Nacirema The Island

Donald Trump was elected because he seemed to represent and refrain the basic ideals of the American Church. This quotation from Stanley Haurwas, professor of theology and ethics at Duke University helps us make sense of this--and this belief in the American church, but not a personal God on the right and the left has hurt us--because control of the government means control of the 'church' and anyone who does wrong against those belief is an unrighteous opponent deserving of destruction. To quote: "I believe - as Mark Noll rightly suggests in his book,  America 's God  -  America  is a synthesis of evangelical Protestantism, republican political ideology and commonsense moral reasoning.  Americans  were able to synthesize these antithetical traditions by making their faith in God indistinguishable from their loyalty to a country that insured them that they had the right to choose which god they would or would not believe in. That is why Bonhoeffer accuratel...

“You young people are leaving your university at the time in which our nation is engaged in an abrasive and increasingly strident process of electing a president. I wonder if you would permit me, one who has managed to survive a number of these events, to pass on to you a few words of counsel. “First I would like you to be reassured that the leaders of both major political parties in this land are men of integrity and unquestioned patriotism. Beware of those who feel obliged to prove their own patriotism by calling into question the loyalty of others. Be skeptical of those who attempt to demonstrate their love of country by demeaning its institutions. Know that men of both major political parties who bear the nation’s executive, legislative, and judicial branches are men of unquestioned loyalty and we should stand by and support them, and this refers not only to one party but to all. Strive to develop a maturity of mind and emotion and a depth of spirit which enables you to differ with...

A good look on how we can "be great again" without being so divisive! Thanks Business Insider! https://www.businessinsider.com/undividing

This blog is for livestreaming the Second Progressive Era and overcoming the lack of bipartisanship in the country from the perspective of a moderate traditional conservative. I believe in both science and religion; I believe in looking for balance and moderation in opposition to excess.

I see the current conflict between science and scripture an extension or even one of the main battlegrounds of the secular left and the religious right. One says there is no evolution, and the other says there is no God. Here's a good answer that hits it right down the middle: "Let us not try to wrest the scriptures in an attempt to explain away what we cannot explain. The opening chapters of Genesis, and scriptures related thereto, were never intended as a textbook of geology, archeology, earth-science or man-science. Holy Scripture will endure, while the conceptions of men change with new discoveries. We do not show reverence for the scriptures when we misapply them through faulty interpretation." - James E. Talmage, “The Earth and Man,” Instructor, December 1965, 475.

It's really interesting today, the political landscape. Political alliances once thought sacred are being destroyed in the name of ideas and interests. Many people for good and for bad are canvassing---going door to door to measure support, spread the word, and recruit people to their cause (donations, volunteers, etc). Here is one example manual that might give some insight: This is more of a 'progressive' (i.e. liberal) manual. I would like to see what people use on both sides of the arena.

Thanks to Morgan Deane for sharing this: https://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/the-paranoid-style-in-american-politics/ Left and Right we have people with this problem.

"No fight against the right will drive me to the left, and no fight against the left will drive me to the right," he wrote me, long after Chile had blessedly chosen democracy. "Once and for all, I have chosen the extreme center." -- Father Roger Vekemans

https://www.uexpress.com/georgie-anne-geyer/2018/10/9/greed-and-grievance-have-become-americas

http://www.reitzmemorial.org/Downloads/Beatty%20Speech%20to%20Montag%20Excerpt.pdf "Now let's take up the minorities in our civilization, shall we? Bigger the population, the more minorities. Don't step on the toes of the dog-lovers, the cat-lovers, doctors, lawyers, merchants, chiefs, Mormons, Baptists, Unitarians, second-generation Chinese, Swedes, Italians, Germans, Texans, Brooklynites, Irishmen, people from Oregon or Mexico. The people in this book, this play, this TV serial are not meant to represent any actual painters, cartographers, mechanics anywhere. The bigger your market, Montag, the less you handle controversy, remember that! All the minor minor minorities with their navels to be kept clean. Authors, full of evil thoughts, lock up your typewriters. They did. Magazines became a nice blend of vanilla tapioca. Books, so the damned snobbish critics said, were dishwater. No wonder books stopped selling, the critics said. But the public, knowing what it wanted, spi...

I have learned in life because people have persecuted me for my differing beliefs that one must strive to understand others to the point that they understand them as well as they understand themselves and their perspectives, from where they come from.

Sometimes, despite all the noise, people from opposite ends of the political spectrum find ways to agree with each other. Here is a good example from the far left; look how much it states what Donald Trump's base wants but with different wording. It's very interesting to see their (being the Sierra Club's) take. Demand a NAFTA replacement that puts people and planet before corporate profits! Add your name 98,668 signatures 98% Complete 100,000 TELL CONGRESS: PROTECT WORKING FAMILIES AND OUR PLANET – NOT CORPORATE POLLUTERS! Our nation’s trade agreements should support good jobs and a safe environment – not corporations that offshore jobs and pollute our air, water, and climate. But right now, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is a disaster for our communities. NAFTA eliminates jobs, erodes wages, increases pollution, and undermines critical environmental and health protections, harming lower-income families, people of color, and nearly everyone who is not a bi...