Charismatic Chaos

Well ok if you need to be dictionary precise about it, I'll settle for racially prejudiced instead of racist.

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Racism is different from racial prejudice, hatred, or discrimination. Racism involves one group having the power to carry out systematic discrimination through the institutional policies and practices of the society and by shaping the cultural beliefs and values that support those racist policies and practices.

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Nonsense. It is simply that racist behavior by the powerless is annoying at worst. But it is not racism that is the issue but behavior and behavior is always judged across a wide spectrum of tolerance.Edited by jar, : No reason given.

No one has or could claim that people of color and other minorities can not be racially prejudiced. That would be stupid to claim. AS Hyro has done he has found examples of people of color with racial prejudice. That is radically different form racism and institutional racism as Ringo has pointed out, because of the power dynamic.
If a random person of color expresses anti-white racist views there is no real effect on society at large, but when people of the dominant group express racism or institutions of society express racist views there is a power dynamic that perpetuates, the racism we see throughout society even to this day.
Again still stunned by the idea that pointing out racism and white privilege is interpreted as a racist action. Stunning.

Because they (at least Hyro and probably Faith) don't see you as addressing the artificial construct. They see you as addressing Whiteness as a problem rather than a generational privilege as the problem. I know that you are not addressing whiteness. You are addressing the unawareness of the privilege itself.Many white people get defensive because they suddenly feel singled out yet also singled out as a group, not understanding the problem that led to this necessity.When Trump used to address his base, he told them that they need not feel forgotten anymore. he likely understood that poorer white people feel it coming from both sides---the powerful group at the top of the economic spectrum, the pressure to belong to (and thus benefit) from this groups power, and the pressure from the rising masses globally who are no longer going to take getting exploited. Edited by Thugpreacha, : No reason given.

Good. Hold that thought. If you're going to be picky about the technical meanings of racism and racial prejudice then you need to stop using the word 'racist' in your posts unless it's exactly what you mean. If you look back over them you'll find that you use the term many times when you're talking of prejudice not the full blown apartheid racism of the definition. There's nobody on this forum that has any power over you - so long as you keep to the rules which don't appear to me to be institutionally racist. You see? Sure and that's what we need to change - and I believe it is changing but god knows, not fast enough. Then you need to think about why that is happening. You don't enjoy being randomly and indiscriminately (sic) called whatever it is people call you because of the colour of your skin alone, and neither do I. You don't know me, don't know my values, don't even know that I'm white, so why chuck deliberate insults around? It doesn't help your cause.

I disagree with that and so does the dictionary. Power makes it easier to manifest one's racism in the form of oppression but its not a requirement to hate someone based upon their race alone. If I'm in a town with only 5% Japanese people in it and the other 95% are white, obviously the locus of power would be in the masses. It would obviously make it much more difficult for me to be truly oppressed by those 5%. But that doesn't mean that I can't the subject of nepotism based solely on race, doesn't mean that I can't be called a blue-eyed devil, doesn't mean that they can't say or do things to me only based on my race. Now, if I'm actually living in Japan and I'm now the 5% minority and I face those ugly things, its easier to call it racism because power makes oppression easier, but stripped down to its purest form it just means either/or the belief that one race is superior to another or the discrimination of people based only on account of race. Anyone, at any time, is capable of that. Edited by Hyroglyphx, : No reason given.

Well, then perhaps we should clarify our terms. Racism simply means you believe your race is superior to others (whether you act upon it or not) or that you would discriminate against people based only race. I agree that the majority has more power to inflict more harm in the form of actual oppression, which is the shifting of a racist BELIEF into an ACTION that harms its victims. But I would disagree that it has no effect at all... in fact it bolsters racists. It legitimizes why they hate another race. Its not helpful, it just adds to the shit storm instead of neutralizing it.When you strip away what I am saying (and not to put words in his mouth but sounds as if Tangle agrees), that while perhaps understandable to a certain degree, I don't think it is helpful. Its pouring gasoline on an already raging inferno. Because you've made it racial and therefore IMPOSSIBLE to change. That's the problem. Not a single one of us is capable of changing our race, so you are reducing white people the same as a Nazi reduces Jews and blacks.

Yes, your dictionary definition says exactly what I said, "Racism involves one group having the power to carry out systematic discrimination....[/qs]

As Tangle's dictionary agrees with me, racism is behavior.

Seeing as how this topic is in Charismatic chaos, allow me to frame these issues back towards the actual topic.

When Christianity allegedly began, it was due to one Rabbi standing up against a religious system yet speaking of a Bigger Picture. A Minority (of one) speaking to a minority belief(The Jews) about changing their behavior. This man was killed. Reports that he had risen from the dead followed.

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Saul of Tarsus, a Roman citizen from the Majority power culture at that time, brought the religion into the mainstream. The message was still in the context of a minority religion struggling for identity.

Constantine adopted Christianity as the official state religion of the Roman Empire. The religion thus mutated into a majority nationalistic belief. I need to read more of the history so as to solidify my point. namely that Christianity was never meant to be about the many powerful people getting a political boost from God. It was always about the few. The powerless.

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I predict that it will again become the religion of the poor.

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Edited by Thugpreacha, : No reason given.

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The only way I know to drive out evil from the country is by the constructive method of filling it with good.Calvin Coolidge
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." ~Mark Twain "
As the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, so the denial of God is the height of foolishness.-RC Sproul, Essential Truths of the Christian Faith

- You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do. Anne Lamott
Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.~Andre Gide

The dictionary includes a wide range of usages. In the context of this discussion, a broad definition that includes all forms of racial discrimination is not useful. Again, "hating someone based upon their race alone" is too wishy-washy to be useful in this discussion. Use the word "hate" instead of racism. Beliefs are irrelevant. I doubt that Theodoric cares whether somebody believes they are superior to him or whether they believe that pink unicorns are secretly ruling the earth. Beliefs only matter when they impinge on other people's lives and they can only do that through action. That action can take the form of burning a cross on a lawn or just closing your eyes. Sure, a gringo in Mexico can be a victim of racism. But the only society we can improve is our own.

In Message 424 you said: I think you were closer to the mark there. The poor and the rich are on the same side, just like the poor white Southerners who supported slavery.

Hardly Phat. Christianity never even got close to mainstream until Constantine.

Here is a quote from a book by Alan Kreider called The Patient Ferment of the Early Church

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Candidates for baptism came from differing backgrounds — Jewish and pagan, Greek and Roman. They also were of both sexes and a range of social classes. Most were poor and some were slaves, but a few were comfortably well-off. Some of the candidates were illiterate. Somehow the church’s teaching was meant to reach all of these, for all were important in the Christian church. The teachers conveyed to the candidates that, although they valued education, refined learning was not the point; the instruction was not designed to produce sophisticated thought but character and virtuous living.

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The next sentence from the book succinctly tells us how Christianity was lived and how it was spread in its first 3 centuries.

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The church’s growth was the product, not of the Christians’ persuasive powers, but of their convincing life style.

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The early Christians were highly distinctive in contrast to their violent, self-serving culture, for the way that they loved each other, the way that loved their neighbours and even their enemies. For their beliefs they more often than not endured poverty, isolation and sometimes torture and death.Unfortunately that all changed when Constantine, issued the Edict of Milan. This proclamation legalized Christianity and allowed for freedom of worship throughout the empire.This was actually a good thing for the existing Christians but it in my view was a terrible thing for Christianity in general. Christians were no longer being persecuted as they had been but it was disastrous for what it did to how Christianity was lived and understood.Just for one thing, Constantine was baptized on his death and not earlier as he felt that being baptized would make calls that he wouldn’t want to deal with in the way he ruled the empire.He still felt free to maintain power by use of force, could pass death sentences and rule in the traditional manner of Roman emperors.
As I see it, all of this resulted in at least 4 specific ways that Christianity drew away from the teachings of Jesus.1/It moved the church away from the non-aggression stance taken by Jesus and it has impacted the thinking of the church right through the middle ages and is still an influence today.2/Another change that came as a result of this was that, whereas the early Christian Church had been largely egalitarian, even though it had Bishops, it now to a large degree gave undue influence to political leaders, and in this case Roman political leaders. The gulf between what was secular and what was Christian had to a large degree been crossed.3/ It also moved the centre of a large segment of Christianity away from Jerusalem and to Rome which gave a strong start to separating Christianity and Jesus from their Jewish roots. Up to this time Christianity had been rooted in the Jewishness of Jesus and the Jewish understanding of life, death and message of Jesus. This allowed for a Latin input into Christian doctrine but to a much greater extent Christianity took on board a great deal of Greek philosophy and particularly the philosophy of Plato.4/ In the book The Patient Ferment as indicated by the title one of the major hall marks of the first three centuries of Christianity was patience. These early Christians were not focused on growing the church but to patiently let it grow driven the example of their life style of sexual fidelity, love and courage.Hopefully we can get back to that.

Is there any evidence of that?