Today's discussion question

[alice wellintown]

Voltaire, Sophia Koveleskia said, was no more than a provocateur. Mencken
was much the same. Not bad work if you can get it. Every community needs
its gadfly.


Flypaper scissor rock match. Catch catch catch catch

On Thursday, August 15, 2013, Ian Livingston wrote:

> Thus Voltaire's cry to "Never forget the atrocities" of the Church.
>
>
> On Thu, Aug 15, 2013 at 8:34 AM, alice wellintown <
> alicewellintown at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> There are common misunderstandings of other religions, cultures,
> peoples, often perpetuated by popular media. Like the notion that
> Native Americans were peaceful Earth worshiping souls, Quakers didn't
> own slaves, carry weapons and "police" runaway slaves, fund slave
> kidnapping and the shipment of enslaved Africans, etc.
>
> Nixon was a Quaker.
>
> And Melville's M-D shows us how some Quakers were hell on the
> environment, the sea, whales, not to mention other Christians and
> non-Christians, who were, as Ishmael discovers, all slaves on ships.
>
> It's a tangle of lines.
>
> When Frederick Douglass sees tha the Irish in Ireland, the Catholic
> Irish, live far worse than the Narrow-Back Irish Catholics in America,
> many who lived far worse than  his own enslaved African Americans, he
> is struck dumb. Though inspired after reading Catholic Emancipation,
> and of the Rights Irish Freedom, and by the Irish men and children in
> America who helped him, taught him, supported him and his cause, when
> Douglass has the chance to speak against the genocide in Ireland, he
> takes the money for his cause and turns his back on the poor.
>
>
> On 8/14/13, malignd at aol.com <malignd at aol.com> wrote:
> > Not willful.  I guess the context was Buddhists in America, but your
> > question seemed addressed at Buddhism in general.  There are after all
> > people who seem to find Buddhism the one unimpeachable religion.  And,
> to be
> > honest, when these  Burma stories first started coming out, I was,
> perhaps
> > naively surprised.  I think of Buddhists in the east setting themselves
> > afire, not wantonly murdering practitioners of another religion.
> >
> >
> > But you're right about my attitudes; the idea that the DL is a
> reincarnated
> > spirit is as bubble-headed as any other religious myth.
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
> > To: malignd <malignd at aol.com>
> > Cc: pynchon-l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> > Sent: Tue, Aug 13, 2013 7:46 pm
> > Subject: Re: Today's discussion question
> >
> >
> > Your answer willfully ignores the context of the question.  I know you
> are
> > being disingenuous, because I know you are:
> > A) Not that dumb.
> > &
> > B) Anti any form of spiritual practice.
> >
> > On Tuesday, August 13, 2013,   wrote:
> >
> > You live as a Muslim in Burma.
> >
> > How does one run afoul of any Buddhist, of whatever stripe.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
> > To: Ian Livingston <igrlivingston at gmail.com>
> > Cc: alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com>; pynchon -l
> > <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> > Sent: Mon, Aug 12, 2013 8:07 pm
> > Subject: Re: Today's discussion question
> >
> >
> > How does one run afoul of any Buddhist, of whatever stripe.  Did someone
> > criticize your words or behavior?  Did you cruely squash an innocent bug
> in
> > his presence?  Or is it that the Buddist ran afoul of your prejudices?
>  From
> > your harsh judgement of their aspirations, I would guess the later.
> > "Equanimity" is a foundational goal of Buddhism.  Tolerance is equanimity
> > toward others.
> >
> >
> > David Morris
> >
> > On Monday, August 12, 2013, Ian Livingston  wrote:
> >
> > Well, I still wouldn't dare speak for P, but, parsing the statement just
> a
> > little, I will speak for myself, as someone undoubtedly influenced by
> > Pynchon rightly and wrongly
>
>
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