Amazon, as someone sympathetic to native religions, lemme ask:
-Was everything those hateful white settlers said to the native folks incorrect? (e.g., “These guns will increase your ability to hunt,” “We believe in a different God”?)
-Is it only hateful white settlers who believe that native religions are incorrect?
-Is there any link between believing that a native religion is incorrect, and being a hateful white settler?
I’d say that the answer to all these questions is “no.” People have believed all sorts of incorrect stuff throughout history, ranging from the influence of the heart-muscle on emotions to the existence of a guy who was tortured to death and then came back from death to a story about a Coyote who tricked some cute girls into thinking that his penis was a delicious strawberry. If someone believes that religions in general are false, but they make an exception for Native religions, that looks to me like a race-based exception. It’s incorrect and unfair to link them to racists.
You’re so blinded by your own racism that you can’t even see it, and that’s just sad. Tell me, what would your reaction be if I made a post refering to “dirty red savages”, hmm?
That’s a stupid comparison. There were settlers who were hateful, and they were white, and it’s useful to distinguish the white settlers because they comprised a speciifc wave of settling. There were also hateful AmerIndian settlers in earlier periods of history.
If you referred to “Savage Navajo killers,” that would be an acceptable way to refer to particular historical actors: it would not be racist.
Wait wait wait. When did I become a religious hypocrite? First of all, I’m not religious. In any way. I’m an atheist/agnostic who wants a little girl to feel protected and not scared. I don’t care one way or another if she believes in god or heaven or not.
“No one really know the answer to that, honey. Some people say they do, some people think they do, some people just wonder. Where do you think people go after they die?” and whatever she said, I just told her that was possible, but no one really knows. is EXACTLY what I would say to a child. Maybe I wasn’t clear on that, but I’m getting tired of being called a hypocrite and being told that I’m copping out (of a hypothetical situation, I might add). I would never, however, tell her that if she believes in heaven, she’s wrong, or if she doesn’t believe that she’s wrong.
It’s not a stupid comparison at all Daniel. Not all of the settlers were white, most of them weren’t even “hateful”. The term “hateful white settlers” is a racist remark because it lumps everyone into one group, by race, and then tags that entire group with a negative label. I can document plenty of instances where American Indians acted in a savage manner, but calling all Indians “red savages” would be a racist remark. Similarly, calling all settlers “Hateful white settlers” is a racist remark.
For myself, I completely agree with this idea: I may not believe in a God, but as someone else stated, I’ve got no soul-saving mandate to convince my )hypothetical) kids that I’m right.
I do, however, have a very strong desire to tell my children teh truth when I know it. I know whether I believe in heaven or not; were I to tell my child, “I bet your teacher is in heaven,” that would be a lie, and I would consider it to be a betrayal of my child.
Yeah, it’s important for me to make my child feel safe, that’s true. One of the ways I make my child feel safe is by letting her know that I will tell her the truth: if I tell her that something good is true, she needs to trust that I’m not lying to her about it.
If I have to have the family cat put to sleep, I’m not going to tell my child that she’s moved to a farm. I’ll tell her the truth, and hold her as she cries.
Similarly, if she asks me whether I believe that dead people are in heaven, I’ll tell her the truth about what I believe and about what others believe. My beliefs are pretty sad; so I’ll hold her.
I won’t say, “I bet she’s in heaven” unless I change my wager.
I certainly agree with this: it means that “settlers” is not synonymous with “hateful white settlers.” Presumably, there were hateful Japanese settlers, friendly white settlers, and friendly Black settlers in addition to the hateful White settlers.
Floozy wasn’t talking about them. That’s legit. She wasn’t talking about all settlers.
(Right, Floozy? If I’m wrong–if you were referring to all settlers as being “hateful white settlers,” then I withdraw my defense of the phrase ).
It’s all irrelevant, though, as the reference to “magic and fairytales” was a description of religion in general, not of Amazon Floozy Goddess’s particular beliefs; while any religious person could cite examples of the times their religion has been oppressed, it was completely gratuitous for Amazon Floozy Goddess to bring up oppressive white settlers at all. Obviously there were hateful oppressive whites who did a lot of bad shit to Indians - stuff a lot worse than mocking their religion, in fact - what does that have to do with anything here? The seeming kneejerkishness of AFG’s post was in deciding her beliefs were under attack in the first place.
Yes, you’re right. Of course there were a lot of European settlers who cared about preserving the Native peoples and fought alongside them in their defense. I’m trying to give an example of the ones who were destructive. I’m not using “white” as a racist term in any way; to read that into this is a completely kneejerk reaction. I’m saying this because the vast majority of settlers in Canada WERE white Europeans. And, unfortunately, many, many of them WERE hateful towards First Nations people. That’s why I used that comparison. I wasn’t trying to offend anyone; I apologise, Weirddave, if you felt that way.
You wouldn’t believe the amount of discrimination I get for sharing any aspect about my ancestors’ (Cree) beliefs. I’ve been laughed at and more. The reason having these beliefs that I share being compared to fairy tales is a sore spot for me, is that healing circles, sweat lodges, etc. have been the only thing that have been keeping me from hurting myself since my husband left me due to his depression. It’s a gentle. very compassionate religion with a lot of very good people involved. This is why I don’t want to see it demeaned in any way. There is still so much discrimination towards Native people today, and you can’t possibly know and understand it unless you’re involved directly in it.
Look, my main point that I was trying to make in all of this, that I stated in my first post, is that everyone has their own personal beliefs about the afterlife or lack thereof, and they’re all valid. How do we know we don’t get to choose what happens to us? If some wish to exist beyond this plane, maybe they do. If some want to fade into oblivion, maybe they do. The bottom line is that we simply don’t know, so we really can’t, or shouldn’t, outrightly declare that someone else is right or wrong. If you want to believe they are or aren’t, by all means. But to actually tell them or others that, isn’t our place. That’s all I have to say.
The part that seems kneejerk is that ALL religions were called fairy-tales and magic - not yours in particular. While I wouldn’t describe religion that way, it’s frankly out of a desire not to sound offensive, not because I believe religion has some germ of truth. You do realize that some people really don’t believe any religion has validity, right? It seems strange that you would personalize that into an assault on your particular religion.
I guess that I think there’s a difference between “Religion is all hocus-pocus” and “This particular religion is all hocus-pocus.”
Is “the afterlife is a bunch of hooey and fairy-tales” among the valid beliefs? I believe it is.
I know that some Native religions are gentle, healing religions. I don’t know much about the Cree. The Aztecs’ Native religion wasn’t real big on the gentle healing stuff. But I certainly know that some religions were great: when I was a child, Hawk Littlejohn went on hikes with my family, showing us the different plants that were a part of his spirituality, and even took us through a sweat lodge ceremony (he knew my dad through UNC Medical School). He also recounted how, when he was younger, he was beaten and left nearly for dead by a gang of horse-mounted Klansmen who were punishing him for refusing to repudiate his religion and accept Jesus. I believe that not only were those Klansmen white, but that characterizing them as Hateful White Southerners would be both pertinent and non-racist.
I have tremendous respect for the man: he had a profound influence on me. Without his influence, I might not have moved to the mountains or become interested in environmentalism.
That doesn’t mean that I believe his religious beliefs are accurate, or “valid” (if by valid you mean grounded in fact). I don’t know for sure that he was wrong in his beliefs, but I believe he was.
And that belief on my part doesn’t in any way lessen my respect for him. Nor does it lessen my respect for your own religious beliefs or the help they’ve provided you.
It helps, I think, to separate someone’s beliefs about your beliefs from their beliefs about you. Someone can think that your religion is factually equivalent to Icelandic beliefs about fairies without thinking that you’re a bad or stupid person.
Well, there’s a difference between saying “Religion is silly” and “This religion is silly” because the latter implies a particular deficit or failing of the particular religion, as opposed to others. If I say that, say, Zoroastrianism is moronic, I’m implying that it’s particularly moronic, and thus probably moreso than, say, Shinto or Voudoun. Whereas if I say all religions are moronic, you can assume yours is included, but at least you know it’s because of my general belief system, not because I have anything against your particular beliefs or co-religionists.
As much as I think religion is generally silly, I don’t think any particular one is any more silly than the others, which I think is the implication of calling a particular religion silly.
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