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Tuesday, October 17, 2023
Both Sides Now: Gaza and Israel
What a demonic thing to do - tell a million people to flee for their lives to a safe place - and then bomb the safe place. And then there was that satanic hospital bombing that each side blames on the other.
This 20-minute news report from Britain's Channel 4 gives a wide view of the nightmare carnage now happening in what used to be called the Holy Land. What an unholy horror it is now - and so often has been in my lifetime - I remember the Six-Day War and the Yom Kippur War, and the great peace agreement that President Jimmy Carter negotiated at Camp David between Israel and Egypt. But the volcano of violence keeps erupting, no matter what.
Both sides are to blame; both sides are suffering. I have no favorites over there and no answers; I can only pray for peace.
If you have the time, do watch this for a balanced point of view.
The hate and resentment between Israelis and Palestinians and the larger Arab communities has been going on for so long, neither side can fully let go of it for the greater good. Rights to territory, political power and control based in religion. One side or the other becomes an oppressor, one side the oppressed. Even when negotiations result in a peaceful resolution it seems to ever be only temporary. There are extremists on both sides who are determined to have all their demands met - an untenable position - and each side seems determined to utterly destroy the other to achieve their ends. And violence just fuels more hatred and resentment. What a way to have to live and to subject otherwise innocent people to have to live in a culture of fear and hate. Cultures based on religion have come to this.
And I see parallels in our own country with violence toward others justified by religious belief and an addiction for political power and control based on religious beliefs. There are even those who wish to destroy others who do not adhere to or conform to their version of religion. Power, control, dogma, oppression, violence, hate. And so many well meaning, good, virtuous people caught in the crossfire.
Humanity I Love You by E.E.Cummings Humanity i love you because you would rather black the boots of success than inquire whose soul dangles from his watch-chain which would be embarrassing for both
parties and because you unflinchingly applaud all songs containing the words country home and mother when sung at the old howard
Humanity i love you because when you’re hard up you pawn your intelligence to buy a drink and when you’re flush pride keeps
you from the pawn shop and because you are continually committing nuisances but more especially in your own house
Humanity i love you because you are perpetually putting the secret of life in your pants and forgetting it’s there and sitting down
on it and because you are forever making poems in the lap of death Humanity
I have a different point of view on this subject, which I have shared with Frank privately.
For the record, atheism is another belief system, which can be and has been just as bloody - just as wicked - as misused religious beliefs. The historical record of the great atheist regimes of the Soviet Union, Red China, Nazi Germany, and small fry like Cambodia and Iraq, to name but a few, is glaringly clear on this point.
It behooves believers and nonbelievers alike to be modest and not too proud of themselves for what they do or don't do. There is a middle way between absolutes that we should all try to follow, in my view.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, harmony; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that I may seek not so much to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.
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We cannot all do great things, but we can do small things with great love.
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Churches say that the expression of love in a heterosexual monogamous relationship includes the physical, the touching, embracing, kissing, the genital act - the totality of our love makes each of us grow to become increasingly godlike and compassionate. If this is so for the heterosexual, what earthly reason have we to say that it is not the case with the homosexual?
It is a perversion if you say to me that a person chooses to be homosexual. You must be crazy to choose a way of life that exposes you to a kind of hatred. It's like saying you choose to be black in a race-infected society.
If God, as they say, is homophobic, I wouldn't worship that God.
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3 comments:
The hate and resentment between Israelis and Palestinians and the larger Arab communities has been going on for so long, neither side can fully let go of it for the greater good. Rights to territory, political power and control based in religion. One side or the other becomes an oppressor, one side the oppressed. Even when negotiations result in a peaceful resolution it seems to ever be only temporary. There are extremists on both sides who are determined to have all their demands met - an untenable position - and each side seems determined to utterly destroy the other to achieve their ends. And violence just fuels more hatred and resentment. What a way to have to live and to subject otherwise innocent people to have to live in a culture of fear and hate. Cultures based on religion have come to this.
And I see parallels in our own country with violence toward others justified by religious belief and an addiction for political power and control based on religious beliefs. There are even those who wish to destroy others who do not adhere to or conform to their version of religion. Power, control, dogma, oppression, violence, hate. And so many well meaning, good, virtuous people caught in the crossfire.
Humanity I Love You by E.E.Cummings
Humanity i love you
because you would rather black the boots of
success than inquire whose soul dangles from his
watch-chain which would be embarrassing for both
parties and because you
unflinchingly applaud all
songs containing the words country home and
mother when sung at the old howard
Humanity i love you because
when you’re hard up you pawn your
intelligence to buy a drink and when
you’re flush pride keeps
you from the pawn shop and
because you are continually committing
nuisances but more
especially in your own house
Humanity i love you because you
are perpetually putting the secret of
life in your pants and forgetting
it’s there and sitting down
on it
and because you are
forever making poems in the lap
of death Humanity
i hate you
Well said, Frank.
I have a different point of view on this subject, which I have shared with Frank privately.
For the record, atheism is another belief system, which can be and has been just as bloody - just as wicked - as misused religious beliefs. The historical record of the great atheist regimes of the Soviet Union, Red China, Nazi Germany, and small fry like Cambodia and Iraq, to name but a few, is glaringly clear on this point.
It behooves believers and nonbelievers alike to be modest and not too proud of themselves for what they do or don't do. There is a middle way between absolutes that we should all try to follow, in my view.
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