The video above is a mash up of speeches by Martin Luther King Jr, JFK, RFK, Reagan, Goldwater and Malcolm X. I must say that I'm not a fan of Ronald Reagan, but he says some pretty good things here.
I've watched this video probably about a dozen times and the ending always gives me goose-bumps. It makes me wonder what happened to America since then. How did they go from that to this?
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm not religious. I don't think that I'd call myself a true atheist per se, but more of an agnostic. I've studied various religions in my travels, mainly Christianity, Islam and Buddhism and to a lesser extent Hinduism. I believe that every person has the right to live as one chooses as long as it doesn't cause harm to others and as such, I try to be tolerant and accepting of religious people.
There are many religious people that I have a tremendous amount of respect for such as Martin Luther King Jr, The Dalai Lama, Khalil Gibran, and Ghandi just to name a few. When you listen to the works of Handel and Mozart, it certainly seems possible that they were somehow touched by a divine power to create such powerful and beautiful music. When you observe the glories of nature and look into the vast cosmos, it can be easy to imagine some sort of sentient entity out there keeping watch over it all. I realize that religion gives certain people strength and comfort and I respect that. However, I think it's the establishment of churches of men and the compartmentalization of faith that has undone the actual message of most religions. I think that the original teachings of Christianity, Judaism and Islam were indeed very good, but for the most part, I think that those teachings have become so perverted and misinterpreted by Churches, Mosques and Synagogues that I can't bring myself to be a part of the establishment. There are many things that I find fascinating about religion and I don't presume to hold the answers to the mysteries of life, but I find it hard to believe that the only way that I can be a good and moral person is to go to a building of bricks an mortar every week. To me, it seems more of a mechanism of social control rather than a way of fostering moral enlightenment.
One thing I'm not tolerant of is the incredible hubris and close minded dogma of the religious right that seems intent on assimilating everyone on earth and forcing their narrow view of the world on everyone else, especially through the government. I think the video below is a fairly good representation of the mindset of many evangelicals. Personally I don't understand what most of them are thinking really. To me, it seems glaringly obvious that they are cherry-picking arguments and completely ignoring verifiable facts. Ultimately, they're hurting their own cause, but nothing seems to convince them of this.
As Galileo once put it; "I don't feel obliged to believe that the same god that endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use"
I found this video a while ago and I thought I'd share it here.
I think it's particularly relevant considering that Indian and Northern Affairs Minister Jim Prentice has recently decided not to apologize for the Residential schools and actually went so far as to deny the fact that the primary goal of the schools was to destroy aboriginal culture, language and identity and to assimilate them into Euro-Canadian culture.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised considering the CPC's history in regards to natives. I guess simple common human decency is too much to ask from this bunch.
