Thank you, Tereza. Honored to be included in this fascinating post.
There is always a 'why', yes. "To understand all is to forgive all." My mother was fond of saying this. And she would add, "because we can't understand it all, may as well skip to forgiveness."
As you know, I've been following Paul Wallis and Mauro Biglino and their understanding that the OT was not about God at all, but an infiltrating force that arrived here and took over. Talk about distortions!
Paul sees the new testament and the teachings of Jesus as quite separate and should never have been combined with the OT. He also thinks Jesus was a real guy (I do too) and that his teachings have been hijacked - well, what isn't?
On your larger point that it can't come down to a single person - fully and completely agree, though I don't think Jesus was saying that.
As Paul the apostle said (paraphrasing) God is where we live and move and have our being. This far more immediate understanding of God (which I suggest Jesus taught) is aligned with the Indian wisdom traditions. There is no separating out ourselves from that knowing. We can't get outside of it, so separating us from Creator is the greatest lie of all.
Always appreciate your provoking - in the best way - posts.
I LOVE your mother's sayings--the second following from the first is just so brilliant!
I'll do another focusing on the question of Jesus and his existence when I'm back from my travels and have access to my files and books again. Going back to the question of 'why does it matter?' but phrasing it differently, 'Would it be good if the NT is true?' In other words, are the gospels good news? Setting aside the blood sacrifice demanded by God in order to forgive a sinful world, was Jesus a spiritual teacher we want to follow? And if his teachings were hijacked from the original Greek, how do we find the originals other than projection of what we'd like them to say? Those are questions I'm eager to address. Thanks as always for your careful readings and thoughtful responses, Kathleen.
hola,kathleen. maybe you will know the answer to the question i posed to tereza in my comment. i've copied that question here:
q: did jesús actually self-describe his singularity or was that a psyop put on by the church fathers after the fact as part of the narcissistic gaslighting they did to assist in creating their reality in the minds of their targets?
I'll reply here to catch both you and Kathleen. A question that would be useful when I do my episode on Jesus is, why do you want to believe he existed? It seems that neither of you care about the miracles or 'died for the redemption of our sins' theology. So I think you're both looking at Jesus as a wise teacher, is that right? Someone who must have done something that threatened the empire since he got crucified.
Yet his quoted sayings are ones you think might have been twisted later by the empire. And somewhere in my Jesus Seminars research is that, in separate presentations of individual sayings, this int'l coalition of Bible scholars voted that 85% of those sayings couldn't have been said by Jesus. Sometimes because they'd already been said by someone else, other times they don't make sense in Aramaic, don't match the geography he describes, or say something as if in the past that had yet to happen.
The events of his life, and I mean the mundane ones, not the miracles, also are contradicted by historical facts. When Paul Wallis puts him in India, I have to ask, WHO is he putting in India? A person by the same name or the made-up translation of the name to Yeshua? Someone born in the same year who came from Nazareth or the Galilee? Someone who was later crucified? What are the biographical markers that are being used to say that this person in India is the same as this person, for whom there's no historical record?
If another person or people existed who were ethically consistent with everything we know to be true in our hearts, but who had been erased by the story of Jesus, wouldn't that be better than reinventing Jesus? Thanks for helping me understand this because you're representing a lot of other people to me, who I don't want to hurt or disrespect or offend. And I know you both can look at the question without those emotions, so I appreciate that.
i've not thought ever of _wanting_ to *believe*. with my current state of being, belief or not in an actual christ feels pretty irrelevant or beside the point to me. and in fact i spent (threw out lots of thought-energy dollars, uselessly(?)), many years with the firm belief that jc was a figment of the imagination.
it was after watching *the life of brian* that was the turning point for me and confirmed without question the veracity of jc: a big error of perception and misunderstanding of what the bright side of life looks like: https://youtu.be/SJUhlRoBL8M
how could such a brilliant satire exist if the object of that satire didn't? lol! love it.
okay, okay, maybe that wasn't the 'real' reason.
after reading seth's description of a possible human jc, his debunking just about all of the religiosity version jc and that jc didn't die and that the resurrection didn't happen, i was more open to the possibility of a physical human who was transcribed into the jc of scatology and other bad cat jokes. with my recent visceral connection between the narcissistic psychology employed by the church fathers i am more convinced than ever that that jc doesn't exist as described by the church in the 'bible'.
also tom harpur's questioning of the supernatural aspects without dismissing the possibility of a jc, if memory serves. have you come across him? he equates the thematic elements of the jc story with osiris/isis mythology. you may find this/him interesting, given wildrhody's linking efforts to ra and egyptian mythology.
and so it became 'reasonable', to me, to accept that the narcissistic gaslighting of the church-men had the success it had in part because it attached to something/somebody real.
finally, in recent weeks, and today, i asked my body if there was a living jc. yes, not at all the man of the bible, however. and yes, my body says, he did travel to india - whatever version of jc that was, anyway. lol. proof? of course not. a talking point? [headshake with a smile.] nope, not that either. and so... voila, cliff high's hypernovelty — nothing is fixed, and so nothing is. hmmmm. are we able to be comfortable with that, or will some nugget of that egoist need for an authority structure creep up and in and creep us out and into the need to keep us looking for something solid?
i'm in the process of replying. currently on a jerky oaxaca bus on dumb phone. will put my comment in later tonight, when my thumbs are doing the error prone writing.
I don't have all my various Bible translations here in my childhood home but I'm sure I can find one tomorrow. Off the top of my head there's 'No one can come to the Father except through me.' And it seems like a common refrain was 'He who believes in me ...' So not, who believes in God or a doctrine and definitely not other people, but him. I'll give it some more thought and see what I can find tomorrow.
yes. i have wondered at that. lately with my new look at some of what gautama said i wonder if jesús actually said that literally or metaphorically - point to his 'self' as metaphor for the bodily self. that might be a stretch, of course. it will be curious about translations.
of course cliff high has been 'ranting' recently about the bible as being a total ultimate fraud and not worth studying at all, it being a pact between the elohim and their followers in blood sacrifice to satisfy the alien (elohim).
and an interesting synchronicity for me: on one of today's sage hana posts he put up an old oprah show where a young jewish women shares how she was part of an organised human blood sacrifice jewish organisation. she averred that they were across the country. and someone in a comment linked to an australian 60 minutes interview with a 15 year old girl also part of a 'luciferan' blood sacrifice cult that included cannibalism of sacrifice infants and children, etc. hmmmm.
that was mainstream, so now to question it's release. interesting times indeed.
If you're interested, here is an audio recording of Paul Wallis on Reframing Jesus (about 40 minutes) that I appreciated - he gets into a lot including J's traveling to India. I have not yet read his Eden series, but intend to.
I don't know the answer to that. I suspect what made it into the canonized versions were both highly selective (Gospel of Thomas ignored for instance and which was tied to Gnosticism) and also edited. The whole question of 'translations' especially in light of Biglino's work adds more difficulty. (Though Biglino addresses only the OT. The NT very different of course. The blending of these texts as if one continues on the other, is highly suspicious to me.) As Paul Wallis has pointed out, J didn't speak of the God in the Bible - didn't use the same language.
My gut says they worked too hard to counter this guy - Jesus - for him to have not existed. The church would definitely have manipulated texts and commentary on texts to suit their purposes.
But to your question on did he describe his singularity (and importance) I couldn't say. I could imagine though that if his understanding penetrated beyond the individual self and he carried an expansive sense of Self (impersonal) then he could speak from both identities. Perhaps they sometimes entwined. I could imagine expansive states of consciousness in a dense world would create loneliness and frustration, and its own kind of distortion.
I have a book that looks at the parallels in sayings by Jesus and Buddha. And while some comparisons feel a stretch to me, there are a lot parallels and why wouldn't there be, if you are accessing that larger non-dual awareness or space?
thank you kathleen for your detailed and considered reply.
that certainly leaves open that misattribution. to assign him that singularity of meaning aligns with the intent of the official church fathers who demanded from their targets their centre of attention to be, narcissistically, the apostolic centre as singular truth. the jesús spent time in india and that he was tapped into the energy-spirit (whatever it is called) i take as both suggesting that he likely did not. whatever he may have said that countered the church fathers' intentions was, of course, destroyed, demonised and otherwise extirpated.
"the jesús spent time in india and that he was tapped into the energy-spirit (whatever it is called) i take as both suggesting that he likely did not. whatever he may have said that countered the church fathers' intentions was, of course, destroyed, demonised and otherwise extirpated."
Very interesting that at a time of such unraveling and revealing, the topic of morality and moral codes emerge. Our culture has slowly made the subject quaint and anachronistic, as if how we behave in the world is subject to superficial changes, and not part of our being. (Pull up your bootstraps, work hard to achieve the American Dream morphs into Own Nothing and be Happy and both supposedly provide frameworks for being a good person.)
To take these instructions as examples of being a 'good' citizen, well we can clearly see both the folly and the hidden hand in that.
Without acknowledging the innate sovereignty of self (and responsibilities that come with) it's much like throwing out one's compass just before setting off into the forest. (Which is of course, exactly what 'they' want.)
If there really is not a 'self' then, what's the big deal if it becomes part machine?
What a great point, "If there really is not a 'self' then, what's the big deal if it becomes part machine?" And you're right about it being made quaint and anachronistic, rather than a topic of active and energetic discussion. The sovereignty of self and the sovereignty of families and the sovereignty of a community to protect the rights of families. It's all tied together.
Of course, it's possible that we'll need to come back to the Isha and ACIM, because there's always so much more to reflect on.
You and Ronda are aces in decoding biblical material, that is very important.
I'll start working on some connections between the Isha and the Egyptian "Going forth by Day," (Book of the Dead) There's some connections there too. It might be a short post.
I'll look forward to that, Nef. I know nothing about the Egyptian Book of the Dead. I'm learning so much from you.
And it is an eerie connection I have with Rhonda. She's posting things that are like reading my mind and coming back with connections between things I haven't even put into words. There is certainly something beyond the ordinary going on there.
I think we'll always be coming back to the Isha and the Course. They've seeped into our bone marrow and are the regenerating cells that feed us life. We're not going to run out of new revelations! Thanks for your kind comment.
q: did jesús actually self-describe his singularity or was that a psyop put on by the church fathers after the fact as part of the narcissistic gaslighting they did to assist in creating their reality in the minds of their target audience?
As mentioned above, I need to consult the translation directly from the Hebrew, which I won't have access to for a couple of weeks. But I'll research it then to see what's in the oldest version.
I _love_ the universal declaration on rights - for some reason i feel it's special, because it was penned by a person who was personally witness to 'great' power et al. and its accoutrements and was also a sensitive and reflective human being. Or maybe I'm just projecting onto Eleanor Roosevelt, hehe. It's the impression I have at the moment.
Regarding 'the bad muslim discount' - which I haven't read, and am afraid to because I can't deal with any further agitation at this moment :)) - Tereza, maybe you are familiar with a person named Asra Nomani, who sometimes appears on Fox News, NewsMax, and lectures at Enterprise Institute and Heritage Foundation thinktanks. She wrote a book called "Standing Alone in Mecca" before she got roped into all that, which excellently describes how patriarchy and inappropriate/unexamined codes were applied to ostracize and disenfranchise her and aside - how the influx of Arabic-speaking nominal Muslims affected (and still affects - but to a fraction of the degree) nominal Muslim practice and ritual among immigrant communities. Basically, patriarchal arabs imposed random cultural mores, and bullies their way over other cultural communities resident, sometimes even by random prestige of supposedly speaking a more holy language. Consequences of this were also the marginilization of female voices, and strange out-of-space out-of-time applications of interpreted law.
Anyway - Asra Nomani, she wasn't always bad IMO, and she must be being compelled as well by the posers. Thank you Tereza.
I realized also that I hadn't really responded on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which I also loved when Kathleen's post gave me a reason to reread it. It's beautifully written and well thought-out. And I also think it could be quite useful in my system, which I'll be talking about in the next episode.
My system prioritizes the rights of communities, down to their building block of the family or household and up to the level of federal (lowercase) continental cooperation. What protects the smaller communities, down to the level of the individual, is the right of secession that includes property rights--like the right of divorce with an equal share of the assets. However, you don't want to allow secession for the purpose of monopolizing assets.
The Universal Declaration could be a way of distinguishing when a community has the right to secede, perhaps without leaving home in the case of women, minorities or even children. Their unequal or abusive treatment under the UDHR could jeopardize the trade status of the collective unit until remedied. That would give the UDHR a means of consequences, which it lacks today.
Thank you for those insights, shaqer. I didn't realize that Eleanor was the primary author. She is an interesting character. FDR did surround himself with smart women. The one who developed the Social Security system is a particular hero of mine.
I started wondering this morning if I've given short shrift to the BMD. After all, it's the author who created all those horrific consequences for the main female character, and had her finally escape through mostly her own doing. The main guy is a lawyer and his loyalty is to the idea of the legal system, not Muslim law like his mother and brother. Perhaps it's more nuanced and humble, since the author is also a lawyer, than I'm giving it credit for. But I still couldn't recommend it to the daughters I was going to pawn it off on ... or you. It left me too agitated to sleep at midnight night before last, but did set me up for a good night's sleep before my long flight today.
Interesting perspective on Asra. I don't know her but that makes sense.
Reposting comment from Rumbe:
Thank you, Tereza. Honored to be included in this fascinating post.
There is always a 'why', yes. "To understand all is to forgive all." My mother was fond of saying this. And she would add, "because we can't understand it all, may as well skip to forgiveness."
As you know, I've been following Paul Wallis and Mauro Biglino and their understanding that the OT was not about God at all, but an infiltrating force that arrived here and took over. Talk about distortions!
Paul sees the new testament and the teachings of Jesus as quite separate and should never have been combined with the OT. He also thinks Jesus was a real guy (I do too) and that his teachings have been hijacked - well, what isn't?
On your larger point that it can't come down to a single person - fully and completely agree, though I don't think Jesus was saying that.
As Paul the apostle said (paraphrasing) God is where we live and move and have our being. This far more immediate understanding of God (which I suggest Jesus taught) is aligned with the Indian wisdom traditions. There is no separating out ourselves from that knowing. We can't get outside of it, so separating us from Creator is the greatest lie of all.
Always appreciate your provoking - in the best way - posts.
I LOVE your mother's sayings--the second following from the first is just so brilliant!
I'll do another focusing on the question of Jesus and his existence when I'm back from my travels and have access to my files and books again. Going back to the question of 'why does it matter?' but phrasing it differently, 'Would it be good if the NT is true?' In other words, are the gospels good news? Setting aside the blood sacrifice demanded by God in order to forgive a sinful world, was Jesus a spiritual teacher we want to follow? And if his teachings were hijacked from the original Greek, how do we find the originals other than projection of what we'd like them to say? Those are questions I'm eager to address. Thanks as always for your careful readings and thoughtful responses, Kathleen.
hola,kathleen. maybe you will know the answer to the question i posed to tereza in my comment. i've copied that question here:
q: did jesús actually self-describe his singularity or was that a psyop put on by the church fathers after the fact as part of the narcissistic gaslighting they did to assist in creating their reality in the minds of their targets?
I'll reply here to catch both you and Kathleen. A question that would be useful when I do my episode on Jesus is, why do you want to believe he existed? It seems that neither of you care about the miracles or 'died for the redemption of our sins' theology. So I think you're both looking at Jesus as a wise teacher, is that right? Someone who must have done something that threatened the empire since he got crucified.
Yet his quoted sayings are ones you think might have been twisted later by the empire. And somewhere in my Jesus Seminars research is that, in separate presentations of individual sayings, this int'l coalition of Bible scholars voted that 85% of those sayings couldn't have been said by Jesus. Sometimes because they'd already been said by someone else, other times they don't make sense in Aramaic, don't match the geography he describes, or say something as if in the past that had yet to happen.
The events of his life, and I mean the mundane ones, not the miracles, also are contradicted by historical facts. When Paul Wallis puts him in India, I have to ask, WHO is he putting in India? A person by the same name or the made-up translation of the name to Yeshua? Someone born in the same year who came from Nazareth or the Galilee? Someone who was later crucified? What are the biographical markers that are being used to say that this person in India is the same as this person, for whom there's no historical record?
If another person or people existed who were ethically consistent with everything we know to be true in our hearts, but who had been erased by the story of Jesus, wouldn't that be better than reinventing Jesus? Thanks for helping me understand this because you're representing a lot of other people to me, who I don't want to hurt or disrespect or offend. And I know you both can look at the question without those emotions, so I appreciate that.
lol!
i've not thought ever of _wanting_ to *believe*. with my current state of being, belief or not in an actual christ feels pretty irrelevant or beside the point to me. and in fact i spent (threw out lots of thought-energy dollars, uselessly(?)), many years with the firm belief that jc was a figment of the imagination.
it was after watching *the life of brian* that was the turning point for me and confirmed without question the veracity of jc: a big error of perception and misunderstanding of what the bright side of life looks like: https://youtu.be/SJUhlRoBL8M
how could such a brilliant satire exist if the object of that satire didn't? lol! love it.
okay, okay, maybe that wasn't the 'real' reason.
after reading seth's description of a possible human jc, his debunking just about all of the religiosity version jc and that jc didn't die and that the resurrection didn't happen, i was more open to the possibility of a physical human who was transcribed into the jc of scatology and other bad cat jokes. with my recent visceral connection between the narcissistic psychology employed by the church fathers i am more convinced than ever that that jc doesn't exist as described by the church in the 'bible'.
also tom harpur's questioning of the supernatural aspects without dismissing the possibility of a jc, if memory serves. have you come across him? he equates the thematic elements of the jc story with osiris/isis mythology. you may find this/him interesting, given wildrhody's linking efforts to ra and egyptian mythology.
and so it became 'reasonable', to me, to accept that the narcissistic gaslighting of the church-men had the success it had in part because it attached to something/somebody real.
finally, in recent weeks, and today, i asked my body if there was a living jc. yes, not at all the man of the bible, however. and yes, my body says, he did travel to india - whatever version of jc that was, anyway. lol. proof? of course not. a talking point? [headshake with a smile.] nope, not that either. and so... voila, cliff high's hypernovelty — nothing is fixed, and so nothing is. hmmmm. are we able to be comfortable with that, or will some nugget of that egoist need for an authority structure creep up and in and creep us out and into the need to keep us looking for something solid?
i'm in the process of replying. currently on a jerky oaxaca bus on dumb phone. will put my comment in later tonight, when my thumbs are doing the error prone writing.
I don't have all my various Bible translations here in my childhood home but I'm sure I can find one tomorrow. Off the top of my head there's 'No one can come to the Father except through me.' And it seems like a common refrain was 'He who believes in me ...' So not, who believes in God or a doctrine and definitely not other people, but him. I'll give it some more thought and see what I can find tomorrow.
yes. i have wondered at that. lately with my new look at some of what gautama said i wonder if jesús actually said that literally or metaphorically - point to his 'self' as metaphor for the bodily self. that might be a stretch, of course. it will be curious about translations.
of course cliff high has been 'ranting' recently about the bible as being a total ultimate fraud and not worth studying at all, it being a pact between the elohim and their followers in blood sacrifice to satisfy the alien (elohim).
and an interesting synchronicity for me: on one of today's sage hana posts he put up an old oprah show where a young jewish women shares how she was part of an organised human blood sacrifice jewish organisation. she averred that they were across the country. and someone in a comment linked to an australian 60 minutes interview with a 15 year old girl also part of a 'luciferan' blood sacrifice cult that included cannibalism of sacrifice infants and children, etc. hmmmm.
that was mainstream, so now to question it's release. interesting times indeed.
If you're interested, here is an audio recording of Paul Wallis on Reframing Jesus (about 40 minutes) that I appreciated - he gets into a lot including J's traveling to India. I have not yet read his Eden series, but intend to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-hTzFhdCBY
gracias, kathleen.
i will take a look. it seems that whatever it is that is is directing me to explore this more deeply. fascinating times. all the best.
Hi Guy.
I don't know the answer to that. I suspect what made it into the canonized versions were both highly selective (Gospel of Thomas ignored for instance and which was tied to Gnosticism) and also edited. The whole question of 'translations' especially in light of Biglino's work adds more difficulty. (Though Biglino addresses only the OT. The NT very different of course. The blending of these texts as if one continues on the other, is highly suspicious to me.) As Paul Wallis has pointed out, J didn't speak of the God in the Bible - didn't use the same language.
My gut says they worked too hard to counter this guy - Jesus - for him to have not existed. The church would definitely have manipulated texts and commentary on texts to suit their purposes.
But to your question on did he describe his singularity (and importance) I couldn't say. I could imagine though that if his understanding penetrated beyond the individual self and he carried an expansive sense of Self (impersonal) then he could speak from both identities. Perhaps they sometimes entwined. I could imagine expansive states of consciousness in a dense world would create loneliness and frustration, and its own kind of distortion.
I have a book that looks at the parallels in sayings by Jesus and Buddha. And while some comparisons feel a stretch to me, there are a lot parallels and why wouldn't there be, if you are accessing that larger non-dual awareness or space?
thank you kathleen for your detailed and considered reply.
that certainly leaves open that misattribution. to assign him that singularity of meaning aligns with the intent of the official church fathers who demanded from their targets their centre of attention to be, narcissistically, the apostolic centre as singular truth. the jesús spent time in india and that he was tapped into the energy-spirit (whatever it is called) i take as both suggesting that he likely did not. whatever he may have said that countered the church fathers' intentions was, of course, destroyed, demonised and otherwise extirpated.
all the best.
"the jesús spent time in india and that he was tapped into the energy-spirit (whatever it is called) i take as both suggesting that he likely did not. whatever he may have said that countered the church fathers' intentions was, of course, destroyed, demonised and otherwise extirpated."
Agree, Guy. Best.
Another rich post, Tereza.
Very interesting that at a time of such unraveling and revealing, the topic of morality and moral codes emerge. Our culture has slowly made the subject quaint and anachronistic, as if how we behave in the world is subject to superficial changes, and not part of our being. (Pull up your bootstraps, work hard to achieve the American Dream morphs into Own Nothing and be Happy and both supposedly provide frameworks for being a good person.)
To take these instructions as examples of being a 'good' citizen, well we can clearly see both the folly and the hidden hand in that.
Without acknowledging the innate sovereignty of self (and responsibilities that come with) it's much like throwing out one's compass just before setting off into the forest. (Which is of course, exactly what 'they' want.)
If there really is not a 'self' then, what's the big deal if it becomes part machine?
So appreciate what your posts surface.
What a great point, "If there really is not a 'self' then, what's the big deal if it becomes part machine?" And you're right about it being made quaint and anachronistic, rather than a topic of active and energetic discussion. The sovereignty of self and the sovereignty of families and the sovereignty of a community to protect the rights of families. It's all tied together.
💯
This is such a great post, Tereza.
Of course, it's possible that we'll need to come back to the Isha and ACIM, because there's always so much more to reflect on.
You and Ronda are aces in decoding biblical material, that is very important.
I'll start working on some connections between the Isha and the Egyptian "Going forth by Day," (Book of the Dead) There's some connections there too. It might be a short post.
I'll look forward to that, Nef. I know nothing about the Egyptian Book of the Dead. I'm learning so much from you.
And it is an eerie connection I have with Rhonda. She's posting things that are like reading my mind and coming back with connections between things I haven't even put into words. There is certainly something beyond the ordinary going on there.
I think we'll always be coming back to the Isha and the Course. They've seeped into our bone marrow and are the regenerating cells that feed us life. We're not going to run out of new revelations! Thanks for your kind comment.
interesting again, tereza.
q: did jesús actually self-describe his singularity or was that a psyop put on by the church fathers after the fact as part of the narcissistic gaslighting they did to assist in creating their reality in the minds of their target audience?
As mentioned above, I need to consult the translation directly from the Hebrew, which I won't have access to for a couple of weeks. But I'll research it then to see what's in the oldest version.
I _love_ the universal declaration on rights - for some reason i feel it's special, because it was penned by a person who was personally witness to 'great' power et al. and its accoutrements and was also a sensitive and reflective human being. Or maybe I'm just projecting onto Eleanor Roosevelt, hehe. It's the impression I have at the moment.
Regarding 'the bad muslim discount' - which I haven't read, and am afraid to because I can't deal with any further agitation at this moment :)) - Tereza, maybe you are familiar with a person named Asra Nomani, who sometimes appears on Fox News, NewsMax, and lectures at Enterprise Institute and Heritage Foundation thinktanks. She wrote a book called "Standing Alone in Mecca" before she got roped into all that, which excellently describes how patriarchy and inappropriate/unexamined codes were applied to ostracize and disenfranchise her and aside - how the influx of Arabic-speaking nominal Muslims affected (and still affects - but to a fraction of the degree) nominal Muslim practice and ritual among immigrant communities. Basically, patriarchal arabs imposed random cultural mores, and bullies their way over other cultural communities resident, sometimes even by random prestige of supposedly speaking a more holy language. Consequences of this were also the marginilization of female voices, and strange out-of-space out-of-time applications of interpreted law.
Anyway - Asra Nomani, she wasn't always bad IMO, and she must be being compelled as well by the posers. Thank you Tereza.
I realized also that I hadn't really responded on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which I also loved when Kathleen's post gave me a reason to reread it. It's beautifully written and well thought-out. And I also think it could be quite useful in my system, which I'll be talking about in the next episode.
My system prioritizes the rights of communities, down to their building block of the family or household and up to the level of federal (lowercase) continental cooperation. What protects the smaller communities, down to the level of the individual, is the right of secession that includes property rights--like the right of divorce with an equal share of the assets. However, you don't want to allow secession for the purpose of monopolizing assets.
The Universal Declaration could be a way of distinguishing when a community has the right to secede, perhaps without leaving home in the case of women, minorities or even children. Their unequal or abusive treatment under the UDHR could jeopardize the trade status of the collective unit until remedied. That would give the UDHR a means of consequences, which it lacks today.
Thank you for those insights, shaqer. I didn't realize that Eleanor was the primary author. She is an interesting character. FDR did surround himself with smart women. The one who developed the Social Security system is a particular hero of mine.
I started wondering this morning if I've given short shrift to the BMD. After all, it's the author who created all those horrific consequences for the main female character, and had her finally escape through mostly her own doing. The main guy is a lawyer and his loyalty is to the idea of the legal system, not Muslim law like his mother and brother. Perhaps it's more nuanced and humble, since the author is also a lawyer, than I'm giving it credit for. But I still couldn't recommend it to the daughters I was going to pawn it off on ... or you. It left me too agitated to sleep at midnight night before last, but did set me up for a good night's sleep before my long flight today.
Interesting perspective on Asra. I don't know her but that makes sense.