One Controversial Dialogue about whether or not Quakers' Nonviolence was the Best Way to End Slavery

AGAINST QUAKER NONVIOLENCE, FOR WAR INSTEAD:

"Was...Quakerism the best route to abolition?

In the USA, slavery was abolished by a war - which remains America's bloodiest even in absolute terms despite the subsequent growth in American population.

Quakers were and are pacifists and conscientious objectors, so at least in the USA they did not contribute directly to abolishing slavery as much as the (mostly) men who died to eradicate it.

Also, Quakers initially opposed Darwin, and about half of Quakers today remain creationists according to Wikipedia. So the question is whether the good done by Quakers verbally objecting to slavery (while not shedding any blood for the cause) outweighs the harm done by their science denial.

That's not an easy accounting job so I would hesitate to call the Quakers "good."

And not to mention that Quakers continue to promote the bible, which itself on plain reading promotes slavery or at least conspicuously fails to condemn it. According to the bible, picking up sticks on the Sabbath is a capital offense while slavery is A-OK as long as you follow the directions laid out.

Imagine there were some liberal anti-Nazis who continued to promote Mein Kampf as the source of all truth. They would come with opportunity costs too. There are better ways to oppose the evils of Nazism than by teaching people to take its sacred text seriously.

I don't deny that some theists in some circumstances have done some good things. Hamas for example peforms lots of charity work among its folk while calling for Israel to be eradicated.

Even some secular drug lords provided jobs and support for the impoverished Latin American communities where they operated.

Drugs and religion have many parallels. They are both harmful businesses built on a foundation of lies, often accompanied by a window dressing of conspicuous benevolence."

-
English Quakers on a Barbados plantation. / Image courtesy of New York Public Library


FOR QUAKER WAY OF NONVIOLENCE AGAINST WAR: Yes, the British Quaker movement and their U.S. abolitionism, Underground Railroad, etc. was "the best route to abolition"
NOT the horrendous vast slaughter of the U.S. Civil War, (which wasn't even intended for abolition but for forcing seceding Southerns back into the Union).

HOWEVER, as you point out...

1. Quakers in history and now are a very diverse and contrary group--have been all over the place. Heck, rich Quakers, such as in the Caribbean owned slaves. However, because of their original emphasis upon equality for humans, they finally--many reluctantly--rejected and opposed slavery in the latter part of the 1700's (as I already stated, my original point).

They did lead the movement against slavery in Britain. And in the U.S. by 1776, they totally opposed slaves and eventually helped lead abolitionism, were part of the Underground Railroad, helped lead the political movement for women's rights, etc.

2. However, the central founder of the Society of Friends, George Fox in 1640 strongly supported Cromwell and his slaughter of the English Civil War!

3. The majority of Quakers at present in the U.S. are mostly fundamentalist-Evangelical! Heck, I couldn't have been a member, nor would I want to be.

4. Historically, some Quakers have held horrendous views. In Indiana in the 1920's a very large Quaker meeting was a very strong supporter of the KKK. In one infamous picture, the KKK in their robes are all standing down at the front.

Quaker Yearly Meeting in Southern California in 1980 came out strongly for nuclear weapons.

5. Early Quakers were charged with heresy. Good grief, William Penn was jailed because of his book that cast doubt on orthodox Christian creed.

6. in 2012, a Quaker meeting in South Carolina strongly promoted Calvinism.
ETC.

7. I think you have a serious--though common-- misunderstanding of the U.S. Civil War, one that I, once, held, too. Until I had spent years studying too many tomes on the Civil War era and teaching it in secular public high schools.

While plantation leaders of the South did fight the war to retain slavery--they wrote into their Constitution--most of the millions involved in that horrific conflagration weren't fighting about slavery.

Lincoln specifically stated that he invaded the South, Not to end slavery, but to force the seceding states back into the Union.
Lincoln, even in 1863 wanted all Blacks to leave the U.S. and move to another country. He had specifically emphasized that if they returned they could keep slaves.

Not only that, but when Lincoln declared all slaves in the South freed in 1863, Lincoln continued to enslave Blacks in the Union! The Union's slaves weren't freed until 1865!

Also, keep in mind that as a lawyer, Lincoln had gone to court for a slave owner against a slave!!

And Lincoln and many others in the Union held that Blacks weren't equal to Whites, etc.
ETC.

Contrary to your point in favor of war, the Quaker method of abolition was far superior to a war that slaughtered at least 800,000 individuals, wounded millions, intentionally attacked civilians, etc.

Did you know that according to historians, Grant's wife continued to use slaves (her father owned them) even while Grant was shelling and killing civilians at Vicksburg?!

8. Your comparison of Quakers to HAMAS is very unfair and untrue.

HAMAS is a horrific terrorist organization, who even murders other Palestinians!

In contrast, there are Palestinians who are kind and caring. I've lived and worked in Palestine-Israel; our family has helped 2 impoverished Palestinian families, etc. And I was a guest of a Palestinian family in Nablus (where some of the killing is going on).
I used to teach about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the Holocaust, etc.for years

BOTH SIDES of that horrendous conflict for the last 100 years are partly right and partly wrong.

BUT HAMAS and the Jewish settlers who regularly steal Palestinian land, destroy orchards, go into Palestinian towns and torch cars, houses, etc. are doing what is very wrong.

In contrast, the Quakers have had a school in Ramallah for 150 years that teaches reconciliation, peace-making, etc.

Yes, HAMAS and other terrorist organizations do charity work, BUT that is ONLY for other Muslims, NOT for Jews or others. Instead, they slaughter innocent Jewish civilians intentionally.
Several years ago, Palestinian leaders hailed a Palestinian who snuck into a 13-year-old Jewish girl's bedroom and knifed her to death. He was declared a patriot, a martyr!
Instead, Quakers emphasize helping those outside of their group, even those contrary to their way of life!

9. Let me emphasize again. I already knew all the terrible wrongs that you pointed out about some Quakers' bad actionsin the past. And there are plenty more that I could add to your list. I used to teach Quaker history and views of Reality to our Quaker meeting in the late 1970's.
And, by the way, when I did that, I was an extreme liberal, as I have already emphasized never thought Jesus was God, etc.

Since you don't accept my example of the Quakers leading abolition, here's another one:

Martin Luther King Jr. and other Baptists, etc. led the Civil Rights Movement. And one of his advisors was a Quaker and one was an Atheist.

And yes, I know that he was a gross adulterer, probably cheated on his thesis for PhD. etc.
My point isn't that the Baptists are in general, or MLK, specifically, are paragons of virtue and goodness.

My original point is that sometimes some religions (just like sometimes some atheists) lead the advancement of the good, the true, and the just in human history.

That was my ONLY point.

I know all too well, that all humans including us, have some good and some bad in our actions.
-
Against Quaker: wrote, "Was it their religious proclivities that drove their abolitionist ideals, or was it a sense of what was right?"

For Quaker: BOTH. It was a particular "religious proclivity"--that of equality--which led the Quakers to end their slave-owning and to help lead the abolition movement.

In the LIGHT,

Dan Wilcox

What the Sermon on the Mount Got Right, But Christians, Jews, and Muslims get woefully Wrong

What the Sermon on the Mount Got Right, But What the Christian, Jewish, and Islamic Religions Get Woefully Wrong

If the 10 Commandments had been practiced with ALL people and for ALL people, they would have been good,
BUT notice that Jews, Christians, and Muslims for thousands of years
only required that enemies NOT violate those commands and that they themselves only needed to practice such moral behavior within their own select religious group.

In contrast, believing that God had ordered them to do so,
the Jews, Christians, and Muslims regularly
lied,
stole,
and slaughtered their enemies.

And still do so even now in the 21st century.

Read about constant Jewish abuse and theft of land, of water, of resources, in Palestine-Israel, etc.

Jews sometimes massacred every man, woman, child, and infant in the Bible because they believed that God ordered them to do so.

David, supposedly the “man after God’s heart, massacred whole villages, killing every person. And he did this to STEAL their loot.

And in the Jewish Bible in Exodus, if after a Jewish slave owner beat a slave almost to death, yet the slave didn't die in less than 2 or 3 days, no Jewish owner was punished because the slave was the Jew's “property”!

Strange isn’t it, that the Hebrews were so thankful that they escaped slavery, but then they enslaved others.
- Muhammad robbed caravans, had at least 500 Jewish men beheaded, and then enslaved all of the women and children:-(

And Muslims have been doing likewise, for the most part, ever since.
Some nations of Islam didn't even ban slavery until the 20th century!

Creedal Christians in history constantly lied, stole, abused, slaughtered..
Read what they did in “Jesus Wars” back in the 4th century--see the historian Philip Jenkins famous book, Jesus Wars.

Other horrific examples include the present Christian war by Russia, who has invaded Ukraine, with the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church calling for the war, much as devout Christians 1,000 years ago called for the evil Crusades.

Many others show these same immoral and unjust actions by Christians--the English Civil War, the 30 Years War, the American Civil War, the French Religious Wars, the Great War, Vietnam, the British Opium War against China where they forced that nation to take opium!

So ironic the American un-Civil War where dedicated Christians even vandalized, wrecked Southern churches, stabled their horses in them, etc. Heck, one Union soldier even stole a Southern family's Bible and took it back to New England. These devout Christian soldiers after invading, stole clothes, weapons, horses, food, etc. nearly every day.

See, in all of these historic and modern cases, Christians thought it was only wrong to steal from each other, but that God gave them the “right” and “duty” to steal from the enemies, even if the enemies were also Christians.

In contrast, Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, states that humans ought to “love their enemies,” do good to their enemies…

This one reason that the secular writer Kurt Vonnegut Jr. and the Buddhist monk Thick Nhat Hanh, and many other human leaders consider Jesus' Sermon on the Mount an ethical precept of deep truth.

CAUTION: “Love” here doesn’t mean emotionally like or approve of!

As Martin Luther King Jr. so clearly pointed out in one of his speeches, to “love one’s enemies” means one has benevolence toward them. For instance, King certainly didn't like the KKK who attacked him, who firebombed his home, but he chose to have hope that if cared for, these bad people might come to the truth and change.

Moral truths are universal.
If stealing is wrong between my neighbor and myself, it is also wrong for us to do it to civilians and soldiers of an enemy nation.

This is why war is, by far, the most evil of all human actions. Invariably in every war, humans on both sides regularly lie, steal, abuse, rape, and slaughter, as well as violate the other commandments.

Let us hope and act to proclaim Jesus' Sermon on the Mount.


In the Light of the Good, the True, the Just, and Altruistic Caring,
Dan Wilcox

WHY I USED TO FLY THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER, but no longer do so.

Here’s an incredible irony: BLMer’s, Democrats, and others are up in arms demanding the banning of the Confederate battle flag. I’m certainly not a fan of that flag that glorified killing and that represented a nation whose leaders believed in the institution of slavery.

HOWEVER, HERE’S THE IRONY: NONE of these BLMer’s, Democrats, and most Americans plan to ban Old Glory, the U.S. flag even though it flew over the U.S. in defense of slavery, invasive wars, huge land thefts, etc. from 1776 to 1865, a total of 89 years!

Even after 1865, though slavery had become illegal, actual slavery, racism, and legal discrimination continued in many states until the 1960's and 70's!

In 1877, President Hayes made a deal with the racist Redeemers and removed all Federal troops from the South.
The Redeemers brought in Jim Crow, Negro Codes, and Segregation. There were "Sundown" towns in the north. President Woodrow Wilson segregated the U.S. government offices! All of these horrors lasted until the 1970's!

-- Even after the Emancipation Proclamation of Lincoln in 1863, slave owners in the Union were allowed to keep their slaves. The Union slaves weren’t freed until the end of the war in 1865.

Lincoln had meant the E.P. only for slaves not under his control in a separate nation, the Confederacy. So, he freed slaves he couldn’t, and kept slaves that he could have freed in the U.S., enslaved!

And Lincoln was still trying to convince all Negros to move from the U.S. back to Africa or go to Latin America in 1863. Lincoln didn’t think that Blacks could live with Whites because he believed Blacks were inferior. While he opposed slavery, he didn’t think Blacks were equal, nor that they should be allowed to vote or serve on juries, etc.

During the Revolutionary War, and especially the War of 1812 the British offered freedom to American slaves, BUT the Americans, supposedly for freedom and liberty, continued to support slavery!

And in the invasion of Mexico and the annexation of Texas, the U.S. supported slavery, while Mexico had banned slavery.

Over the years, in some cases, Old Glory has stood for freedom and genrosity, but in the last 247-years most of the time it has stood for invasions and the rejection of refugees such as when we rejected escaping Jews from Nazi Germany in the late 1930's!

And now in the last 4 years, we've again supported a harsh rejection of the "huddled" refugees, a denial of the Statue of Liberty.

STATUE of LIBERTY on the 4TH of July: "Give me your huddled masses, longing to be free..."


Dan Wilcox

Guest Post: Professor Randal Rauser's opposition to Evangelicals' Defense of the Slaughter of the Canaanites.

Many Evangelical Christian leaders defend the horrific slaughter and genocide of the Canaanites in the Old Testament. They also defend many of the other immoral and unjust texts including those which support slavery, forced marriage, etc.

Here is a recent short article by Professor Randa Rauser where he explains a number of contrary points from his recent powerful book, Jesus Loves the Canaanites, a book of moral realism that shows why and how Evangelical leaders such as Frank Turek, Paul Copan, and many others who defend the slaughter are very wrong.

Frank Turek on the Slaughter of the Canaanites. And My Response.: The perfectly awful apologetic defense of the Canaanite slaughter in this clip concisely captures why I wrote Jesus Loves Canaanites. Let’s begin with the video (it’s only six minutes). I’ll then post my commentary below. ? The video begins with a question posed by the moderator of what appears to be an in-church training event. […]

Review of the Powerful Historical Fiction, YELLOW WIFE by Sadequa Johnson

An utterly convincing fictional memoir of Pheby Delores Brown, a mulatto slave sharing her life story from her youth on. As a young slave, Pheby (and her mother) are fairly well treated by their owner on a plantation near Charles City, Virginia. Her mother is a skilled weaver and dispenser of basic medicine for those enslaved. And they both have been taught to read and write by the sister of their owner, Master James.

Master James partially treats them well because he has a long-term sexual relationship with her mother, promising the latter that he will free her daughter Pheby when she is 18 and send her north for an education!

Almost an unheard of action in the pre-War U.S.! Very few slave owners in the North freed their slaves, and in the South some states such as Louisiana, Mississippi, Alaban, and Maryland eventually instituted laws against freeing slaves.

As is so often reminded us by historians, 12 U.S. presidents owned slaves in their lifetimes. And 8 even owned slaves while president. Of the first 12 presidents, only 2 opposed slavery! George Washington never freed his slaves while he was alive, though did free them in his will. Jefferson never freed his slaves, not even his long-term Black concubine, Sally Hemmings!

Many of the Founding Fathers owned slaves including Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, and Patrick Henry (who made the famous statement, "Give me liberty or give me death;" but of course, he only meant those words for white arisotcratic Americans who were being penalized by the British Government.

In this suspenseful novle, the ‘nice’ owner’s spinster sister treats Pheby almost like a niece or grandchild!

The sister not only spends much quality time with her, teaching Pheby to play the piano splendidly well, and even to read! Beginning in 1831, eventually all states with slaves, except for Maryland and Tennessee, prohibited owners to do.

These characters, especially Pheby and her later vicious owner, Marse Jacob Laupier, are vividly real and the story so suspenseful that I admit at one point I skipped ahead to the end because I couldn’t wait to hear what happened to Pheby.

She and the others became so real to me. And still are. They seem like individuals who’ve I’ve known in real life, not fictional characters in a book.

SPOILER ALERT Plot and theme details below

One reason this may be so is because Yellow Wife is based upon actual individuals and events, accurate historical fiction at its best. Pheby and Marse Laupier are based up Robert Lumpkin (and his slave “yellow wife” meaning almost white in color) who ran the actual notorious Lumpkin Jail in Richmond, Virginia.

Another intriguing comparison is to Thomas Jefferson and his many-year’d concubine relationship with Sally Hemmings where she birthed 6 children by Jefferson, 4 of whom grew to adulthood and were able to pass for white, and also who escaped from enslavement. Tragically, though in the case of Jefferson, unlike Lumpkin, he never married Sally.

Another very good point about the book are its in depth themes. Yellow Wife shows many moral ironies of the institution of slavery including the extreme differences (such as the kindly owner, James and his sister versus the sociopathic owners of Richmond).

There is the deep theme of the reality of evil versus good, the power of music and literature (with references to other books dealing with similar tragic plots and similar themes—Oliver Twist, Jane Eyre, etc.)

And, amazingly, in contrast to most secular fiction, Johnson includes spiritual and religious themes! At first, I thought she was just giving details of the slaves’ Christian beliefs and actions as part of the history and setting, but later in the novel she emphasizes the realness of prayer, singing, and good actions.

Johnson also mostly avoids promoting immoral actions such as revenge, though at one point Pheby does utter a detailed curse to the cruel wife of her 'nice'first owner.

And Johnson avoids the constant use of obscenities and gross details of dark horror that are common in plenty of modern literature. Her descriptions of sexual relations are graphic enough to be convincing—and inspiring or despairing—but not obscene like so many other writers of the present.

About the only part of Yellow Wife that greatly disappoints is the rushed ending, where Laupier unexpectedly—and unbelievably--changes from the sociopathic, cruel, vicious jail owner who even had one young pregnant slave beaten so harshly that her infant aborts and is expelled in the midst of the beating.

And when Pheby is caught reading a book of his, Oliver Twist, Laupier is so very upset and angry that he viciously rapes her, causing physical harm to her private parts! And he threatens to sell off their children and her older son, Monroe if she teaches any of them to read!

YET only shortly later in the story toward the end, when Pheby sends a secret letter to have abolitionists come and help free Essex, her lover and the father of Monroe, from Laupier’s jail, Marse Laupier hardly reacts at all!

And incredulously, rather than beat her senseless and torture and murder Essex, he asks apprehensively of Pheby, “Do you love him?”

Ridiculous. What a poor ending.

The only penalties that the Marse imposes on Pheby is to send her son away for a few weeks, and their daughters away on a trip, and he prohibits Pheby from going to market and from church for a few weeks!

I suppose it’s possible that Laupier could have changed toward Pheby like the real Lumpkin did toward his Mary, but there are no transition episodes showing him becoming less vicious or becoming more civil and more truly caring in a normal way.

And I would have also liked to not see a total skipping of the war, with only a couple of letters between mother and one daughter after the war as the climatic ending.

Wimpy! Vague.

Oh well, I guess all my strong reactions—both positive and negative—show how deeply the novel has affected me. Maybe, some day I will read the actual history of the Richmond Jail. Currently, I am reading a biography of Jefferson Davis and a history of the War.

Last night, I was also thinking of various questions I had about the individuals in the story that I wanted to know—a sure sign of how powerful the book is!—but can’t think of them now. Maybe I will remember later.

Yellow Wife would make a great movie!

Evaluation: A-/D

Dan Wilcox

5/28/21

Amazon Description: “Born on a plantation in Charles City, Virginia, Pheby Delores Brown has lived a relatively sheltered life. Shielded by her mother’s position as the estate’s medicine woman and cherished by the Master’s sister, she is set apart from the others on the plantation, belonging to neither world.

She’d been promised freedom on her 18th birthday, but instead of the idyllic life she imagined with her true love, Essex Henry, Pheby is forced to leave the only home she has ever known. She unexpectedly finds herself thrust into the bowels of slavery at the infamous Devil’s Half Acre, a jail in Richmond, Virginia, where the enslaved are broken, tortured, and sold every day. There, Pheby is exposed not just to her Jailer’s cruelty but also to his contradictions. To survive, Pheby will have to outwit him, and she soon faces the ultimate sacrifice.”

Book Review: STAMPED FROM THE BEGINNING by Ibram X. Kendi

This non-fiction survey of racism in American history is well worth the read. It is a good introduction to racism in American history and the winner of the National Book Award. The explanations and descriptions of early 16th to 18th racist leaders are seldom written about, so few people know of that era other than brief descriptions of the murderous Middle Passage.

Kendi has a deep passion for what he writes, and he gives new readers a handy way to break down and to remember all of the complex events, leaders, and crises that took place over hundreds of years. His handy key history sheet reduces all humans into about 4 or 5 categories related to the topic of racism--there are racists, or assimilators, or accommodators (not his term, can’t remember, but something like it), and a small number are anti-racists.

So this popular book in a simple basic sense at first, is helpful, especially for those who don't know racism's history.

And, despite his skimming across the surface of most of American history, Kendi does go a bit more deeply into the horrific tragedy of Reconstruction and its racist aftermath when the racist Redeemers took over all Southern governments between 1865 and 1879 (and the U.S. government let them; indeed, the Hays government helped them!:-()

His book was a good review for me of that time period since I read Foner’s Reconstruction, a scholarly tome about 7-10 years ago.
HOWEVER by midpoint Kendi’s basic schematic for categorizing all of humankind begins to show signs of distortion, misleading claims, down-wrong falsehood, and confusion. He obsesses to make everyone fit into his ideological biases, into his few cookie-cutter stereotypical categories.

Cutting every human to fit into one of his 4 or 5 Procustrian beds. He, especially does this when he attempts to blame almost everyone for holding racist views, even calls nearly all abolitionists and Civil Rights workers “racist” including Garrison, Douglas, and Martin Luther King! And then his book gets worse.

#1 Kendi confuses inherent worth of all humans with thinking that all humans essentially have the same immediate achievement ability. He thinks American leaders who thought that illiterate, abused ex-slaves weren’t immediately ready for voting, leading, and achieving were racists because of that. Maybe some of them were.


Contrary to what Kendi asserts, American leaders seeking to help ex-slaves become literate before they were allowed to vote (and become full citizens) weren't "racist," weren't denying their inherent worth. Rather it was an acknowledgment that despite the Blacks' human inherent worth, enslavement had hindered them, had kept them from achievement in many areas, and that therefore, the ex-slaves needed to be given the means and finances and education to work toward achieving what had been previously denied them.

Most of ex-slaves, especially the field workers, weren’t as capable as educated Whites and free Negroes, just like at-risk teens raised in dysfunctional abusive families aren’t immediately capable of the same achievements as teens raised in high-achieving positive, loving families.

Kendi goes onto to claim that unless all Africans were immediately given total control of their nations in Africa in the post-colonial era, then the leaving European leaders were just as racist and oppressive as their forebears who had committed so much evil. Not so.

This shows a severe lack of historical understanding, anthropology, etc. OR more likely, since Kendi is a brilliant individual with a PhD., his claims show how ideological-driven his book is.

He repeatedly commits either/or fallacies, blames all human horrors on only whites, excuses all POC from any responsibilities, and so forth.

A quick cursory glance at African nations, as they are now, 50-100 years later shows that Kendi’s view is delusionary, confused, and wrong.

No African nations, not a single one—at least none that I can think of--have rational, civil, democratic, balanced leaders. YEt most of the the nations have amazing natural resources and great potential. And millions of worthy humans who could accomplish much if given the chance.

But instead these nations' resources have been squandered by a succession of corrupt, often brutal dictators, autocrats, even mass murderers!

Some of these immoral horrors can be blamed on the abuse, misuse, racism, and massive theft of colonialism, but not all, or even most. Think of Uganda under Idi Amin, the Rwanda genocide, the former Congo, Zimbabwe under Mugabe (who has turned the former bread-basket of Africa into a failed malnourished state), Mozambique, Egypt, Algeria, Somalia, etc.

The few somewhat better functioning nations such as Kenya still have much poverty, suffer many killings during violent elections, engage in plenty of irrational behaviors, and lots of unnecessary suffering.

Even mostly democratic South Africa (probably the best example of a modern state in Africa) has since the end of Apartheid, been poorly governed, and even worse run, by the corrupt leader, Jacob Zuma, a polygamist, who built a mansion while millions of citizens still live in shacks and poverty, etc.

Though S.A. has had about 30 years to start making huge changes, restructuring and opening up the nation to ALL of its citizens, Black leaders (with the exception of the elderly Mandela) have failed miserably.

It’s true that many years of racist ruling by the white supremacist Dutch Reformed leaders left behind many severe problems, but Black leaders for the most part haven’t solved those and, instead, have created more problems of their own.

Nor does Kendi deal with horrific African leaders of the historic past such as Shaka and the Zulu. Nor does he engage with the tribal slaughters by Blacks that occurred in Africa for centuries and that still happen.

Instead, Kendi acts like only white Europeans are racist and engage in all manners of evil.

It's tragically true that hundreds of years of oppression, persecution, abuse, enslavement, and slaughter were caused by white Europeans. Kendi is correct there.

Where he misleads is that he fails to identify and deal with the hundreds of years of Black and Brown people's evil actions.

Further, Kendi defends the horrific criminal riots of the late 1960’s in the U.S. calling them anti-racist “rebellions”!

Any quick overview of U.S. history shows this to be completely untrue. Arson-burnings of many blocks of businesses including Black ones, massive lootings, vandalism, killings, etc. aren’t anti-racist “rebellions”! They are criminal riots.

He goes onto support the criminal Black Panthers and other violent Black racists who committed crimes including many killings.

Kendi also seems to defend ‘gangsta rap with its endless obscenities, calls for lethal violence, injustice, and so forth. He defends such rappers as Tupac.

About the only Black leader for civil rights that Kendi thinks gets good marks for anti-racism is Angela Davis! Yet she is a doctrinaire communist! Davis, allegedly, refused to condemn the Soviet Union and other communist nations for their imprisonment of millions of innocent protesters, writers, and scientists, and for their state-murder of millions.

Good grief, Davis admires Lenin, one of the worst leaders of the 20th century, guilty for the death of millions of humans!

Davis even accepted the Lenin Prize. Etc.

While her direct involvement in the kidnapping and murders of people by the Jacksons, and the attempt to help George Jackson to break out of San Quentin was rejected by the jury in her trial, the fact that she allowed the younger Jackson to use her own guns shows negligence. Heck, allegedly, she employed Jonathan as her bodyguard.

What had happened to the Black nonviolence of great leaders like Bayard Rustin who convinced a wavering King to not even have a gun in his home?
Davis also supports South African Winnie Mandela as a woman of "courage"! Sick!..Read about that immoral, unjust leader who advocated murder of others by burning tires around their bodies!

Kendi appears to admire Chairman Mao, one of the worst mass murderers of human history!

Kendi speaks positively of W.E.B. Du Bois going to meet Mao in the late 1950’s. That’s about the time Mao caused the starvation deaths of millions of innocent Chinese. Then there are the millions Mao intentionally slaughtered.

Further, Kendi claims that even Frederick Douglas, William Lloyd Garrison, Dubois, King, Obama, etc. held racist views. I kid you not.

He doesn’t mention the great Civil Rights leader, Bayard Rustin, who began protesting back in the 1940’s! Then advised King and others in the 1950's Please read the powerful biography, Lost Prophet: The Life and Times of Bayard Rustin.

Nor in all of his over 500 pages does Kendi speak of the huge influence of heretical and liberal Christianity as the source and standard bearer of anti-racism, abolition, civil rights, etc, (except for a few comments on Woolman and Quakerism).

And the further the book goes, the more obsessed, Kendi becomes in his simplistic ideological claims. As Kendi says in a recent interview, he thinks all humans are either racist or anti-racist. Another case of the either/or fallacy.

Worst of all Kendi thinks that the solution for racism is power and self-interest, not altruism or spiritual elevation or moral realism. Forget about King, John Lewis, and so many others who emphasized that the answer to racism and all other evils is altruism.

The central basis of Kendi’s book appears to be Critical Race Theory, though I don’t remember him actually writing about that overtly.

In the 3rd section of the book (an era that I know well), I started skimming for key names and actions because his commentary is superficial and a distortion of 20th century history and leaders. I do agree with his condemnation of the unjust actions of the famous racist leaders.

In conclusion, I am glad I read Stamped, despite its distortions and failures and ideological fanaticism.

I do agree that racism is still with us, and that the long evil shadow of the enslavement past still distorts American culture and society, and that all of us need to work to alter all that is wrong, and that intensive help needs to be given to Blacks and others who have suffered from structural racism of the past.

But the HUGE glaring chasm in Kendi’s book is that he blames only Whites for racism.

He never deals with the fact that Blacks were the ones in Africa who sold millions of other Blacks into slavery, or that long before Europeans came down the coast and started the Middle Passage, Brown Muslims were enslaving millions of Blacks for centuries, etc.

And, most, negligently, Kendi dismisses any Black responsibility for immorality, injustice, and killings. He never deals with Black crime, including the horrific slaughter by Blacks in Chicago, including many children. Instead, he blames everything on white racism!

Kendi also denies that Blacks are responsible for vandalism, abuse, drug-use, prostitution, broken families, missing fathers, illegitimate children, promiscuity, etc. OR sometimes he does even worse, Kendi justifies immoral and the unjust actions by Blacks claiming that those wrong actions aren’t really wrong!

I was tempted to next write that Kendi has done a “white-wash” of American history, but, heck, he would no doubt accuse me of racist speech.

EVALUATION: D+ (B-F)
8/4/20

In the Light of Justice, Goodness, and Equality,

Dan Wilcox

Review of The Cherokee Nation in the Civil War

This powerful history details a little known part of the Civil War--how Native Americans in Indian Territory responded to the Civil War.

The Cherokee Nation in the Civil War by Clarissa W. Confer is a very tragic narrative beginning with how some Cherokee leaders had adopted a few of the worst social behaviors of European Americans in the early 1900's including enslavement of others, owning at least 4,000 Negro slaves. (Of course, even a few Negroes also owned Negro slaves in the Carolinas and Florida so this wasn't unique to a minority such as the Cherokee.)

A few of the Cherokee became rich despite racism and opposition by White Americans, but then the Cherokee were jettisoned from their lands and homes (along with other 'Civilized Tribes') by President Andrew Jackson and other American leaders.

The national mistreatment officially began with the passage of the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which banished a number of tribes to Indian Territory so Whites could steal their lands, houses, and other things (including gold in Georgia), and forced the tribes onto the Trail of Tears.

The future state of Oklahoma became a dumping ground for unwanted peoples by the Americans, the state name even comes from a Choctaw leader who coined it, meaning “Red People”! Some of the Native Americans, after resisting for a while, eventually tried to appease the American government, thinking that was their only choice, and moved to Indian Territory soon.

But some of the Cherokee continued to resist. Even the resisters were forced out in 1838. Many Cherokee suffered disease, starvation and other horrors on their forced removal, about 3,000 dying on the way. The mostly Scottish John Ross (1/8th Cherokee, 7/8th's White), was one of the Cherokee Nation leaders who severely criticized the Cherokees who had quit resisting the U.S. Law. His 2nd wife was a Delaware Quaker lady, Mary Brian Stapler.

The compromising Cherokee voluntarily moved to Indian Territory earlier. Eventually, some pro-Ross forces murdered 3 of these Cherokee leaders; and Ross supporters justified the murders as following Cherokee Law, that of executing 'traitors.' No one was ever arrested for the murders.

Both pro-treaty and anti-treaty Cherokee owned slaves. John Ross continued to own slaves until one year before his death in 1866. One question is why did Ross continue to own slaves after he married a Delaware Quaker. Was Mary Brian Stapler only culturally a Friend, or wouldn't Ross listen to her abolitionist views?

In the midst of these controversies within the Cherokee Nation, the Civil War started. The Cherokee, including John Ross supported the Confederacy because of the many cases of abusive treatment by the U.S. Furthermore, the Confederate Government made big promises including representation in the Confederate Government!

However, the Confederate leaders failed to follow through on most of their promises. So then some Cherokee for various reasons decided to switch and support the Union. This led to civil war within the Cherokee Nation itself. Native American groups attacked other Native Americans, stole, destroyed property, and slaughtered each other. Pro-Union Cherokee civilians were attacked as they fled north by pro-Confederacy Cherokee.

Union and pro-Confederates burned homes in the Cherokee capital, etc. At least one Union army attacked and killed Native Americans after being told, basically, to kill them all, not take prisoners.

The whole book shows so vividly how evil war is, no matter what its justifications. Again throughout the U.S. and including Indian Territory, both sides violated most moral truths, all of the commandments of 10 Words of the Old Testament, especially slaughter and stealing.

The Cherokee Nation never recovered to its previous achievements, but at least slavery was banned after the end of the war.

Stand Watie (De-ga-ta-ga), the only Cherokee (3/4's Cherokee, 1/4 White), to become a general in the Civil War, continued to fight against the Union, even after Robert E. Lee surrendered in April 9, 1865. Brigadier General Watie kept fighting until June 23, 1865! He was also the only one of the 4 accommodating Cherokee leaders who escaped assassination by the pro-Ross faction of the Cherokee.

Watie served as Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation from 1862 until 1866. (An intriguing historical footnote is that the U.S. Postal Service printed a stamp honoring Watie on June 29th, 1995, 130 years later.)

The compassionate views of Watie's wife, Sarah Caroline (Bell) show that despite the fog and horrors of the war that at least some recognized that war is contrary to compassion and spirituality. She wrote her husband "to be a good man as always" and to maintain a clear conscience before God and others. She was "particularly worried about the effect of wartime conduct on the young men in the armies."

When she heard that her son, Saladin and a nephew had killed a prisoner, she became very upset. "It almost runs me crazy to hear such things....tell my boys to always show mercy as they expect to find God merciful to them." "She worried that because of this early exposure to condoned killing, Saladin would never value human life as should."
page 131, The Cherokee Nation in the Civil War

Book Evaluation: B

For insights into how Quakers eventually became involved with Native Americans in the 19th century read "Quaker Indian Boarding Schools--Facing Our History and Ourselves" by Paula Palmer, October 2016 in the Friends Journal:

https://www.friendsjournal.org/quaker-indian-boarding-schools/


In the Light,
Dan Wilcox

Part 2: El Morro Rock: ERASING HISTORY-- About the Take-Downs of Some Monuments and Sites, Wrong! And Alternatives

When are the remains of history valid?
When is it ever correct to take down the memorials, monuments, statues, markings, etc. of past humans?

WHAT ARE THE ALTERNATIVES?

This article is about the intriguing action of the U.S. Government at El Morro Rock.

Here on this imposing monolith in Northern New Mexico, thousands of humans for a few hundred years have inscribed images and/or their names.
(It is one of the most fascinating of National Monuments to visit, as I did a week ago.)

There are engraved names and images from Native Americans, Spanish explorers, U.S. Military troops, Wagon Train emigrants, railroad workers, and so forth.

An early marking was done by Provincial Governor Don Juan de Ornate, "Pasa por aqui..." (Passed by here the Governor Don Juan de Orante, from the discovery of the Sea of the South on the 16th of April, 1605). He had visited the site earlier in 1598 when he and 1,000 Mexican settlers came to the area. Ornate named the site Agua de la Pena (Water of the Rock).
Unfortunately, his 'graffiti' partially covers one prehistoric Native American petroglyph!

A pool of water is what first drew Native Americans here hundreds of years before Ornate. They founded a village atop El Morro Rock in about 1275 C.E. until droughts came in sometime in the 1300's.

The water comes from rain and snow melt, and when the pond is full can have as much as 200,000 gallons of water! However, this isn't a spring so can easily become shallow and polluted.
But it is the only water source for 30 miles.


A preteen, Sarah Fox, a member of a westward wagon train, scratched her name here in 1858.
Look carefully because her name is difficult to read. Her name is right above the CA in the lower left of the photo. Later at the Colorado River, their wagon train was attacked by Mohave Native Americans, and she was shot with an arrow, but she survived.

But if teens (or adults) after 1906 carve their names or images, they are guilty of a violation of U.S. Law.
The sign states: "It is unlawful to mark...El Morro Rock."

A U.S. Army leader, P. Gimer Breckinridge came here twice. The first time was with Army camels; the 2nd time he signed on El Morro. Later he would become a leader in the Confederate Army during the Civil War.

Will the U.S. Government or some local government eliminate his signature from the historic rock because he resigned from the U.S. Army (like thousands of other U.S. soldiers and Navy sailors and many West Point graduates) and enlisted in the Confederacy?

WILL BRECKINRIDGE BE ELIMINATED LIKE ROBERT E. LEE, STONEWALL JACKSON, AND OTHERS?

--

What concerns me in this article is the judgment by the U.S. Government to adopt 1906 as the defining date for judging names and other markings as either valued historical creations TO BE SAVED
or vandalism that was then
TO BE ELIMINATED.

IN THE EARLY 1920'S, EVON Z. VOGT, A RAMAH RANCHER AND AMATEUR HISTORIAN BECAME THE FIRST CUSTODIAN OF EL MORRO ROCK IN 1916. HE DECIDED IN THE 1920'S TO ERASE ALL MARKINGS ON EL MORRO ROCK AFTER 1906 AS INVALID.

PROBABLY, VOGT MEANT WELL, WAS ATTEMPTING TO PRESERVE THE PAST OF HUNDREDS OF YEARS AGO FROM THE MORE RECENT PAST.

HOWEVER WHY WAS PRETEEN SALLY FOX'S SIGNATURE VALID BUT A TEEN'S FROM 1907 OR LATER NOT VALID OR WORTHY?

WHY ARE ANY LATER ADDITIONS VIOLATIONS OF U.S. LAW, BAD ILLEGAL ACTIONS?

AP Photo/Heather Clark











Let's deal with a few background philosophical assumptions related to the issue of when if ever public displays of the historical past ought to be eliminated.

Don't the removers (the governments, the defacers, vandals, politically-correct, and so forth) realize that when they do the take-downs, they erase public history (for millions the only history they know, since only a small minority of humans are avid book readers of history)!?

Well, of course, for those, the erasers, that almost always is exactly the point.
They want to revise history, to present to all humans their own distorted version of human history, eliminate the humans of the past with whom they disagree and strongly oppose.

In this blog, I've already explained in past posts why I think it is very wrong that the U.S. Government, and local governments such as Dallas and Baltimore and Virginia have been taking down statues of Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, memorials for soldiers, etc.
I oppose the take-downs because I was an American literature-history teacher for many years.

The reason I oppose their removal isn't because I agree with Lee, or Jackson, etc. because I don't. They were both fatalists, both supported slavery, both participated in the slaughter of at least 700,000 humans, the wounding and suffering of millions, the theft and destruction of billions of dollars of land, housing, and personal possessions.

HOWEVER, if the government thinks that their statues and memorials and street names should no longer exist, then to be consistent and fair, they ought to also take down the statues, memorials, street names, etc. to Abraham Lincoln,
to George Washington,
Thomas Jefferson,
Sam Houston,
eliminate the State Flag of California--The Bear Flag, and so forth.

For the vast majority of Americans were as guilty, often more guilty, of racism, enslavement, slaughter than Lee or Jackson. HECK, 12 PRESIDENTS OF THE U.S. OWNED SLAVES IN THEIR LIFETIMES, 8 WHILE SERVING AS PRESIDENT.

George Washington owned slaves all of his life, didn't free them until his death.

THOMAS JEFFERSON, THOUGH PHILOSOPHICALLY OPPOSED TO SLAVERY AS WRONG, NEVER FREED HIS SLAVES.

THOUGH ABRAHAM LINCOLN PERSONALLY OPPOSED SLAVERY, AS PRESIDENT HE SUPPORTED THE ENSLAVEMENT OF NEGROES IN THE UNION UNTIL NEAR THE END OF THE CIVIL WAR!

LINCOLN EVEN DEFENDED A SLAVE OWNER IN COURT EARLIER IN HIS CAREER. AND HIS EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION APPLIED ONLY TO SLAVES IN THE CONFEDERACY.
"...Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation as a military measure, it didn’t apply to border slave states like Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri, all of which were loyal to the Union. Lincoln also exempted selected areas of the Confederacy that had already come under Union control in hopes of gaining the loyalty of whites in those states. In practice, then, the Emancipation Proclamation didn’t immediately free a single slave, as the only places it applied were places where the federal government had no control—the Southern states currently fighting against the Union."
https://www.history.com/news/5-things-you-may-not-know-about-lincoln-slavery-and-emancipation

LINCOLN STATED NEGROES WERE INFERIOR TO WHITES, NOT THEIR EQUALS: September 18, 1858, "I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, [applause]—that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied every thing. I do not understand that because I do not want a negro woman for a slave I must necessarily want her for a wife. [Cheers and laughter.] My understanding is that I can just let her alone. I am now in my fiftieth year, and I certainly never have had a black woman for either a slave or a wife. So it seems to me quite possible for us to get along without making either slaves or wives of negroes. I will add to this that I have never seen, to my knowledge, a man, woman or child who was in favor of producing a perfect equality, social and political, between negroes and white men."
I will to the very last stand by the law of this State, which forbids the marrying of white people with negroes. [Continued laughter and applause.]"

Lincoln. also, wanted all Negroes to go back to Africa or some other country! Even as late as 1863, the Lincoln Administration tried to get ex-slaves to move to British Honduras!

SO OUGHT WASHINGTON'S, JEFFERSON'S, LINCOLN'S MONUMENTS BE TAKEN DOWN?

NO.

STATUES, MARKINGS, STREET NAMES, ETC. OF PAST HUMANS--BOTH THE GOOD AND THE BAD, AND THE IN BETWEEN (PARTIALLY GOOD, PARTIALLY BAD)--OUGHT TO BE PRESERVED!

What ought we do about the memorials of previous leaders who held immoral and unjust views and who committed evil actions?

How ought worthy historical markings be separated from the markings of vandals?

To Be Continued--

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Muhammad was NO Prophet of God

1. No prophet of God would invade a town and behead 500 Jewish men who opposed him and then sell their wives and children into slavery.

Muhammad did.

2. No prophet of God would rob caravans.

Muhammad did.

3. No prophet of God would marry a 6-year-old when he is 50 years old!!

Muhammad did.

4. No prophet of God would marry his adopted son's wife as soon as she divorced his son!

Muhammad did.

5. No prophet of God would own slaves.

Muhammad did.

6. No prophet of God would call for people of other religions to be beheaded.

Muhammad did in the Quran.

7. No prophet of God would commit polygamy, marrying many women.

Muhammad did.


Maybe there are no prophets of God.

However there are human leaders who, unlike Muhammad, do stand up for compassion, justice, equality, human rights, women's rights, freedom to reject your religion, freedom of speech, etc.

* Drawing of Muhammad from Wikipedia

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Errors in Thinking

https://www.relationshipwithreason.com/tools/bg/Bo/rwr/Ywjo2n9t/Does-Society-Need-the-Threat-of-Hell-and-the-Promise-of-the-Reward-of-Heaven
This article is an example of how a brilliant Atheist leader and a popular Christian leader can both be in serious error in their thinking and in how they present their own lifestances.

Dennis Prager isn't a lucid, careful, rational thinker so I'm not surprised his explanations are so very wrong and historically inaccurate.
BUT I am shocked by the weaknesses in the article by Bo Bennett, PhD, Social Scientist and Business Consultant, since he has a website showing the dangers of biased rhetoric and fallacious thinking.

VERSUS:

#1 ERROR: Bo Bennett claims that "In short, to make a claim of objective morality, we all need to make a subjective call which makes morality only objective in theory and subjective in practice."

No! We don't need to make a "subjective call" to recognize that racism, rape, molestation, slavery, dishonesty, abuse, and the slaughter of innocent civilians, etc. ARE always wrong.

Atheists, even brilliant successful atheists, claiming that ethics are only "subjective" is the very reason to reject atheism as a true, reliable view of reality.

#2 ERROR: Bennett claims that because "delineating murder from "justified killing" is highly subjective...we will never know...morality is functionally subjective."

On the contrary, this confuses the practice of seeking complete objectivity in ethics with a philosophical claim that there is no objectivity in ethics. We as humans may not be able to be totally objective, BUT WE CAN DRAW CLOSER AND CLOSER TO THE GOOD, THE TRUE, AND THE JUST.

For instance, Bennett brings up the fact of the various degrees of killing, which according to him then makes killing subjective!

No, IT DOESN'T.
When courts work to figure out whether a killing was premeditated, intentional, impulsive, accidental, they AREN'T claiming that it's ALL functionally SUBJECTIVE.

On the contrary, the reason that criminal justice systems work at a snail's pace, are very methodical, are so very detailed, do so much onion-peeling, and sometime disagree with other courts, is that the c.j. leaders are striving to be as objective as possible.

One of the last times I got called to jury duty, both I and another teacher were disqualified from the jury because we were "teachers." Evidently, since the suspect was a teenager, the defense attorney or prosecutor thought we would be "subjective" in our bias as teachers.

Just because, humans sometimes can't know for sure in their quest for total objectivity, DOESN'T mean that therefore slavery, molestation, rape, etc. are ONLY "subjective" wrongs!

Not being able to be totally objective doesn't mean therefore all is "subjective."

How irrational!

If we are NASA scientists and plan to send a probe, again, to Pluto, we strive to be as objective in math and ethics as we can possibly be.

If we fall short, IT DOESN'T mean that math and ethics are "subjective,"
but that we didn't attain the complete objectivity that we seek in that particular goal.

We may still have been able to get the probe out to Saturn, even if one scientist and a mathematician were in error, or even worse were dishonest in their calculations!

Besides, Bennett, then even contradicts his own views. In his article he puts up a poster which says, "If the only thing keeping you from being a horrible person is your religion, you are already a horrible person."

Of course, if as Bennett claims ethics are only "subjective," then whether or not a person is ethically "horrible" is subjective!

If ethics are "subjective," then it's rather strange that Bennett who claims to be a rational individual, claims that religion is wrong and reason is good.

It is the view that justice, truth, and goodness really exist which is the basis for various criticisms of religion and secularism failures.

See if you spot some of Bennett's and Prager's other weak reasonings.


In the LIGHT of Truth, Justice, and Goodness,

Daniel Wilcox

"Strange...a God..."

"Strange...a God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones;
who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short;
mouths Golden Rules and forgiveness
multiplied seventy times seven and invented Hell;
who mouths morals to other people
and has none himself;

who frowns upon crimes yet commits them all;
who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man’s acts upon man,
instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself;
and finally with altogether divine obtuseness, invites this poor, abused slave to worship him!"

— Mark Twain, The Mysterious Stranger*

1. This "a God" described by Samuel Clemens is horrific and alien to me--was so even back when I was a young Christian teen growing up in Bible-belt southern Nebraska. We certainly didn't believe in any such deity.

YET I do know--from my having read many tomes of history and theology, and from personally speaking with a few famous Christian leaders--that Mark Twain's "a God" is a fairly accurate view of creedal Christianity, especially of the Augustinian, Reformed, and Lutheran branches.**

2. Here is background for the assertions of Clemens' anti-creed:

A. "a God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones;"

It is very baffling why an, allegedly, perfectly good God would intentionally foreordain, before the creation of the universe, that all the many billions of infants be conceived and born totally "sinful" and "in essence, evil."

But remember the famous Puritan, Michael Wigglesworth, in his poem "The Day of Doom" emphasized that infants will get the "easiest room in Hell." :-( Line 370-72, http://www.bartleby.com/400/poem/171.html

No wonder that Twain was so bitter about this ethical obscenity.

B. "who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short;"

If you had a dollar for every Christian book which emphasizes that Christians ought to accept, even glory in their suffering because it brings glory to God, you would soon be rich.

Titles will be added here later.

Of course, think of the millions of young children and young adults who suffer and die terribly from cancer and other agonizing and death-dealing scourges which God pre-planned for his own glory and "good pleasure."

One of the last tragic cases that happened shortly before I finally realized that organized Christianity CAN'T be true was a young lady of about 32 in our church who suffered and died leaving her 3 pre-schoolers without a mom.

C. "mouths Golden Rules and forgiveness
multiplied seventy times seven and invented Hell;"

Strange as it may seem to many, the sort of Christianity dominating the U.S. where Clemens grew up--and which still dominates some areas--does emphasize that even Hell was created for God's glory.

Heck, one famous Christian theologian said that even the Jewish Holocaust will bring what ever glory to God that he wills!

D. "who mouths morals to other people and has none himself;"
and
"who frowns upon crimes yet commits them all;"

This is called Divine Command Theory in the Christian religion, or God's total sovereignty. According to many Christian leaders, God has two separate contrary wills; in one he commands humans to obey certain laws, but in the other will, God's hidden will, God causes every evil including molestation, rape, murder, slaughter, natural disasters, diseases, plagues, famines, etc.

Not a molecule moves in the cosmos but that it is by this "a God's" will.

Because God's ultimate nature is his absolute sovereignty, then whatever God wills, then becomes "good." That is why God could order slaughter, slavery, abuse, lying, stealing, and so forth in the Hebrew Bible and in the New Testament.

If you question this, Christians will ask you, "Who do you think you are to question God?"
--

"That was my fix exactly. The more I studied about this, the more my conscience went to grinding me, and the more wicked and low-down and ornery I got to feeling. And at last, when it hit me all of a sudden that here was the plain hand of Providence
slapping me in the face and letting me know my wickedness was being watched all the time from up there in heaven,

whilst I was stealing a poor old woman's nigger that hadn't ever done me no harm,
and now was showing me there's One that's always on the lookout, and ain't agoing
to allow no such miserable doings to go only just so fur and no further, I most
dropped in my tracks I was so scared. Well, I tried the best I could to kinder soften
it up somehow for myself, by saying I was brung up wicked, and so I warn't so much to blame;
but something inside of me kept saying, "There was the Sunday school, you could a gone to it;
and if you'd a done it they'd a learnt you, there, that people that acts as I'd been acting
about that nigger goes to everlasting fire."

It made me shiver. And I about made up my mind to pray; and see if I couldn't try to quit being the kind of a boy I was, and be better. So I kneeled down. But the words wouldn't come. Why wouldn't they? It warn't no use to try and hide it from Him. Nor from me, neither. I knowed very well why they wouldn't come. It was because my heart warn't right; it was because I warn't square; it was because I was playing double. I was letting on to give up sin, but away inside of me I was holding on to the biggest one of all. I was trying to make my mouth say I would do the right thing and the clean thing, and go and write to that nigger's owner and tell where he was; but deep down in me I knowed it was a lie-and He knowed it. You can't pray a lie- I found that out.

So I was full of trouble, full as I could be; and didn't know what to do. At last I had an idea; and I says, I'll go and write the letter- and then see if I can pray. Why, it was astonishing, the way I felt as light as a feather, right straight off, and my troubles all gone. So I got a piece of paper and a pencil, all glad and excited, and set down and wrote:

Miss Watson your runaway nigger Jim is down here two mile below Pikesville
and Mr. Phelps has got him and he will give him up for the reward if you send.
HUCK FINN

I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn't do it straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking- thinking how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and going to hell...

It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself:

"All right, then, I'll go to hell"- and tore it up.

It was awful thoughts, and awful words, but they was said. And I let them stay said; and never thought no more about reforming. I shoved the whole thing out of my head; and said I would take up wickedness again, which was in my line, being brung up to it, and the other warn't. And for a starter, I would go to work and steal Jim out of slavery again;
and if I could think up anything worse, I would do that, too;
because as long as I was in, and in for good,
I might as well go the whole hog."
--from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
by Mark Twain

Samuel Clemens on the theme of his book: "A book of mine where a sound heart and a deformed conscience [because of Christian society and the Bible] come into collision, and conscience suffers defeat."

*As a literature teacher for many years, I used some of Clemens' bitter satire and deep ethical insights for a whole unit on the nature of ethics, and the dangers of conscience, duty, and honor.
But I've not written on Twain or his books for a long time.
Thanks to Bruce Gerencser and Infidel753
for bringing up Twain's keen ethical passage this week on their blogs.

**I won't bother with ranting and raving against the bad three, have done that enough in the past here on the blog. And, since encountering their theological and ethical horrors first 55 years ago have virtually driven all my close loved ones to drink;-), especially my patient wife. She, being non-theological and non-philosophical, doesn't worry about what famous leaders and famous Christian denominations teach. Maybe that is why we share a margarita or wine once in a while for dinner. Much better than the bad spirits.

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

True Ethics in the Midst of Left and Right Hypocrisy

Seeking true ethics is one of the most difficult tasks any of us human primates can do.

And it becomes much more difficult when human leaders display hypocrisy and contradictions when speaking of ethics.

Consider that so many Christian leaders are now avidly supporting leaders (such as Roy Moore and Donald Trump) who have allegedly committed gross unethical actions...

And that so many secularists are claiming that all ethics are “subjective,” “relative,” only “personal” or cultural “preferences,” only a matter of “like or dislike,” that slavery, rape, slaughter, dishonesty aren’t objectively wrong. And that there are no human rights. According to these atheists, rights, equality, liberty, etc. are “myths.”

Is it any wonder that millions humans are confused when it comes to the questions of "ought"?

Or consider the strange anomaly of so many religious leaders in 2017 claiming that various immoral or unjust actions are only wrong because such actions contradict what God has commanded, Divine Command Theory. If God changes his commands (as the Deity often did in the past), then true ethics change.

Worst of all many Christian, Muslim, and Hindu leaders claim God--before the universe began--pre-planned every murder, every rape, every molestation, every natural evil disaster for God's-self! And if you question such a gargantuan horror, they ask who do you think God is?!

God can do whatever he wills because God is God!

Forget such horrific beliefs.

Eliminating those majority views at least narrows the multi-pronged choices staring at us at every moment when we need to choose.

Now for coming the New Year of 2018, Let's seek the Light, seek the Life, seek the Good, seek the Just.

But how does one do so? The difficulty, the Good, is in the details.

One online commentator challenged me to provide a better method.

First, it would appear to most people who study history that neither religion nor atheism hasn't provided a good code of ethics. On the contrary such ideolgoies have committed mass slaughter and supported everything from slavery and dishonesty to theft and torture, to discrimination and persecution. No, Christianity hasn't provided a reliable ethical guide. Check out books such as Jesus Wars and The Great and Holy War: How W.W. l became a Religious Crusade by Phillip Jenkins. And read the critical commentaries on Islam and its horrific history.

Second, the human conscience (except in sociopaths) declares we are to do right, to do the good, but doesn't usually clarify what or how. In fact in history, the most evil actions were committed not by immoral choosers, but by conscientious, dutiful humans!

Let's get an eagle's overview of the mountainous region of ethics:

#1 Probably, the spiritual side of the Enlightenment has achieved the most ethically.
Since then a majority of humans have come to give, at least give lip service, to the ideals of human rights, equality, justice and to condemn the slaughter of innocent humans, poverty, prejudice, torture, slavery, and so forth.

Reason has shown to be more true, more effective, more real than any religious dogma ever was.

However, even in reason and transcendent claims there are doubts and problems and dilemmas. Fortunately, most humans seldom have to deal with the extremes such as the trolley car dilemma and other difficult choices.

Indeed, I wonder why so many ethical skeptics immediately jump to the most extreme difficult examples when the subject of morality is brought up.
In general, for instance, it would seem that honesty and justice are reliable goals, even if in a few severe situations, one might choose an action of dishonesty or injustice in order to save human lives.

But if I moved back to the Middle East and soon was faced with a dire threat by HAMAS or Hezbollah, and chose to lie to protect innocent Jewish civilians,
my lie still wouldn't be true.

Later after human rights organizations got the innocent individuals safely out of the clutches of "Godly" religious organizations, I ought to then print an acknowledgment of my dishonest statement, explaining that I know all lying is wrong, and that I had only told the lie to protect innocent lives.

Too often humans quickly jump to the immoral choice--declaring it good--when encountering a difficult trial. For example Americans constantly condemn Muslims in the Middle East for using torture and terrorism, but quickly defend the U.S. government when it tortures and slaughters.

Let's take non-religious leaders' most extreme example: Ought a good human--if there are no other possible options--murder or rape to defend innocent people?

No.

When making ethical choices, the means is part of the end. When you pick up the immoral ethical stick on one end you get the other, too, even if your intentions are good.

Just for the sake of illustration, what if a U.S. Seal could only save a young Syrian or Afghan girl from being tortured and murdered by Muslim jihadists by pretending to attack and rape her?

Such an undercover individual might choose to rape the girl because he thinks raping her isn't as evil as letting the Islamic State thugs behead or stone her.

HOWEVER, his act of rape--even though done with good intentions--still will harm the girl and is very wrong.

One evil in response to another evil doesn't make a good.

Never.


In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Don't "Make America Great" Again!

With so many endless claims of how we need to “make American great again,” here’s why that makes little sense:

Consider John C. Calhoun, one of America’s greatest, most honored American leaders of the past:
A government committee led by John F. Kennedy chose John C. Calhoun as one of the five greatest United States Senators ever!
John C. Calhoun became the seventh Vice President of the U.S.,
also ran for president,
was Secretary of State,
was Secretary of War twice,
was a U.S. Congressman,
and then South Carolina’s Senator, etc.

Calhoun was a committed slave owner like 12 American Presidents including Andrew Jackson who invaded another country, who, allegedly, according to the news is one of President Donald Trump's heroes.

America used to be much worse than now, NOT "Great" by any stretch of the mind.

Read John C. Calhoun's views opposing human rights, equality, freedom, etc.: “…nothing can be more unfounded and false—the prevalent opinion that all men are free and equal.”

” These great and dangerous errors have their origin in the prevalent opinion that all men are born free and equal;—than which nothing can be more unfounded and false.”

“It [universal human equality and freedom] never did, nor can exist; as it is inconsistent with the preservation and perpetuation of the race.”

“It follows, from what has been stated, that it is a great and dangerous error to suppose that all people are equally entitled to liberty.”
“It is a reward to be earned, not a blessing to be gratuitously lavished on all alike;—a reward reserved for the intelligent, the patriotic,
the virtuous and deserving...an all-wise Providence has reserved it...”
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/…/disquisition-on-gover…/


Become seekers of the truth, goodness, equality, liberty, justice, beauty...

Maybe in the future that could help America become great ethically for the first time.

In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

"History...a Nightmare" vs. "History...to Hope"?

"History is a nightmare we are trying to wake up from."
-James Joyce
VS.
"It is history that teaches us to hope."
-Civil War Talk website
---

"In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies."
-Winston Churchill

“If the people really knew [the truth] the war would be stopped tomorrow. But of course they don’t know and can’t know.”
-British Prime Minister Lloyd George, on Great War

"“It is necessary to know how to conceal...and to be a great pretender and dissembler...those princes who have done great things have considered keeping their word of little account, and have known how to beguile men’s minds by shrewdness and cunning. In the end these princes have overcome those who have relied on keeping their word.” “Occasionally words must serve to veil the facts. But let this happen in such a way that no one become aware of it..."
-Machiavelli
VS.
"The first casualty when war comes is truth, and whenever an individual nation seeks to coerce by force of arms another, it always acts, and insists that it acts in self-defense."
-American senator Hiram Johnson, on Great War

“.... more deliberate lies were told than in any other period of history, and the whole apparatus of the state went into action to suppress the truth”.
-War Journalist Phillip Knightley, on Great War

"When war is declared, Truth is the first casualty."
-Member of Parliament Arthur Ponson, Falsehood in War-time, Containing an Assortment of Lies Circulated Throughout the Nations During the Great War

from Wikipedia:
Historian Anne Morelli's explanation of "Ponsonby's classic in "ten commandments of propaganda":

"We do not want war.

The opposite party alone is guilty of war.

The enemy is the face of the devil.

We defend a noble cause, not our own interest.

The enemy systematically commits cruelties; our mishaps are involuntary.

The enemy uses forbidden weapons.

We suffer small losses, those of the enemy are enormous.

Artists and intellectuals back our cause.

Our cause is sacred.

All who doubt our propaganda, are traitors."

Notice how ALL--or at least most--of those characterize nearly all wars in history, and include present-day conflicts, especially the 7 ones that the U.S. and other countries are currently engaging in!

See also, Jesus Wars and The Great and Holy War by Historian Phillip Jenkins

At this juncture in my aged life--
after at least 57 years of reading history tomes--it would seem that history is
neither "a Nightmare"
nor a "Hope,
but
rather our past life, and so we ought to study it for dear life, hoping that we can ferret out what is true from all the myths, all the intentional lies and semi-lies, and all the misunderstandings, confusions, and distortions that comprise the FOG of HISTORY.

Seeking the Truth,

Daniel Wilcox