We Need New Words to Replace "Religion"

It was the French!!! The French Canadians!!! Stooopid Québécois- soil our “good” name!!!

Nah :wink: as an Albertan I have to cast a few shit-calls at Quebec.

Canada also had internment of the Japanese Canadians, forced sterilization of the disabled or “retarded”… we have a dark history. One we teach though. To our kids. From a young age.

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Well, I can really sympathyze with your view.

But, as Trotsky said about war, you may not be interested in it, but it’s interested in you.

I would FAR rather be doing crosswords and Junior Math Olympiad problems (or trying to do them), and catching up on all the reading I missed out on … but … to quote a Beat Poet’s line from the 1950s, when we were all worried about a nuclear war …
“I do not want to startle you, but they mean to kill us all.”

And, yes, it can be VERY frustrating dealing with ‘ordinary’ people. (Probably even worse for me, on the Right, than you, who I suspect would be somewhere on the Left, since, to quote a conservative thinker, ‘Liberals read. Conservatives watch TV.’.)

But we’ve got to.

Now … it’s not as bad as it looks. What a lot of the folks on the Left don’t seem to realize, is that there has been a huge shift among the base of the Right. I know we look like a lot of green-toothed rednecks, mindlessly repeating whatever our preacher-man said on Sunday, but that’s wrong.

As a minor interesting fact, the Right is increasingly secular. Religion, or more precisely adherence ot an organized religion, is dying.

More importantly the last 20 years have taught the conservative base something about the realities of America being the world policeman: it doesn’t work.

Once, you could count on the ranks of the Right, whenever the government decided to invade someone, to be foot-stomping, flag-waving cheerleaders for it. No more. Too many of their sons have come home in body bags, and they realize that out there in Absurdistan, they hate us almost as much as they hate each other. So there’s little enthusiasm for more war, even a proxy war like the ones we pushed the poor Ukrainians into.

AND … the Right used to be uncritical supporters of the FBI and CIA, etc. No longer.

AND … the Right used to against Free Speech for ‘subversives’. When in 1965 Eugene Genovese, a professor at Rutgers, announced his support for the Viet Cong, the Republicans wanted to get him fired. [Eugene Genovese - Wikipedia]

Now they’re for Free Speech – because the shoe is on the other foot, perhaps, but they’re for it.

And … rip-roaring old capitalism, as it has globalized, has not done well by the American working class, including its conservative base. [A good website: https://www.wtfhappenedin1971]
The central idea from that site.

So – there is objectively the basis for a ‘United Front’ between Left and Right in this country, over certain issues. For one thing, to restrain our insane foreign policy establishment from more overseas adventures. (Trump had a vague notion about this, but, of course, couldn’t articulate it in policy and personnel.)

But is anyone interested? No.

My view: if we could co operate with Stalin to beat Hitler, I can co operate with a Lefty to keep us out of war. And maybe do some useful things in other areas as well, such as jobs and eduation. Each of us can think of the other as Stalin.

Atheists on both sides ought to be among the first people to see the possibilities. (And, yes, there are some atheists who are conservative. See, for example,

https://TheAtheistConservative.com and https://darwinianconservatism.blogspot.com/

So, if any fellow atheists here are interested in discussing the possibility of some joint work for goals we both agree on, let’s have a thread for it. At a minimum, more interesting than bashing some poor Catholic fundamentalist.

Ahhh :relieved: but in the history :point_up: thing stands out as a common driver to where we are today. Religion. And prominently the Catholic Church :church: now desperately being run over by fundies of all stripe within the hodgepodge of “Christian” faith vying for political strength.
Islam also has had a stranglehold hand in hand politically - the middle-east demonstrating the joys of Theocratic rule.

Our Canadian lands (Turtle Island) we’re once inhabited by indigenous who didn’t define roles as stringently for the male/female within their tribes and their system of government were very democratic. There was of course, still wars and such …but much of the “woman’s” suffrage movement was born out of learning how the native women were viewed within their culture.

The genocide of the natives came FIRST by the churches (well, re-educate) and by the voting Christian men taught in those churches and the men who ruled the nations politically. The politics came after (or slightly hand in hand) with the purpose of civilizing the savage - saving his soul.

Slavery existed thousands of years - read the bible. God’s fine with it. :+1:. The churches didn’t have any issue (neither did Christ) for thousands of years. Slaves were everywhere and Africans sold enemy tribal Africans as well to profit - the Corporate and Government hands were all in it. Blessed by god.

There have been many dominoes that have moved our species away from dominant, patriarchal, superstitious-forced suffering of one another.

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Believe me, I am quite familiar with war. Both abroad and on the streets within my own state.

(Ugh… :pensive:… I told myself not to get in on this… heavy sigh…) You are correct in that I do not watch television. If I want to see a circus, I’ll go buy tickets to the next Wringling Brothers performance. As for reading, I have this site, and I have one other site that I sometimes pop in on just to see how far the pendulum is swinging to the other side. Aside from that, I have found it a waste of time to listen to anything coming from the Main Stream Media, regardless of which “side” they claim to represent. They are ALL equally unreliable, in my opinion.

Personally, I despise using the terms “Left and Right”, because from my perspective they both work for the same Master. (And it AIN’T “We The People” anymore.) Therefore, I do not consider myself to be one or the other. Both sides can kiss my ass, as far as I’m concerned. So, whatever that makes me, I really don’t care.

Yep. Have seen that up close and personal.

Ah. Yes. Two other terms that cause a reflexive CRINGE every time I hear them: Conservative and Liberal. Holy fuck… Why can’t people simply be HUMANS who want what is best for their families and communities? All these ridiculous labels people cling to like the Christians cling to their particular denominations. Just makes me shake my damn head sometimes. Anyway, ain’t shit I can do about it. All I can do is take care of my wife, my grandson, and my home. Do what I can for my neighbors and friends. Help others in need whenever I am able. Keep my head on a swivel whenever I am out in public. Beyond that, in regards to changing the direction our country is headed, I would have better luck going out to the beach with a bucket to keep the waves from coming ashore.

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I do not identify with any party. I consider it self-humiliating to identify yourself by what party you voted for. I just desire to solve problems as they come along. I vote for a candidate based on their track record, and their platform, what they promise to deal with.

In here, I deal with religion, and attempt to minimize my political activities. If I desire to engage in politics, I am a member of a political forum.

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From a European perspective, the political duopoly with its extreme polarization seems to be the main problem with U.S. politics. One side refuses – on principle – to join a course of action suggested by the other side. To deny the other side a chance to rectify a problem in society seems way more important than to actually do something about those problems, even if the two sides agree that the shit has to be fixed, and even if they agree to some degree what has to be done about it. In short, U.S. politics is run like two massive circle jerks, one Democratic and one Republican. You only interact with your closest neighbour tying to satisfy him/her, and what can be more icky than to have someone from the other circle jerk interact with someone in your circle jerk? Eewwww.

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@Get_off_my_lawn I fully agree that having just two parties, and both being in power for so many years has led to a weird standoff. From the news I observe, at times it is more important for either side to “win” over the other than actually solve problems.

Up here in Canada, with multi-party system of more than just two choices, if any political party focused on beating another party instead of fixing problems, they would lose so bad in the next election cycle they would cease to exist.

I’m not disagreeing with what you say, although I have to smile at the idea of feminism being inspired by primitive tribes. I strongly suspect that story was manufactured for us to hear today – one of the things about being primitive is that you can’t keep written records. But, you probably have some references, perhaps to academic studies, which support that case, or perhaps the observations of Europeans when they first encountered these tribes, and if so, I’d be grateful to have them and I promise to read them.

Slavery was a great advance for the human race. It meant instead of killing all the males and less-desirable women when one tribe defeated another, they were put to work. It couldn’t have come about without our previously developing agriculture and herding animals so that there were economically-productive roles for the non-attractive-female slaves to fill.

And so began civilization! It no longer took 100 people to feed 100 people. 90 people could feed 100, leaving 10 to worry about what the gods wanted, what the properties of a right-angle triangle were, and to build the ‘monumental public buildings’ that are the hallmark of beginning civilization.

Of course, everyone then – the wrtiers of the Bible, and the best intellectuals in Athens – were fine with it, just as we are fine with, say, killing animals to eat them. It’s where we are now, and peoples cannot jump over their own heads.

Then, we advanced from slavery – in the more advanced countries – to a system which was not-quite-slavery, feudalism. And civilization advanced, at least in some areas.

And finally came capitalism, the child of the industrial/scientific revolution and the rise of a new class not dependent on land owndership – far more productive than its predecessors, which is why Karl Marx was so fulsome in his praise of the capitalist class, the bourgeosie.

I wouldn’t call what happened ‘dominoes’ – would it were that easy! – but yes, our bloody, sorry species has made huge progress. Unfortunately, also in the weapons of war, but that’s another story.

Do you have your timeline correct? Modern capitalism started when Henry VIII seized and sold off the Catholic properties in England to wealthy landowners in 1536. It was a win-win for everyone but the Vatican. The monarchy suddenly had enough money for projects and the landowners went on to finance the establishment and growth of England as a superpower.

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I hadn’t talked about the dominoes … that has us where we are today - more secular.

Oh “feminist” or women have played roles outside their “assigned” expect place throughout history. Some societies didn’t take the same approach as the Abrahamic religions.

Here’s the facts of Canadian dates of women’s movement forward

https://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/marginalization_of_aboriginal_women/


There are a lot of books and stories, historic accounts. The exposure of cultures is what had an influence on “Victorian” women - settlers and such because they were exposed to a culture that didn’t view nor treat it as the British. It was an INFLUENCE before the straight out “takeover” of the lands and genocide of culture (in hopes of assimilation). The natives in Canada had a co-operative nature with the traders, both English and French at the beginnings. (16-17th Centuries)

AND then there’s the two-spirit (definitely did not fit the new Christian conversion ideas)…

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Well you probably should. There were a number of tribes which were matriarchal and there is a plethora of information regarding their cultural practices. I only have intimate knowledge of Cherokee practices as that is a part of my heritage. If you are truly interested, a good starting point would be James Mooney’s “History, Myths And Sacred Formulas Of The Cherokees”. Mooney was one of the first ethnologists to document Cherokee practices. He was involved with other tribes as well and even recorded various versions of the ghost dance later in his involvement.
Prior to the influx of Europeans, Cherokee women played an arguably balanced power role with men. Although the position of Chief was only rarely held by women, their influence on important decisions cannot be overstated. The Clan Mothers were/are responsible for many functions and the organization of issues, concerns, ideas, problems, etc., which would, upon their approval, be presented at council meetings for debate and discussion. Additionally, children followed their Mother’s clan and were only allowed to “marry” members of another clan.
When “Yonega” (White man, English man, Long Knives) came, they obviously had no respect for the Cherokee women who accompanied the men when negotiations were held. Since women were not held in the same high esteem by Yonegas as by the Cherokees, this eventually led to disastrous changes in the culture.
It is also relevant to note that the vast majority of tribes viewed the Spanish, Portuguese, French or English all as “Yonega” or “White Men”.
As far as the Cherokee were concerned, Irish and Scott’s-Irish were viewed somewhat differently due to their Matrilineal orientation, which resulted in numerous mixed marriages.

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Not surprising considering the freedom and rights that high born women had in Early Celtic and Later history…the right to choose the father(s) of their children, if not their long term partner. Some women chose the warrior’s way, others were esteemed and astute leaders.

Not until the arrival and subjugation of the celtic tribes did the suppression of women begin…

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I don’t really know enough history of this period in detail to proffer an opinion on how the Protestant reformation and the extraction of wealth from the Church fits in to what I think happened in history. I don’t think your example flatly contradicts the idea that modernity requires what happened a bit later. And we could also discuss the effect of the flow of gold to Europe from the Spanish conquests. But, as I say, I don’t know enough detail to argue it well. It seems obvious to me that a deep social change took place, transferring power from landowners to a new class though.

I’ll read those things, although not immediately.

I’m 1/16th Choctaw myself – my great-great-grandfather was Mosholatubee, who signed the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Hill, yielding the Choctaw lands to the whites, and putting them onto the Trail of Tears to Oklahoma. A barren place compared to the good agricultural land that was stolen from them, made even worse by the fact that in various places around the state, nasty sticky black stuff oozed up out of the ground. Ha ha.

My main point is that we should not glamorize primitiveness, backwardness. The whole human race needs to come into modernity. Had the Native Americans been faster in their development, and had invented gunpowder – as Che Guevara lamented that they had not, despite inventing many other things (the Mayas had a positional-exponential numbering system before the Europeans did), they would still be in possession of the continent.

A lesson the poor Ukrainians did not learn when they returned those nuclear weapons to Russia after Communism collapsed.

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Your post (came capitalism, the child of the industrial/scientific revolution) indicated that the industrial revolution preceded and fueled capitalism.

But Henry VIII seized the Vatican lands in 1536, just 44 years after Columbus discovered the new world. He sold those lands to wealthy landowners. With that money Henry built his navy, which launched Britain (you should learn the history of that nation) from a relatively poor nation into the world leader of trade because those wealthy landowners had the navy to protect their interests.

Is your argument that modernity would not have happened save for the accident of Henry’s break with the Pope?
I think Britain became a world power because it was the home of capitalism. Of course, there were other advantages: the English Channel, which, according to Macaulay, deprived the English monarchs of an excuse to have a strong centrally-controlled military … unlike their Continental counterparts. If there had been no coal in Britain, things would have been very different.

But I believe that the big change in European society that took place over the two centuries after Henry’s rule, would have happened anyway. A new class arose (and some landlords joined it). A great leap forward for humanity, something Karl Marx recognized and wrote eloquently about.

My point is what came first, and what fueled what?

Interesting perspective, which I reject.
You are espousing the idea that had the Tribes been more warlike and had employed wars of annihilation, that they would still be “in possession of the continent”. This clearly indicates your lack of awareness of Native cultures. No Indians at the time of the invasion viewed the land as something you could possess. I realize that you view this as a “primitive” belief, but we just have to disagree on that. Blaming the victims of genocide for not being as brutal as their oppressors is a bit twisted from my perspective.
Another little tidbit to add to your bit about the Maya…at the time of the European invasion the infant mortality rate was higher in London than in the americas.
As far as modernity, I am a walking billboard for modern medical science. My appreciation for the opportunities for fulfilling and productive lives is pronounced and ongoing. That said, the climate hell which has been facilitated for the want of DuPont carpet and Tupperware makes one take pause…

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I don’t blame the Indians for not being as brutal as their oppressors. In fact, they were much more brutal. I don’t ‘blame’ them for anything. They were just unfortunate in not having the technology and social organization to avoid being conquered by a more advanced people.

As civilization advances, we get more … civilized, although this is very slow and uneven. Many people love to watch others suffer – probably an evolutionary imperative – but nowadays we are embarrassed about this, and try to hide it or deny it.

At any rate here’s what Wikipedia has to say about the Indians. (I don’t take Wiki as an oracle, at all; in fact, it seems to be dominated by Leftists. But I think they have it right here.)

"Male and female captives as well as teenage boys, would usually face death by ritual torture. The torture had strong sacrificial overtones, usually to the sun. Captives, especially warriors, were expected to show extreme self-control and composure during torture, singing “death songs”, bragging of one’s courage or deeds in battle, and otherwise showing defiance. The torture was conducted publicly in the captors’ village, and the entire population (including children) watched and participated. Common torture techniques included burning the captive, which was done one hot coal at a time, rather than on firewood pyres; beatings with switches or sticks, jabs from sharp sticks as well as genital mutilation and flaying while still alive. Captives’ fingernails were ripped out. Their fingers were broken, then twisted and yanked by children. Captives were made to eat pieces of their own flesh, and were scalped and skinned alive. Such was the fate of Jamestown Governor John Ratcliffe. The genitalia of male captives were the focus of considerable attention, culminating with the dissection of the genitals one slice at a time. To make the torture last longer, the Native Americans and the First Nations would revive captives with rest periods during which time they were given food and water. Tortures typically began on the lower limbs, then gradually spread to the arms, then the torso. The Native Americans and the First Nations spoke of “caressing” the captives gently at first, which meant that the initial tortures were designed to cause pain, but only minimal bodily harm. By these means, the execution of a captive, especially an adult male, could take several days and nights. "

And America is indeed founded on slavery. But it didn’t start in 1619. (Slavery is a human universal. It’s a step up from the ‘primitive communism’ of hunter-gatherers.)

Wiki again:

"In contrast to the Eastern Woodlands tribes, peoples of the Northwest Coast (encompassing the coastal regions of Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and southeastern Alaska), enslaved war captives. Slaves were traded and were a valuable commodity. More importantly, enslaved captives were given as gifts during a potlatch ceremony to enhance the prestige of the gift giver. Some scholars believe that slaves performed major economic roles in this region and comprised a permanent social class and a significant proportion of the population, though this has proved to be controversial. "

Our ancestors were no better. We are intelligent chimpanzees, and have evolved socially, slowly, painfully, unevenly. And we’re still in the process of that social evolution. We shouldn’t glorify primitive backwardness. Even if the Indians were the sweet hippy nature-loving vegetarians that gullible people think they were, it’s good that at least part of the human race evolved (socially) beyond that, and has dragged the slower groups forward. What Native American today would reject painless dentistry?

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