[Sosfbay-discuss] Fw: The JESUS Machine

[Tian Harter]

To my way of thinking discussion of religion starts when you get to 
words like "invoke". When somebody says "I'm going to eat carrots"
they are talking about food. When somebody else says "I'm going to eat
carrots like my friend [insert named invoked here]" they are talking 
about somebody else AND carrots. (pulls out dusty bible) The Bible 
starts with "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."
That way the only name invoked at the beginning of the book is "God".
They put a lot of thought into it.

I've seen people get together and talk about friends that have died
in the struggle. Somebody will say the name of a departed friend, and
everybody will say "presente!" Maybe a drum is thumped for the hero.
During the course of the ceremony you kind of learn something about
who cares about what. Maybe somebody says a name you've never heard
before and you get that uncomfortable "I don't know where they are 
coming from feeling." If you don't have your guard up maybe you get
that "I'll trust that name to" feeling. Either way it's a bonding 
experience on some level, meaning those present end up on the same
page, so to speak.

In the course of human events lots of names have come around that are
remembered for this or that. Some of them carry powerful baggage. I was 
reminded of this when I talked to a female doctor I know that vacationed 
in London, England so that she could visit the pump that the first 
epidemologist stole the handle from to stop a water borne epidemic.
As luck would have it, I've forgotten his name. That "saying of the
names" seems to me to be a good place to start with a better grade of 
freedom of religion. That's one reason I mentioned previously the 
difference between somebody named Christian and a Christian I knew.

Anyhow, we did that invoking ceremony at a Green Party of California
meeting not long after 9/11. The name I invoked was "J. William 
Fulbright." I did that partly because many people know him for the quote
"If you don't like what your government is doing you have a sacred duty
to do something about it", but also because I remember shaking his hand.
The fact that he wrote The Arrogance of Power, a great book about the
tragic arc of Imperialism and the US Government's role in it was icing
on the cake.

Edward wrote:
> In the defence of Christians, Christianity is not a homogeneous group. 
> There are many Christians who were against the War in Iraq (e.g. Pope 
> John Paul II), defended the rights of those oppressed by American 
> imperialism (e.g. Archbishop Oscar Romero), worked with the poor (e.g. 
> Dorothy Day), and the list goes on. Christianity is about promoting all 
> aspects of life, not just the issues that the Christian Right prioritise.

There are lots of religions that promise good sounding things. The 
Christians are not alone in that.
> 
> In fact, the Catholic Church has been a big critic of capitalism and 
> totalitarianism, first set forth in Pope Leo XIII's encyclical Rerum 
> Novarum. There's a fairly good article on Wikipedia that gives an 
> introduction to Catholic Social Teaching.
> 
I like quoting the previous Pope, who said G. W. Bush's war in Iraq was 
"stupid". It's sad that enough Catholics didn't take that seriously
enough to do something about it. Of course I'd feel differently if I 
thought it was a good war, but that's politics.
-- 
Tian
http://tian.greens.org
Last year in five State Assembly races the Green Party candidate got 
more votes than the Republican Party candidate. Four of them were in 
Maine and the other one was in Minnesota.