Theos-Talk Archives (December 1999 Message tl00162)

----- Original Message -----
> Date: Tuesday, December 14, 1999 6:12 AM
> From: <kymsmith@micron.net>
> Subject: Re: theos-l digest: December 13, 1999

> Alan wrote:
>
> >In the
> >main, human beings are much the same as they have ever been>

<Massive snips>

> I really do believe that the human philosophy is pointing more and
more
> towards Compassion.  It's a clumsy process, but I think humans
ultimately
> strive for the "good."
>
> Kym

I do agree in part, Kym, but I did say "in the main."  For us in the
West, "the main" is *beginning" to approach the norm.  And yes, Muslim
women are beginning to work for emancipation, etc., etc.  You chose the
example of Kosovo, where the victims were Muslim, to suggest that
humanitarian considerations overcame religious ones.  The Serbs were
mudering Muslim Albanians of all ages regardless of sex, and NATO was
bombing the sh-t out of Serbian Orthodox "Christians" of all ages
regardless of sex. In Chechnya the Russians (strongly Eastern Orthodox)
are doing the same to Muslims of all ages regardless of sex, but the
best that Western compassion can come up with is the threat of
withholding financial assistance.

The truth is that politicians trot out the "compassion" ticket when it
is politically expedient, and look the other way when it isn't, just as
they have always done.

Social mores may change, but the bloodshed, cruelty, rape, etc., etc.
goes on.  The "religious right" in the USA parade around in white hoods,
4 x 4 vehicles bristling with rifles (a fact you told me yourself) and
sexual "deviants" regularly suffer verbal and physical abuse on the
streets of their home towns.  For some of these the statistics (US-wide)
are frightening - a 1 in 12 chance of being murdered.  Better odds that
the lottery.

So yes, human philosophy is pointing more and more towards Compassion,
and it is a clumsy process.  It is also a very small pointer.  All of
the *founders* of the major religions from way back to the earliest
Vedantic records have urged compassion upon the human race.  And most -
not all - of their followers have shown a marked lack of it on the
larger scale of human endeavor.  The occasional genuine article - Martin
Luther King comes to mind - are most likely martyred for their efforts.
For a while, some social conscience sets in, until we read of yet
another Southern black man being dragged to his death behind a truckload
of white supremacists, or some similar atrocity.

Without my wishing to start WWIII with my comments, Hitler's Reich was
bombing the Sh-t out of us during 1941, and The Land of the Free
preferred not to "get involved."  In Africa - a *very* large place -
"rebels" mutilate living women and children by hacking off their limbs.

So, yes, the finger of the wise points towards compassion, but the
majority of humans still go in other directions.

I guess that's our next life dumped.

Alan
http://www.soft.net.uk/ambain/