About a year ago (in 2023), upon watching: Bernie Sanders spells out why capitalism is failing us | Down the pub with Bernie Sanders at: https://youtu.be/eNXoL5Qwu8g I wrote the following: First (the least important point:), I am glad that the stupid music which accompanied the conversation at the beginning went away later. Second, I am glad that the people sitting in the joint did not make any noise, nor interrupt the conversation. Bernie Sanders was given enough opportunity to say things that he believes are important. Sadly, he is a man of intellectual courage only by the low standards of intellectual cowards. The 'ruling class' of intellectual cowards imagine that political thought is REQUIRED to depict a BINARY world-view, and pick only ONE side --and at least one side. We are also expected, in the 21st Century, despite the long record of the damage that our species has been causing on this planet, to DISREGARD INTERGENERATIONAL HARM, and act as if the villains and (poten
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By mistake, I uploaded the following as a 'comment', rather than as a post on 7 July 2024. I had been writing on this topic (in longhand, in a notebook) starting from 16 June 2024. The text is mostly in Turkish. ============ Cehennem Hakkında… Ben teoloji konularında agnostiğim. (1980’den beri Müslüman değilim. Benimsediğim din Laruunaş – İngilizce: Laruunash. https://laruuni.blogspot.com/) Yani cehennem ve Ahiret Günü gibi konulardaki sorulara herhangi bir otorite ile cevap verebilecek konumda değilim. Ama Tektanrıcı insanların da teoloji konularında otorite olduklarından emin değilim. Bu hayat gerçekten bir imtihan mıdır? Ben bilemem; ama olmadığını da kanıtlayamam. Bu dünyada bilerek ve isteyerek kötülük yapan ve rahat yaşayıp uzun ömürlerinin sonunda rahat ölen insanlar hiç hesap vermeyecekler mi? Umarım hesap verir ve ceza çekerler. Ben genelde zalimlerden değil mazlumlardan oldum. Ama benim de pişman olduğum pek çok kötülük var 62 yıllık geçmişimde. Umarım ben de hesap ve
I often get emails from organizations that ask me to support 'struggling families', women with children, and the like. Sometimes, even in response to my ads in Craigslist offering to collaborate toward 'radical' goals, I get requests to assist single mothers... On 26 July 2024, I wrote the following email in response to an email that I received telling me the 'inspiring' story of a Nigerian father of five girls who, after abusing his wife for not giving him a son, and having extramarital affairs, 'saw the light', repented for his ways, and asked forgiveness from his wife, etc. The charitable organization claims that this was (partly) thanks to their educational program in Nigeria that the man attended. Perhaps I was expected to be impressed with the kind of 'fruit' that the organization's work bears. I welcome moral transformations, even if they are rather late in life. After all, I cannot forget the example of John Newton (https://en.wikiped
In response to a YouTube video at: https://youtu.be/nXUbkhl_uuQ (The Real Cause of Poverty with Matthew Desmond - Factually! - 215) I wrote the following comment ("7 months ago", they report, which must be the summer of 2023): I became a POVERTY ABOLITIONIST in 1980, when I was 18. I am aware that there are many different forms of 'poverty'. Some people have 'poor vision', 'poor hearing', and some have 'poor taste' in men/women. I also understand that the word 'poor' means different things in different cultures and subcultures. For these and other reasons, I declare that the kind of poverty that I fight against is ' unearned/unchosen chronic human material poverty on Earth ' ( UCHMPE for short). One of the reasons for this narrowing of the target is the fact that SOME PEOPLE CHOOSE OR EARN POVERTY. Monks and 'sisters' of certain faith groups gladly "embrace lady poverty". It is not my (or your?) place to try
5 March 2024: Using the pen-name Anseynol, on the evening of 7 July 2004, I created a blog at the Google spot: http://laruunash.blogspot.com/ I consider myself fortunate to have lived long enough to state, on a website, some of my core beliefs and values. I was also able to upload a summary to: https://archive.org/details/Laruunash_A_New_Nontheistic_Religion As I state there, Laruunash is a new, nontheistic religion which invites human beings to recognize the need to serve what they understand to be goodness , even if it entails going against their perceived sense of their self interest. Even though I favor a modified version of consequentialism, I acknowledge that many acts in the service of good, even if they are implemented properly, can bring suffering or huge costs to the (well-intentioned and competent) actors. With that acknowledgment, I urge my contemporaries (of whatever religion) to try to make the world a safer place for those who sacrifice their interests in the service of