Skeptiko001
Member
I couldn’t help but weigh in on this one, it’s too obvious and too good to pass up and I love Alex for offering the firestorm debate he knew would follow because this really needs to be ironed out, and I see a lot of logical fallacies on both sides from the racists and non-racists.
First of all, the idea of race dictating your soul spirit in the afterlife, in any way, might be the worst case of bullshit I’ve ever heard. Ever. Wherever an element of reincarnation comes into play with soul is more layer and than unit-for-unit (ie your father dies and you feel part of him in you or your son despite his soul in the afterlife) and it’s reasonable “pieces” of us stay with places, people or causes we cared about, while the “soul identity” carries forward into the afterlife. Most Shamans agree this is typical and obvious. But as for your physical race determining your “soul identity” piece in the next life, that’s hysterical. (Like finding your white buddies in one corner of heaven and black buddies in another— sounds like a bad movie). People should leave race for what it is- an issue of “middle world” as in this life and planet Earth 2018 reality.
The above point is obvious and not worth wasting time arguing over. The part that lights everyone up is HOW our racial perceptions shape our current spirituality and mentality here in this life reality on planet Earth, and that is the more fun, loaded question I think Alex is poking at. And for that trickier question, I will leave the following examples:
—I was in the nastiest parts of Haiti for medical relief after the big earthquake a few years back. One of my fellow doctors, who was in the same dangerous area risking his life too as a kickass humanitarian, stunned me when he talked about some local Muslims working there, saying “it’s just their genetics and blood, they can’t reach salvation raised with the Koran”. My mind almost exploded— kickass humanitarian or racial bigot?!
—people bashing whites, white privilege and neocolonialism Africa — yet FAR more Africans have been killed by corruption of their local and state African leaders than any globalization of the white West (and that’s coming from the guy who did a dissertation on why globalization destroyed Africa more than helped her)
—how about the US crying foul play after Sandy Hook shooting which of course broke my heart but when I mentioned to some of my professors about the epic black on black Chicago violence with murder rates WAY HIGHER than Sandy Hook, people told me “yeah, but that’s the culture there”
—or the easiest and most troubling example was a city social experiment where they hired two actors, a tall tough looking white guy and tall tough looking black guy, specifically in a liberal progressive urban college area, and they waited for these liberal college students walking in small groups at night to pass the big black guy in their direction on one side of the street, and the big white guy on another street, and they found that statistically more, those college kids moved to the other side to avoid passing the tall black guy,but not the tall white guy. What do you do with this data? Mind you, those are the same liberal white college kids protesting with Black Lives Matter. The answer is difficult but simple: despite our current conscious mindset, in this life In the human body, racial awareness has been deeply rooted in us.
The point is, nothing about race is simple in this life if you couldn’t catch the theme from examples above. The best we do, is to meditate, meditate, meditate and treat all people the same and be aware even with doing that, there is a degree of unconscious tempering when it comes to race, but we should use the conscious mind as much as possible to “check” ourselves every now and then, but also not be so goddamn offensive to defend every little thing we do as possibly affected by race. So do care, but as long as you consciously follow the golden rule of treating everyone how you want to be treated, don’t care too much.
John
First of all, the idea of race dictating your soul spirit in the afterlife, in any way, might be the worst case of bullshit I’ve ever heard. Ever. Wherever an element of reincarnation comes into play with soul is more layer and than unit-for-unit (ie your father dies and you feel part of him in you or your son despite his soul in the afterlife) and it’s reasonable “pieces” of us stay with places, people or causes we cared about, while the “soul identity” carries forward into the afterlife. Most Shamans agree this is typical and obvious. But as for your physical race determining your “soul identity” piece in the next life, that’s hysterical. (Like finding your white buddies in one corner of heaven and black buddies in another— sounds like a bad movie). People should leave race for what it is- an issue of “middle world” as in this life and planet Earth 2018 reality.
The above point is obvious and not worth wasting time arguing over. The part that lights everyone up is HOW our racial perceptions shape our current spirituality and mentality here in this life reality on planet Earth, and that is the more fun, loaded question I think Alex is poking at. And for that trickier question, I will leave the following examples:
—I was in the nastiest parts of Haiti for medical relief after the big earthquake a few years back. One of my fellow doctors, who was in the same dangerous area risking his life too as a kickass humanitarian, stunned me when he talked about some local Muslims working there, saying “it’s just their genetics and blood, they can’t reach salvation raised with the Koran”. My mind almost exploded— kickass humanitarian or racial bigot?!
—people bashing whites, white privilege and neocolonialism Africa — yet FAR more Africans have been killed by corruption of their local and state African leaders than any globalization of the white West (and that’s coming from the guy who did a dissertation on why globalization destroyed Africa more than helped her)
—how about the US crying foul play after Sandy Hook shooting which of course broke my heart but when I mentioned to some of my professors about the epic black on black Chicago violence with murder rates WAY HIGHER than Sandy Hook, people told me “yeah, but that’s the culture there”
—or the easiest and most troubling example was a city social experiment where they hired two actors, a tall tough looking white guy and tall tough looking black guy, specifically in a liberal progressive urban college area, and they waited for these liberal college students walking in small groups at night to pass the big black guy in their direction on one side of the street, and the big white guy on another street, and they found that statistically more, those college kids moved to the other side to avoid passing the tall black guy,but not the tall white guy. What do you do with this data? Mind you, those are the same liberal white college kids protesting with Black Lives Matter. The answer is difficult but simple: despite our current conscious mindset, in this life In the human body, racial awareness has been deeply rooted in us.
The point is, nothing about race is simple in this life if you couldn’t catch the theme from examples above. The best we do, is to meditate, meditate, meditate and treat all people the same and be aware even with doing that, there is a degree of unconscious tempering when it comes to race, but we should use the conscious mind as much as possible to “check” ourselves every now and then, but also not be so goddamn offensive to defend every little thing we do as possibly affected by race. So do care, but as long as you consciously follow the golden rule of treating everyone how you want to be treated, don’t care too much.
John