MUFTIC FORUM BLOG: Christianity

Showing posts with label Christianity. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 23, 2025

Messaging again: a new messenger who speaks to many in red states: James Talarico

There is a new messenger who speaks the language of many in red states...James Talarico, a state legislator in Texas. He is a devout Christian who actually reads the Bible and who puts his politics into how he sees it related to the religion that is the compass for his very fundamentalist belief. He sees as the most important message Jesus delivered: Love God with all your heart and treat your neighbor as you would like to be treated. That is not only a standard for his life as a preacher in training and the son of one, but he ties his beliefs to issues of the time.. He is a super articulate, young, and attractive spokesperson for his point of view.

Above all, Talarico is the polar opposite of the current leader of the GOP/MAGA movement, Donald Trump. Trump has no moral compass but is a self-serving, self-identified transactional person. That is his standard for life's decisions, to get the best deal to keep his power and wealth and gain more of both using his political office to do it. By inference, if people followed his unmoored, self-centered interest, they, too, will become richer and more powerful. Trump is a person who uses fear of his power to keep his followers and everyone he can in line, including cruelty and lack of empathy for how his policies harm "the least of these" and those trying to keep their daily lives above water.

MUFTIC FORUM BLOG: For those who want to put into perspective a profound amorality of the MAGA movement. Updated 5/8/2025

Trump's followers and some powerful cohorts think empathy is the sign of a failing society, but it is empathy that keeps community from lapsing into tribal chaos and dog-eat-dog conflict. It is the glue that keeps civilization from falling...the fate of nearly every civilization in history with a written record. Bravo, Talarico...you got my attention and admiration.

From my July 2 blog post:Was it moral and OK that Elon Musk cut US Aid in his chainsaw attack in search of ways to cut government funding so Trump could cut taxes to the ultra-rich? Not only is USAID dead this month, which is now, but also millions who will die without that aid in the next few years. No problem in Musk's value system, and he was famously quoted that 'The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.'"I believe in empathy, like I think you should care about other people," Musk said as part of the same discussion on Joe Rogan's podcast, "but you need to have empathy for, for civilization as a whole, and not commit to a civilizational suicide." ( fact checked on Snopes). So he must mean sharing our abundance as the richest country in the world with the poorest, and funding the methods of distribution is the US committing suicide?

Christianity should be outraged. In some twisted religious minds, it is not.. In Trump's world of Christianity, empathy and charity are now to be reviled by some preachers. Empathy is now a dirty word, "walking in others' shoes", is a sign of feminizing churches because women are so vulnerable to appeals for charity, so it is no longer a Christian value to some professed Christians, per a report on NPR

https://www.npr.org/2025/03/22/nx-s1-5321299/how-empathy-came-to-be-seen-as-a-weakness-in-conservative-circles

youtube.com

Joe Rogan Experience #2352 - James Talarico

James Talarico is a Democratic member of the Texas House of Representa

Friday, July 21, 2023

Outrage at Florida's attempt to whitewash slavery

Florida's whitewash of slavery

So they ban CRT, the consideration of the travesties of US history of slavery, and instead, substitute a whitewash, painting the upsides of slavery. Upsides of slavery? I , a white girl, grew up in Jim Crow Oklahoma, where Gone with the Wind of Scarlet's maid, Disney's Zippidoodah Song of the South, slaves singing great spirituals (we had no idea of the hidden messages in them)....painted an idealized version of life as a slave. It was a shock when visiting Mt. Vernon and I got a taste of the living conditions that slaves faced and my perception abruptly changed of the horrors faced by slaves I gleaned from sources. So they got taught skills which they could use to earn money....but they got to use them without pay as a slave. It would not pass human and child labor laws we have today or work without pay labor department rules, either, but part of Florida's instruction of their touting their objective, both sides approach should be to require students to work a couple of days picking cotton or doing the missus' laundry or working a forge/mechanic repairs without pay and get a whiff of reality. If they refused, they could be whipped. Those slaves were forbidden to marry, the children they bore, whether fathered by the master or the ones they loved, became slaves, and they could be separated if sold is something teenagers would have a hard time comprehending. Frankly, I am outraged. This is another example of the GOP's desire to return our country to the 1950s.

I have been asked by those who read this above..so what are you going to do about it? I good question. Here was my reply:

I wish I knew. Personally, speaking out and writing. When it comes to racism, there is not much you can do to change minds because it is not a matter of minds. It is a matter of hearts. One possibility is to aim at reminding evangelicals that racism runs counter to Jesus's teachings. Hate and racism are not Christian values. For those who are not practicing Christians, racism is deeply ingrained in culture and all we can do is rally the rest of the population, appeal to empathy (walk in others' shoes), fairness, and a sense of fair play as in sports, and civil peace. I firmly believe what is going on is fear by whites of becoming a minority and losing power, especially white males who feel emasculated by the women's power movement. They have chosen the course of hateful resistance instead of trying to figure out how to get along in the future. I do not see an easy outcome and I am pinning my hopes on the generation just coming of age, the majority of whom have values similar to mine. I, fortunately, am close to under thirty-year-old grandchildren and try to see the world through their eyes. I like what I see.