Uploaded on August 15, 2007, by 'Bobesh
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bobesh14/1124529951/
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
a New Morality is sweeping America
---------------------------------------------------------------------
MORALITY IN BUSINESS AND GOVERNMENT
---------------------------------------------------------------------
The conservative morality model is obsolete
~
Frank Rich: America's "Cultural Pattern Of Denial Hardly Limited To The Economic Crisis"
What We Don't Know Will Hurt Us
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/opinion/22rich.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
---------------------------------------------------------------------
MORALITY IN BUSINESS AND GOVERNMENT
---------------------------------------------------------------------
The conservative morality model is obsolete
~
Frank Rich: America's "Cultural Pattern Of Denial Hardly Limited To The Economic Crisis"
What We Don't Know Will Hurt Us
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/opinion/22rich.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
(Re: Vince Li not guilty of murder because of insanity in gruesome bus beheading incident: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090306.wli0307/BNStory/National/home
Editorial, March 15, 09: Jim Taylor is the founding editor of an ecumenical clergy journal, PMC: the Practice of Ministry in Canada, and writes a monthly column for the Presbyterian Record and is a founder of Canada’s largest independent religious publishing house.)
Jim Taylor argues that we can't blame god for the voices in our heads. But which god?
He suggests that ancient prophets perhaps were insane, but ignores the idea of an insane god who would drown all of creation for a little human depravity.
Ask yourself what kind of god whispers in a dark cave (Mohammad) or from a hat (Mormonism) or amazes with a blinding light (Saint Paul)? What kind of god would resort to tricks? A trickster god of course.
And cultures around the world are chock full of trickster god stories with enough similarities to justify such a creature's existence. From our own Coyote/Raven, Loki (European), Spider (African) to the Peacock god of a small persecuted Iraqi community, human culture has always acknowledged a god who physically walks among us and who meddles in and influences human outcomes.
This is not an absent or dead god who whispers in our heads while lolling about in some impossible heavenly dimension awaiting that time when humanity becomes so depraved and the earth so devastated as to justify a re-appearance, but a real physical shape-shifting god. In this part of the world, this creature is known as Coyote.
Coyote began as First Mother who stole the secrets of creation and created humanity from her own body, and copulated with her creation. This resulted in a god-like species that was against all the rules. She then saved us from Old Creator's genocidal rage and Flood. Along the way she was rejected by her creation because she tended to follow her own agenda and not ours, and subsequently has been transformed into a cartoonish male coyote avatar.
For example, both the Bible and Coyote mythologies speak of a time when people lived hundreds of years longer, but only the trickster stories explain how we lost it.
There was want in the human villages as game was short and people starved. We appealed to the gods, but they were useless. They did not know what to do. Coyote stepped forward and fixed it: he shortened the days that we lived! The People reacted angrily and drove Coyote away from our feast tables and out of our villages shouting: “ Before we were only hungry; now we die before we grow old enough to be wise!”
And forevermore, First Mother was known as Trickster and became the cultural embodiment of all things human that were not quite good enough to be accepted in civilized culture. S/he wanders the waste lands looking for rabbits while waiting for her creation to mature.
Sometimes Coyote puts on a mask and looks for someone who would like to play ball. Paul, Mohammad and Moses all played a good game. Coyote is always here someplace: pushing, whispering and still doing tricks.
So if your hat starts whispering, or a booming voice from a bright light tells you to write a new religion, I would suggest looking about for Coyote tracks. And hang on tight, cause Coyote plays a mean game of cultural ball.
But if the voices are telling you to kill people for their sins, I would instead suggest drug therapy.
Editorial, March 15, 09: Jim Taylor is the founding editor of an ecumenical clergy journal, PMC: the Practice of Ministry in Canada, and writes a monthly column for the Presbyterian Record and is a founder of Canada’s largest independent religious publishing house.)
Jim Taylor argues that we can't blame god for the voices in our heads. But which god?
He suggests that ancient prophets perhaps were insane, but ignores the idea of an insane god who would drown all of creation for a little human depravity.
Ask yourself what kind of god whispers in a dark cave (Mohammad) or from a hat (Mormonism) or amazes with a blinding light (Saint Paul)? What kind of god would resort to tricks? A trickster god of course.
And cultures around the world are chock full of trickster god stories with enough similarities to justify such a creature's existence. From our own Coyote/Raven, Loki (European), Spider (African) to the Peacock god of a small persecuted Iraqi community, human culture has always acknowledged a god who physically walks among us and who meddles in and influences human outcomes.
This is not an absent or dead god who whispers in our heads while lolling about in some impossible heavenly dimension awaiting that time when humanity becomes so depraved and the earth so devastated as to justify a re-appearance, but a real physical shape-shifting god. In this part of the world, this creature is known as Coyote.
Coyote began as First Mother who stole the secrets of creation and created humanity from her own body, and copulated with her creation. This resulted in a god-like species that was against all the rules. She then saved us from Old Creator's genocidal rage and Flood. Along the way she was rejected by her creation because she tended to follow her own agenda and not ours, and subsequently has been transformed into a cartoonish male coyote avatar.
For example, both the Bible and Coyote mythologies speak of a time when people lived hundreds of years longer, but only the trickster stories explain how we lost it.
There was want in the human villages as game was short and people starved. We appealed to the gods, but they were useless. They did not know what to do. Coyote stepped forward and fixed it: he shortened the days that we lived! The People reacted angrily and drove Coyote away from our feast tables and out of our villages shouting: “ Before we were only hungry; now we die before we grow old enough to be wise!”
And forevermore, First Mother was known as Trickster and became the cultural embodiment of all things human that were not quite good enough to be accepted in civilized culture. S/he wanders the waste lands looking for rabbits while waiting for her creation to mature.
Sometimes Coyote puts on a mask and looks for someone who would like to play ball. Paul, Mohammad and Moses all played a good game. Coyote is always here someplace: pushing, whispering and still doing tricks.
So if your hat starts whispering, or a booming voice from a bright light tells you to write a new religion, I would suggest looking about for Coyote tracks. And hang on tight, cause Coyote plays a mean game of cultural ball.
But if the voices are telling you to kill people for their sins, I would instead suggest drug therapy.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
