I believe there is a lot of truth in what this fellow is saying. Even those who are disdainful of religious belief in the US are still responding to deep-seated values and ethics whose origins they are choosing to forget. Judeo-Christianity is in our drinking water and embedded in our laws. I got into a Facebook debate that included a very angry recovering Catholic who was mutual friends with a friend of mine. This 28-year-old was really vicious and disdainful of my Christian beliefs, as progressive as I am. In his defense, my friend said, Yeah, but hed do anything for anybody. I asked my friend why he would do that? He said, Its the right thing to do. I asked, Really? Who says so?//But those values are eroding. The evil that is happening in the US Congress and the triumph of an American oligarchy of the wealthiest is evidence that doing what is right is being replaced by getting all you can get. In the absence of something bigger to which I am accountable, the ego runs rampant. I had a conversation with a 23-year-old rank capitalist working for a huge software firm in LA. He was extolling the holiness of the market proclaiming that the market would solve all our problems if we wouldnt get in its way. I suggested that was only true for people who have a voice. The 600 people sitting in the Johnnie Stroger County Hospital ER Waiting Room in Chicago to get the only medical care they can access dont have a voice, I suggested. His response made my blood run cold, I dont care about them, he said. Theyre not in my tribe.//Finally, Im not sure that the bigger thing that serves as a guide and authority to live an ethical life needs to be God. I lived in Japan for 2 years. The Japanese are a remarkably a-religious people. Technically they will say they are Shinto/Buddhist. But really, the only time most Japanese practice religion is at birth, marriage and death. Yet they are very ethical people. The Japanese crime rate is remarkably low. While it was used for evil in the Second World War, I believe that the sense of Holy Japan and fear of bringing shame to the nation serve as the bigger thing that leads most Japanese people to behave well. https://youtube/embed/YjntXYDPw44
Posted on: Mon, 29 Dec 2014 02:16:27 +0000
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