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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
 Posted - 09/18/2006 : 14:16:47 [Permalink]
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Half - those stories are rarely told? Maybe they are rarely told by non-Quakers, but I've heard it at least three times in just the past year. Among anyone who is around Quakers or even slightly interested in Quakers that fact is common knowledge.
quote:
So, when we praise members of a religion for doing something right, it's only fair to look back at their earlier wrongs, when those wrongs were still capable of bringing them great wealth.
I think this just further makes the point that it is people and their own naturally and culturally motivated inclinations that guide our actions, good or bad. Religion is one element of culture, a "tool" as Original Intent put it. We should not judge someone by what they believe, but rather, by what they do. |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
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H. Humbert
SFN Die Hard
USA
4574 Posts |
Posted - 09/18/2006 : 14:28:04 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by marfknox
I think this just further makes the point that it is people and their own naturally and culturally motivated inclinations that guide our actions, good or bad. Religion is one element of culture, a "tool" as Original Intent put it. We should not judge someone by what they believe, but rather, by what they do.
Often the argument is made that religion helps some people become better people. If religion is irrelevant to bad behavior, then it should also be irrelevant to good behavior. And if that's the case, then religion is totally useless.
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"A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true." --Demosthenes
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool." --Richard P. Feynman
"Face facts with dignity." --found inside a fortune cookie |
| Edited by - H. Humbert on 09/18/2006 14:29:29 |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 09/18/2006 : 16:22:12 [Permalink]
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Marf replied: quote:
Half - those stories are rarely told? Maybe they are rarely told by non-Quakers, but I've heard it at least three times in just the past year. Among anyone who is around Quakers or even slightly interested in Quakers that fact is common knowledge.
Yes, they are far too rarely told. If, for instance, you'd mentioned these darker acts of the earlier Quakers along with your just praises for contemporary Quakers' good deeds, then I wouldn't have felt the need to do so. But I'm glad to hear that the modern Friends acknowledge the cruel acts of their religious antecedents.
Indeed, Quakers often do get very good "press," and often do good deeds by almost anyone's standards. But in a discussion of the influence of religion, for better or worse on society, the Quakers' former actively central position in the slave trade, in my opinion, should be mentioned up front.
I am, in part, a descendant of Southern slaveowners. Though I do not feel personal guilt for what Jesse Morrison and his family did to their slaves in Arkansas and Texas, I do feel a responsibility to reject it as being evil, and to work to correct its legacy.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 09/18/2006 : 20:46:45 [Permalink]
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Humbert wrote: quote:
Often the argument is made that religion helps some people become better people. If religion is irrelevant to bad behavior, then it should also be irrelevant to good behavior. And if that's the case, then religion is totally useless.
I don't think religion is irrelevant to bad behavior or good behavior as a general concept. Certainly it can be persuasively argued that religion has motivated certain people to doing both helpful and harmful things. Certainly beliefs are often connected to actions. The problems comes when we automatically connect any particular belief with any particular action, or assume that one's religious beliefs automatically will inspire certain beneficial or harmful actions. Statements such as this by moakley: quote:
How much longer, in polite company, can we afford to give religion a pass due to the percieved good that it does when its potential for great harm is clear.
imply that the good inspired by religion is either not really inspired by religion or at least pales in comparison to the harm inspired by religion. But in reality, it is difficult if not impossible to make such a judgement considering how much religion is intertwined with other cultural elements and the considerable diversity with which people integrate their religious beliefs with how they actually live their lives. This, in my opinion, is one of the reasons why religious tolerance is one of the sacred values of modernism, and one that I do not want to see exchanged for the acceptance of open mockery of all religion.
Half wrote: quote:
Yes, they are far too rarely told. If, for instance, you'd mentioned these darker acts of the earlier Quakers along with your just praises for contemporary Quakers' good deeds, then I wouldn't have felt the need to do so. But I'm glad to hear that the modern Friends acknowledge the cruel acts of their religious antecedents.
Indeed, Quakers often do get very good "press," and often do good deeds by almost anyone's standards. But in a discussion of the influence of religion, for better or worse on society, the Quakers' former actively central position in the slave trade, in my opinion, should be mentioned up front.
So...even though the first abolitionist organizations in both England and the United States were formed by Quakers, and even though the Society of Friends was one of the principal organized bodies to participate in an organized campaign for abolition and continues to be a strong force for human rights and world peace today, because Quakers don't advertise their over 200 year old partial involvement in slavery they are therefore trying to hide something? Gotcha.
You have now insisted twice that that it is a “rarely-told secret” that Quakers once owned slaves, and yet I, an outsider who has only worked for a Quaker school for 3 weeks, have already heard talk of Quakers once owning and defending slavery three times, and from modern day Quakers themselves. It's not a frickin' secret, Half, it's merely old news that has since been overshadowed by all that later Quakers did to stop slavery.
Why don't you go dig up the dirt on the American Friends Service Committee while you're at it. Maybe you can find some more heinous crap from the mid 1700's.
The tone of the article you posted reminds me of the episode of Penn and Teller which brought down Mother Theresa and Ghandi a |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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| Edited by - marfknox on 09/18/2006 21:47:45 |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 09/18/2006 : 22:13:16 [Permalink]
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Marf, most of us haven't worked with Quakers for even three weeks, so we are not in the same position to hear their discussions as you are. You were praising the Quakers, yet you did not mention their central role in the slave trade until I pointed it out. Then you essentially replied, Oh, Quakers know about that, it's no secret to them. But, like the prevalence of slavery in the North, it really isn't much known among the general public.
That Quakers were among the first abolitionists is a good thing. That they were also in very large measure responsible for the slavery they later opposed is not insignificant, either. And that historically, they changed their minds on the issue only when it no longer profited them to hold slaves is extremely significant. It adds up to the usual hypocrisy of religions.
You say:quote:
If one of my ancestors were Hitler I sure as hell wouldn't feel personally responsible to atone for the slaughter of 6 million Jewish people. But what the hell does family history have to do with religious history? I think you're just reaching at this point, man.
It may just be me, but if Hitler were my grandaddy, I think I'd be nearly obsessed with fighting racism and anti-Semitism, though not in feeling responsible for his deeds. Being a Hitler descendant would bloody awful in itself, but it could give one a public platform from which to attempt to do good.
And it may have been "reaching" to you, but I mentioned my own slave-owning ancestry in order to explain my motivations and interest in the subject of slavery. Not as an argument about religion. Sorry if that aside confused you.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 09/18/2006 : 22:22:45 [Permalink]
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Marf added: quote:
Edited to add: I re-read Half's statement again... so I retract my bit about not feeling personally responsible for wrongdoing of my ancestors, and I will instead put it this way: Why should the wrongdoing of direct ancestors have any bearing on your life? Sure, we can learn from the past in genral, but if my geat great great grandfather was a shitty landlord does that mean I should pay special attention to the issue of tennants' rights? I should care about injustice in general for people in general, not because it is tied to my own blood or family lines.
Fair points. I guess my attitude is, it is often easier to identify with, even critique, one's own ancestors. Mileage may vary. And in looking at one's own ancestors, and the tales passed down about them, one can sometimes add details to the public's understanding which are not available in history books. I see more a slightly different way of looking at things, than a substantial difference, in what we are now saying.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 09/18/2006 : 23:28:49 [Permalink]
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This doesn't mean much of anything, but wasn't Richard Nixon a Quaker? Seems I read somewhere that he was a Quaker. Might be wrong about that.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 09/19/2006 : 00:03:23 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by filthy
This doesn't mean much of anything, but wasn't Richard Nixon a Quaker? Seems I read somewhere that he was a Quaker. Might be wrong about that.
Yes, Nixon was indeed raised as an "evangelical Quaker" according to Wiki; and you're right, Filthy, that didn't mean much of anything. By which I imply a criticism not of you, but of religion in general, Quaker religion in particular, and in the very particular, the person of "Tricky Dick" Richard Milhous Nixon, as examples of the power of religion not to give "morality" to people. In my opinion, religion is used at least as often to justify evil, as it is to promote virtue.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
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Original_Intent
SFN Regular
USA
609 Posts |
Posted - 09/19/2006 : 05:25:23 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by HalfMooner
In my opinion, religion is used at least as often to justify evil, as it is to promote virtue.
That may be because the people doing good through religion, or by religion, or with religion, are not given the spotlight. Every day the Salvation Army feeds (I don't know how many) people. They donate time, money and goods. Every day a religious group is feeding and/or sheltering people in an inner-city near you.
Society has a tendency torwards putting the spotlight on the evil, and ignoring the good.
Peace
Joe |
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moakley
SFN Regular
USA
1888 Posts |
Posted - 09/19/2006 : 06:06:28 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by marfknox
Certainly beliefs are often connected to actions. The problems comes when we automatically connect any particular belief with any particular action, or assume that one's religious beliefs automatically will inspire certain beneficial or harmful actions. Statements such as this by moakley: quote:
How much longer, in polite company, can we afford to give religion a pass due to the percieved good that it does when its potential for great harm is clear.
imply that the good inspired by religion is either not really inspired by religion or at least pales in comparison to the harm inspired by religion.
No, I do believe that people are inspired to do good deeds due to their religious convictions. And Yes, I wonder whether these same people would continue to do good deeds without their religious inspiration. I suspect that they would, I believe I have. But what I want is a reasonable discussion including the warts of religion, the destruction in gods name. In hopes of moderating the extreme position of religious leadership. Of course Richard Dawkins may be right
quote:
Disagreements between incompatible beliefs cannot be settled by reasoned argument because reasoned argument is drummed out of those trained in religion from the cradle. People brought up to believe in faith and private revelation cannot be persuaded by evidence to change their minds.
quote:
Originally posted by marfknox
But in reality, it is difficult if not impossible to make such a judgement considering how much religion is intertwined with other cultural elements and the considerable diversity with which people integrate their religious beliefs with how they actually live their lives.
I suppose that I am not concerned about average Joe and Jane Churchgoer. I am concerned with religious leadership, from their position of authority, promoting ideas and actions that may be unsettling to Joe and Jane. But Joe and Jane still acquiesce to bad ideas.
quote:
Originally posted by marfknox
This, in my opinion, is one of the reasons why religious tolerance is one of the sacred values of modernism, and one that I do not want to see exchanged for the acceptance of open mockery of all religion.
Please correct me if I am wrong, like I had to say that  , if you are suggesting that we be tolerant of religious beliefs and ideas of the sacred, then I will. I will until these beliefs and ideas are brought into the public forum and presented with a degree of certainty which exceeds what is warranted by the available evidence. |
Life is good
Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned. -Anonymous |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 09/19/2006 : 08:34:48 [Permalink]
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filth wrote: quote:
This doesn't mean much of anything, but wasn't Richard Nixon a Quaker? Seems I read somewhere that he was a Quaker. Might be wrong about that.
He was born Quaker but never practiced as an adult. So calling him a Quaker is sort of like calling me a Catholic.
Half wrote” quote:
Marf, most of us haven't worked with Quakers for even three weeks, so we are not in the same position to hear their discussions as you are. You were praising the Quakers, yet you did not mention their central role in the slave trade until I pointed it out. Then you essentially replied, Oh, Quakers know about that, it's no secret to them. But, like the prevalence of slavery in the North, it really isn't much known among the general public.
Most people I meet outside of Philadelphia confuse Quakers with the Amish. If they don't even know what Quakers are, of course they aren't going to know the role that Quakers played in the slave trade in the 1600's.
How much detailed history about anything from the 1600's is “common knowledge”?
You, Half, claimed it was a “rarely-told secret” that Quakers once held slaves. But it isn't a secret at all. The reason it is rarely told is 1.) it is very old news. 2.) Outside of certain areas around Philadelphia, any info on Quakers is “rarely-told”. 3.) It is overshadowed by the huge role Quakers played in the abolitionist movement.
You want to harp on how Quakers only started opposing slavery when it was no longer beneficial to them? Well I suppose then that we can't credit hardly any of those groups and individuals involved in the abolitionist movement since the vast majority of them did not benefit from slavery. I guess this means that we can only acknowledge and praise groups and individuals who made some major financial sacrifice in order to oppose slavery, right? Or maybe when we praise them we'll just add at the end of our praise: “Of course it's not like they really sacrificed much.” or “But you know, the generation before them did really bad things.”
What a cynical attitude, Half. I mean, damn!
I would also like to point out, your article reads: quote:
William Penn was granted his colony in Pennsylvania in 1681, and added Delaware to it in 1682. Though he flooded the "Holy Experiment" with Quakers whose descendants would later find their faith incompatible with slaveholding, the original Quakers had no qualms about it.
And yet on wikipedia's entry on Francis Daniel Pastorius (a clerk in Germantown, one of the oldest neighborhoods in Philadelphia.):quote:
In 1688, he joined with a group of Quakers in signing a protest against slavery, the first one made in the English colonies.
So there were Quakers protesting slavery less than 10 years after William Penn founded his colony. Not exactly “descendants”.
The Quakers in fact had a split over slavery within 50 years of that religion's birth! (That means there were Quakers protesting slavery before the founder of Quakerism, George Fox, had even died yet.) And many on the side of abolition actually did sacrifice financial gain and social standing in the community in order to adamantly oppose slavery. And some did oppose it exclusively |
"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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| Edited by - marfknox on 09/19/2006 08:37:16 |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 09/19/2006 : 08:45:06 [Permalink]
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quote:
Mooner:
It adds up to the usual hypocrisy of religions.
Whoa! There are a lot of religions out there. I don't think blanket statements like this are very useful. We all know that some religions have lead their flocks to committing terrible deeds in the name of (insert deity). In many cases, those were political power plays that only used some trumped up religious justification for acting poorly. The Soviet Union, ostensibly an atheist state, did the same thing, only they made the state the religion. Patriotism and religion share many things where it comes to manipulating people.
I guess what I'm saying is we should probably recognize that bad acts are bad acts, whatever the justification is. And the same can be said about good acts.
From a skeptic's point of view, religion makes no sense I suppose. But then neither does patriotism. From a historical, cultural and possibly even an evolutionary perspective, religion just is and it will probably never go away.
We should applaud good acts and resist bad acts, no matter what direction they come from.
I don't think religion is the root of all evil. If it disappeared tomorrow I don't think much would change. There would still be liars and opportunists and good people as well, vying for a following. And their success would depend on how well they can sell whatever it is they are selling, same as now…
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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marfknox
SFN Die Hard
USA
3739 Posts |
Posted - 09/19/2006 : 08:52:49 [Permalink]
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Moakley wrote: quote:
But what I want is a reasonable discussion including the warts of religion, the destruction in gods name.
But Moak, there is no shortage of such discussions. How do you think the Enlightenment happened? How do you think France got the way it is today? Why do you think atheism and agnosticism have been on the rise every since? Why do you think American is the most religiously diverse nation in the world, including many New-Age and other alternatives to Christianity? It is because the sins of Christianity's past are common knowledge among educated people in the first world.
quote:
I suppose that I am not concerned about average Joe and Jane Churchgoer. I am concerned with religious leadership, from their position of authority, promoting ideas and actions that may be unsettling to Joe and Jane. But Joe and Jane still acquiesce to bad ideas.
I am concerned about that too, especially with the rise of megachurches and Islam, both of which promote this sort of atmosphere where the religious leaders tells the adherents what they should believe and do. Of course this type of social set-up also exists in non-religious forums, such as politics. Sadly, philosophies and religions that encourage people to think for themselves and abide by their own conscience tend to shrink or not grow much to begin with. Thinking for oneself is difficult, after all.
quote:
Please correct me if I am wrong, like I had to say that , if you are suggesting that we be tolerant of religious beliefs and ideas of the sacred, then I will.
“Sacred” has been used in secular contexts for over 100 years, and I clearly used it in such a context. It merely means that which we hold to be so important that we don't question it, or don't question it much anymore. For instance, I would call reason and the scientific method sacred values of Humanists. It doesn't mean Humanists think there is anything supernatural or spiritual about reason and the scientific method. It just means they've decided to regard them as such in practice. Everyone holds something sacred, unless they are nihilists.
Modernism definitely has some sacred values. None of them are implemented perfectly, but they are “sacred” in the sense that they are used by historians and others to define Modernism. Things like democracy, equality, free speech, religious freedom.
quote:
I will until these beliefs and ideas are brought into the public forum and presented with a degree of certainty which exceeds what is warranted by the available evidence.
This is too vague for me to know what you mean. I think I know what you mean, but I'm not sure. Example?
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"Too much certainty and clarity could lead to cruel intolerance" -Karen Armstrong
Check out my art store: http://www.marfknox.etsy.com
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| Edited by - marfknox on 09/19/2006 08:55:20 |
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moakley
SFN Regular
USA
1888 Posts |
Posted - 09/19/2006 : 14:05:50 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by marfknox
quote:
I will until these beliefs and ideas are brought into the public forum and presented with a degree of certainty which exceeds what is warranted by the available evidence.
This is too vague for me to know what you mean. I think I know what you mean, but I?m not sure. Example?
The first example that popped into my mind is what the Dover School Board attepmted, Kansas Board of Education attempted, and Ohio Board of Education attempted.
Not to mention South Carolina, Nevada, Indiana, Michigan, Indiana, Georgia, ... They are still failing and I hope that they continue to fail. But in each case you have a group of religiously motivated people speaking with certainty on assertion that they simply have no way of supporting through evidence.
I guess good ole Chuck said it best
quote:
Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert (I would like to end or change the quote here, but I still feel that it supports the point I was trying to make) that this or that problem will never be solved by science
I would like to ask the members of this forum about something. I said near the end of page 1 that "Religion is the root of all kinds of evil." But each time it was responded to or used it was "Religion is the root of all evil." Do you consider "all kinds of evil" and "all evil" to be the same? |
Life is good
Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned. -Anonymous |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 09/19/2006 : 15:18:18 [Permalink]
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quote:
Originally posted by marfknox
filth wrote: quote:
This doesn't mean much of anything, but wasn't Richard Nixon a Quaker? Seems I read somewhere that he was a Quaker. Might be wrong about that.
He was born Quaker but never practiced as an adult. So calling him a Quaker is sort of like calling me a Catholic.
Half wrote” quote:
Marf, most of us haven't worked with Quakers for even three weeks, so we are not in the same position to hear their discussions as you are. You were praising the Quakers, yet you did not mention their central role in the slave trade until I pointed it out. Then you essentially replied, Oh, Quakers know about that, it's no secret to them. But, like the prevalence of slavery in the North, it really isn't much known among the general public.
Most people I meet outside of Philadelphia confuse Quakers with the Amish. If they don't even know what Quakers are, of course they aren't going to know the role that Quakers played in the slave trade in the 1600's.
How much detailed history about anything from the 1600's is “common knowledge”?
You, Half, claimed it was a “rarely-told secret” that Quakers once held slaves. But it isn't a secret at all. The reason it is rarely told is 1.) it is very old news. 2.) Outside of certain areas around Philadelphia, any info on Quakers is “rarely-told”. 3.) It is overshadowed by the huge role Quakers played in the abolitionist movement.
You want to harp on how Quakers only started opposing slavery when it was no longer beneficial to them? Well I suppose then that we can't credit hardly any of those groups and individuals involved in the abolitionist movement since the vast majority of them did not benefit from slavery. I guess this means that we can only acknowledge and praise groups and individuals who made some major financial sacrifice in order to oppose slavery, right? Or maybe when we praise them we'll just add at the end of our praise: “Of course it's not like they really sacrificed much.” or “But you know, the generation before them did really bad things.”
What a cynical attitude, Half. I mean, damn!
I would also like to point out, your article reads: quote:
William Penn was granted his colony in Pennsylvania in 1681, and added Delaware to it in 1682. Though he flooded the "Holy Experiment" with Quakers whose descendants would later find their faith incompatible with slaveholding, the original Quakers had no qualms about it.
And yet on wikipedia's entry on Francis Daniel Pastorius (a clerk in Germantown, one of the oldest neighborhoods in Philadelphia.):quote:
In 1688, he joined with a group of Quakers in signing a protest against slavery, the first one made in the English colonies.
So there were Quakers protesting slavery less than 10 years after William Penn founded his colony. Not exactly “descendants”.
The Quakers in fact had a split over slavery within 50 years of that religion's birth! (That means there were Quakers protesting slavery before the founder of Quakerism, George Fox, had even died yet.) And many on the s |
“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 09/19/2006 15:23:09 |
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