SPLIT TOPIC: Churches and Morality in Crown Heights

whynot_31

HisCrownHeights wrote:

What if the born again (and fundamentalists of other religions as well) are correct, in that the simple exposer of people to other people is a inherent threat to their superiority.

I'm confused by what u typed in the above bolded.

I've been to lazy to proof read before I post, and have instead been editing on the fly. What you quote above is a first draft.

The new version is somewhat clearer, and just as "politely confrontational" but by no means book ready.

....we can always ditch this medium for another. [I have Tea Party fundamentalists cousins who I get along with at least for the length of the family reunion]

hiscrownheights

What if the born again (and fundamentalists of other religions as well) are correct, in that the simple familiarity of people to other people is a inherent threat to their feelings of "superiority" or "relative moral excellence", or liklihood of going to heaven.

i think that's where a Christian is supposed to differ if I am correct. A Christian shouldn't think "the simple familiarity of people to other people is a inherent threat to their feelings of "superiority" or "relative moral excellence", or likelihood of going to heaven." ???? Yeah, I'm going to pause here guys. Til we meet again, whynot.

mha

Nah, I don't loath the born-agains because of that experience, but that experience is an ingredient in my decision to loathe.

booklaw

WhyNot wrote:

Fundamentalists of all varieties will congregate in small communities in order to fight off the encroaching cultures. As Booklaw fears, they will become the majority to the extent that they are able to infiltrate the local governments and school boards (i.e. parts of Kansas and Texas).

How about parts of Williamsburg and Crown Heights? Kiryas Joel? Fleischmanns? It's not just Christians who are prone to fundamentalism.

whynot_31

yup, I was loosely thinking of them in terms of "all varieties", but Kansas and Texas get mentioned the most in the media I consume.

it is that whole "circle of life" thing. It all just repeats every two hundred years or so.

capt. planet

This thread has really become a gas! I've never seen to many people talking past each other in my life. Whadda mess!

Not to change the topic, but I saw the Norman Rockwell exhibit yesterday at the Brooklyn Museum. Y'all should check it out if you haven't done so. Norm was a great mythologist. Every one of his pictures seems to be an attempt to define us and tell us who we are. And of course who we are in Rockwell's world makes sense. He attempts to portray us in our best light, if he does occasionally poke fun at us as well. He is what you might call "morally uplifting". He points a direction for us to walk in.

I think our tendency now is to consider Rockwell "old fashioned" just as many in this hipster blog consider religion a quaint artifact.

I wonder if there were a hipster version of Rockwell alive today what stories he'd be telling us? What direction would they be telling us to walk in?

mha

Hmmm, in retrospect, my coffee kicked in a bit strong with my last comment, I should have said I loathe 'spiritual arrogance'.

whynot_31

I'm still imagining myself and the other posters on this thread as hipsters. ...talk about myths

mha

There is some sort of preachers convention at the corner of Bedford and Sterling Place.

whynot_31

They are probably convening as a result of the recent Supreme Court ruling that they can't have a nativity scene in Washington DC this year.

The ruling wasn't made for any religious reason; they couldn't find three wise men and a virgin.

mha

I am the godfather of my best friend's beautiful baby boy. She decided to have the baby christened in the Christian fashion, so off to a church we all went. So here we are, all sitting in this church, and the pastor, or reverend, gets up and starts preaching away: Brimstone, Hellfire, and even an allusion to Haiti's problems as comeuppance, and then the kicker -- homosexuality as an abomination -- and this is where my ears perked up. You see, my best friends little bro' couldn't make the ceremony, and he's flaming; I mean fa-lay-ming gay. Brotherman dresses up in dresses, panties, heels, wigs, the whole Ru-Paulesque kit and kaboodle. And I know him. He sashays with the best of them, and I've never understood it, but heck, I don't have to. I like him. He's a great guy.

And to hear how this minister referred not to him personally, but to folks like him -- let's call him Chris -- really bothered me. And I know it bothered my best friend too. I saw her lower her head and bite her lip as this minister worked himself into frothy condemnation of folks like Chris. I swear, I was going to get up and say, 'C'mon sister, let's blow this joint, take the baby and get the fuck outta here.' And then came the saccharin: the 'God loves us sinners,' the 'Jesus died on the cross,' the John 3:16 jerimiad. The bullshit.

Christianity orthodoxy is as dangerous as dangerous as any other orthodoxy. It cloaks itself in cloying remarks about love for fellow man, and similar bromides, but don't be fooled. It offers no hope for mankind. The proof is in the pudding, right? Well here's my proof. What good has any church in Crow Hill done for the community in which it resides? If any, it's disproprotionately smaller than the good that smaller, non-religious entities have done. Indeed, I bet you dimebags and donuts that your average bodega or liquor store does more good than any of these churches. They pay some amount of property taxes which helps to pay the wages of individuals who pick up the very garbage these churches create and leave itinerantly outside of their ramshackle structures.

So to sum up, there is no relationship between churches and morality in Crown Heights.

capt. planet

Hand in Hand, we the people of Park Slope United Methodist Church - black and white, straight and gay, old and young, rich and poor - unite as a loving community in covenant with God and the Creation. Summoned by our faith in Jesus Christ, we commit ourselves to the humanization of urban life and to physical and spiritual growth."

No, I didn't make this up, this creed is on a sign in front of PSUMC on the corner of Eighth Street and Sixth Avenue. As you are probably aware, there are a lot of denominations being torn apart over the issue of same sex unions.

I think the bigger issue is the collapse of consensus around societal values that once existed in the Judeo-Christian world. My sense is that a lot of the "anti-God" crowd have abandoned religion because it impinged on their freedom. When challenged on this rather selfish position, they cite the many examples of individuals and classes who faired badly under the church's rule.

True, rules do create winners and losers, but the absence of rules tends to create chaos. To not have chaos, we have to give up some of our freedoms. That's political science 101. Which ones to give up can be debated endlessly but certainly someone will be unhappy regardless of which freedoms are lost.

booklaw

So abandoning religion is "selfish"? Refusing to accept someone else's superstition is anti-social? Turning one's back on mass delusions and false histories causes chaos?

Thank you, but religion is not required for the creation of civilizing rules. Nor is there any evidence that people brought up in a religious atmosphere are any less likely to become criminals, perverts, or sociopaths.

There can be no denying that some of the world's greatest mass murders occurred because people who fervently believed in their God and His rules took exception to the ways other people honored their own visions/versions of God.

If religion must exist, it should be observed quietly, and shared only with those who explicitly request to be so educated.

capt. planet

"You can't legislate morality"

If you want proof of this truism, consider that in the past two years:

- our former governor resigned due to ethics problems

- the former head of the State Senate was sentenced to prison, for the same reason

- State Senators Espada and Monserrat are both under investigation, ditto the reason

- our longest serving Congressman, Rangel, was censured by the House, ditto

Why are we suffering this spate of malfeasance? My guess is that there is no longer a consensus in society about what constitutes moral behavior.

Sure there's always been corruption in politics, but it seems that the general level of public disdain and disgust about the state of political immorality has never been higher, at least in my lifetime.

whynot_31

I fail to see how our present mistrust in government was greater than when the US was a more homogeneous religious country. Surely we had scandals in the 1800s and 1900s. I remember learning about them in history class.

As a result, I fail to see how our present moral code is more lacking than when the US was a more religious country.

....didn't that whole slavery period coincide with the US being a quite a homogenous religious country?

As a result, I fail to see how a return to religion (regardless of whether it was based on christ, judiasm, hinduism, or something else) would solve our present problems.

I fail to see how non-religious people live less moral lives than those who make a "leap of faith".

I fail to see how one religion is any better at making its people moral than any other relgion.

.....but (unlike some posters), I do not believe that religion does no one any good. Many people benefit from practicing religion, and from the good works that are done by religious groups.

As mentioned earlier, many of the organizations doing "good work" in Crown Heights are religious in nature. Many of them can be found on page 38.

http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/pdf/lucds/bk8profile.pdf

I believe the real problem is having people accept that something that may have had an absolutely wonderful effect on their lives may not have this same effect on others.

....I beleive that Dr Seuss was one of the smartest people to have ever lived.

mha

You can't legislate morality?! Then what's the consequence of being found guilty of murder, robbery, or running a red light? You describing the aforementioned as a 'truism' reminds us that truisms are often not objectively the truth.

Morality is an elastic concept that is Man's attempt at regulating chaos. For instance, we say that killing is wrong, but when we watch zombie movies, we have little compunctions at feeling visceral pleasure when the heroes blows a zombie's brains out because, after all, it's 'good' against 'evil'. We define the zombies as evil not because they are evil, but because who they are (rather, who they have become) is against our interests. Essentially, what is considered 'good' is what we deem is in our interests. In a zombie-filled world, the law we would write is that it is against the law NOT to kill zombies.

I think what CP, and HCH like about Christianity is the moral absolutism, the dichotomous definitions of right vs. wrong. The reason secular culture and science are anathema to moral absolutists - regardless of creed - is that what is considered moral is constantly subject to revision. Moral absolutists believe 1 + 1 ALWAYS = 2; conditional morality recognizes that 1 + 1 USUALLY = 2, but it's conditioned on what constitutes what is defined as '1'.

Moral absolutists don't want to hear sophist gobbledy-gook! They want meat and potatoes, not amino acid combinations and complex carbohydrates. Essentially, moral absolutists want to believe, while the skeptical others outside of that tent want to think.

booklaw

Slight correction, if I may: "Moral absolutists want to be told what to believe, and want to believe what they are told..."

mha

Agreed, Booklaw. I like that: "Moral absolutists want to be told what to believe, and want to believe what they are told."

I approve this message!

whynot_31

As an atheist, can I be jealous of moral absolutists?

....you see, part of me would really like to believe that someone or something had all of the answers. But I can't.

Similarly, I believe this same problem is what keeps me from believing that a system based on dictatorship would result in a Benevolent Dictator.

....but make no mistake, if given the powers of a dictator I would be benevolent.

...but perhaps only to the extent that it allowed me to control the masses.

mha

But despite our back and forth here, the issue of churches, morality and our neighborhoods goes neglected. It is my opinion that the religious spend so much time focusing on the 'sin' around them, and instead of engaging in discourse with those whose lifestyle they disagree with, they use their disagreement to further insulate their metaphoric hermetic seal against the world. They don't engage the world, they use their points of difference to disengage themselves from it...

The result is a community whose improvements and decline occur without the involvement of the pious; the thought process of the pious is that one solves problems through appeals to beings in other dimensions, and not by rolling up your sleeves and doing something about it.

Anecdote: One day while walking by the community garden on Franklin I saw two Muslim sisters who live in the adjoining building looking in, and one says to the other, "You know what that is? It's just another Jinn hangout." I said to her from behind, "Nope, no Jinns here." She turned around looked at me and then kept on walking...

whynot_31

I believe there are four choices:

1. One can think the Zombie movies are made by atheists, and that the zombies represent the religious who must be killed.

2. One can think the Zombie movies are made by the religious, and that Zombies represent the atheists who must be killed.

3. One can think Zombies don't exist because once we are dead we become dirt.

4. One can spend their life believing in Zombies, and wanting to meet one so they can ask them "yo, what up with being undead? Did someone or something make you undead?"

Morality is an elastic concept that is Man's attempt at regulating chaos. For instance, we say that killing is wrong, but when we watch zombie movies, we have little compunctions at feeling visceral pleasure when the heroes blows a zombie's brains out because, after all, it's 'good' against 'evil'. We define the zombies as evil not because they are evil, but because who they are (rather, who they have become) is against our interests. Essentially, what is considered 'good' is what we deem is in our interests. In a zombie-filled world, the law we would write is that it is against the law NOT to kill zombies.

pittiecity

Up until recently, I was a quiet non-believer. A "live and let live" type. However (for various reasons) I find it harder and harder to cater to peoples delusions.

Religion is an outmoded vehicle of control for an elite minority to control scattered masses. It plays (in my opinion) the biggest role in the hindering of human intellectual progression. And it is polluting our political system in a way that makes me clench my fists in frustration.

We've all seen historically the enormously horrible things we can do to each other in the name of religion, but what enormously good things are done in the name of such?

Religion likes to use charity as a crutch to defend its usefulness when in reality, most non-believers contribute to peoples and causes as well. And for the record, going to church and singing about god and his goodness and blah blah blah is time wasted that you could be out DOING ACTUAL GOOD.

Religion likes to assert itself as a safe-haven for the down and out. People that need real help can just swallow the Jesus pill and feel all better. They should gag on it.

Religion likes to say it preaches love when the thought of love being two members of the same sex elicits feelings of hate.

Religious fanatics murder abortion doctors to protect the right to life.

Religion is an absolute must to be elected into public office, but your chances are way better if you're not a jew, catholic or muslim. This is what bothers me the most. Apparently, only religious politicians possess the moral skill set to make prudent decisions for the rest of us (as we have so clearly seen).

Get over it people! We would all be better off if we abandoned this farce altogether. "To be replaced with what?" many of you continue to ask. To be replaced with nothing. If you want to be a better person, be a better person. If you want to feel spiritually connected to nature and the earth, get the fuck out of Brooklyn and go for a hike or something. Eat some mushrooms, I don't know...

Bottom line, stop deluding yourself. None of us know our purpose in the grand scheme of things, or the origin of the universe and IT DOESN'T MATTER. We'll never know. (And why do we even want/need to?) We know how to co-exist relatively peacefully and even better our species through cooperation and consideration of one another. That's just evolution.

booklaw

Evolution?

Didn't someone say that's "just a theory"?

Oh, wait...

pittiecity

This is pretty cool (and certainly humbling)

mha

Wow. Loved that. If there is a god, no wonder he -- or she -- is such an asshole...

capt. planet

Yuck it up guys. As a formner boss once pronounced at a doomed company for which I then worked, "pride goeth before the fall". At the time many key players thought they had the world on a string. Six months later the company was bought out by the competition and everyone got laid off. They never saw it coming because they were so wrapped up in their own games.

If you think laws will replace morality, what if respect for law is also at all time lows?

I say that law and morality are two sides of the same coin. Laws derive their legitimacy from a moral code. If you take away that sense of right and wrong grounded in some moral code, you get what you got now. No one cares about breaking the law, they just care about getting caught. People expect their electeds to steal and cheat. Why? Because they'd do it themselves if they could.

So people get what they expect and the level of trust in our government and its legitimate right to rule goes down the tubes.

How far can we be away from a complete collapse of civil society?

Time will tell, but my bet is sooner than later.

whynot_31

I heard the latest prediction for the end of the world is 2012. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&biw=1680&bih=914&q=2012+end+of+the+world+theory&aq=2&aqi=g10&aql=&oq=2012+end+&gs_rfai=CIjUOikH0TPCtHpTONZ-_7OIJAAAAqgQFT9DakLo

It is great fun to watch the fretters fret.

....on a related note, my brother went to the desert on December 31, 1999 to watch the people wait for the aliens. [Note: This is not the same as watching the sky for the aliens to arrive; he watched the PEOPLE WAITING FOR THE ALIENS. The distinction is crucial]. He had a great time.

...the closest I've done to that is going to NASCAR to watch the people watch the cars race around. In both instances, you have to dress the part in order to not get caught. ....make sure not to overdue it.

It is unfortunate that the build up to 2012 does not seem to be as great as it was 2000, or the dozens of times before that the world was supposed to end. ....it kinda takes away from the fun of it all.

whynot_31

hiscrownheights

*looks in* *chuckles* *Cheshire cat smile to fade out*

capt. planet

WN, why not respond to my message?

Nothing to say?