I did think of that possibility also. All Socialists have their "scriptures." Usually Marx but sometimes "other," as in my case, the Sacred Writings ( I'm being tongue-in-cheek ) of Henri Saint-Simon, a group that, in its heyday, also split into factions. But the Marxists take the prize and each split further splits, then the next, like a zygote. One split and before you know it you have a whole baby with a trillion cells. Just like Baptists. OK, Socialism has a religious dimension. But where did that come from ? Besides, while all religions split, on the Left and among Baptists, this is EXTREME. How come ? I was trying to think of a parallel between religion and economic class, and maybe there is something to that. There was a study, more-or-less verified elsewhere, in Finland where it turned out that if you compare working class neighborhoods, try to find close to exact matches ( same industry, same incomes, same etc ) you get either Evangelicals or Communists --or at least Socialists. It depends on who gets there first with the best preachers. Which seems true, but doesn't explain the splits. The other place where you get splits, almost infinite, is India, among Hindus and their own political Left. Trouble with India is you also get wild factionalization on the Right. While the Western Right also splits, it doesn't compare with the splits on the Left. Well, I am at a loss. Each explanation has some merit but still no cigar. I think we are missing something important and I sure and heck don't know what it is. Billy ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- In a message dated 6/6/2010 6:51:11 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, [email protected] writes:
Maybe "Socialism" is a pseudo-religion. David If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.--Mark Twain On 6/6/2010 6:27 PM, [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) wrote: Well yeah, you are 100% correct. But what I wonder, with no good answer, is why the Left does pretty much the same thing. What struck me in reading your reply is that if you substitute the word "Socialist" for "Baptist" your comments would be just as true. I don't have a good explanation and my best guesses are full of holes. In the USA, for example, you might say that a lot of Socialists of the past were raised as Baptists, like Walter Rauschenbusch, one of the two or three "biggies" in the Social Gospel movement, and he was a Baptist minister. So, OK, if many Socialists once were Baptists, you'd expect carry over. And the perennial candidate of the SP was Norman Thomas, a Presbyterian minister, and back then, Presbyterians were not all that different than Baptists. But the principle of splitting also exists among Socialists in Europe and Latin America and in Japan . This is not to discuss Baptists at all. Yet the same ( or very similar ) phenomenon. For now, I simply don't have an explanation that holds water. Billy ==================================================== In a message dated 6/6/2010 2:43:22 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) writes: Baptists tend to splinter over issues of every size. There's the Primitive Baptists, 5 point Calvinists, generally no instrumental music (not always), they wash your feet at the door because Jesus washed the disciples feet at the Last Supper. They basically believe that Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper and the Foot Washing then. Most others don't see things that way. Reformed Baptists, Reformed meaning 5 point Calvinists, but no other practices of the Primitive Baptists are picked up. General Baptists, Non-Calvinist, some almost anti-Calvinist. Southern Baptists have both Calvinists and non-Calvinists so one has to interview the pastor fairly closely to make sure you're getting what you want, but historically, more non-Calvinist. Then there are all kinds of independent Baptist churches, particularly down south where the SBC was just too liberal or conservative on [whatever topic goes here], so that church left the SBC. Some of these do join to form associations, but many are just independent. They basically split over various rules of doctrine, but instead of tolerating the difference, one of them thinks that theirs is THE WAY and splits off from the other. David If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.--Mark Twain On 6/6/2010 12:41 AM, [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) wrote: Its kind of an odd thing, but just thinking about Baptists, the tendency for splintering is similar to the tendency on the Left for splintering. How many kinds of Baptists are there ? I'm not sure but at least 10 of size, with the grand total in the hundreds. On the Left the parallelism is hard not to notice. Why is this so ? I donno. Maybe you have a theory or two. Billy ============================================================== In a message dated 6/5/2010 9:02:34 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) writes: And then there are the differences internal to the religions. How many flavors of Christianity are there? Too many. David If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.--Mark Twain On 6/5/2010 10:06 PM, [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) wrote: God Is Not One The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World--and Why Their Differences Matter By _Stephen Prothero_ (http://www.harpercollins.com/authors/29989/Stephen_Prothero/index.aspx) Stephen Prothero, the New York Times bestselling author of Religious Literacy, makes a fresh and provocative argument that, contrary to popular understanding, all religions are not simply different paths to the same endà ¢â‚¬Â¦ and why this matters greatly for us. Readers of Huston Smith and Karen Armstrong will find much to ponder in God Is Not One. Book Description At the dawn of the twenty-first century, dizzying scientific and technological advancements, interconnected globalized economies, and even the so-called New Atheists have done nothing to change one thing: our world remains furiously religious. For good and for evil, religion is the single greatest influence in the world. We accept as self-evident that competing economic systems (capitalist or communist) or clashing political parties (Republican or Democratic) propose very different solutions to our planet's problems. So why do we pretend that the world's religious traditions are different paths to the same God? We blur the sharp distinctions between religions at our own peril, argues religion scholar Stephen Prothero, and it is time to replace naïve hopes of interreligious unity with deeper knowledge of religious differences. In Religious Literacy, Prothero demonstrated how little Americans know about their own religious traditions and why the world's religions should be taught in public schools. Now, in God Is Not One, Prothero provides readers with this much-needed content about each of the eight great religions. To claim that all religions are the same is to misunderstand that each attempts to solve a different human problem. For example: –Islam: the problem is pride / the solution is submission –Christianity: the problem is sin / the solution is salvation –Confucianism: the problem is chaos / the solution is social order –Buddhism: the problem is suffering / the solution is awakening –Judaism: the problem is exile / the solution is to return to God Prothero reveals each of these traditions on its own terms to create an indispensable guide for anyone who wants to better understand the big questions human beings have asked for millenniaâ€â€Âand the disparate paths we are taking to answer them today. A bold polemical response to a generation of misguided scholarship, God Is Not One creates a new context for understanding religion in the twenty-first century and disproves the assumptions most of us make about the way the world's religions work. _______________________________________________ Centroids mailing list: [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) _http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com_ (http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com) Archives at _http://radicalcentrism.org/pipermail/centroids_radicalcentrism.com/_ (http://radicalcentrism.org/pipermail/centroids_radicalcentrism.com/) _______________________________________________ Centroids mailing list: [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) _http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com_ (http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com) Archives at _http://radicalcentrism.org/pipermail/centroids_radicalcentrism.com/_ (http://radicalcentrism.org/pipermail/centroids_radicalcentrism.com/) _______________________________________________ Centroids mailing list: [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) _http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com_ (http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com) Archives at _http://radicalcentrism.org/pipermail/centroids_radicalcentrism.com/_ (http://radicalcentrism.org/pipermail/centroids_radicalcentrism.com/) _______________________________________________ Centroids mailing list: [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) _http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com_ (http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com) Archives at _http://radicalcentrism.org/pipermail/centroids_radicalcentrism.com/_ (http://radicalcentrism.org/pipermail/centroids_radicalcentrism.com/) _______________________________________________ Centroids mailing list: [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) _http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com_ (http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com) Archives at _http://radicalcentrism.org/pipermail/centroids_radicalcentrism.com/_ (http://radicalcentrism.org/pipermail/centroids_radicalcentrism.com/) _______________________________________________ Centroids mailing list: [email protected] http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com Archives at http://radicalcentrism.org/pipermail/centroids_radicalcentrism.com/
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