or so  
> people dead -- has not yet reached the levels of destructiveness of  
> the other two. --CGE
>
>
> LAURIE SOLOMON wrote:
>>> A study in displacement: liberals, their principles revealed as a  
>>> Potemkin
>>> village and their heroes unmasked as con-men, are reduced to the  
>>> fundamental article of their faith -- how nasty religion is.
>> This not just true of liberals but also applies to progressives  
>> and other leftists as well as those on the right. In point of  
>> fact, it probably applies
>> to everyone but you and me.  And frequently, I am not sure about  
>> thee.
>> Moreover, the article of faith is not always religion; sometimes  
>> it is class
>> struggle and/or imperialism. None of us can empirically prove the  
>> art5icles
>> of faith that we assume as the bedrock of our worldviews without  
>> engaging in
>> a self-fulfilling prophesy in which we have to use the self-same  
>> assumptions
>> to define what is evidence and what is not, what comprises proof  
>> and what
>> does not, and when something is proven and when it is not.
>>> Meanwhile, in the real world, the Clinton-Bush-Obama war crimes  
>>> are not a result of religion but of the long-standing (and  
>>> rational if vicious) US
>>> policy of controlling Mideast energy.  And the resistance to the
>>> generation-long assault -- driven into religious institutions  
>>> after the
>>> suppression of its secular forms -- commits crimes of its own in  
>>> a struggle
>>> generally just, for reasons that are primarily political, not  
>>> religious.
>> References to the "Clinton-Bush-Obama war crimes" are general,  
>> vague, and ambiguous since you are not referring exclusively to  
>> personal war crimes committed by those persons but to those  
>> committed by and under their administrations by all those who may  
>> be acting on behalf of the administrations or who in performing  
>> their duties with respect to those administrations committed  
>> personal war crimes in the name of some implied policy but for  
>> very personal reasons, which may be religious.  Many individual  
>> actors working in and under an administration and the auspices of  
>> its policies could very well "kill a Commie for Christ" so to  
>> speak without any motivation apart from a personal hatred or belief.
>> Moreover, there is nothing to say that religions cannot be secular  
>> (they just
>> cannot be profane as opposed to sacred) and that the political  
>> cannot become
>> a religion in its own right. What distinguishes a political  
>> ideology from a
>> religious one, political policies and practices from religious  
>> policies and
>> practices, etc.?  You are employing a very narrow and traditional  
>> distinction
>> between the two; any narrower and political would be restricted to  
>> partisan
>> party politics as the notion has come to be used in the US as  
>> opposed to
>> governmental.  Political is a much broader notion than you  
>> suggests; we often
>> talk of bureaucratic politics, academic politics, family politics,  
>> electoral
>> politics, legislative politics,  political correctness, etc.
>> -----Original Message----- From: peace-discuss- 
>> bounces at lists.chambana.net [mailto:peace-discuss- 
>> bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of C. G. Estabrook Sent:  
>> Friday, December 19, 2008 9:58 AM To: David Green Cc: Peace
>> Discuss Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Faith and fanaticism
>> A study in displacement: liberals, their principles revealed as a  
>> Potemkin village and their heroes unmasked as con-men, are reduced  
>> to the fundamental article of their faith -- how nasty religion is.
>> Meanwhile, in the real world, the Clinton-Bush-Obama war crimes  
>> are not a result of religion but of the long-standing (and  
>> rational if vicious) US
>> policy of controlling Mideast energy.  And the resistance to the
>> generation-long assault -- driven into religious institutions  
>> after the
>> suppression of its secular forms -- commits crimes of its own in a  
>> struggle
>> generally just, for reasons that are primarily political, not  
>> religious.
>> --CGE
>> David Green wrote:
>>> "A serious conversation about faith and how it works, should have  
>>> become one of the leading topics of our national conversation."
>>> A serious conversation about not having serious conversations,  
>>> and why they
>>> don't work, should have become one of the leading topics of our  
>>> national
>>> conversation.
>
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