I was insinuating that atheism is a branch of theism; the branch that, though it understands the concept of God, nevertheless rejects that concept.
There is no concept of God, in any singular sense. That much is clear to me, as an atheist.
For the sake of argument, I would use the Jewish monotheistic concept of God as a Being we know exists though we don't know how, or why we know that it, he, exists, nor do we have any facts, or proof, that he exists, outside the fact that we know he does.
Earlier in the thread I quoted one of my mentors, Rabbi Sampson Hirsch, saying something along those lines: we know we are a we, we talk to ourselves, but we don't have a good scientific understanding of the soulish we, who is talking to the carnal we. Rabbi Hirsch said if we can talk to ourselves, we can talk to God. The invisible soul, or mind, of man (mankind exclusively) and the invisible God, are of the same stuff.
I had the pleasure of being raised within one of those traditions, and I daresay I retained enough to avoid a dumb stare. If the first time I was presented with a cargo cult had have been in person rather than from a distance, I daresay my stare would have been plenty dumb.
That statement cause me a degree of dumb stare.
Not sure how to unpack it.
But for what it's worth, every single person in the USA is raised in a culture not only drenched in Judeo/Christian thought, word, ideation, but every single thought they have is contaminated by the truth that the very prism for their perception, the very vocabulary for their ideation, is swimming in thoughts and ideas come from Jews and Christians for thousands of years. Jews and Christians have established the very soil where every single thought grows. They are the host for non-Jewish or Christian thoughts that parasite the branch where the life of the thought must exist in order even to feign life.
In this thread, I want to examine if the same is true of Left versus Right? Is the Left or the Right the branch of political life such that the other side is parasiting the very branch it requires even to exist?
That's an interesting definition of theism, if it includes a branch of people who explicitly reject it. Perhaps theists are merely the believing branch on an atheist tree. Wait...that doesn't really make sense. Right?
Wow. That's precisely what I'm trying to examine concerning the political Left, versus Right, expressly in the USA.
For instance, those who came to the USA, who established the Colonies, fought off the indigents, and eventually chose to reject the rule of law established for them by England, were mostly WASPS for whom their Protestant faith was the primary thing they came to America to defend and practice, and for which they endured the perils of the untamed land, and even fought the existing State (England) so they could practice their faith, and their belief in certain political realities, as they saw fit.
The MAGA crowd's very chant is to return to that beginning of greatness. The MAGA crowd are made up of the lion's share of WASPS in the Country. They now see the Left as having rigged the mechanism of the State, precisely as has happened throughout human history, such that they feel they may have to fight a new war of independence not against a foreign enemy (England), but a domestic one (the Left and its rigged State apparatus).
On the other hand, the Left doesn't see the USA as unique, glorious, an experiment that goes against everything that came before it. They see that kind of talk as the silliness of the Right. They see the USA as a host nation not fundamentally different than any other nation. Tear down the walls and boarders. We are they. We have nothing so precious as to require walls and wars to keep others out. Hell, they're as likely to leave for another place, as to keep anyone out. And as to religion, for the Left it has no place in the State, even though this State, the United States, was founded precisely for the sake of religious faith and freedom; primarily Protestant faith and the Protestant version of freedom.
The very person whose statements generated this thread implied he's left the country for going to far from the Left. Madonna, all the vocal opponents of the Right, threaten to leave the Country for the normal world. They never saw the USA as anything but a piece of land, like any other. For them, the USA isn't the glorious home of freedom and liberty. That's all just WASPY crap used to fire up dumb Republicans.
Point being, it's inarguable that the founders of the Country, the civilizers of the land, and the people who fought for independence, were kinda MAGAy. They were white, Protestant, zealots for the Bible, freedom, and liberty, who saw the rest of the world as slaves to tyranny precisely because they don't understand the Bible, nor the principles it claims lead to life, liberty, and freedom.
Who, knowing our history, could deny that the Trump supporters are directly related to the founders, while the Left is too similar to mother England to even argue against. The Left sees the USA as a member of the communal, global, community. The Right sees the USA precisely as our founding father's saw the USA.
Which, therefore, is the branch (grown out of the founding soil), and which is the "parasite" (and I use that word in the scientific sense of the opposite of the "host," the opposite of the founding soil, the other-than the creative-event) feeding off the branch till another branch (any other country) is found? The Left were just born here, rather than there. So though it would be a problem to leave, they will, rather than defend their version of the country since their version makes any other country equally acceptable but for the nuisance of relocating (as my original interlocutor has happily done). The Right believes there is no other USA. Not even close; that what was fought for by the founders, is worth giving one's life for today as it was back then. "Love it or leave it" is their cry. "Don't tempt me" is the Left's response.
John
