This week’s Economist includes an excellent article marking the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade in Britain. I’ve been aware of the anniversary for a little while because of the buzz about it among Christians associated with the Amazing Grace movie and Amazing Change campaign (which seem like good things to me). I was interested to read a secular article about it.
Posted in General Conversation | 1 Comment »Breaking the Chains by Mary Evans
Britain abolished the slave trade 200 years ago this week. Its landmarks are an abiding legacy of crueltyTHE dungeons can still shock, two centuries after their last inmates were freed. Damp and fetid in the tropical air, immersed in virtual darkness, this is where slaves were kept, often for months at a time—before being led down a tunnel through the “door of no return” to ships riding in the surf, ready to begin their appalling voyage over the ocean.
Just one of the countless inmates left a written record. Having been sold to white traders for a gun, a piece of cloth and some lead, Quobna Ottobah Cugoano recalled waiting in the dungeon till his time arrived: “To conduct us away to the ship, it was a most horrible scene; there was nothing to be heard but rattling of chains, smacking of whips, and groans and cries of our fellow men. Some would not stir from the ground, when they were lashed and beaten in the most horrible manner.”
When the dungeons were excavated in the late 19th century, a mass of caked excrement was removed, together with the bones of birds and animals on which the slaves presumably fed. On such misery was founded a global trading system that in its heyday, in the mid-18th century, was taking about 85,000 Africans a year across the Atlantic to work on sugar and tobacco plantations that made Europe rich.
Benjamin Ady posted the following comment on Meredith’s side of the story:
Posted in Comments from others | 7 Comments »I [...] don’t like the way that Bush and company have steered the entire dialogue of the nation in such a way that the word “terrorist” is now so much more common, and commonly used, than it previously was.
Here’s kind of what I meant, I guess
On one point, at least, everyone agrees: terrorism is a pejorative term. It is a word with intrinsically negative connotations that is generally applied to one’s enemies and opponents, or to those with whom one disagrees and would otherwise prefer to ignore. ‘What is called terrorism,’ Brian Jenkins has written, `’thus seems to depend on one’s point of view. Use of the term implies a moral judgment; and if one party can successfully attach the label terrorist to its opponent, then it has indirectly persuaded others to adopt its moral viewpoint.’ Hence the decision to call someone or label some organization `terrorist’ becomes almost unavoidably subjective, depending largely on whether one sympathizes with or opposes the person/group/cause concerned. If one identifies with the victim of the violence, for example, then the act is terrorism. If, however, one identifies with the perpetrator, the violent act is regarded in a more sympathetic, if not positive (or, at the worst, an ambivalent) light; and it is not terrorism.[14]
(from Bruce Hoffman, cited here)
It seems to me that Bush and co have somehow grabbed hold of what happened on 9-11 and interpreted it, and from it interpreted the whole world (life, the universe, and everything), in such a way that we now more readily think “terrorist, fear, enemy, danger, … etc.” than we did previously, than we need to, and … than, for instance, they do in England or Australia. Jonathan Raban touched on this in My Holy War, a very readable take on the whole thing by a british journalist in Seattle.
I’m very excited about this – we have a new blog opening today:
I know it’s going to be great, since Benjamin and Rachel are hosting it. Go check it out!
Posted in General Conversation | 1 Comment »My daughter set up her own blog recently. I didn’t even know she was doing that until she came over and said “go look at this webpage” – which turned out to be her new blog.
Here’s a discussion question she posted:
If you could choose one lifestyle for the rest of your life would it be:
Rich with a maid, mansion, servants, and whatever objects you want. You don’t have to work. Your only complaint is that it is kind of lonely.
Ok, you have to work. It is a crummy job and you hate it but you get enough money. You only get to have ONE friend and ONE family member. Your only complaint is that you want a new job.
Poor with a ton of supporting friends that help you get through life. You are very happy with your life because you get to live with your family and friends but you just barely get enough food. Your only complaint is that you wish you had more clothes.
Why?
I thought it was an interesting question. (I need to go post my answer, in fact)
My son doesn’t have a blog, but but he just set himself up a flickr account. He’s been experimenting with our camera lately. He’s decided he’s going to spend his concerto competition prize money on a camera.
Posted in General Conversation | 6 Comments »I posted about a TIME article last week which mentioned an unnamed anti-abortion activist. Evidently this person is Meredith Eugene Hunt. Meredith posted the following comment here yesterday:
“The group developed from a meeting the clinic leader, Lorrie, set up with church members, to talk with them about inappropriate behavior of one member towards clinic staff.”
–From Helen’s introductory remarks.
How do you know that the one member’s behavior was inappropriate? Do you completely believe Time? Or the abortionist? (A sideline: What is the appropriate behavior towards a person who kills 50 innocent children every week?) Pastor Hutchinson criticized creating cartoon images of one’s opposite on an issue, but he and the article made the anonymous member of the church into a straw man, a non person, easily knocked down. I know this well, because I was that person. If you wish, Google search my name and the word -abortion- and read more about who I am and what I think. You likely will be surprised. There certainly is another side to this story that Time did not tell. For instance, my organization runs a Pregnancy Helpline and does Sidewalk Counseling outside -Lorrie’s- abortion business. (She is not just the clinic leader.) The letter I sent to her neighbors asked them to pray for her. And so on…
lifeadvocates@earthlink.net
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Here’s the introduction and first chapter of Jim and Casper go to Church.
I found out about this because Hemant posted a link to it. Thanks Hemant!
Posted in General Conversation | 9 Comments »I’d love to hear about any routes people here might be taking, or considering, to hear about ideas & beliefs they might not normally run across, &/or interact with people who hold different beliefs. (Or, even, routes people tried or considered, that didn’t end up happening.) There have been several posts about experiences like this on ebay atheist and Conversation at the Edge over the past year or so; I’ve included a partial summary, with links, below in case anyone wants to look back at some of those. Those include: atheists going to church…Christians going to mosques…Christians inviting atheists to interfaith events…Abortion protestors and abortionists actually talking to each other. You know, not the kind of interaction you’d typically run across every day. ;-)
I’m also interested in hearing how people here might plan a session, or a series of several sessions, to explain their beliefs to others who don’t share those beliefs. Who might attend? How would you get the word to those people? What setting might work? What tone, and topics, might you aim for? How would you know if the effort was ‘worth it’?
Go ahead & describe either something you’re actually doing or planning…or something that seems pie-in-the-sky-but-neat-if-it-could-happen!
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Trissa recently e-mailed me a link to a blog article saying that disease played a major role in spreading Christianity in the Americas. Here’s an excerpt from it:
Once one gets one’s head out of the Bible and looks at the evidence, then it becomes clear why the native Americans did not have livestock and were so vulnerable to the diseases carried by the Spaniards such as smallpox. Archaeologists have dated the earliest human settlements in the Americas to approximately 11,000 B.C., during the waning of the last Ice Age. The domestication of animals in Eurasia did not begin until around 8,000 B.C., around the same time that the inhabitants of the Fertile Crescent began to take up agriculture. Therefore, the available evidence clearly indicates that the Americas were colonized BEFORE the domestication of livestock and the adoption of farming in Eurasia. The native Americans were geographically and genetically isolated from the civilizations of Asia, Africa and Europe for over ten thousand years.
Thus, in summary, the spread of Christianity in the Americas is indebted to the deaths of millions of native Americans who perished because their ancestors migrated to the Western hemisphere thousands of years before the adoption of agriculture and the domestication of livestock in Eurasia and thousands of years before the Earth was supposed to have been created according to a literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis.
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The cover article of this week’s TIME Magazine is called ‘The Grassroots Abortion War’.
This article includes an encouraging story about how the staff of an abortion clinic and members of a nearby conservative church have formed a group that meets together regularly.
The group developed from a meeting the clinic leader, Lorrie, set up with church members, to talk with them about the behavior of one member towards clinic staff. Lorrie considered inappropriate. To her surprise the church, rather than being judgmental or defensive, began by asking her forgiveness for not dealing with it sooner. The meeting went so well they decided to have more. As Time reports:
Now they are out to show how people who disagree violently can debate civilly, even lovingly, and find some common ground. They know they won’t change one another’s core beliefs, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t changed.
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