"Before our white brothers arrived to make us civilized men, we didn’t have any kind of prison. Because of this, we had no delinquents. Without a prison, there can be no delinquents. We had no locks nor keys and therefore among us there were no thieves. When someone was so poor that he couldn’t afford a horse, a tent or a blanket, he would, in that case, receive it all as a gift. We were too uncivilized to give great importance to private property. We didn’t know any kind of money and consequently, the value of a human being was not determined by his wealth. We had no written laws laid down, no lawyers, no politicians, therefore we were not able to cheat and swindle one another. We were really in bad shape before the white men arrived and I don’t know how to explain how we were able to manage without these fundamental things that (so they tell us) are so necessary for a civilized society. "
- John Fire Lame Deer
A lot of indigineous thinking captured in one passage, particularly restorative justice.
I was raised Christian but reading texts on Indigineous thought has been what has helped me realize what makes a good person.
Too much in Abrahamic religions is about obedience and blind submission to authority which is why I often feel drawn to eastern religious thought also. Both Eastern religious thought and the indigineous worldview are more holistic in my view.
I find Abrahamic religious teachings to be very exclusionary (hey if you beleive what we believe we’ll let you into heaven) Almost like a country club of sorts. Eastern and Indigineous philosophy (with the exception of the caste system warping into a rigid institutionalized social hierarchy due in part to Western influence) seem to be much more inclusionary.
I find Abrahamic religious teachings to be very exclusionary (hey if you beleive what we beleive we’ll let you into heaven) Almost like a country club of sorts.
So true. Thinking about it, Christian missionaries’ main job is less to sell Jesus, but more to sell FOMO.
Like a timeshare salesperson, they’re not gonna talk much about the maintenance fees required (such as treating each other the way Jesus said to.) They’re also not gonna talk about how so many of the other share-owners are insufferable to be around and regularly break the agreed-upon rules. Oh, but they will hype up how, for the low, low price of asking Jesus for forgiveness and getting baptized, you, too, could reserve yourself an eternal home in Paradise!
Problem is, the Bible doesn’t present one cohesive set of positive moral principles. It’s a collection of books written over hundreds of years by many authors with their own beliefs, biases and contexts, so it’s not possible to derive one set of “Christian values” from it. This means people will cherry pick bits that align with their pre-existing beliefs and dismiss or downplay whatever is inconvenient or contradicts them, and there are plenty of less than savoury parts to cherry pick from.
and there are plenty of less than savoury parts to cherry pick from.
There is literal god approven genocide for example.
And slavery. Don’t forget the slavery.
If i remember correctly (it’s been a while), then the Bible becomes a lot more coherent if you throw out the old testament, and keep to the new testament only - which actually is what christians should do, because the sacrifice of Jesus is a new covenant which supercedes the old one with Moses.
If you keep to the NT, then there isn’t so much ambiguity - evangelicals who cite from the OT are even more backwards than catholicism itself is.
The sermon on the Mount and specifically Matthew 5:18 I think or something like that explicitly says that nothing from the law has been removed or invalidated by Jesus.
This is a common sentiment in American Christianity but it doesn’t really seem to be backed up by the text.
Dude, if we just didn’t have Christian straight up utopia. Like, please rapture and leave the sane people behind.
The world would be a better place without Abrahamic religions.
The world would be a better place without
Abrahamicreligions.I think religions could be cool as a system of “basic education” in terms of morality and philosophy, in the same way that schools teach you some basic scientific knowledge with the full intention that it is a simplified model that will be replaced if you decide to further study those topics in college.
Problem is, the current way religions work doesn’t allow for anyone to grow out of those simplified beliefs 🤷
That’s not necessarily true for all religions. In Hinduism and Buddhism, for instance, it’s fully understood that a lay understanding of the faith is not the same as what a monk would have. Seeking enlightenment is a different path from the life of a householder. In the same vein, Christian mysticism, kaballah, Sufism all have that same tendency towards further spiritual study and the path of an aesthetic.
The problem is with people listening to fucked up preachers and then deciding they have all the information they’ll ever need. The problem is with Christians, not Christianity. The religious, not the religion. The religion itself is a neutral thing, just about regardless of the religion we’re talking about. It’s the people that make it what it is, and those people are varied. Religions are internally diverse, by their nature.
Religion is important though. Ultimately for one to live a fulfilling life one needs to tend and maintain their mental, physical and spiritual health. Religion is how historically most have maintained their spiritual health (and mental health too), and in modern times organized religion doesn’t have a monopoly on spiritualism, so people can find whatever worldview and practices that help them maintain their peace with the universe and their place in it. But importantly, many people do still turn to religion for their mental and spiritual health
