Azure Jane Lunatic (Azz) 🌺 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
azurelunatic) wrote2001-10-08 09:02 am
azurelunatic) wrote2001-10-08 09:02 am
notes for my English paper
"Judeo-Christian heritage has left us with the view of a universe composed of warring opposites, which are viewed as either good or evil. They cannot coexist. A valuable insight of Witchcraft, shared by many earth-based religions, is that polarities are in balance, not at war" (Starhawk 201)
"If we label either end of the cycle as 'wrong' or unecessary, we cut ourselves off from any possibility for renewal or for the exercise of sustained power" (Starhawk 201)
"Dualism slides over into what I call the 'Righteousness Syndrome.' When there is One Right True and Only Way --- Ours! --- and everybody else is wrong, then those who are wrong are damned, and the damned are evil. We are excused from recognizing their humanness and from treating them according to the ethics with which we treat each other. Generally, the Righteous set about the task of purifying themselves from any contact with the carriers of evil. When they are in power, they institute inquistions, Witchhunts, pogroms, executions, censorship, and concentration camps. ¶Oppressed and powerless groups may also tend to see themselves as the Righteous. Since they are not in a position to weed out undesireables from society, they can be 'pure' only by removing themselves from the larger community" (Starhawk 201).
"Another spurious conflict created by absolutism is that between religion and science. When God is felt to be separate from the physical world, religion can be split off from science, and limited to the realm of things having to do with God. But the Goddess is manifest in the physical world, and the more we understand about its workings, the better we know Her. Science and religion are both quests for truth --- they differ only in their methodology and the set of symbols they use to describe their findings. The field of inquiry is the same" (Starhawk 202).
"If we label either end of the cycle as 'wrong' or unecessary, we cut ourselves off from any possibility for renewal or for the exercise of sustained power" (Starhawk 201)
"Dualism slides over into what I call the 'Righteousness Syndrome.' When there is One Right True and Only Way --- Ours! --- and everybody else is wrong, then those who are wrong are damned, and the damned are evil. We are excused from recognizing their humanness and from treating them according to the ethics with which we treat each other. Generally, the Righteous set about the task of purifying themselves from any contact with the carriers of evil. When they are in power, they institute inquistions, Witchhunts, pogroms, executions, censorship, and concentration camps. ¶Oppressed and powerless groups may also tend to see themselves as the Righteous. Since they are not in a position to weed out undesireables from society, they can be 'pure' only by removing themselves from the larger community" (Starhawk 201).
"Another spurious conflict created by absolutism is that between religion and science. When God is felt to be separate from the physical world, religion can be split off from science, and limited to the realm of things having to do with God. But the Goddess is manifest in the physical world, and the more we understand about its workings, the better we know Her. Science and religion are both quests for truth --- they differ only in their methodology and the set of symbols they use to describe their findings. The field of inquiry is the same" (Starhawk 202).
no subject
The convienent thing about the scientific methods, on the other hand, is the way things are accepted only as long as they are constantly proven correct. The burden of trust is easily lifted by repeating experiments - accidents, hunches, coincidences and miracles dont have vast influence on the dogma of science. Only outright fraud, perpetrated by human beings, can bring the scientific methods down.. and humans being falible creatures, such fraud is invariably discovered once the political force supporting it crumbles.