A message to the Bible Belt:
Compassion is always, always, always risky.
If you fear risk, you have no compassion.
A theorem:
Generally, how much a state's citizens
claim to follow Jesus
is directly proportional to how much
that state refuses Jesus' basic teachings.
Anybody who cracks a Bible
may judge whether or not this observation is true.
Yes, it's understandably risky
to help a person
on the side of a terrorist-infested road.
And it's often only a person
of another, despised religion (Samaritan)
who's willing to help,
which some homeless radical
(you may have heard of him)
very purposefully pointed out
to those of his own Bible religion
(Luke 10:25-32).
My question is, why are we suddenly so concerned about refugees who could be settled in their own country at a fraction of government funding (and it is the government that is behind this influx), yet are ignoring our own homeless and veterans dying in our streets, without a drop of compassion? In fact, our cities and parks are setting up spikes and other methods to discourage the homeless away from our areas. Where are they to go?
ReplyDelete1Ti 5:8 But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.
There is something rotten in Denmark and it's usually the Christians who have discernment concerning these things.
Pennie Lee ^^^ It won't let me sign in to my account again.
DeleteWhat human being with a heart would not suddenly be so concerned about refugees because refugees suddenly happened in this sudden crisis?
DeleteBut I do ask why those who would bar refugees from basic help are now suddenly "concerned" about the homeless problem which has existed ignored for decades in this country? Yes, there are more homeless who need help than there are refugees. And there are more empty houses than there are homeless. But please note the party that most consistently votes against support for veterans (who disproportionately become homeless), yet cries loudest "support our troops", and most consistently votes against funding for homeless people, is also the party that most consistently votes to bar refugees in immediate crisis from our borders!
All this is done under the pretense of "no government control". It continually pretends to care about reducing government spending and "government control" yet consistently votes for increased military (the ultimate in government control and spending), and the real reason for this country's utterly unpayable national debt.
We have the resources to help our own (which is expected) plus to go the extra mile and assist even enemies, which brings reward. And, yes, I agree with true conservatives that if every person in this country who claimed to be Christian practiced the teachings of Jesus, there wouldn't be need for government to step in in this crisis. Meanwhile, anybody with any semblance of compassion will support whatever means to help a neighbor, by government or no.
Nice...
Deletetruth!
DeleteThose criticizing and condemning the Christians, are THEY taking care of the refugees, or just letting the government do it. That way they can distance themselves but feel righteous? Where are the liberals with their houses full of refugees? Are they simply pointing their fingers, but with no intention of pitching in themselves? That is how they would really condemn the Christians--by taking the refugees into their own homes, businesses and community centers--that is, if they TRULY care about refugees. Otherwise, it's as much hypocritical talk as anyone and demonstrates not compassion for refugees, but a desire to control other people's lives and coerce them to do what they will not do themselves. Now that is evil.
ReplyDeletePlease tell me you're writing satire. If not (which is hard to grasp), please help me wrap my mind around this. Bar refugees from entry into this country (under the guise that it would be "government" decision) then condemn as evil "liberals" (whatever that really means) for not providing their homes for these refugees you make impossible to provide homes for. Did I miss something?
DeleteSo, you can't answer the question? You're going to shift blame instead? So, you're telling me that the government is simply bringing in refugees into this country. Who's going to force people to care for them? The liberals who want this to happen haven't cared for the huge population of homeless. What's to assure us they will care for MORE homeless? If they have no plans on caring for the homeless or the refugees, why are they pushing this agenda? If they are going to force this nation to care for the refugees, why haven't they forced it to care for the homeless, but are going to produce an even greater population of homeless? If they are planning on caring for the refugees, why the discrimination against the homeless we already have? You can't see the disparity? No wonder you cannot answer the questions.
DeleteOne resource states that there are 578,424 homeless people, some 50,000 veterans. (http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/10/31/3587079/homeless-count-2014/)
DeleteYou want to add another 100,000 to 500,000 refugees to that number, pretending we are a Christian nation? Statistics also indicate that the wealthiest and most educated nations are secular. The poorest and least educated are Christian, yet the Christians have the highest statistics for helping the poor. They will certainly do what they can for the refugees when they arrive. The rich among us, religious or secular? Not so much. Meanwhile.....
Watcher, there are no liberals in this country, at least not in politics, they are churls. Read what Isaiah says about liberals. He says that God "is a liberal, and by liberal things does he stand." This means personal freedom, as well as taking care of the poor. Quite consistent with what Christ taught, and coincidentally what is advocated in this blog.
DeleteVery likely many of those who will not help those fleeing the terror of war zones in Syria and the Middle East in general will also be climate change deniers. And when there are many more refugees fleeing the calamity of climate change effects they will possess a book of reasons why it has nothing to do with them with no moral imperative to help.
ReplyDeleteIf I may I would like to patch in this post from Dr. Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed.
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/11/17/isis-wants-destroy-grey-zone-heres-how-we-defend-it
An intelligent informative antidote to those who want a western response to the Paris outrage of more bombs and violence that has lead to terror of all kinds proliferating. Just one fact garnered from the post is that after 14 years and 5 trillion dollars spent on the war on terror, US State Department data shows that terror attacks have skyrocketed by 6,500 percent, while the number of casualties from terror attacks has increased by 4,500 percent.
It calls to mind Alberts Einstein's dictum that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Best wishes to you Suelo.
Amen, Daniel! Well said.
ReplyDeleteHi...been following your story on and off since I read an article about you in 2009. Definitely respect the lifestyle, although I don't think I could have your level of commitment. However, it would be awesome to just live free and unchain the shackles of modern "society." Also, respect to you for taking care of your parents.
ReplyDeleteHi, Daniel. I have a plea to you. Please be loving and gentle when you confront the Bible Belt. Even though you have had the splendid courage to live the life of a **True** Christian renunciate, and even though you can feel viscerally what it is to be a misunderstood target of other Christian people, be loving. Be gentle. I live in a liberal progressive enclave. These people ( just EXACTLY like *True* conservatives and *True* Christians) try very hard to confront the paradoxes of daily life, and struggle to keep their values intact. And just exactly like the people you are challenging in your commentary, they casually relish the pastime of flattening Bible Belt denizens, Christians, and Conservatives / Republicans down into two dimensional cartoons. Just throw them away into the bin of "they must either ignorant, or heartless, or selfish" ( ! ! ! ) based on having no extensive personal contact, no friends or family with Conservative Christian Republican ideals. This is nothing short of a mental illness. Period. Repeatedly, when I was a vulnerable sparkling young soul, I was treated as absolutely nothing, by someone who mattered more than life itself. The shock of that experience set the path of my life. It was a nonverbal teaching. This 'truth about life' which I was taught (only true at the level of wetiko consciousness -- see Jack Forbes' book Columbus and Other Cannibals) is so rampant and widespread that I dare say the majority of wholesome normal people are infected with it --and yet they don't know it because it has become normal regularized & institutionalized. It is like a herpes virus. Everyone has it, but it only looks ugly or abnormal during a breakout episode. I'm not saying Humanity is a Herpes Virus. I am saying that we mistakenly THINK that we are the virus. We are programmed to do everything to cater to our virus, our addiction to un-enlightenment. This refusal of Syrian war refugees is a genuine mental illness, truly. The phobic feeling towards Syrian language, religions, affiliations, loyalties stems directly from our foggy confusion about who is funding, equipping, training, and arming the war. We seemingly cannot afford to see through the fog. It would disorient our entire existence to see through that fog. What if you woke up in the morning and realized, "I am part of the terrorism" ? I mean this as a serious question, not theoretical or philosophical. I mean what if you realized, like Lady MacBeth, that there really is blood on your hands and it won't come off? That horror is what lies behind our treatment of Syrian refugees. That dread of the truth is the price we pay for catering to the requirements of practical life, as it has been structured and defined by wetiko.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your keen observations, Heidi.
DeleteYes, I was raised immersed in a conservative religious culture. I see the gems and the light that shines in it, and I also see the delusional sickness in it. And I have also have lived as an adult in very liberal progressive culture as well as anarchist culture. It does burn me up when the liberal progressive culture, and also the anarchist culture, both which often know nothing of conservatives face-to-face, paints them into a caricature. In the same way conservatives who know nothing of liberals face-to-face make them into sons of Satan, creating evil where evil does not exist.
The internet breeds this kind of division, because there is no face-to-face interaction. Yes, when I am with liberals and also anarchist types, I also often have to confront them when they start caricaturizing conservatives. I have to keep in mind that the non-religious "progressives" can become just as destructive & hateful, or even more destructive & hateful, as exemplified in the USSR.
Yes, I know first hand the toxins as well as the gems in conservative Christian culture. And I would be lying to deny that the toxins in it often feel nearly hopelessly out of hand. But I still see gems glimmering in the soup of poison. Both conservatives & liberals would like nothing better that I either completely ditch Christian culture or completely embrace it, toxins & all. I am often tempted to ditch it completely. But then, right or wrong, I think it is more beneficial to face the sickness from within, face-to-face, not as a spectater liberal criticizing from the outside (which seems to fuel the sickness even more).
But even the smallest sickness I point out (by first-hand experience) in conservative religion conservatives interpret as me being hateful. All I can do is shrug and say so be it. Cutting out a tumor is bloody and painful. How to do it as gently as possible is something I'm still learning.
Many people are concerned about bringing Syrian refugees here to America. But I am more concerned about all the talk of what to do with them once they are here.
ReplyDeleteThe Presidential candidate, Donald Trump, said in his interview with Yahoo, "We're going to have to do things that we never did before. And some people are going to be upset about it, but I think that now everybody is feeling that security is going to rule. And certain things will be done that we never thought would happen in this country in terms of information and learning about the enemy. And so we're going to have to do certain things that were frankly unthinkable a year ago."
In response to that Yahoo News asked Trump whether this level of tracking might require registering Muslims in a database or giving them a form of special identification that noted their religion. Trump wouldn't rule it out.
"I think everybody knows that security is going to rule"? That is Mussolini; that is a fascist dictator speaking there.
Are we at the end of fascism where there are no rights left and there are gas chambers? No!
Are we at the beginning of fascism where you start to give people ID badges and separate them out by religion?
Well, that is what Trump said he would not rule out.
And if you are not familiar at all with history that is exactly what the fascist did in Germany. They separated people out based on religion, and they had a national database, and you had to have the right papers. And then then they started putting badges on them.
The following is from the Holocaust Center:
"The German government's policy of forcing Jews to wear identifying badges was but one of many psychological tactics aimed at isolating and dehumanizing the Jews of Europe, directly marking them as being different (i.e., inferior) to everyone else. It allowed for the easier facilitation of their separation from society and subsequent ghettoization, which ultimately led to the deportation and murder of 6 million Jews.
Criminals were marked with green inverted triangles, political prisoners with red, 'asocials' (including Roma, nonconformists, vagrants, and other groups) with black or - in the case of Roma in some camps - brown triangles. Homosexuals were identified with pink triangles and Jehovah's Witnesses with purple ones.
The two triangles forming the Jewish star badge would both be yellow unless the Jewish prisoner was included in one of the other prisoner categories. A Jewish political prisoner, for example, would be identified with a yellow triangle beneath a red triangle."
So we, here in America, have talk of ID's and Trump on Fox News talked about shutting down all of the Mosque's. Don't allow any of the refugees to have their religion. And Sen. Elaine Morgan (R-RI) thinks that if the U.S. does take in Syrian refugees, "we should set up refugee camps to keep them segregated from our populous."
Trump is now at 42% in the Republican primary. He is pulling away from the rest of them. It doesn't mean that he will definitely win, but he is #1 as he brings these ideas up in public and these ideas aren't hurting him, they are helping him.
If the Syrian refugees do come here they should not be subjected to such fascist ideas. They should be free here in America like you; like all of us. And yes, it is a risk, but I tell you, I DO NOT like the alternative!
Sue G.
Watcher on the Mountain. Do you see that the governments, globalist's, cabal's, elite's, the police state ( or whatever you want call them) would have us fighting with one another over "here" while they hide over "there" taking our freedoms from us under the guise of giving us security? It doesn't matter what nation we come from or religion we are. The fight worth fighting is the fight for human rights of people around the whole world. If we all stand together and fight for our human rights the "police state" of this world will back down.
ReplyDeleteSue G.
Hi Daniel.
ReplyDeleteDo you believe in free immigration and that we should "turn the other cheek" to IS?
Greetings from Sweden
If we do not have free immigration than how will we boost our economy? And if we don't boost our economy how will we create more jobs? Without more jobs, how do we generate more waste? And without more waste how do we fill our dumpsters? If no one fills the dumpsters how will we live?
ReplyDeleteAnd if we do not "turn the other cheek" to IS than to whom will our Government be accomplice's to in war crimes?
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ReplyDeleteYes, I have aimed this post to Americans with reason. This wealthiest of nations is closing its doors. Droves of people here call this a "Christian" nation, which has such obscene amounts of surplus it throws away enough food and clothing to feed and cloth both all our own homeless plus perhaps all the impoverished countries of the world. And we have more people in prison than all other countries today and in all of world history. And we have more empty houses than homeless. Now those same ones who have turned a blind eye to the homeless and prison problem for decades all of the sudden say we should care for our own before thinking of strangers. The nation that has the humanity to help strangers also simultaneously has the humanity to help its own. Duh.
DeleteNow, fellow Americans, we finally have the chance to prove whether or not we are the "Christian" nation so many here boast it to be. I mean this is the very most basic Christianity 101 test. Are we passing or failing? Here's your chance to be a light, to overcome hate and fear with love. So far, it's pretty dark.
That was very well put, Suelo.
DeleteI am sorry I made comments about politics. You're blog is about spiritual practice.
I think when we liberate ourselves from organized religion, (like "Christianity"), and money, we will be able to really love God and really love others, and help them.
Sue G.
I am sorry for the attacks to all of you. I am truly sorry.
DeleteSue G.
Daniel, you are spot on about this. I live in the heart of the Bible Belt, attend a conservative Christian church and last week was astonished at the talk of people wanting to refuse the entry of refugees. Have they ever read their Bible? Will they refuse "the least of these, my brethren"? If they ever read it, they didn't comprehend its teaching. When I pointed these things out to them they replied with the "we can't take care of our own homeless people and veterans," answer. All I can say is, "Father forgive them, they know not what they do."
ReplyDeleteThis is attitude is typical in too many churches. I was born into the Jehovah's Witness cult (which I left years ago), and they preach love but do nothing to help the homeless or needy. I read recently 90 yo Arnold Abbott was arrested by the city of Florida for feeding the homeless. We have laws and ideas in place that deliberately tries to block us from treating those in need or less fortunate as sentient beings. Which people follow out of selfishness and fear.
DeletePictorial Essay: 15 Proofs It’s a Fake, Fake, Fake America!!!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theburningplatform.com/2015/11/23/pictorial-essay-15-proofs-its-a-fake-fake-fake-america/
...must read.
I read this article; very good!
DeleteSue G.
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ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteMay I ask you Tolboll, would you please send that gray wolf into my dream? I think the wolf may be able to show me what I need to pay attention to in my own life right now!
DeleteSue G.
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ReplyDeleteMy point of view about the wolf was from the thought and philosophy of native american indians and not dream yoga.
DeleteKundalini, I have read very little about yet I get the picture, even without subtitles.
You can keep your flower bird, I don't need it.
I don't buy a ticket to Rold Forest because I don't use money.
Sue
Daniel You Make My Heart Sing!
ReplyDeleteLove, Brotha G
Wow! I haven't checked this post or gotten notifications & just noticed this comment thread was cram full of spam. I just cleaned it out.
ReplyDeleteMy apologies to you above who got your messages drowned out.
You make me smile in my heart Suelo.
ReplyDeleteSue
http://thewayhomeorfacethefire.net/twh.pdf
ReplyDeleteJust sharing another Interesting article (pdf version). Must read!!!
Primerica ... Have you heard about them ?
ReplyDeleteEric Wolf St Louis Mo
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