Tag Archives: religion
Universal reconciliation and universal ordination: intersecting the UUA and ULC
The Unitarian Universalists believe in universal reconciliation (the belief that all beings will return to their Creator, no matter their differences in belief), while the Universal Life Church practices universal ordination (the belief that all are naturally ordained or entitled to preach their beliefs, whatever they may be); the two doctrines are meant by their progenitors to both maximize religious liberty and diversity and run counter to the more predominant religious inclination to take a doctrinally, physically or psychically authoritarian/coercive approach to other doctrinal idiosyncracies both within and without the congregation.
I find the two doctrines to be very interesting in their approaches toward maximizing liberty and diversity; they both move beyond the paradigm of mere "religious tolerance" (since "tolerance" is something that you can do with your nose pinched shut) to proactively compromising the solidity of one own religion’s demographic strength and cultural solidity (or monopoly, in some cases), which is good if you’re looking for an action of spiritual antitrust and demonopolization.
But my qualm is that the two approaches, by themselves, don’t make room for ensuring that those who benefit from and utilize free, doctrineless ordination (say, from the ULC) provide the same free, doctrineless service to others upon request when they themselves are able to issue such ordinations (thus continuing the perpetration, propagation and maximization of religious liberty and diversity), and provide such a service without any hangups regarding ANY doctrinal differences. Thus, I think that intersecting universal reconciliation with universal ordination should result in a hybrid that calls upon the ordained minister to ordain others upon request, without any inner psychological or spiritual reservations regarding doctrinal differences between the ordained and the ordination candidate, a sort of "viral" transmission of liberties and privileges akin to the GPL’s assurance that all who bear a copy of a GPLed software application may use it, modify it and redistribute it, provided that the license and its stipulations remain intact when redistributed.
Being able to say "you are equally eligible, as I am, to bear the title of ‘Minister’ no matter our religious or spiritual differences and inclinations, as you are equally eligible to return to your Maker as I am" is, IMO, most ideal towards the maximization of religious liberty and diversity, whether its in the big cathedral or the little coven.
Thoughts
- I’m wondering if there’s a name for a multi-winner election system that only requires that candidates competing in a single district pass a particular percentage threshold of votes to get a seat in the legislature. Of course, this is a core feature of proportional representation forms – usually of the party-list or STV type – but the perception of PR systems is mostly divided over whether to vote for parties or for individuals, as either approach has disadvantages depending upon whether you more respect individual accountability or group accountability to the electoral district’s constituents.
- Also, I wonder why I see so many mentions of the term "useful Jew" (both by past anti-Semitic regimes and currently by Israeli nationalists) within the context of being a "token" Jew who is used by Judeophobic individuals or groupings in order to give their Judeophobic advocacies some veneer of credibility, but I don’t see as many mentions of the term "useful Zionist" in regards to a Israeli Jewish nationalist who is being
bankrolledsupported by American evangelicals so as to bring about an Armageddon beyond which Judaism and the Jewish state, according to Christian eschatology, is not supposed to survive. Of course, the only people who are using the latter term are Judeophobes and Zionophobes to refer to non-Jewish supporters of the Jewish state, or to harp about Zionist "tricknology".
People get ready, there’s a Locomon a’comin?
It started here, and it ended up here, here and here.
Oh, and there’s a promo video.
Yes, this draws a “WTF” type of smirk from me. I’m a fan of the series (and I even answered this question in the form of an essay), but this is like…….WOW.
This could be bigger than Star Wars.
Religious Fundamentalism
In the past several years, the world has witnessed the rise of religious fundamentalism, which, in essence, is the religiously conservative interpretation of government, law, ethics, and society in general.
Within the same timelength, we have eyed, with horror, the rise of terrorism and terrorist actions, most of which have been carried out, propogated, or sponsored (covertly or openly) by organizations and/or nations which maintain, for more or less, a religiously fundamentalist agenda or platform.
Religious fundamentalism has become prominent and popular in areas or countries where a great deal of the population is either perpetually poor or dispossessed by either one or all of that particular area’s or nation’s dominating institutions. To such a people, religious fundamentalism serves as a channel through which they can vent their frustration against these dominating institutions or conditions.
What are these institutions or conditions?
Poverty; government; inflation; disease; famine; dearth of natural or processed resources; oppression of political, ethnic, or religious dissent by gendarmaric (police) or military means; war; corruption; ethnic, lingual, political, or religious exclusion and maltreatment; climate; the list goes on.
However, when a people collectively lean themselves upon religious fundamentalism as the foundation of their individual lives, their neighbors DO have a right to fear.
From how I see it, terrorism is a thing of concern, no matter for what cause it may be adopted; but in the present reality, we need to realize that religious fundamentalism is, itself, the monster which every judicially-minded, democratic, people-centered society must fear.
What religious fundamentalism encourages is (1) the manipulation of a nation’s rule of law or a society’s general cultural practices through religious means or outlooks, and calls for (2) the accomplishment of such by whatever means possible, if not necessary.
Furthermore, it espouses (3) a variant degree of intolerance against other beliefs which may not be sponsored by that particular religion or spirituality, as well as those who may hold such beliefs, and thus encourages (4) the adherents of that particular religion to “convert the infidels”, again, by whatever means possible.
Now to me, such an agenda is not even worthy of consideration, as I do not hold the beliefs of Christianity as my own anymore. But when the means to accomplish this agenda are taken too far, that is what we know now as but a simple “terroristic manifestation of the religious fundamentalist agenda”.
We’ve seen such manifestations many, many times within the last 20 years.
Both WTC bombings, the bombings of the American embassies in both Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, the murder of Theo Van Gogh, the bombings in Bali, the suicide attacks in Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Germany, Italy, Philippines, Algeria, and so on.
But it doesn’t just stop with Islam.
We’ve also seen the Oklahoma City bombings, the Georgia abortion clinic bombings, the lynchings of Afro-Diasporian Americans since the 19th century (especially by the accursed KKK), the Tokyo subway gas attacks by the Aum Shinrikyo, Russian pogroms against Jewish Eastern-Europeans (both in the Czarist days and again in post-Soviet Yeltsin/Putin-era Russia), and countless other manifestations of religious fundamentalism.
So we’ve seen all of this within the last several years. Does this prove that religious fundamentalism is a destructive force, a monster which, once unleashed, can whip out heavy doses of destruction, loss of life, and misery? It most certainly does.
This is why I fear the religious fundamentalist movement in the United States. This particular movement wants change of the political system (just as much as everyone else does, as the politics of this nation have indeed, become, stagnant and corrupt), but for them, this change should convert the nations laws and ethics to the aforementioned platform of the religious right. And to accomplish such, or to show displeasure over this nation’s laws or standards, Christian fundamentalists have resorted to more uncivil ways to make their point known, and not in an entirely-unsimilar fashion as their Muslim counterparts in the Muslim world.
And now, I’m actually trying to look at the current religious situation from the eyes of George W. Bush, who has got to be one of the most disliked heads of state of current times, at least, on the international level.
As Dubya has made it clear that his broadest and most prominent base of support is the American “moral majority”, and as personally assertive as he has displayed himself before the world since he took office in January of 2001, he still has to bend over backwards in order to satisfy the entirety of the moral majority itself. He, in reality, is NOT as far to the right as it may initially seem, since within the “moral majority”, you have as much a specturm of thought and conscience as you’ll find within the entirety of American politics. I mean, I may be third party/independent as far as the United States is concerned, but take my word for it: Dubya is NO Alan Keyes.
And he may have to watch his back as well, since the same group that brought him up can take him down, and some who are so far right within the moral majority that they cannot even reconcile their own convictions with Bush (who should’ve been their knight in shining armor) could wind up taking him out, LITERALLY.
Thus, I may not care at all for him, but I am certain that Bush isn’t THAT conservative, as he is fighting terrorism and religious fundamentalism in other countries (and wasting American lives and money in the process). If he was actually THAT conservative, then America would turn into a Christian Iran or Saudi Arabia (something that heaven forbid ever happens to the United States).
But I hope that Dubya does realize that religious fundamentalism is the enemy that he should be fighting, both abroad and at home, even with his own initial electoral support.
Religious fundamentalism (and its sick idea of politics) is the biggest threat to the preservation and transcience of basic human rights, as is ethnocentrism, one-party/one-man dictatorship, and/or anything else that may advance the belief that only one designated way is the only way, and should be solidified as such.
Religious fundamentalism IS the danger.
Ethics and Morals
A thing that I have noticed in America, especially with the conservative, fundamentalist right, is a frequent tendency to refer to “morals” whenever they offer an explanation of the rightist agenda. How have they used it?
To the right (and maybe to the right-leaning centrists), “morals” or “morality” is the standard of human behavior, which dictate that humanity should not do this or that or the other, lest humanity incur the wrath of God, which will pour out upon it’s head in the form of natural disaster or plague, among the many possible manifestations of God’s anger.
Well, I see their point….sort of.
People DO have (1) a responsibility to follow a certain standard in their behavior (ESPECIALLY around other people) and not to force their own ways upon others at their expense, (2) a right to be respected as normal human beings BY other human beings and to enforce the legitimacy of that right, and (3) a reason to not bend to the breaking point of their own personal sovereignty in order to satisfy someone else.
However, natural disasters, plagues, famines, and all of these supposed manifestations of divine pissed-off-ness have as much chance to happen to the most “holified” and “sanctified” nation tomorrow as the “sinful” one next door.
Yet, thats not the point of this discourse.
What IS the point is the fact that the fundamentalist right has basically confused “morals” with “ethics”.
Morals are, in fact, how the average person is supposed to relate to his or her personal divinity, be it God, Christ, Allah, the orishas, or whoever they may consider as their deity.
Ethics are the standards of behavior which are set, officially or not, in the stone of any society, as far as relating to people (depending upon each person’s societal status) is concerned.
So consider this: a Christian or Muslim guy becomes, over time, a habitual drunkard. And yet, he continues to serve as a deacon or imam.
Morals would say: “You have shamed yourself before God/Allah (and God/Allah before the believers), so repent or go to hell.”
Ethics would say: “You’re shaming your office as a deacon or imam, so clean up your act or resign/risk being demoted.”
Very much often, morals and ethics are interchangeable in application or situation, so alot of times, depending upon the matter or how/when/why/where/who/what it is dealt with, morals and ethics can go hand in hand.
If you violate morals, then yes, its reasonable and sound to question the ethics of the person in question. And it can work vice versa as well.
However, don’t take it as morals and ethics being unitary (that is, one and the same), for there is a distinct and recognizable difference, as already mentioned.
Morality is how you relate to your personal ultimate higher power (PUHP), and that is, ultimately, a personal issue. Ethics is how you relate with others, depending upon your status or profession within the world, and that, unlike morals, is something that is, ultimately, everyone’s issue.
So I ask the religious right to recoginze the difference between ethics and morals, and to maintain their stances and platforms upon such a difference of definitions. In other words, the right shouldn’t get it twisted.
But of course, I am not stipulating that morals can ever possibly exist apart from or completely sans the ethics, or vice versa. As all humans have some form of relationship with their PUHP, no matter how distant or close it may be, as we all have some sort of relationship with humanity in general, it makes sense that morals and ethics overlap frequently and indiscriminately, as both of them involve us, humanity, either on a personal or pluralistic level, but still involve the individual nonetheless.
What I AM saying, however, is that there IS a difference between morality and ethicality. We should all recognize that, especially those of us who may confuse the two as being one.
