(http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/trump-politicians-condemn-white-nationalist-rally-charlottesville-virginia-n792096)
". . . President Donald Trump sparked a backlash Saturday when he suggested "many sides" were to blame for the deadly violence at a white nationalist rally in downtown Charlottesville, Virginia. . . several Republicans issued statements mentioning white nationalism or white supremacists (as the cause). Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch said on Twitter: "We should call evil by its name." . . . "We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides, on many sides.". . He added that hate and division in the country must stop, but that it is not linked to his presidency because it has "been going on for a long, long time." . . . "No matter our color, creed, religion, our political party, we are all Americans first," he said, adding that he'd like for his administration to "study" why such violence is occurring. . . "
It really is time to stop being polite about this. This moron thinks he is enlightening us by saying this has "been going on for a long, long time" but he's such a fucking idiot that he doesn't even know that
HE IS THE ONE WHO HAS MADE IT (polarization) W-O-R-S-E among the population. This jackass has got to go! Save the taxpayers some money - DO NOT "STUDY" something, the answer to which we ALL (except for the orange clown) already know!!!
(http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/09/opinion/bill-maher-isnt-the-only-one-who-misunderstands-religion.html?_r=1)
Bill Maher’s recent rant against Islam has set off a fierce debate about the problem of religious violence, particularly when it comes to Islam.
Mr. Maher, who has argued that Islam is unlike other religions (he thinks it’s more “like the Mafia”), recently took umbrage with President Obama’s assertion that the terrorist group known as the Islamic State, or ISIS, does not represent Islam. In Mr. Maher’s view, Islam has “too much in common with ISIS.”
His comments have led to a flurry of responses, perhaps none so passionate as that of the actor Ben Affleck, who lambasted Mr. Maher, on Mr. Maher’s own HBO show, for “gross” and “racist” generalizations about Muslims.
Yet there is a real lack of sophistication on both sides of the argument when it comes to discussing religion and violence.
On one hand, people of faith are far too eager to distance themselves from extremists in their community, often denying that religious violence has any religious motivation whatsoever. This is especially true of Muslims, who often glibly dismiss those who commit acts of terror in the name of Islam as “not really Muslim.”
On the other, critics of religion tend to exhibit an inability to understand religion outside of its absolutist connotations. They scour holy texts for bits of savagery and point to extreme examples of religious bigotry, of which there are too many, to generalize about the causes of oppression throughout the world.
What both the believers and the critics often miss is that religion is often far more a matter of identity than it is a matter of beliefs and practices. The phrase “I am a Muslim,” “I am a Christian,” “I am a Jew” and the like is, often, not so much a description of what a person believes or what rituals he or she follows, as a simple statement of identity, of how the speaker views her or his place in the world.
As a form of identity, religion is inextricable from all the other factors that make up a person’s self-understanding, like culture, ethnicity, nationality, gender and sexual orientation. What a member of a suburban megachurch in Texas calls Christianity may be radically different from what an impoverished coffee picker in the hills of Guatemala calls Christianity. The cultural practices of a Saudi Muslim, when it comes to the role of women in society, are largely irrelevant to a Muslim in a more secular society like Turkey or Indonesia. The differences between Tibetan Buddhists living in exile in India and militant Buddhist monks persecuting the Muslim minority known as the Rohingya, in neighboring Myanmar, has everything to do with the political cultures of those countries and almost nothing to do with Buddhism itself.
No religion exists in a vacuum. On the contrary, every faith is rooted in the soil in which it is planted. It is a fallacy to believe that people of faith derive their values primarily from their Scriptures. The opposite is true. People of faith insert their values into their Scriptures, reading them through the lens of their own cultural, ethnic, nationalistic and even political perspectives.
After all, scripture is meaningless without interpretation. Scripture requires a person to confront and interpret it in order for it to have any meaning. And the very act of interpreting a scripture necessarily involves bringing to it one’s own perspectives and prejudices.
The abiding nature of scripture rests not so much in its truth claims as it does in its malleability, its ability to be molded and shaped into whatever form a worshiper requires. The same Bible that commands Jews to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18) also exhorts them to “kill every man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey,” who worship any other God (1 Sam. 15:3). The same Jesus Christ who told his disciples to “turn the other cheek” (Matthew 5:39) also told them that he had “not come to bring peace but the sword” (Matthew 10:34), and that “he who does not have a sword should sell his cloak and buy one” (Luke 22:36). The same Quran that warns believers “if you kill one person it is as though you have killed all of humanity” (5:32) also commands them to “slay the idolaters wherever you find them” (9:5).
How a worshiper treats these conflicting commandments depends on the believer. If you are a violent misogynist, you will find plenty in your scriptures to justify your beliefs. If you are a peaceful, democratic feminist, you will also find justification in the scriptures for your point of view.
What does this mean, in practical terms? First, simplistic knee-jerk response among people of faith to dismiss radicals in their midst as “not us” must end. Members of the Islamic State are Muslims for the simple fact that they declare themselves to be so. Dismissing their profession of belief prevents us from dealing honestly with the inherent problems of reconciling religious doctrine with the realities of the modern world. But considering that most of its victims are also Muslims — as are most of the forces fighting and condemning the Islamic State — the group’s self-ascribed Islamic identity cannot be used to make any logical statement about Islam as a global religion.
At the same time, critics of religion must refrain from simplistic generalizations about people of faith. It is true that in many Muslim countries, women do not have the same rights as men. But that fact alone is not enough to declare Islam a religion that is intrinsically more patriarchal than Christianity or Judaism. (It’s worth noting that Muslim-majority nations have elected women leaders on several occasions, while some Americans still debate whether the United States is ready for a female president.)
Bill Maher is right to condemn religious practices that violate fundamental human rights. Religious communities must do more to counter extremist interpretations of their faith. But failing to recognize that religion is embedded in culture — and making a blanket judgment about the world’s second largest religion — is simply bigotry.
Reza Aslan, a professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside, is the author, most recently, of “Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth.”
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. . . While attending coed Catholic grade school, grades 1 through 8, one of my male classmates in particular, was always a favorite with the girls. No, I don't mean ONLY the 'popular' girls. Yes, those girls loved him also, but everyone loved this guy. Why, you may wonder? Well, he was tall (for his age, at least), handsome, athletically built (and inclined), charming, articulate and quite gregarious. My male classmates and I were truly impressed with his ability to engage so many of the coeds in apparently meaningful and entertaining conversation for extended periods of time. I, on the other hand at this age, found it very difficult to talk with GIRLS at a meaningful level for the most part, and for that reason found his skills to be particularly remarkable and admirable. At the same time, he had a comparable amount of male friends also as he was quite simply, very personable.
On one occasion, he volunteered (I did not even ask) his formula for being popular with the 'cool' girls. He told me that he, in effect, rehearsed with the uncool girls quite intentionally. The overweight, the homely, the shy and the unattractive were sought out by him quite intentionally yet unbeknownst to them, to be the recipients of this bon vivant's joie de vivre. And by adhering to the timeless principle that 'practice makes perfect', he developed the confidence to transfer his socializing techniques to the more attractive members of the student body. This, I and my less demonstrative friends thought at the time, was a marvelous thing, yet never actually made any serious attempt to implement his modus operandi ourselves. Incidentally, he did later marry a very jealous (justifiably?) woman and I've lost track of him.
Not sure why this whole thing occurred to me recently but it did and it also reminded me of bigotry, the connection being basic respect that each and every human being deserves from another. While I thought my friend's socializing pointers were pretty practical at the time, I now realize how self-serving and insensitive they were to the unsuspecting that he 'used' for his own gain. Personally, it seems like all I have to do is look another human being in the eye and I find it very difficult NOT to treat him/her with basic, human respect. There is something inexplicable in the eyes that conveys humanity. True bigotry is the inability to accord basic human respect to another. And EVERYONE deserves that respect no matter what they look like, whether they have as much material wealth as you or belong to the same social, religious or recreational 'clubs' as you, no matter what they weigh, how tall or short, color of their skin, sexual orientation, hair color, profession or lack thereof, taste in food, drink or music. Seems like a very simple thing. I don't believe that I am particularly commendable for doing it and I don't know why I do, but I just can't help it. It's in the eyes. That doesn't mean that I give money to every street/bag-person who asks me or that I have to strike up a meaningful conversation with anyone (or everyone). It simply means that I look them in the eye, and they generally look me in the eye as well with few exceptions, and I do feel something when confronting their gaze and I believe I owe them the courtesy of a civil, humane and hopefully a pleasant response.
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