Now I know my feeling of lack of faith could never have been cured by opening my mind to the right intellectual message and having its earthly, empirical wisdom inscribed into my frontal lobe – nor by becoming a scientific anarchist, discerning material truth “out there” until my data became sufficient to coagulate into wisdom (though surely I am wiser for attempting playing this role.) For years I remained stagnated in an inner world growing ever more starved for reasons to have faith in myself. So I became dedicated to self help regimes in the name of restoring faith in myself in order to become good enough to THEN help others. A clear folly in retrospect.

My world shrank, along with it my inner strength which sprung mostly from my desire to be a boon to others. An island. A lonely man fights vice and his own neurotic tendencies towards self destruction by contrasting them against socially acceptable pursuits [grades, girls, money] and becomes unsure what is not addiction in the absence of true sobriety. But things never went too long without a glimmer here, a glimpse there – of a something behind everything…

If only there were some simple formula: Do X and you will be filled with the Holy Spirit. But it’s beyond calculation – that’s part of the point.

I’m back after many years absence. It’s this spirit, rather than any intellectual point that’s brought me back here. I am trying to pick things up where I left them off.

{HOMEland = HEARTland}?

In Germany they used to speak of the Fatherland(Vaterland). Does anyone in the U.S. speak or think like this?

Socialism Is Practical Christianity
by Bertell Ollman
Written for the People’s National Party — P. N. P. — of Jamaica, 1965

Is this true? Listen to the words of Jesus and decide for yourselves whether Socialism is Practical Christianity.

SOCIALISM MEANS BROTHERHOOD:

“all ye are brethren.” (Matthew 23:8)

“Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” (Matthew 22:39)

“All things whatsoever you would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.” (Matthew 7:12)

“Let everyone who possesses two shirts share with him who has none, and let him who has food do likewise.” (Luke 3:11)

“Give to every man that asketh of thee.” (Luke 6:30)

SOCIALISM MEANS JUSTICE:

“Give and it shall be given unto you . . . for with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.” (Luke 6:38)

SOCIALISM MEANS BEING FOR POOR PEOPLE AND AGAINST THEIR OPPRESSORS:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor . . . to preach deliverance to the captives.” (Luke 4:18)

SOCIALISM MEANS OPPOSITION TO THE GREEDY RICH:

“Woe unto you that are rich, for ye have received your consolation.” (Luke 6:24).

“No man can serve two masters. . . . Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” (Matthew 6:24)

“It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” (Matthew 19:23)

SOCIALISM MEANS CHRISTIAN CONCERN FOR SOCIAL PROBLEMS:

Jesus’ life, as well as his teachings, was a model of concern for his fellow human beings. Though poor in material things, he and his disciples shared what they had with all about them. For centuries afterwards, those who called themselves Christians were most noteworthy for the cooperative fellowship that characterized the community in which Jesus lived. For these men, Christianity was a matter of making over their lives to bring the greatest good to mankind. So, too, for many of the early Christian missionaries who came to Jamaica. It was Churchmen like Knibb, Burchell and Sharpe who fought the planters and got slavery abolished. Land settlement to provide land for the freed slaves and public education for the children of the poor also came about through the efforts of these true Christians. George Williams Gordon and Bogle of St. Thomas were churchmen who were willing to suffer martyrdom to improve the conditions of the people.

SOCIALISM MEANS THE SOLUTION:

Vol. 1, 1894-95, pp. 4-13 and 36-43

I
The history of early Christianity has notable points of resemblance with the modern working-class movement. Like the latter, Christianity was originally a movement of oppressed people: it first appeared as the religion of slaves and emancipated slaves, of poor people deprived of all rights, of peoples subjugated or dispersed by Rome. Both Christianity and the workers’ socialism preach forthcoming salvation from bondage and misery; Christianity places this salvation in a life beyond, after death, in heaven; socialism places it in this world, in a transformation of society. Both are persecuted and baited, their adherents are despised and made the objects of exclusive laws, the former as enemies of the human race, the latter as enemies of the state, enemies of religion, the family, social order. And in spite of all persecution, nay, even spurred on by it, they forge victoriously, irresistibly ahead. Three hundred years after its appearance Christianity was the recognized state religion in the Roman World Empire, and in barely sixty years socialism has won itself a position which makes its victory absolutely certain.

If, therefore, Prof. Anton Menger wonders in his Right to the Full Product of Labour why, with the enormous concentration of landownership under the Roman emperors and the boundless sufferings of the working class of the time, which was composed almost exclusively of slaves, “socialism did not follow the overthrow of the Roman Empire in the West,” it is because he cannot see that this “socialism” did in fact, as far as it was possible at the time, exist and even became dominant — in Christianity.

Only this Christianity, as was bound to be the case in the historic conditions, did not want to accomplish the social transformation in this world, but beyond it, in heaven, in eternal life after death, in the impending “millennium.”

Full at:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/Marx_On_the_Histsory_of_Early_Christianity.pdf

http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/2007/2007-March/004051.html

The Book of Revelation

A science almost unknown in this country, except to a few liberalizing theologians who contrive to keep it as secret as they can, is the historical and linguistic criticism of the Bible, the inquiry into the age, origin, and historical value of the various writings comprising the Old and New Testament.

This science is almost exclusively German. And, moreover, what little of it has penetrated beyond the limits of Germany is not exactly the best part of it: it is that latitudinarian criticism which prides itself upon being unprejudiced and thoroughgoing, and, at the same time, Christian. The books are not exactly revealed by the holy ghost, but they are revelations of divinity through the sacred spirit of humanity, etc. Thus, the Tübingen school (Bauer, Gfrörer, etc.) are the great favourites in Holland and Switzerland, as well as in England, and, if people will go a little further, they follow Strauss. The same mild, but utterly unhistorical, spirit dominates the renowned Ernest Renan, who is but a poor plagiarist of the German critics. Of all his works nothing belongs to him but the aesthetic sentimentalism of the pervading thought, and the milk-and-water language which wraps it up.

rest at: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/subject/religion/book-revelations.htm

Issac Newton’s three laws of motion & discovery of gravity are all examples of Theoretical/Observational(some experimentation) Science. He’s only the most famous and most influential physicists in history.?

THE DONKEY

Quoting Stan, “riding a donkey instead of a king’s stallion” … thought this was interesting.

TO QUOTE LUKE POWELL, AN INCREDIBLE PHOTOGRAPHER, discovered that the “holy land” actually resided in Afghanistan.

PHOTO: The Blue Burka
http://www.unomaha.edu/afghan/afghanistan/badakshan/an08.htm

“Throughout the ancient world, the donkey was a symbol of upper-class prestige. In peasant Afghanistan, donkeys still are a favored vehicle for well-to-do old men and families that are relatively prosperous. Every Easter Christians are told that Jesus’ ride into Jerusalem on a donkey was evidence of his humility. This is nonsense. At that time donkeys were a symbol of royalty; that was one of the reasons he was killed.”

RELIGION

I am currently reading “The Chalice and the Blade”, this book is a little repetitive in that “women did this and women did that”, but it is a good basic primer on the nature of mythology, the way that the stories evolved and were rewritten, as was prophesied in the “1984″ book. Where actually the practice of rewriting history has existed since the beginning of time. Intuitively this can only be the case. Where the Bible has been rewritten a number of times.

It seems to me that any religion promotes ideas that have been passed down through the ages, but rewritten. That to study any religion gives a person an ability to go back in time and become further in touch with ourselves and our past beings.

But wow, domination of women, acceptance of the divine in governments and slavery etc. The conversion of millions, it all seems to me to be an integral part of Colonization, about a kind of control that is male-centric.

As life in the U.S. has become something of isolation, family in the burbs, woman in a box (the house), religion seems to be the last place in this country were solidarity and caring can take place on a community level. This leaves us humans in a very vulnerable place. We can attempt to rewrite our religious books, attempt to effect change within our religious communities and/or be left in the cold, attempting to participate/create other norms for community.

This task I accept. Seeking other structures for community. In this world of integration and possibility I cannot follow one exclusive religion and remain authentic.

At one point in my life I did participate in an Abrahamic Religion — The Bahai Faith. I suggest anyone take a look. Currently, I practice no religion. To study Marx, Bahai, whatever is good, but for me, I need to keep reeducating myself, keep seeking and seeking.