The Black Church
Offline There has undoubtedly been much good done by Black Christians in this country and the many different denominations of the Black Christian Church. There has been much good done by White Christians and Jews on behalf of Black people in this country as well. There has also been much evil done in the name of Christianity in more than equal number.
True, the Civil Rights Movement was largely spearheaded by the Black Church and Churches of many ethnicities and denominations. It was also just as vehemently opposed by the Black Church and churches of every hue all over the country who preferred that we all keep quite and wait rather than protest and march and fight for our rights. In the antebellum south and even in so-called "free states" the number of churches with an abolitionist bent were outnumbered more than 2 to 1 by those who equated abolitionism with atheism because Jesus expressly commanded slaves to honor and obey their masters as they would Christ and, in the Old Testament, the rules for the treatment of slaves (including when it was permissible to kill one) were laid out in detail. I don't think anyone would claim that Christianity was given to the slaves as a tool for them to use to gain their freedom. It was clearly forced upon us as a means of pacification. That the church was ultimately used as a tool of freedom was more a testament to the tenacity and ingenuity of those African slaves than anything liberating in the bible or in religion itself.
Slave masters used the bible to justify slavery. Slaves were often told that they were the cursed children of Ham whose duty under God was to serve the White man and their only hope of salvation was to accept Jesus Christ as their savior so that they would inherit heaven when they died. In this way Christian missionaries attempted to persuade the slave that his life here on earth was insignificant and that they should bear their burdens without complaint in order to receive their reward in heaven. The dichotomy of "love thy neighbor" and the enslavement of strangers was not lost on some slaves who secretly used this hypocrisy to prove that slavery was "Un-Christian". The fact that this hypocrisy existed not just in the slave masters but in the bible itself was obviously ignored and since the church was the only place where slaves could legally congregate it soon became a center for the abolitionist movement creating a historic legacy of community leadership that continued through the Civil Rights Movement up to today...
"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion."
- Steven Weinberg, Nobel Prize-winning physicist
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Dude, I am not sure where you are going with this. However, I suspect that possibly that was your intention. By not actually making a clear conclusion, you leave me with the idea that you want to show just how complicated the whole matter of race can be.
For example, you observed that the black church was both a good and bad thing and it is not really possible to separate that into two easy to deal with groups. Allow me to give you another piece to that puzzle.
The civil rights movement of the 60's was largely a matter that was fought over northern versus southern values. However, 40+ years ago, the political lines that were drawn were also north=republican and south=democratic.
Today, the political lines are almost the exact opposite of what they were then. Even so, while it is a bit of a cheap shot, it is fair to say that republicans fought for civil rights and democrats fought to keep black people down. Such is the mess that we have. I will take your lead and not actually finish what I could say for now.
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Hit the hyperlink below and read the entire article. It's long but it gets clearer.
Yeah...the key is to hit the hyperlink, and have more than a few minutes to read...hahaha
You write well, sir. Bullshit does indeed come in all colors.
www.RichWoodsBlog.com
True indeed.
"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion."
- Steven Weinberg, Nobel Prize-winning physicist
You sir, are a phenonmenal writer. Hope to see more of you in the forums.
I'd follow you to hell and back! If it existed that is...
Thanks, my friend. Hopefully, I'll find a publisher for all this some day.
"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion."
- Steven Weinberg, Nobel Prize-winning physicist
If hell exists then I've got your back.
"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion."
- Steven Weinberg, Nobel Prize-winning physicist
Thanks, I rather enjoyed that essay. I think one of the most difficult things about being black is to contradict or challenge the status quo in the black community which is overwhelmingly religious. From my experience and yours as well it seems, being at all critical of the black church is perceived as counterproductive and detrimental to an institution which has been the one saving grace of the black community.
It's like if I saw a drowning man clutching a piece of driftwood and I said "hey, get in this lifeboat. Let's get to safety". And he says "what do you have against driftwood?". Then I say "this isn't really about driftwood. Look sharks are circling, storm clouds are gathering, and that wood is about to split in half. Let's get the hell out of here." And he says "well, now you're just being high sadity."
There are twists of time and space, of vision and reality, which only a dreamer can divine
H.P. Lovecraft
It is odd and somewhat disheartening the way Black people in this country cling to religion. It is like the dog that licks the hand that smacked it. Have you read my essay The Invisibility of The Black Atheist? It talks about just what you mentioned above. You can find it at http://wordsofwrath.blogspot.com/2008/05/invisibility-of-black-atheist.html
"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion."
- Steven Weinberg, Nobel Prize-winning physicist
Both the majority of latinos and blacks pushed down my people with prejudice and religious bigotry in California with Prop 8
It's fucking fantastic to be hated for being atheist AND gay by religious crazies. I'm sure I'm doubly condemned to someone's hell.
So the minorities don't like us, the klan doesn't like us, heck all the supremacy groups don't like us, and the religious majority don't like us.
I have a lot of suppressed anxiety from the situation of gays in this country. There are a lot of them that also go to church and claim religious indoctrination, and I can't even fathom why.
I think it might be because people feel less alone if they believe an invisible father-like being is looking out for them all the time. Maybe it is for some degree of acceptance still within their communities from the religious.
Worst yet, a lot of church leaders and Republicans that stand outright against gays, even going to the degree of trying to make them seem inhuman and pass laws to inflict punishment for a religious victory...are in fact gay themselves, as has been revealed time after time in the past 8 years. Why they would preach things against themselves, and their own actions in particular is just...strange to me.
Heck, look at this Amazon search. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=homosexuality&x=0&y=0
Notice the titles that come up? Yeah. Real empowering guys.
Theism is why we can't have nice things.
amazing. Do you mind if I post the link on my facebook?
Be my guest. glad you enjoyed it.
"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion."
- Steven Weinberg, Nobel Prize-winning physicist
This amazon thing is ridiculous. Many of my books have also been "deranked". I did hear that they had decided to back off under media and public pressure but I have yet to see it.
One of the things, as you can see by the above essay, that I rail against the most is how religion has made minorities in particular (though certainly not exclusively) intolerant of homosexuals and chauvinistic toward women. It is indeed sad and one more reason religion must be removed from the American consciousness for the good of all.
"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion."
- Steven Weinberg, Nobel Prize-winning physicist
DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA!
Ridiculous assertions laid to ruin!
Looks like you cherry picked my post a bit yourself there. I never claimed that there was a "spirit of secular humanism" that motivated the desegregation movement. Though that was certainly true of The Black Panther Party for Self Defence. What i said was that most churches of the day, both Black and White, opposed desegregation rather than supported it, including the Vatican, though history has been rewritten somewhat in that regard. That is an simple fact not my opinion. It was a relatively small contigent of Southern Black churches that supported the movement in the beginning. Most were busy trying to quiet those uppity negroes in order to prevent rioting and what was believed at that time to be an inevitable race war. It was much later in the struggle that it began to grow in popularity, most dramatically after the death of Dr. King.
And you did a little mix and match with my statement about African slaves and your response that dealt with The Civil rights Movement and desegregation. Since the Abolition Movement and the Civil Rights Movement were separated by a couple hundred years, which makes your objection somewhat nonsensical, I'll just assume you were confused. But to clarify my point once again, the slaves of the antebellum South who were force fed the Christian religion used it as a means of freedom DESPITE the fact that most churches of the day viewed abolitionism as synonymous with atheism because Christ himself commanded slaves to obey their masters and the bible condoned slavery and even prescribed rules governing the treatment of slaves. This was obviously due to the ingenuity of the slaves who recognied the hypocrisy of the slavemasters though, unfortunately, not the fact that the hypocrisy lay not solely with the slavemaster but in the bible itself.
"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion."
- Steven Weinberg, Nobel Prize-winning physicist
The mechanism of projection rides again! Which religion do you suppose influenced the slaves more, the one they brought from Africa, or the one they had to pretend to believe for the first two generations or so? Let's not get too picky about the "important details", when you seem only too eager to give credit to your own cause celebre.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
KA-POW!
Incoherent sentences atomized!
BLAM!
Illogical argument annihilated!
Clearly not what I said, which is why I qualified it with "for the first two generations or so". My point was that they were coerced all around, which doesn't strike me as much of a stretch.
That's presumptuous, even if you were correct.
It's already been made. The slaves were indoctrinated, and there are no such strong believers as the converted. Slavery was abolished with the help of Christian groups in Britain, sure, but that's like saying that fish swim with the help of water. People were C of E if they were British subjects.
Fast forward to 2009, and in Nashville, Tennessee, two blocks from the gigantic monuments to country music that some people might call houses, you can see the black neighbourhoods, where the descendants of slaves are de facto of another class entirely.
Have I accused you of projection before? Perhaps you were using a different account at the time?
Maybe you take me for someone else. It would be a dimwitted allegation to consider my biases theistic.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
BOOM!
Post destroyed!
BWOOP BWOOP BWOOP!
IRRATIONAL THEIST DETECTED! COMMENCING DESTRUCTION OF POSTS!
Jesus, Kev -- are you drunk? That guy was actually right about my point being weak. I initially made a smart-ass post for no reason, and my point kinda sucked, but I wanted to see if I could claw my way back. Turns out, not really.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
No, I'm not drunk. He said he was a theist, so I nuked his posts.
OH! This is in the Freethinking Anyonymous forum. My bad.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
Oh, fuck. Now I really did mess-up.
I meant to erase one of the dude's duplicate posts and just BLAM another... and wound-up killing, like, everybody's.
Should've just blam'd 'em both.
Is there any way to recover them?
(Oh, just for the record: I didn't think his posts were that bad; I was just having some fun at his expense. It's not like the fucking rules are hard to follow, and frankly, this is one circumstance where a boot to the ass was necessary. I'm sure if wrath was interested in having a Christian get all self-righteous over his thoughts he'd have put them in the AvT forum.
I also love how Christians get all sulken-faced whenever suddenly the shoe is on the other foot. They're allowed to run roughshod over everyone's life for the sake of their imaginary friend at almost any venue (and all all too eager to censor at their own nexi)... but the moment you stamp 'VOID' on that free pass they think they're entitled to, whammo, here comes the temper tantrum, accusations of Fascism and threats of boycott)
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
*Rips Kevin's heart out and eats it*
Damn you.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.