Appeals for Peace Must Move Beyond Religion

Cad, how would you get rid of religion?

Why are we still fiddling around with "finding common humanity" or trying to harmonize doctrines between the competing religions. Just get rid of the religions. Let's face it -without the religious factor, this is nothing more than a real estate deal gone sour and like all real estate suits can be settled by negotiation, compromise, compensation, and competent judgment which would be acceptable to both parties. But with the religion factor thrown in - - aye, there's the rub. Another blemish on the face of religion.

Timmy, I basically agree with your post, triple yes.

If only people would find common humanity to be above everything else...imagine..
Religion does poison so many things, it's just too bad that it's drifting away so slowly.

We definitely need more like you and Ruby. But we are so overwhelmingly outnumbered. I see you comment on other threads and I'm afraid to get shot if post that I agree with you.. I feel safer in this microblog.

I would like to comment more but don't have time right now.

Cheers,

Your Affectionate Uncle:

"Also your suggestion that your readers must move "beyond the religious systems that divide us to our common humanity that alone unites us." is rich. It provokes no reasoned responses from any of the parties. Well done."

Sadly, the posts here do seem to bear out your warped idea of what is going on.

Farnaz,

Read his essay again. He is not a "co-religionist". Long ago he took a different path. His right to be sure, but you err in considering him such.

Your "analysis" is not only absurdly reductive of the Israeli-Palistinian conflict, but begs the question of the source of Middle Eastern and Asian Muslim conflict with the West.

Let us not forget that it was not so very long ago that your English co-religionists colonized the region including Israel/Palestine which it held until 1948 and the War of Independence. That would be your co-religionists who fired on ships carrying Holocaust refugees and killed them. That would be your co-religionists who hung Jews in the streets. That would be your co-religionists who imprisoned Jews in Cypress until the cesspool oil mongering UN, itself, couldn't take it.

Moving right along with your co-coreligionist English racist colonizing people and your American Christian compadres. What next? Support the universally despised House of Suad, Zia of the Madrassah Zias, that pig Mubarrak, etc.

Let us remember, Mr. Spong, there was and is a Palestinian state called Jordan. That would be the JOrdan that killed one hundred thousand Palestinians during Black September, but has since scaled the number down. That would be the Jordan where although Palestinians are in the majority, they are treated as second class.

And how are they treated in Egypt? Saudi Arabia? Duh. Funny, we don't hear from your co-religionists on this.

Meanwhile back at the reaction farm, one Osama Bin Laden, trained by your American Co-religionists was assured by same that they would leave Saudi Arabia and didn't. This resulted in the euphemistically designated "events of 9/11."

Tell you what. Worry about what the people with the real power do. They would be your Christian people.

Mr. Spong or should i saith 'Father'; Ye art a spittin image of i Father. Wow!

Joke: What did the Nun tell the Father: "Father Pleazzzza none of this and Nun of that aye"

On: A-REALiTY-CHECKSUM or a FiXIM or BOTH?:

Curing those 'Automatic Citizens/Denizens [ACDA] inflicked or possesed with acute cases of "RELiGiOUS JEALOUSY PSYCHOSiS" & "PRE-APOCALYPTIC RELiGIO SYNDROME", can Only be achieved by curing-MiNDS & NOT-winning their Pre-Apocalyptically Thinking.

Fact: LiFE, as we knoweth is a MiRACLE in Holy-i Motion;

Hence We art together-forever w/Source-One. So wether Living , Justly or not, on this Blesseth Holy-i Cosmic NEBULA-Built Space-Ship Earth [HiCN-BSSE] therin & therefrom is nothing that anyone can call SIN nor say Birth is likewise a Curseth for justly appearing.

REMEMBER: TRUTH means OPPOSiTE OF 'MYTH" , this especially pertains to All, Every & Any of YE?

Pre-Apocalyptic 'iNFIXUS-BOOK(s)', a.k.a competing for a name for gods 'iNSTEAD Of G-D' via them Poisonous-Books (not of Trees) THE

ABRAHAMiC Systems: Tenach's, Bible's, Quran/Koran's, & VEDiC Systems: Geeta, Kangyur, Sruti's...

All major 'Pre-Apocalyptic Organized Religion's' need a NEW-SONG, like "WE ARE THE WORLD". La La La , Comming not only from their Old Songs, so that like a "NEW-PHiLOSOPHY will give a Renassaince to give "ORGANiZED OLD TiME RELIGIONS a Reason to Organize via a NEW-SONG comming from some-such Old songs, that hath some Oldy's , but goody therefrom!

BEHOLD! "The O.U.R. BOOK", aka One Universal Religion iNFIXUS-Book; Practicing DYNAMIC REligion [Apocalyptic thinking] & No More Pre-Apocalypting STATiC loving competing SYSTEM(s).

UTOPIA? NERVANNA? How much or many [god's INSTEAD Of G-D] of YE Pre-Apocalyptic Behaviours 'Shall' we tolerate?????

Note: As the VATiCAN GOVERNMENT's Mouth-Piece (not peace) canon law professor (a professor of Church law whom, in his interview Freudiantly refers to certain Human Beings as being Underground Lovers of "fringe phenomena" or as "one fringe person..." La La la. Reffering to

the REiNSTATEMENT , as if a Pardon, to a renegade Cathholic Bishop.

Note: Maybe he, Mr. Williamson & Co are ill from consuming too much EUCHARiST or is it Puke-at-risk? Too much Flesh & too much Blood in his & Co.'s stomach's!

Please Todays Article:
http://cgis.jpost.com/Blogs/rosner/entry/david_jaeger_on_the_recent

Amazing, NO-GRACE ()

My Dear John Shelby,

Your suggestion that hope may well be forlorn can do much to plant productive seeds of doubt, and likely nourish an appropriate atmosphere.

As you must know well, appeals to peace are best not made to the enemy. Nuclear deterrence might more be useful. The response with biological or chemical counter deterrence can make matters interesting too. Could put whole lot of them just a step away from coming Home.

Also your suggestion that your readers must move "beyond the religious systems that divide us to our common humanity that alone unites us." is rich. It provokes no reasoned responses from any of the parties. Well done.

Hi Ruby,

i mostly agree with your post, in that seeking justice for transgressions past, particularly those in the distant past, is the main problem, not only in the middle east but in conflicts around the globe. “forgiveness is abandoning all hope of a better past”. I love it. What a great line! Thank you for posting it.

But I think you try to take religion completely out of the equation and this is a mistake as well. People fight over these past transgressions and this Justice which you speak of, but people don't blow themselves up with explosive body belts for these reasons, only belief in God could make people do such a thing. And Yitzhak Rabin was not shot for past justice, he was shot to death because he was betraying God's plan. The settlers in the west bank are the biggest blockade to peace in the middle east and they are not there seeking justice for transgressions past but rather to claim their God given land. They will fight to the death before they leave the ground which God has given them. And there can be no doubt that most suicidal terrorists are acting on God's behalf in their deluded brains.

YOU: "There is no ‘common humanity’ greater than God"

Oh yes there is. Only the brainwashing of Christianity and Islam, and nationalism stand in the way of us all realizing that there is indeed a common humanity. As for "greater than God"? God only exists in the imagination of people, where as common humanity is real. Observable. Monotheistic deity belief causes a blind spot to this common humanity.

YOU: "that an ordained Bishop would find common humanity to be above religion"

Is commendable. Bravo Bishop. We need more like you.

YOU: The people of the Middle East must forgive each other what is past if they desire peace.

Yes they should. But also required is for Muslims and Jews to give up on this "Holy Land" promised by God BS. Muslims and Jews must come to the realization that their religions are myth and allegory not literal.

YOU: Arabs must recognize terrorists and other hatemongers as a greater enemy than the Jew or the Jewish state. People focused on the future are better able to build a peace than people trying to fix the past.

Yes yes yes.

The reason that there is no peace in the Middle East is that both Muslims and Jews would rather have Justice than Peace – and for many people in this region, Justice is obsessed with punishing the transgressor. Justice focuses on the past instead of on the future.

Lily Thompson once observed that, “forgiveness is abandoning all hope of a better past”. Ask a terrorist why he fights and he will likely point to something that happened in 1967, 1946, or 1099. Many Muslims demand a territorial and cultural return to what they see as the high water mark of Islam (before modern Israel and the rise of the West). This path does not lead to peace. Israel would rather live in a state of continual war than let its people be ‘swept into the sea’ in a second terrible Holocaust.

Notice how I have not mentioned God or religion until now. The failure of the West is that we see what is going on in the Middle East as only a clash of religions – and this is wrong. Secular Jews will fight just as readily as Orthodox Jews when faced with the threat of extinction. And many Middle Easterners fight Israel as a matter of Arab pride, not out of a love or reverence of God. Islam and Arab-nationalism often overlie each other so closely that Arabs do not know why they do what they do. But it is important to recognize that Middle Easterners who do not believe in God still believe in “an eye for an eye”.

You will never find peace by telling religious Jews and Muslims to forget their religion, the cornerstone of their existence. There is no ‘common humanity’ greater than God. Of all the things you wrote John, I find that to be the oddest – that an ordained Bishop would find common humanity to be above religion. In you I see the reasons for the current divisions within the Episcopal Church.

The people of the Middle East must forgive each other what is past if they desire peace. Arabs must recognize terrorists and other hatemongers as a greater enemy than the Jew or the Jewish state. People focused on the future are better able to build a peace than people trying to fix the past.

Mutual respect does not come out of thin air, but from reciprocal steps toward mutual interests. Focus on what could be, not on what was.

Mr. Shelby (Ex Bishop of La La Landa):

Please give ye Interfaith Friend Mr. W. Gaddy a Big Hug-n-Kissarino aye!

nice nice very nice!