----- Original Message ----- From: "Warren Ockrassa" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, April 06, 2005 3:02 PM Subject: Re: The Other Christianity (was Re: Babble theory, and comments)
> On Apr 6, 2005, at 9:16 AM, Gautam Mukunda wrote: > > > --- Nick Arnett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> They've taught me a great deal that helps me resist > >> my natural tendency to > >> criticize. I suspect that you are as aware as > >> anyone of that trait in me, so > >> what do you think? Is this a good thing at the > >> microscopic level of our > >> discussions here, if I am thus better able to > >> refrain from criticizing, > >> instead speaking to the values I hold? > >> > >> Nick > > > > My worry is that when you "speak to the values [you] > > hold" you're just asserting something. > > Would a rationale for those values help you with that concern? > > > Since you root > > all of these in religion, you're asserting the > > unprovable and unfalsifiable. > > Ethics, based in anything, is hard to falsify, isn't it? > > > You may be right or > > wrong, but it's essentially impossible to debate. If > > you then suggest that people who disagree with you are > > hypocritical or malign - as with the President in the > > last couple of days, for example - then it becomes > > difficult to do anything other than say, look, Nick > > thinks God tells him what to do in Iraq and that since > > I disagree with him, I'm disagreeing with God. Maybe > > that's not what you mean to say, but it's certainly > > what you _seem_ to say. > > The flipside of that is that this is precisely the subtext that is > coming from the right wingers. > > > In Wallis's case, it seems to me that all he's really > > saying is "God agrees with me" - and he pairs that > > with a pathetic anti-Americanism that goes down fine > > on the left, but that the other ~90% of the American > > population (correctly) rejects as something between > > actively morally malign and just equivocating between > > good and evil - and Christianity, I think, has > > something to say about equivocators as well. > > Where'd you get the ~90% figure? > > > Preening seems like a big part of what > > he does. One could argue that it seems like a big > > part of the environmental movement as well, for > > example (why else prevent the use of DDT, for example? > > Because DDT thins birds' egg shells. The biggest reason bald eagles are > endangered is DDT -- it thinned the birds' shells so drastically that > many embryos never survived to full development. > > Is that a sufficient reason? It depends on priorities. We already eliminated malaria in the US. Using DDT, one can greatly reduce the risks of brain damage and death in Africa. A great deal does not have to be used, a spraying of the inside of huts. The present death rate is 200k/year. When Neli went back to Zambia I was worried I'd never see her again. If the price of saving 200k human lives/year is a modest risk of environmental damage, so be it. > This is fascinating, because it's the rich white conservatives *now* > that are ignoring the status of poor brown people, such as those in the > Sudan, Well, my Zambian daughter Neli said she hated to admit it but Bush pushed more than anyone else in power in the world to do something about it. Much beyond what was done, the only possibility was an even more unpopular unilateral war against Arabs. The US was regularly thwarted at the UN when they tried to push for stronger actions. >or the thousands dead in Iraq because of a misbegotten war pressed electively on verified-false data. Why are you so sure that Bush does not believe in the vision he proclaims. I have and continue to criticize him for the utterly incompetent way he handed the first 20-some months of the occupation. One could fairly say that the US's bungling of that period resulted in thousands if not tens of thousands of deaths. One could reasonable take a conservative stand against the incompetent do-goodism of Bush. Of the public stands on this, Tom Friedman's comes closest to mine, although we weighed the factors differently and came to different conclusions. What's amazing to me now is how well things are going, considering the fact that we might not have been able to bungle things worse if we tried. I heard a report that the Muslim Scholars Association has now come out saying that joining the police force is a good thing and that the insurgents are simply hurting people. I guess what really struck me was how Bush was criticized for going the UN route in Sudan and not going it in Iraq. On a practical basis, I could see the criticism...but it seemed to me that your argument wasn't a nuts and bolts argument about the details of each, but an argument that you put forth as one of basic principals. Dan M. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
