Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/author/bescofield/page/2/)
It takes a special type of warrior to drop bombs on someone. You have to be able to cultivate a certain amount of mental clarity, presence, focus and inner calm. That’s why for some, yoga is the perfect tool to help get the job done. In August, 2006 Fit Yoga Magazine featured on their front cover a picture of two naval aviators practicing yoga on a battleship. What pose were they in?
Despite their emphasis on reason, evidence and a desire to see through false truth claims, many atheists hold surprisingly ill-informed beliefs about religion. Many of these myths go unquestioned simply because they serve the purpose of discrediting religion at large. They allow for the construction of a straw man i.e. a distorted and simplistic representation of religion which can be easily attacked, summarily dismissed and ridiculed. Others who genuinely believe these false claims merely have a limited understanding of the ideas involved and have never thoroughly examined them. But, myths are myths and they should be acknowledged for what they are.
The popular atheist writer/blogger Greta Christina calls one of Hitchens’ ideas about religion a “terrible argument.” You know that Christopher Hitchens is not a fan of religion. If you had any doubt you can read his best-selling book God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, watch him debate leading Christian and religious theologians (on one occasion four of them at a time) or read any of the numerous articles he’s written on the subject. Yet, despite his public outcry and comparison of religion to child abuse and labeling it a “menace to society” readers may be surprised to discover that he is actually indifferent to religion as long as it produces good behavior. Shocking I know.
This is a satirical response to “How to Write about the Gnu Atheists, a Guide” which is itself a satirical rebuttal to the way the new atheists have been characterized by critics. For the most part I agree with the points raised in the piece and hope religious critics of the new atheists will reflect on it. I am writing this piece to simply point out that the new atheists have over generalized and distorted religion in many of the same ways that critics of the new atheists have critiqued them. Thus, this is my satirical “guide” for new atheists who are critiquing religion and seeking the best methods for their approach. How to Write about the Religulous
The first and most important thing to do when writing about the religulous is to conflate all religion with the belief in a supernatural god.
Be Scofield analyzes Off The Mat, an organization that promises its customers yoga, self-enlightenment, and a look at the “third world.” In this, Scofield discusses systems of privilege and oppression.
Cross-posted from Common Sense Religion
As one of the most prominent public voices resisting the culture of Christian and religious dominance Christopher Hitchens earns himself a comparison to the freedom fighter who nearly fifty years ago urged the civil rights movement to “stop singing and start swinging.” Responding to a culture of white supremacy, the vicious legacy of colonialism and the hypocrisy of American democracy Malcolm X became one of the strongest voices for black resistance and identity. For much of his life, before his break with the Nation of Islam and his shift toward racial inclusiveness he framed the race problem in an absolutist manner claiming that all white people are devils. He believed that white people could never do any good. Malcolm X publicly made his case by deconstructing the white mindset, analyzing the white power structure and describing the vicious history that has accompanied the Euro-American legacy.
I want your opinion about something. I’m a liberal religious person who doesn’t believe in doctrines, dogma or a supernatural God. 19% of members in my tradition identify as atheist, 30% as agnostic and the rest Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Pagan or otherwise. Many of us have been wounded by the bigotry, homophobia and dogma in the religions we grew up in and find refuge, support and community in my tradition. We come together on Sunday mornings to enjoy music and hear sermons about social justice, the power of community and how to live inspiring and meaningful lives.
Being an atheist in America means being less than human. I know from personal experience, not from being an atheist but from being raised Christian in a conservative Christian town and holding negative biases about atheists. Like many others I thought that a belief in God was the foundation of morality, that Christians were superior to others and that atheists were a threat to believers. I didn’t, however, reach this conclusion consciously after weighing the facts and examining the issue independently. But rather it was something so ingrained within the culture that it permeated the social conscience.
I’m really excited to announce that my website has a new design and now features more content than it ever has before. God Bless the Whole World is a free online educational resource that provides tools for personal and social transformation. The site feature hundreds of videos, audio files, articles and courses on social justice, spiritual activism, nonviolence, counter oppression, environmentalism and self care among many other subjects. For example you can watch a full length course on the African American Freedom Struggle taught by Stanford University professor Clayborne Carson or a class called Science, Magic and Religion from UCLA among many others. There are over 50 documentary films about Julia Butterfly Hill, Nietzsche, Nelson Mandela, Helen Keller, Buddha and Muhammad to name a few.
I don’t read the Onion very frequently but this recent headline story captured my attention and sparked my imagination as a powerful way to reflect upon U.S. Imperialism and Nationalism. However, the article with its suggestion to discontinue the use of the flag may stir up some questions even for progressives as many seek a balance between what they love and dislike about America. But at the end of the day the story is a creative use of satire to get people thinking about the U.S. flag, patriotism and nationalism – especially in the age of Obama, drones and Apache helicopters used to gun down journalists. And just to add a little fuel to the fire I will end with a quote from Leo Tolstoy from his essay “Patriotism and Government” which was the first thing I read at age 19 that introduced me to something other than the nationalistic fervor that surrounded me at the time. He wrote, “I have already several times expressed the thought that in our day the feeling of patriotism is an unnatural, irrational, and harmful feeling, and a cause of a great part of the ills from which mankind is suffering, and that, consequently, this feeling–should not be cultivated, as is now being done, but should, on the contrary, be suppressed and eradicated by all means available to rational men.”