The Vatican is finally admitting that a group they formerly chose to strongly repress now has "gifts and qualities to offer". A newly released document asked if Catholicism could accept gays and recognize positive aspects of same-sex couples. Church conservatives called it a betrayal of traditional family values, you know, those VALUES that require repression of SOME group of individuals that they barely know and absolutely do NOT understand.
John Smeaton, co-founder of the conservative group Voice of the Family, said: "Those who are controlling the synod have betrayed Catholic parents worldwide." He failed to explain precisely how they accomplished that or how any of this relates to parents or children. He called it "one of the worst official documents drafted in Church history".
He conveniently forgot about the documents that denounced contraceptives, premarital sex, masturbation, abortion, artificial insemination, voluntary sterilization, lifelong celibacy for priests, nuns, and monks – and all others who never marry. Occasionally, the Church even shows signs of its old opposition to “bad thoughts” about sex (i.e., thoughts associating sex with pleasure), and to marital acts of sexual intercourse engaged in for pleasure rather than procreation. As recently as Pope John Paul II, husbands were urged “not to commit adultery with their wives by desiring sex for its mere pleasure and the satisfaction of instinct”
Hopefully the Catholic church will continue this evolution toward the proper direction and stop marginalizing those who are DIFFERENT from them, or formerly marginalized in an age of ignorance or pre-scientific knowledge.
(sources: http://humanismbyjoe.co/catholic-sex/ and http://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/vatican-document-gays-have-gifts-qualities-offer-church-n224691)
OHO's
"Ocean City Ditty," the
CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if
you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD) OHO is Jay Graboski, David Reeve & Ray Jozwiak
My latest solo release, '2014' of original, instrumental piano music, can be downloaded digitally at:
(or you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rayjozwiak4)
OHO's
"Ocean City Ditty," the
CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if
you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD) OHO is Jay Graboski, David Reeve & Ray Jozwiak
My latest solo release, '2014' of original, instrumental piano music, can be downloaded digitally at:
(or you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rayjozwiak4)
(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.”
OHO's
"Ocean City Ditty," the
CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if
you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD) OHO is Jay Graboski, David Reeve & Ray Jozwiak
My latest solo release, '2014' of original, instrumental piano music, can be downloaded digitally at:
(or you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rayjozwiak4)
. . . I'm reading about politics, government, representation and LIFE. . .
(from "A Fighting Chance" by Elizabeth Warren)
". . . as the crowd thinned out a bit, a woman in her mid fifties walked over. Her face was flushed and her hair was a tangle of tight curls. She looked hot and tired, maybe a little angry. She stopped a few steps away from me and said, "I walked two miles to get here."
Okay. She had my attention.
She dropped her voice a notch. "I walked because I don't have a car that runs. I don't have a car that runs because I don't have a job."
As we stood facing each other, she laid out her life in just a few sentences.
I have two master's degrees. I'm smart. I taught myself computer programming. I've been out of work for a year and a half. I've applied, I've volunteered, I've gone everywhere, but nothing.
She paused for a long time, then plunged back in. She explained that she had held one job or another since she was seventeen. She had put herself through school. She had always, always, always worked hard.
Then she stopped, took a step forward, and lowered her voice to a whisper, as if she didn't want to hear what she was about to say.
Now I don't know if I'm ever going to get a real job again.
I held out both hands and she took them. We stood there, not moving, just holding hands. I muttered something bland like "I'm so sorry," but she didn't give any sign of hearing me. She was well past the polite social conventions. She was hot, and she was exhausted-mind, body, and soul.
She focused again, looked me straight in the eye and said: I'm here because I'm running out of hope. I've read about you for a long time, and I'm here to see you in person, to tell you that I need you, and I want you to fight for me. I don't care how hard it gets, I want to know that you are going to fight.
OHO's
"Ocean City Ditty," the
CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if
you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD) OHO is Jay Graboski, David Reeve & Ray Jozwiak
My latest solo release, '2014' of original, instrumental piano music, can be downloaded digitally at:
(or you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rayjozwiak4)
Bill Maher's recent rant has stirred-up some Facebook reaction. Some good discussion took place in the show. One good line (from Nicholas Kristof) that I think we should take away from this, paraphrased, 'the chasm is not between Islam and the rest of the world, it is between fundamentalists and moderates in each religion.'
OHO's
"Ocean City Ditty," the
CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if
you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD) OHO is Jay Graboski, David Reeve & Ray Jozwiak
My latest solo release, '2014' of original, instrumental piano music, can be downloaded digitally at:
(or you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rayjozwiak4)
. . . my vision of this tune is expanding now . . . an evolution, if you will . . .
What do I know
about happiness
Do I possess
Some kind of key to things that
No one else can see
Just as far back
As my memory goes
Sometimes it seemed
I was alone
Only my point of view
And me
As I reflect
Some disconnect
Could be afflicting me
Am I just one
Under the sun
Or am I quite unique
Others speak out
Very easily
No fear about
Who may get hurt
By words so hastily dispensed
For some reason
I step back away
I hesitate
To be so bold
As to presume some
Insight gained
As I reflect
Some disconnect
Could be afflicting me
Am I just one
Under the sun
Or am I quite unique
Unique
[Basic tracks from 9/24/2014 Bratt Studio Recording (by Gentleman, scholar, musician and recording technician extraordinaire, Bill Pratt)
by OHO - Jay Graboski, David Reeve and Ray Jozwiak and guest artist Bruce Kovacs on French Horn- additional sounds by me, for illustrational purposes]
(Listen through your headphones if possible.)
[There's still time to head on over, up or down to Ocean City to catch OHO LIVE!
at Johnny's Pizza & Pub 5601 Coastal Highway, Ocean City, MD 21842 410-524-7499
Tonight, Saturday, October 11, 2014 about 9PM]
OHO's
"Ocean City Ditty," the
CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if
you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD) OHO is Jay Graboski, David Reeve & Ray Jozwiak
My latest solo release, '2014' of original, instrumental piano music, can be downloaded digitally at:
(or you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rayjozwiak4)
(From 'Born of a Woman' by John Shelby Spong)
". . . A literalized myth is a doomed myth. Its truth cannot be rescued. Literalism is not even a benign alternative for contemporary Christians. It is, in the modern world, nothing less than an enemy to faith in Jesus Christ. It is a belief system built on ignorance, which acts as if God, the infinite mystery, can be defined in the words of any human being or in the thought forms of a particular era. Literalism is a claim that God's eternal truth has been, or can be, captured in the time-limited concepts of human history. It is to pretend that knowledge is finite and that knowledge does not therefore explode in infinite new directions daily. Biblical fundamentalism reduces the religious options for people to the shallow levels of propositional truth and then fills them with a religious certainty that can be maintained only by a defensive, aggressive hysteria. When that certainty explodes, fundamentalism leaves the would-be fundamentalist with no alternative save a Godless despair . . . "
OHO's
"Ocean City Ditty," the
CD single is now available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/oho4
(and, if
you're in town, at Trax On Wax on Frederick Rd. in Catonsville, MD) OHO is Jay Graboski, David Reeve & Ray Jozwiak
My latest solo release, '2014' of original, instrumental piano music, can be downloaded digitally at:
(or you can copy-and-paste this URL directly to
your browser: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/rayjozwiak4)
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