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Well, you said it yourself. "If we are divided, then we are divided."
You don't care about unity. Thank you for being honest about it.
Far more people than ever before have caught onto the divisive rhetoric that seeks to pit black against white. white against black. It's the same playbook. Over and over again. If it's not race, it's man against woman, old against young, and on and on.
It comes in many forms.
But the curtain is being pulled back.
And it is being exposed for what it truly is.
How alarmed the dividers must be.
Their power is subsiding.
People are becoming more united everyday.
Though it may not seem like it, (the loudest always gets the attention) but I've seen too many positive things occurring, people waking up in the last couple of years to give me hope.
It's a first-world problem.
Most People who do not have the luxury of time and accouterments are not concerned with harassing others about their God beliefs. They are too busy trying to survive.
I agree with you that division comes in many forms, and the truth is that for some people, sewing division is emotionally beneficial and sometimes financially beneficial.
You are far more optimistic about the future unity of humanity than I am. For example, I have resolved to the belief that the U.S. will probably have another civil war in the not-too-distant future. It seems every day; someone has found another reason to go on a witch-hunt for those who are different from themselves. There's not enough room on this third rock for the sun for diversity.
As to the OP,
Likewise, while slavery might have been divisive among white Americans in the 1850s, white supremacy was not. Nothing better illustrated white Americans’ near-universal support of white-supremacist science than when the famed white abolitionist newspaper the Liberator ran an op-ed defending Agassiz for contributing an essay to the proslavery, polygenist tome “Types of Mankind.” Agassiz’s sprawling essay argued that God had ordered the entire animal kingdom (including the supposedly separate human species) around different species’ fitness for specific climates. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlo...matters-today/
Why not just come out and say my post was, what it was: "dismissive"?
Why the sarcasm? It's so tedious.
Yes. That's my reaction to this topic.
It is divisive nonsense. And, in my opinion, unworthy of serious attention.
The topic only serves one purpose: division
The more divided we all are... the weaker we become.
Likewise, while slavery might have been divisive among white Americans in the 1850s, white supremacy was not. Nothing better illustrated white Americans’ near-universal support of white-supremacist science than when the famed white abolitionist newspaper the Liberator ran an op-ed defending Agassiz for contributing an essay to the proslavery, polygenist tome “Types of Mankind.” Agassiz’s sprawling essay argued that God had ordered the entire animal kingdom (including the supposedly separate human species) around different species’ fitness for specific climates. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlo...matters-today/
Prior to maybe 15 years ago, Americans could have imagined that overt racism and even bigotry generally was no longer socially acceptable and that things were headed, however unevenly, in the right direction, toward a pluralistic and welcoming society where mutual respect for individuality and difference is the general rule. I would have to be delusional to think that now.
Similarly, while these old 19th century tropes of classifying some humans as inferior are still largely not discussed today -- in part because of racist's needs to protest that they are not in fact racist -- I have zero doubt that plenty of people exist who would read Types of Mankind and nod approvingly, at least in private. Mark my words, at some point soon the Overton Window will move in the wrong direction a bit further and this kind of organized, faux-scholarly hate will become discussable again. White supremacy is alive and well.
While I am in general disposed to a sort of guarded optimism about individuals, concerning humanity as a whole, I do not think we have made real progress as a species. We are good at putting a patina of civility on things, but just beneath the surface, little has changed. And now for various reasons we are an existential threat to ourselves as a result.
Prior to maybe 15 years ago, Americans could have imagined that overt racism and even bigotry generally was no longer socially acceptable and that things were headed, however unevenly, in the right direction, toward a pluralistic and welcoming society where mutual respect for individuality and difference is the general rule. I would have to be delusional to think that now.
Similarly, while these old 19th century tropes of classifying some humans as inferior are still largely not discussed today -- in part because of racist's needs to protest that they are not in fact racist -- I have zero doubt that plenty of people exist who would read Types of Mankind and nod approvingly, at least in private. Mark my words, at some point soon the Overton Window will move in the wrong direction a bit further and this kind of organized, faux-scholarly hate will become discussable again. White supremacy is alive and well.
While I am in general disposed to a sort of guarded optimism about individuals, concerning humanity as a whole, I do not think we have made real progress as a species. We are good at putting a patina of civility on things, but just beneath the surface, little has changed. And now for various reasons we are an existential threat to ourselves as a result.
Well stated, particularly what I bolded. Although I am a bit more optimistic because I do believe that over centuries we have made progress, but that it's often of the 2 steps forward and 1 step back variety, and in this particular time frame in the US we are in the 1 step backward phase.
Well stated, particularly what I bolded. Although I am a bit more optimistic because I do believe that over centuries we have made progress, but that it's often of the 2 steps forward and 1 step back variety, and in this particular time frame in the US we are in the 1 step backward phase.
I think an argument can be made that it's 2 forward, 1 back, +2 -1, +2 - 1, and now it seems like we're attempting a -6. Court decisions unwinding more than 2 generations of settled law, a return to large scale genocidal warfare from 4 generations ago, the revelation that 70% of all species have been wiped out since 1970, UK trying very hard to be the first failed state in the first world ... the list goes on for some time.
And the relevance to this topic is that in general fundamentalism, including within Christianity, seems to be leading the way or has a serious hand in most of these things.
We aren't Israel. Yes. God allowed Israel to practice slavery, but we are not Israel.
I'll bet all the other corrections about the Bible are canards too. Right? Funny how that works. Just funny in general...
When I think of the common notions about God, we are thought to all be God's children, and the boundaries of countries are of no consequence. Slavery has been a part of world history for a long time now, and certainly not just in Israel. The Bible offering direction over all this time in all those parts of the world including the United States. Even if that direction is more specific in terms of what the authors knew about slavery at the time.
As an atheist, I don't blame or credit a god for the way history has unfolded in Israel or any other part of the world. If we are to refer to the Bible and the history described in the Bible, then one really shouldn't be picking and choosing according to their biases in any case.
"It is written," and all of the Bible including what you want to dismiss as canards has been thoroughly examined and considered. If you or anyone else can't see the bad along with the good, then you and they are the ones who need to develop a bit better understanding of this one holy book, along with the others.
The video explains what you all fail (intentionally) to note beyond the description of how the slaves were treated.
The Exodus liberated the slaves.
It describes the detailed intervention of the Biblical Deity to that end.
The Biblical Deity empowers the slaves to defeat their Masters...so they were no longer slaves that anybody was doing any of those things to.
Evidently, the way those Masters were treating them was very bad...so, the Biblical Deity freed them from that persecution.
Always a little amusing when someone attempts to educate by way of YouTube videos, but I suppose there is a place for that too. All one needs to do is find the video that fits their narrative, and that's quite easy to do these days...
Wouldn't you think that as bad as slavery is, the Bible would have been more critical and condemning of slavery everywhere and anywhere? In no uncertain terms. Why instead some rather passive reference to slavery? Passive if not condoning slavery? The story of Exodus is only one story about the liberation of slaves. A one group of people. Like all the other migrations of people who were slaves or simply being treated badly, it's they who free themselves from that "persecution" (if they are lucky). Not a "Biblical Deity."
Well stated, particularly what I bolded. Although I am a bit more optimistic because I do believe that over centuries we have made progress, but that it's often of the 2 steps forward and 1 step back variety, and in this particular time frame in the US we are in the 1 step backward phase.
Progress yes. Most certainly progress, especially if you look at how far we've come over the course of thousands of years. As always, however, we are forever with a long way still to go, and hanging on to old ways of thinking is forever retarding our progress. Still, it's hard not to see the progress we've made, just like it's easy to see how far we've still to go.
Always a little amusing when someone attempts to educate by way of YouTube videos, but I suppose there is a place for that too. All one needs to do is find the video that fits their narrative, and that's quite easy to do these days...
Wouldn't you think that as bad as slavery is, the Bible would have been more critical and condemning of slavery everywhere and anywhere? In no uncertain terms. Why instead some rather passive reference to slavery? Passive if not condoning slavery? The story of Exodus is only one story about the liberation of slaves. A one group of people. Like all the other migrations of people who were slaves or simply being treated badly, it's they who free themselves from that "persecution" (if they are lucky). Not a "Biblical Deity."
It condemns slavery in no uncertain terms.
The allegorical and metaphorical story in that great, epic, and prolific work of literary art illustrates that slaves should be freed...even heavily punish the Masters to compel that, if necessary.
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