Spain’s Pedro Sánchez and Brazil’s Lula da Silva hosted about 3,000 left-wing leaders in Barcelona last weekend, including Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa and Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico.
Your writings are very interesting. Your description of both sides is very well presented and concise. Culture is everywhere and influences everything, especially our definitions of left vs right. It also demonstrates how China has grown from a backward nation in 1990 to the second largest economy in the world in 2009. They look at their government like their own uncle, part of the family. Americans have an adversarial relationship with their government with Trump even differentiating between blue states and red states. China moves higher in unison while the US fights itself over nothing.
Thank you for the kind words. The United States has always been adversarial by design: political party A vs. B. Executive vs legislative vs judicial. States vs. the federal government. Legal defense vs prosecution. China operates based on harmony. These are not absolutes, of course, but the general trajectory of the nations' operating systems.
Technology moves us ever-forward -- or at least ever-changing -- and culture tries to keep up. As such, adopting and adapting to technology is not a Left-Right issue.
The Godless left has no chance of long-term success. Those individuals and groups who do not operate under the humility and discipline of a faith-based organization will fracture and become ineffective. Take a look at Barcelona in the 1930s (Spanish Civil War).
We clash again, Marc (maybe). The data contradicts your premise. The most secular societies — the Nordics, much of Western Europe — produce lower poverty, better education, broader healthcare access, and higher living standards, especially for the poorest. That outcome matches the biblical mandate to care for the poor. If you're American, we may actually agree: the dominant American Christian message, the prosperity gospel, teaches that wealth signals God's favor — which inverts that mandate.
Look at the flags of Denmark, Norway and Sweden -- all crosses. Christianity was the prime lever that moved these countries away from paganism and many inhumane practices including human sacrifice. Christianity was part of the cultural framework that brought these societies to their current prosperity ... they abandon this framework at their own peril. Who will teach morality and ethics and provide the basic reminders of human dignity each week on Sunday and at special occasions such as a funeral or wedding? Man is a ritualistic animal afterall.
As for Christianity in America ... the prosperity gospel is an aberration of the true Christian message, I don't like it. But what lay person is taking an oath of poverty? If someone has maintained their physical, mental, emotion and social health they can dip a bucket into the stream of prosperity here, make enough money, then go develop skills or do whatever ...
"Who will teach morality and ethics and provide the basic reminders of human dignity" I'm the least Christian person you will ever meet, and I'm far more moral and ethical than Trump, the Republicans, and the Christian leaders in the U.S. When Christianity ruled, it delivered the Inquisition, torture, and summary executions.
I hope you have affirming beliefs along with the resentments toward Christianity. There's always hope for a personal transformation - even the Grinch's heart grew 3x in one day. LoL.
LOL, and ironically, an enlarged heart is deadly. If Christianity were about the message in the Grinch, I could support it, but what I've seen from the USA is the opposite. It's about hate and greed. I have no affirming beliefs beyond that I know to be nice, forgive, help others, never harm, and understand that "we are all the same, we just do things differently." If what I've done in life leaves the world a better place, I've succeeded. No god needed.
Your writings are very interesting. Your description of both sides is very well presented and concise. Culture is everywhere and influences everything, especially our definitions of left vs right. It also demonstrates how China has grown from a backward nation in 1990 to the second largest economy in the world in 2009. They look at their government like their own uncle, part of the family. Americans have an adversarial relationship with their government with Trump even differentiating between blue states and red states. China moves higher in unison while the US fights itself over nothing.
Thank you for the kind words. The United States has always been adversarial by design: political party A vs. B. Executive vs legislative vs judicial. States vs. the federal government. Legal defense vs prosecution. China operates based on harmony. These are not absolutes, of course, but the general trajectory of the nations' operating systems.
Technology moves us ever-forward -- or at least ever-changing -- and culture tries to keep up. As such, adopting and adapting to technology is not a Left-Right issue.
The Godless left has no chance of long-term success. Those individuals and groups who do not operate under the humility and discipline of a faith-based organization will fracture and become ineffective. Take a look at Barcelona in the 1930s (Spanish Civil War).
We clash again, Marc (maybe). The data contradicts your premise. The most secular societies — the Nordics, much of Western Europe — produce lower poverty, better education, broader healthcare access, and higher living standards, especially for the poorest. That outcome matches the biblical mandate to care for the poor. If you're American, we may actually agree: the dominant American Christian message, the prosperity gospel, teaches that wealth signals God's favor — which inverts that mandate.
Look at the flags of Denmark, Norway and Sweden -- all crosses. Christianity was the prime lever that moved these countries away from paganism and many inhumane practices including human sacrifice. Christianity was part of the cultural framework that brought these societies to their current prosperity ... they abandon this framework at their own peril. Who will teach morality and ethics and provide the basic reminders of human dignity each week on Sunday and at special occasions such as a funeral or wedding? Man is a ritualistic animal afterall.
As for Christianity in America ... the prosperity gospel is an aberration of the true Christian message, I don't like it. But what lay person is taking an oath of poverty? If someone has maintained their physical, mental, emotion and social health they can dip a bucket into the stream of prosperity here, make enough money, then go develop skills or do whatever ...
"Who will teach morality and ethics and provide the basic reminders of human dignity" I'm the least Christian person you will ever meet, and I'm far more moral and ethical than Trump, the Republicans, and the Christian leaders in the U.S. When Christianity ruled, it delivered the Inquisition, torture, and summary executions.
I hope you have affirming beliefs along with the resentments toward Christianity. There's always hope for a personal transformation - even the Grinch's heart grew 3x in one day. LoL.
LOL, and ironically, an enlarged heart is deadly. If Christianity were about the message in the Grinch, I could support it, but what I've seen from the USA is the opposite. It's about hate and greed. I have no affirming beliefs beyond that I know to be nice, forgive, help others, never harm, and understand that "we are all the same, we just do things differently." If what I've done in life leaves the world a better place, I've succeeded. No god needed.