A Jewish Colony In 17th Century America?

Thirteen English colonies on the East Coast of North America, most settled by groups seeking religious freedom, came together to form the United States. In his new alternative history, The 14th Colony, author Michael Silverstein describes a fictional additional colony, New Israelia, founded by Jews in northern Florida in the 1650s—300 years before the actual founding of the State of Israel in 1948.

“Before beginning serious research for this project,” said Silverstein, “I viewed a book about such a colony as a tongue-in-cheek way to explore one of history’s most vibrant and quirky eras, the mid-17th century. The more I researched, however, the more obvious it became to me that this wasn’t just an alternative history with a far-fetched premise, but something that could easily have happened.

“In a number of ways,” Silverstein continued, “this period also bore some chilling resemblances to our own times. There were international conflicts over markets and resources. There were heinous deeds committed by religious fanatics. Millions of people in different parts of the world were being brutally exploited and enslaved. False messiahs were garnering huge followings. There were even examples of irrational exuberance—the entire economy of Holland was almost taken down by a tulip buying bubble.”

The story of The 14th Colony plays out in both the New and Old Worlds—in an England governed as a republic under Oliver Cromwell; in the Spanish-controlled Americas; in the ghettos of Southern Italy and the surprisingly tolerant Lithuanian-Polish Commonwealth in Eastern Europe; and in the Holland of Rembrandt, and its Jewish-friendly colony in northeastern Brazil.

A fuller description of The 14th Colony, and the era in which the book is set, along with notes about its author and book ordering information, can be found on the book’s Web site.

… but we still have more to overcome.

There have been many political cartoons, blog posts, news columns, and other statements saying that we have proved that the American Dream has been realized, that anyone can become President of the United States after the victory of Barack Obama, a man of mixed race.

Yes, anyone can become President unless they are:

gay (see Proposition 8 in California)

Muslim (see the campaign tactics from the Republicans in the recent election)

atheist (see the tactics of the Senatorial campaign of Elizabeth Dole)

There are more on the list.

Yes, a great milestone has been passed, but there is still more intolerance to be overcome.

—

Cross-posted to my personal weblog, Random Fate.

In our galaxy, there is a place known as Brool-Yi, sometimes spelled Broolyi, also called The Isle of Peace.

There, they have automated priests and ministers made of wax, ala Madame Tussaud, who whir out of church portals built somewhat like cuckoo clocks.

These reverend-puppets perform all sanctioned services for the masses, including sanctioned marriage.

This came about in Broolyi, in part, because multiple interpretations and exegeses of church law and writings by various priests and ministers caused disagreement amongst the ranks of clergy and church hierarchies….so the Broolyians decided to do away with heroic human thought and feeling, and automate religion instead.

Thus, in Broolyi, Isle of Peace, all the churches, temples and other places of Godness, are run by humanoid machines dressed in vestments… all manufactured at an authorized ‘automated religion factory.’

Meanwhile, on planet Earth, one wonders, are some who are concerned with these matters of clerical uniformity of thought, considering the same?… importing from the ‘automated religion factory,’ standardized wax clerics who will only follow the diagrams soldered into their copper and wire innards….

PoliSci(Fi) Girl cannot claim to understand all these matters, perhaps because she’s just passed the van Allen Belt, but perhaps more so, from lack of large enough mind to comprehend all the complex customs of earth beings… yet, just as one small mind whirling through the galaxy, I wonder as I wander…

Wouldn’t such services, such as marriages by rote, not dehumanize all and any who marry under such automated rather than living, ever expanding philosophy?

Wouldn’t it be more Imitatio Cristi, for instance, to base the blessing of marriage on the inclusions of the earthlings’ God of Love, rather than on the minds of mere men? Or lack of minds in automatons?

Just asking.

___________
CODA
1. The Broolyians are written about by Sweven Godfrey in 1901 after one of the obviously clearest circumnavigations of odd outposts in our galaxy. His story was entitled Riallaro, The Archipelago of Exiles.

2. See too, this article today at TMV by Joe Windish: Urgent Call: Prop 8 in CA; Marriage Myths and Historical Facts

3. My views on Prop 8 in Calif, were shaped by being an activist on resisting Amendment 2 here in the Rockies, which passed and was declared finally, unconstitutional. Amendment 2 was also sponsored by a religious group. It attempted to exclude GLBT people from equal rights under the law.

If you’d like to know more about how I was involved with helping to fight Amendment 2 in the 1990s, (along with thousands of other good souls) you can go here and read the story… “Not a witch hunt — a treasure hunt: GLTB persons”

———————-

First, a question: Why did the representative of a church—and one specific sort of Christian church at that—moderate a debate between political candidates for the highest office in the land? What on earth is the underlying message of holding such a forum, if not to establish that the American people hold in common a particular set of religious/ethical beliefs which ought to be reflected in the president?

As a religious person—a Christian, in fact, though of the left-tilting variety—I am extremely worried about the implications and assumptions underlying the whole ridiculous discussion. And I am afraid that I did find it ridiculous.

Nor do I care who “won” or “lost”—as though anyone other than God is qualified to answer that question. Nor do I care about the “Cone of Silence” or whether it was all fair and balanced or only as fair and balanced as Fox News. I think the whole discussion—given that it was moderated by a man who clearly has his own ideas about what the “right” answers ought to have been—was entirely inappropriate. I am appalled to see that it’s being taken so seriously in the media.

Read the rest of this entry »

Barack Obama is promising Americans another faith-based presidency but asking us to trust him not to pervert it, as George W. Bush did, “to promote partisan interests.”

That may take a leap of faith on the part of those drawn to Obama’s new politics as an antidote to eight years of seeing Bush-Rove, to use a JFK era phrase, “pour God over everything like ketchup.”

In his speech this week, Obama was tightrope-walking between his understanding of church-state separation, “as someone who used to teach constitutional law,” and the yearnings of those “bitter” Americans who “cling to religion” as a result of their frustrations.

Declaring that “the challenges we face today–from saving our planet to ending poverty–are simply too big for government to solve alone,” Obama on-the-other-handed, “I’m not saying that faith-based groups are an alternative to government or secular nonprofits. And I’m not saying that they’re somehow better at lifting people up. ”

Read the rest of this entry.

Most people observing the American presidential election of 2008 regard health care, Iraq and perhaps immigration as the major issues of the campaign. But Juan Gabriel Vasquez, a columnist for El Espectador of Colombia, believes that there’s one issue that overshadows all the rest.

Vasquez writes in part:

“Among the things of most concern to citizens, according to the polls, are the war in Iraq, education and public health. But it’s possible that the real challenge for Obama or McCain will have nothing to do with these. Rather, they’ll have to address an item that is directly responsible for the problems in public health, education, and Iraq: religion.”

And how did it all get this way. Vasquez continues:

“Never in the history of the United States has religion had such a definitive presence in the decision-making of government. North American believers like to think that their country was founded on religious principles (God is mentioned in many parts of the nation’s lore, from bank notes to the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag), but the truth is that not even the most notoriously evangelical presidents, from Lyndon Johnson to Ronald Reagan, have ever permitted the design of national policy on the basis of religious arguments. The Bush White House, however, is the closest things possible to a church.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Photo I.D.’s were required in order to vote in Indiana in the primary yesterday. A strict new law.

But what if you can’t easily get a photo I.D.?

What if you are a citizen, have lived an exemplary life, have stood up for the lives of others, have agreed not to be paid for your work lifelong, have agreed to wear funny clothes and interfere in society’s gears when justice to the soul is concerned…

and you can’t get a photo I.D. to assert your right to vote?

What if it’s because you’re 98 years old and your comrades, sister nuns who also were not allowed to vote in Indiana yesterday because they too didn’t have photo I.D.s…. don’t drive. Like many nuns. They don’t drive because they live where they work, and their work is unending. There’s no 9-5 amongst nuns. They don’t have a lot of time to find someone to drive them to wherever they might get some sort of photo I.D., they’d be leif to ask anyone to take time from their own work to do so,

and nuns, even the most elderly ones, haven’t the same courtesy of ’step to the head of the line’ that we accord dignitaries.

12 nuns from St. Mary’s convent at South Bend (Sisters of the Holy Cross) were turned away from the polls, for not having the picture that said they were who they said they were.

Ironically, they were turned away by a sister nun who knew them, but regardless, and properly so, had no choice, as said sister was acting as a volunteer at the voting precinct.

The sisters turned away were in their 80s and 90s. Some brought their passports with requisite photo, but the passports were long expired. I don’t know about anyone else, but I just went through intense rigmarole to get my own passport reissued and I could have practically graduated with a degree in engineering for as long as it took the government to issue it.

Sister On Special Assignment as Voting Precinct Volunteer said the nuns “weren’t given provisional ballots because it would be impossible to get them to a motor vehicle branch and back in the 10-day time frame allotted by the law.” “You have to remember,” Sister McGuire said, “that some of these ladies don’t walk well. They’re in wheelchairs or on walkers or electric carts.”

I only have this to say: These nuns and others like them who are elderly and in many ways are naive about the world yet very sharp about the ‘other world,’ and yet have dedicated a lifetime to serving day in and day out, who have sacrificed so much, deserve to be treated far more decently than this. Far more.

And as for the photo I.D. law, I see the reasons behind it. But also,

there has to be reasoned application of such a law, so that when one casts huge nets meant to catch the common fish, they do not also catch dolphins… dolphins are mammals, not fish. Dolphins are disabled when stuck in nets underwater, not allowed to surface.

It makes no sense to deny the innocent their hard-won freedoms whilst trying to entrap the others.

Indiana, for your penance, that’ll be ten Our Fathers, twenty Hail Marys, and a passel of rosaries. And an apology to the sisters from the Governor would be nice, since Mitch Daniels (R) is the one who signed the law to begin with.

But then, nuns being nuns, they’d likely say, no apology needed. They’d rather just have the prayers… And the right to vote not made labyrinthine… et– in nomine Domine, hosanna, in excelsis, and in the name of God, with high praise.

———
CODA
from AP:

“Indiana’s photo ID law is the strictest in the country. The Republican-led effort was designed to combat ballot fraud, said supporters, who also have acknowledged that no case involving someone impersonating a voter at the polls has ever been prosecuted in Indiana.

“The state’s American Civil Liberties Union sued, calling the law a poll tax that disproportionately affected minorities and elderly voters, those most likely to lack such identification. On April 28, the Supreme Court ruled 6 to 3 that the law did not violate the Constitution.”

A Hoosier’s rights under the new law, include being able to cast a provisional ballot and obtain a proper ID within 10 days so that ballot would be counted later. But, in Indiana, as in many other states, the MVD takes far longer than 10 days to mail out the required key to the kingdom. So, no dice.

**Disclosure: The Sisters and Brothers of the Holy Cross, the group noted in this article, were traveler-teachers to a tiny school that gathered farmer-immigrant-merchant class kids from the boonies long ago. This order of priests, brothers and nuns taught me there, and at other proximate locations, for the better part of 12 years. Like many consecrated who live in other convents and seminaries across the world, they are some of the dearest, funniest, uncanny people you’ll ever meet.

Barbaro. Now Eight Belles.

My father comes from a place where the old men and old women still consider horses to be gods who came to earth.

In Hungary, every tiny village had a council of elders: the old men in their szurs, long wooly white shepherd’s capes, the old women in their red boots with the black heels, the fine leather pleated and stitched with red thread all the way up to the knees… the old men who smoke pipes with drawing bows 18 inches long… the old women who if need be, could still swing up into the saddle of a stamping stallion…

These one of a kind people, these last-of-their-kind people in our family, say this about horses: “Never force a horse to run relentlessly, for a horse is made of Love and Courage on four legs …

…and the horse will literally love you so hard, it will run its heart out for you until it is dead.”

This is not just a saying. The old ones are serious. Descendents of the Huns and Swabians, the horse tribes of mountains and plains, they have their own ancient forms of knowing.

The old people have another saying, jokingly said…but not really:

–“You want to know the secret of the determination of the Hungarians? They are in all their dreams, fully human, and fully horse.”

–”You want to know the secret of the determination of the horse? They are in all their dreams, fully horse and fully god.”

In the United States this weekend, at the Kentucky Derby, a horse race of long standing… Eight Belles, a filly, was running against the boys.

Coming out of the race, she suddenly dropped her heavy body to the ground. Two broken ankles. She was ‘euthanized’ where she lay.

From a piece by Beth Harris: Louisville, Kentucky.

“Winning jockey Kent Desormeaux and Big Brown galloped by Eight Belles in her waning moments.

“This horse showed you his heart[Big Brown], and Eight Belles showed you her life for our enjoyment today,” he said. “I’m deeply sympathetic to that team for their loss.”

Big Brown, the favored horse, had won the race.

But so much was not won. So much that is not about horse races and horse owners, but about Equus, the god of the horses…

Those as ancient as the Greeks, but unrecorded by stylus, are said to have held that the god-horse, the king of the horses of heaven, arrived on earth when time was still only fog… that the godly horse arrived on earth with the silver reins made of nebula on him, and with the bit made of stars in his mouth.

He who is known by many ancient names, came in order to teach humans the beauty of the world beyond their small and squalid ways of life.

Thus, the oldest Hungarian horse people say the horse god came to earth out of

Read the rest of this entry »

In New York Magazine this week, Sean McManus finds that the fastest-growing faith in America is no faith at all. And now some atheists think they need a church:

…some atheists are taking seriously the idea that atheism needs to stand for things, like evolution and ethics, not just against things, like God. The most successful movements in history, after all—Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, etc.—all have creeds, cathedrals, schools, hierarchies, rituals, money, clerics, and some version of a heavenly afterlife. Churches fill needs, goes the argument—they inculcate ethics, give meaning, build communities. “Science and reason are important,” says Greg Epstein, the humanist chaplain of Harvard University. “But science and reason won’t visit you in the hospital.”

Many atheist sects are experimenting with building new, human-centered quasi-religious organizations, much like Ethical Culture. They aim to remove God from the church, while leaving the church, at least large parts of it, standing. […]

Founded by Felix Adler, the son of a rabbi, to drive social-justice initiatives and promote good without God, Ethical Culture walks like a church and talks like a church—congregants sit in pews, rise to sing hymns, and pass around a collection plate. But at one of their Sunday-morning meetings in January, their Senior Leader, in a very unchurchlike fashion, cited agnosticism as the only intellectually defensible religious position. More to the point, Epstein is eyeing the group’s building as a prototype for the church of New Humanism. Modeled on a Greco-Roman coliseum, Ethical Culture has semi-circular pews to promote conversation and a low stage designed to minimize the distance between leader and congregation. “I want to build big, beautiful buildings like Ethical Culture in every big city in America,” says Epstein. Unfortunately, his organization only brings in $200,000 a year. And while that’s up from $28,000 four years ago, it’s not enough to build a New Humanist church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, let alone Central Park West.

All of this would be music to John Gray’s ears. This from the author of Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia writing in the Guardian last March on how the ’secular fundamentalists’ have got it all wrong:

Zealous atheism renews some of the worst features of Christianity and Islam. Just as much as these religions, it is a project of universal conversion. Evangelical atheists never doubt that human life can be transformed if everyone accepts their view of things, and they are certain that one way of living - their own, suitably embellished - is right for everybody. To be sure, atheism need not be a missionary creed of this kind. It is entirely reasonable to have no religious beliefs, and yet be friendly to religion. It is a funny sort of humanism that condemns an impulse that is peculiarly human. Yet that is what evangelical atheists do when they demonise religion. […]

Nowadays most atheists are avowed liberals. What they want - so they will tell you - is not an atheist regime, but a secular state in which religion has no role. They clearly believe that, in a state of this kind, religion will tend to decline. But America’s secular constitution has not ensured a secular politics. Christian fundamentalism is more powerful in the US than in any other country, while it has very little influence in Britain, which has an established church. Contemporary critics of religion go much further than demanding disestablishment. It is clear that he wants to eliminate all traces of religion from public institutions. Awkwardly, many of the concepts he deploys - including the idea of religion itself - have been shaped by monotheism. Lying behind secular fundamentalism is a conception of history that derives from religion.

Forgive them father, for they know not what they do.

(Psst. Full disclosure: I’m agnostic!)

What makes America tick? It’s a question that Europeans have been grappling with for centuries.

How does the deep religiosity of Americans exist side by side with the strength of its democratic institutions and such strong adherence to the separation of church and state?

In seeking to explain, Nuno Sampaio writes for Portugal’s El Diario:

While a strong presence of religiosity is a distinctive feature of American society, the separation of church and state, since the founding of the United States, has been a pillar of progress for democratic institutions as well as an affirmation of religious belief. It was this separation that allowed for the full expression of both, and which, although it may seem paradoxical, was a catalyst for both. As such, it continues to inspire curiosity Read the rest of this entry »

Did the Pope visit the United States in part to influence the U.S. Presidential race in favor of John McCain?

That seems to be the conclusion of a large number of mainland Europeans.

This article from