Chesler Chronicles

May 22nd, 2009 10:00 am

The Fatherless Sons of Jihad: Bigger Than the Bronx Four

They were mainly raised without fathers, fathered children themselves out of wedlock and with whom they did not—could not—live, used or sold crack and cocaine, spent years in jail where they ultimately converted to Islam. All four were of African descent: three were born in America, one was born in Haiti. One man is on psychiatric medication either for schizophrenia or for bipolar disorder. Contrary to yesterday’s initial media coverage, no one’s parents ever lived in Afghanistan and no one had family ties to Arabs. See Here, Here, Here, Here, Here, and Here.

Two men, including the ringleader, grew up in Brooklyn, New York, (my hometown); one man grew up in Newburgh, New York where all four men attended a mosque, (Masjid Al-Ikhlas), which is currently headed by a former African-American convict and himself a prison convert to Islam, Imam Salahuddin Muhammed.

Radical Muslim prison chaplain, Warith Deen Umar, a Sunni Muslim, who allegedly made life dangerously difficult for Shi’a Muslims in prison, recruited Imam Mohammed to prison chaplaincy work. Umar was quoted as saying that prisons “were the perfect recruitment and training ground for radicalism and the Islamic religion.” Umar was subsequently fired after he praised the Islamic attacks on 9/11. Muhammed, who himself served twelve years in prison for robbery, was recruited by the Newburgh Mosque to replace Umar as its spiritual leader.

What is wrong with this picture? Is there anything “right” with it? Is there anything we can do to “right” this picture?

Why has America been so foolishly complacent about—nay, even complicit–in the recruitment of jailed African-American men by radical Islamists? Perhaps, for a variety of reasons, this particular prison population may already have been brainwashed to hate Jews, Israel, and America. `

Why has America failed to understand that, just as Islamists routinely prey upon the poor, the disenfranchised, the marginalized, the vulnerable–and on women and children in Muslim countries–to become human bombs, that Islamists will surely, inevitably, prey upon their counterparts in America?

Why has America refused to draw some obvious conclusions about radical Islam (and many reputable folk insist that all Islam, if you read and understand the holy books, is radical): Namely, that radical Islamists are violent criminals and that like is drawn to like. Turning Islamist chaplains loose in an American prison is far more dangerous to us all than is allowing the proverbial fox into the hen house.

Ah, and now I must address the most delicate matter of all. The abandonment of some sons by some African-American fathers; and the special vulnerability claimed by and for some African-American sons when they are abandoned—given that racism, poverty, and a ghetto culture of violent crime, self-pity, rage, and greed is waiting to lure and trap them. And no, I am not forgetting that African-American women continue to have children without fathers in tow and that some African-American girls are also weakened by paternal abandonment. However, either girls seem to deal with it differently or studies do not focus upon them; ‘tis a subject for another day.

Wait a minute now, before everyone jumps on some bandwagon to blame men, women, whites, blacks, the slave trade, the genocide committed against native-Indians, the American government’s invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, European colonialism, or the Jews, Israel, Zionism, or global warming for any of this.

Clearly, this is a very complex matter and involves slave-era family patterns, “village” style extended family parenting vs nuclear monogomous style family parenting, realities of unemployment, different kinds of parenting, etc. One study, published in 1999, showed that African-American fathers who did not live with their children tended to visit them quite frequently.

Also, please realize that there are many intact, father-headed families of all races that have been destroyed by paternal alcoholism, drug addiction, mental illness, incest, wife-beating and child abuse. And I mean “destroyed,” even if no one ended up in jail, but rather, “only” ended up killing themselves, becoming prostitutes, or grew up to marry batterers, become batterers, etc.

And, most important, there are many families of all races headed by mothers-only where children positively flourish.

President Obama is, himself, a son whose black African father abandoned him and whose single white mother, together with her parents, raised him very successfully. Perhaps for this reason or, despite his outward success, Obama knows something about the pain of being paternally abandoned; thus, he has been very vocal about, even critical, of black fathers who do not remain at home to raise their children. He has even been criticized for his critique of black fathers.

I am with the President on this. Children of African descent are living in America, not in Africa, South America, or the Caribbean. Given the realities of racism–and the many ways of playing the “race card;” as well as the realities of both poverty and public education, all children are dependent on parents and relatives to instill in them work habits, values, ethics. Grandmothers, aunts, uncles, older siblings, may all be part of the “village,” but so should fathers.

Think of it this way: The Bronx Four are, apparently, all fatherless sons. Their leader, James “Abdul Rahman” Cromitie, may have functioned as a father-figure to the other three men who are anywhere from 12 to 17 years younger than Cromitie. More: The conversion to Islam, under father-figure indoctrinators, promised them a much longed for intense family and bonding experience; “family” as a total, protective institution. Paradoxically, inevitably, conversion to Islam also glorified, and even supplied a “religious” reason for their rage, bitterness, criminal aggression, and hatred of Jews and of the American military.

Many Islamist recruiters supply what is psychologically missing and yearned for: A (temporarily, illusory, and manipulatively) loving and attentive father or mother. In a large, polygamous family, a fathers’ attention, (even negative attention), is at a premium; and, in a culture that overly values sons and despises daughters, a mothers’ love, even the illusion of a mothers’ love, is at a premium for girls. These factors have figured in important psychological ways in the recruitment of human bombs in Islamic countries and territories.

Also, please recall the ”Beltway” sniper shooting spree perpetrated by D.C. based 41 year-old, John Allen Muhammad, a member of the Nation of Islam. Ten people were killed and six were wounded. Muhammad’s shooter, his little sidekick, was a 17 year-old son-figure, Lee Boyd Malvo aka John Lee Malvo, whom he’d obviously brainwashed.

Folks: This is big, real big.

What must be done? For starters, America might consider 1) Modifying our drug laws for marijuana, (but not for crack, cocaine, or heroin), in order to reduce the number of prison inmates in an already overcrowded system; 2) Outlawing, even criminalizing all radical Islamic indoctrination in American prisons and de-programming those prisoners who have already been indoctrinated; 3) Hiring some truly peaceful Muslims: Sufi Muslims, to do this work; 4) And while we’re at it, we had better be radically rethinking and actively reforming our prison system.

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31 Comments

1. David Thomson:

I think we can take it for granted that these suspected terrorists were all born after 1968. Previous to that time, it could be argued that blacks were primarily the victims of radical right-wing whites. The murder of Martin Luther King, Jr. may inadvertently have changed everything. His martyrdom was used as an excuse to justify the expansion of the welfare state. This inadvertently helped to greatly contribute to the destruction of many black families. Illigitimacy rates have skyrocketed since then. Stable lower middle class black families virtually disappeared overnight in many regions of the United States. At one time in this country, black illigitimacy rates were only slightly higher than those of white couples. In some large urban areas—currently over 70% of all black children are born out of wedlock. The male who fathered them has disappeared. There are indeed some successful families raised by single mothers. However, they are the exception to the general rule! Single mothers more often than not will see their sons sent to prison. Many may soon join the ranks of Muslim terrorists.

May 22, 2009 - 11:17 am 2. George Jochnowitz:

All recreational drugs, marijuana included, are a lie. They deny reality. Hard drugs–cocaine and heroin–should be given to certified addicts by prescription, in order to damage the illegal drug industry by curtailing the profits of dealers. Marijuana, which is less addictive, should simply be outlawed. Here are my thoughts on the subject in greater detail:

http://www,jochnoitz.net/Essays/Drugs.html

May 22, 2009 - 11:35 am 3. George Jochnowitz:

Error. There is a typo in the previous address:

http://www.jochnowitz.net/Essays/Drugs.html

May 22, 2009 - 11:37 am 4. Fausta’s Blog » Blog Archive » Kudlow’s graduation address, cars, shoes and Gitmo:

[...] Chesler writes on The Fatherless Sons of Jihad: Bigger Than the Bronx Four Why has America been so foolishly complacent about—nay, even complicit–in the recruitment of [...]

May 22, 2009 - 1:35 pm 5. MiamaMan:

Yes, drugs are the ultimate surreality…why add to an already unreal reality?

The damage done by drugs goes beyond the physical and mental bodies. In Yoga, Sankhya philosophy, we believe drugs also create havoc in the astral or subtle body by messing up the “nadis” or subtle channels that carry the Prana.

But Dr. Chesler’s cry in this articles is well heard. The solution requires titanic resolution, for now the problem has almost spilled beyond a reasonable effort to contain it.

The United Sates is a great experiment, a coordination on such a large scale as has never been seen before. However, we stand at a crossroad. Civilization is never safe if the culturally mentally are a minority, expecting to nourish themselves from a bosom, a multitude, a proletariat, below. Either knowledge continuously expands itself trickling down or it will always be endangered by an upsurge of the ignorant darkness from below. The danger increases when society allows large numbers of men to exist outside its pale in ignorance of its light, as it is happening to these black people in prison now, who are full of the natural energy of the barbarian, and are experimenting in seizing the physical weapons of the civilized without a proper inner transformation on how to use them.

This is exactly the way the Graeco-Roman world perished at the hands of the Teutons.

The rotting going on in the US now is, unfortunately, twofold, from within by a loss of vitality, from without by a flooding of barbarism.

May 22, 2009 - 1:37 pm 6. Self-hating Boomer:

President Obama is, himself, a son whose black African father abandoned him and whose single white mother, together with her parents, raised him very successfully.

That depends on how you define success. He may be POTUS, but he’s a very mentally unwell person. And we, both in and outside of America will pay dearly for his dysfunction.

May 22, 2009 - 4:01 pm 7. Evil Pundit:

Feminists created the fatherless society, and eventually they will reap what they have sown.

May 22, 2009 - 4:10 pm 8. Victor:

Ban radical Islam from prison system – sounds good – going to ban the Koran?

After all that’s where it says to not take Jews & Christians as friends; strike terror in the hearts of unbelievers; smite at their necks, and on and on

If fatherless-ness was the cause of blacks converting to Islam and planning terrorist attacks on Jews there would be a hell of a lot more terrorist attacks in the U.S.

And even if every black kid in the world had a parent it still wouldn’t change the Koran, the Hadiths, and all the other Islamic texts from Muslims that preach and teach jihad.

May 22, 2009 - 9:00 pm 9. Dr S McCosker:

Interestingly, in both ‘Among the Believers’ and ‘Beyond Belief’ V S Naipaul remarked upon the appalling social and psychological fallout of the polygynous families that Islamic sharia codifies, permits and indeed promotes; the damage obviously done to the children of tomcatting Muslim fathers. He met many insecure sons of such absent fathers. Sharia indeed *codifies* and sacralises a whole gamut of abusive male behaviours (e.g. misogyny, wife-beating, forcible ‘marriage’ to, and rape of, immature girls), thus *creating* jihad-fodder, and so the awful cycle perpetuates itself.

allah could be described as an ‘absent’ and indeed a thoroughly abusive father, a mix of tyrant and slavemaster, whose favours are completely arbitrary and whose ‘attention’ is frequently experienced as being – and is overwhelmingly *described* as being – negative, punitive, hostile, violent, destructive, rather than positive.

Seems to me that one way of countering the deadly siren-song of ‘allah’ the god of blood and war, and of attempting to heal the mess in the ghettoes and the trailor parks and the prisons, would be not only a ban on the koran and other jihad texts, and on hate-inciting imams and sheikhs, but to fight fire with fire: an intensive effort by black Pentecostal and other Christians to flood the ghettoes and the jails (by audio recordings, radio, radio play, film, gospel and spirituals) with the Biblical stories of a divine Father who is consistent, faithful and loving. (Case in point: the parable of the Prodigal Son, more correctly called, the Father Who Never Gave Up).

Islam totally rejects and anathematises the Biblical image, or metaphor, of the Fatherhood of God. Thus one of the most powerful stories I know is that of a Pakistani Muslim woman – in her case, literate and well-off – who in her middle age, at a time of personal crisis, began to read, and to compare, the Bible and the Koran. More and more she found she preferred the Bible; and finally, one day, she ‘broke the wall’; she set the two books side by side and spoke directly to the deity, ‘which of these two books tells me the truth about You?’ A quiet voice spoke in her soul: ‘in which of these books do you call Me ‘Father’”. She ended by leaving Islam, becoming a Christian; her whole clan instantly rejected and attacked her, but she was able to flee Pakistan, and lived out the rest of her life as a Christian.

Let’s pray that some no-nonsense hard-headed sharp-tongued but loving-hearted black pastors (NOT the ‘Jeremiah Wright’ ‘black theology’ variety but the old-fashioned red-hot gospel preachers, there *are* still some of those around if you look) can be let into the prisons to do their stuff.

May 23, 2009 - 1:39 am 10. Banned by Huffpo:

A voice crying in the wilderness that will go unheeded.

Much to our future chagrin.

May 23, 2009 - 6:09 am 11. MiamaMan:

The problem with the different models of religious self-help and/or conversion in prisons, compared to the fast pace of Muslim conversions going on among blacks in jails in the US, is that in many jails here, and mainly among the black inmates, Islam is perceived as having more afflatus.

The Rajasic nature of Islam, its kinetic and vital tendency to intolerance and imposition, and finally the outer valve of Jihad with its warrior mentality, conforms better to the struggles being affected within a prison system largely influenced by gangs. Add to that the racial dimension. It is a fact that for many Africans and their descendants, Christianity can be historically associated to colonization and slavery by the white race in recent times. It could be reasoned that the layer of Christianity in African-Americans, not differently from other African-descendants from the Caribbean and Brazil, is much thinner than in other sectors of the population. We recently witnessed in Nazi Germany how thin this Christian layer was for the Teutons, after all methods of conversion were tried in Europe, and after centuries of the supposed conversions. For the blacks, it follows that many of their brethren have been now Muslims in Africa for several centuries.

There is another hope rarely entertained. We, in the West, are now in the middle of the fourth wave of influence from the storehouse of spiritual power and knowledge in Asia that is ultimately India. The first wave was a filtering of Egyptian, Chaldean, and Indian wisdom through Pythagoras, Plato, and the Neo-Platonists, which resulted in the highly intellectual, but unspiritual Greece and Rome. Buddhism and Vaishnavism, now filtered through the Semitic temperament, entered Europe in a second wave in the form of Christianity, which almost spiritualize and asceticize Europe, to be at last checked by the Teuton Lapse. Some will ascribe a third attempt to the Islamic invasion of Spain, which reawakened the European mind in feudal and Catholic Europe. We are in the mists of the fourth, and biggest so far, wave, which started with German metaphysics, Max Muller, a reawakening of the Celtic, Scandinavian, and Slavonic idealism and mysticism, and the direct penetration of Buddhism, Theosophy, Vedantism, Bahaism, and principally Yoga in both Europe and America. Humanism and individualism, the greatest products of Western civilization, had a clear purpose, but since the Middle Ages the West has been desperately in search of a new Faith.

Ten years ago I was involved in a jail project in Puerto Rico with a Swami that taught spiritual Yoga – Kriya Yoga – to female inmates. We went to 2 jails and initiated a number of female inmates in the practices of Kriya Yoga. The results were fast and substantial, with decrease in stress, animosity, fights, and the likes.

May 23, 2009 - 6:28 am 12. BettyBlue:

Feminists are responsible for much of the contempt and denigration of fathers, and families, in this society. It depicted, and continues to depict, the traditional family as a hotbed of child abuse and female oppression. Marriage was considered evil for women, Single motherhood was pushed as the way to go for women who wanted to have children. Who needed some old dad around? Women could do it all! They could have it all! Fathers were bad things. We needed nice, socialist villages, to raise children.

Add to this mix the prevalence of drugs, divorce, and the notion that “gangsta culture” was somehow true, authentic black culture, and that anything else was “acting white”: i.e., getting a job, staying married, taking care of your kids, not joining gangs, you’v got a pretty poisonous mix.

Also add to that noxious mix the idea that Christianity enslaved blacks, whereas Islam is the religion of freedom for them—-complete and utter BS, and the opposite of the truth. All this stuff has been going on for decades. Anyone who tried pointing out how bad it all was, was accused of being a: racist, Islamophobe, male chauvinist pig, ChristianFanatic, take your pick!

Outlaw Islam in the prisons. And, it might not be a bad idea for Christian preachers to try evangelizing Islamic women! (Of course, if they do, they’ll be accused of oppressing hapless third-world females, and alienating them from their beautiful cultural traditions).

May 23, 2009 - 8:00 am 13. David Thomson:

I am a theological modernist and therefore neither a Christian nor a Jew. Religion may even be something of a fraud. Christopher Hitchens could ultimately be right. Nonetheless, I am sure that a viable secularist society is an impossibility. Only the traditional values of our Judeo-Christian heritage can keep most people sane, balanced and productive. Increased promiscuity is the number one problem threatening the black community. A wealthy movie star has the financial wherewithal to deal with their reckless lifestyle. The poor just don’t have the resources. A little bit of “fooling around” can have tragic consequences. The vile KKK never advocated promiscuity. Nope, this is the fault of white left-wingers, the generation representing the destructive 1960s.

May 23, 2009 - 9:46 am 14. MiamaMan:

David,

Religion as such now can mean 2 things, in other words it is often used to mean one 2 related, but different things.

1) It can be used, and has been used, as akin to spirituality in the individual sense. In this case, as spirituality is, it is a groping, a practice, by leaps and bounds or zigzags, with an aspiration to know God, His meaning, and identify and unite with Him (or Her). In this case, it is like Yoga, a word that in Sanskrit means “to unite”, like the English word “Yoke”. Christians may identify here with the “Prayer of Quiet” of Santa Teresa de Avila, or certain exercises of Ignatius Loyola, and the experiences of Meister Eckhart or Jakob Böhme.

2) More often than not, it refers to “organized religion”, which I think is the one you suspect a fraud, not being far from the mark. An organized religion usually follows after a Master (Moses, Jesus, Mohammed); there is a period of assimilation, often followed by a hardening of the teachings into dogma. Finally, the religion, like Christianity, may be founded by a disciple, in this case St. Paul, who did not know Christ personally, resulting in a religion that is far from the teachings of Jesus Christ, whom, about organized religions, warned us about the Pharisees, stating that this type of organization not only does not enter the Kingdom, but prevents others from doing so. From dogma to fraud, there is little distance.

The great Swami Vivekananda emphatically stated never to believe anything anyone tells you on the spiritual path, for exalted that he or she appears, that you cannot, finally, replicate yourself experimentally. That is Yoga.

A little differently from you, I follow Sanatana Dharma, a very ancient “religion”, thus your statement “Only the traditional values of our Judeo-Christian heritage can keep most people sane, balanced and productive”, does not apply to me, as I am usually sane, balanced and productive (although unemployed at this time, ha, ha, ha, Obama, give a stimulus job!).

Hari OM!

May 23, 2009 - 11:04 am 15. Always On Watch:

This is the Trojan Horse in our midst.

The next wave of jihadists in America will likely have many members from the source discussed in this article.

May 23, 2009 - 1:41 pm 16. Curious:

MiamaMan,
Would you flesh out your ideas about the four waves hitting the west?

You write, “We, in the West, are now in the middle of the fourth wave of influence from the storehouse of spiritual power and knowledge in Asia that is ultimately India. The first wave was a filtering of Egyptian, Chaldean, and Indian wisdom through Pythagoras, Plato, and the Neo-Platonists, which resulted in the highly intellectual, but unspiritual Greece and Rome. Buddhism and Vaishnavism, now filtered through the Semitic temperament, entered Europe in a second wave in the form of Christianity, which almost spiritualize and asceticize Europe, to be at last checked by the Teuton Lapse. Some will ascribe a third attempt to the Islamic invasion of Spain, which reawakened the European mind in feudal and Catholic Europe. We are in the mists of the fourth, and biggest so far, wave, which started with German metaphysics, Max Muller, a reawakening of the Celtic, Scandinavian, and Slavonic idealism and mysticism, and the direct penetration of Buddhism, Theosophy, Vedantism, Bahaism, and principally Yoga in both Europe and America.”

I’d like more details.

May 23, 2009 - 1:41 pm 17. joeblough:

Just a detail.

The Sufis are often cited as “peaceful”. I assume this is because one can find translations of Sufi poetry that sound very nice.

In point of fact, Sufis have always be dedicated jihaddis, and still are today.

May 24, 2009 - 12:13 am 18. joeblough:

BTW:

Fatherless men and victims of childhood abuse have always been a significant proportion of the prison population. black, white or otherwise.

The mohammedan element is what is new.

The plain truth about reality is that there is much in mohammedan doctrine that serves as a rationale for acting out the worst sorts of criminal impulse.

Mohammedanism is not the sort of doctrine that is going to conduce to personal reformation for the better.

Leave people free to promote such a doctrine in the jails?

Lethally toxic idiocy.

May 24, 2009 - 1:02 am 19. MiamaMan:

David,

Religion as such now can mean 2 things, in other words it is often used to mean one of 2 related, but different things.

Hari OM!

May 24, 2009 - 5:51 am 20. Tina Trent:

I agree with Dr. Chesler’s diagnosis of the problem, but I can’t agree that the solution is to further truncate crime punishment, and several responders here are simply wrong in their conclusions about the family.

The demise of the nuclear family pre-dates the modern feminist movement. It is the direct consequence of choices made during the Great Society era — in which qualifying for public aid became contingent upon not having a male in the household. Nor was this decision made out of any feminist contempt for males: it was made as a response to the reality of male abandonment of children. If you want to blame anybody for the collapse of the family, especially in minority communities, blame individual men, and social groups, that have abandoned their children.

Blame, too, the anti-feminist cultural elites (like Norman Mailer) who are the real authors of the sexual revolution and who indulged in their own hedonistic proclivities, to little personal loss but tremendous effect on others. The sad fact that many young academic feminists today (”pro-sex feminists”) mindlessly ape and internalize these behaviors is a tragedy, but it is not the source of the problem.

Most middle-class and working-class males and females today are perfectly well-adjusted towards each other and perfectly comfortable with classical feminist principles of equality between the sexes. The problems arising from the abandonment of children in the underclass are not the fault of feminists. These problems are also severe and frequently minimized, as is the link between radical politics and street violence — Dr. Chesler is one of the few people brave enough to make these connections.

I can’t, however, agree with her that the problem is drug sentencing. If you look at prison statistics over the past 30 years, the growth of the prison population is overwhelmingly the result of violent crime, not drug incarcerations, as many activists claim. The people in our prisons are serious, hardened criminals, not pot-smokers. Reducing consequences for them will only lead to more bloodshed in the streets.

May 24, 2009 - 6:16 am 21. MiamaMan:

16. Curious:

MiamaMan,

Would you flesh out your ideas about the four waves hitting the west?…I’d like more details. [You write, “We, in the West, are now in the middle of the fourth wave of influence from the storehouse of spiritual power and knowledge in Asia that is ultimately India. …We are in the mists of the fourth, and biggest so far, wave, which started with German metaphysics, Max Muller, a reawakening of the Celtic, Scandinavian, and Slavonic idealism and mysticism, and the direct penetration of Buddhism, Theosophy, Vedantism, Bahaism, and principally Yoga in both Europe and America.”]

OK, allow me to wet your curiosity, and “flesh out” the narrative a little, using a similar approach since the quote you use was a statement of believe and self-explanatory.

1)The premise I follow is that India is a storehouse and a powerhouse of spiritual knowledge and power.

2)The main drawback for India has been her reliance on the inner message and inward practice, the pervasive negative influence first of the Buddhism of the Buddha and its replacement in India proper, the Advaitic Vendantism of Shankaracharya, the negation of life and its dynamism with its ascetic proclivities and escapism, what made India feeble, unmanly, and easy prey in recent times to more Rajasic and vitalistic cultures, as the Muslim invasions proved, followed by the British.

3) On the other hand, Western man reliance on the outer form and his outward Rajasic vitality bend has produced the wonders of modern science, individualism, humanism, the molding of the material, and the discoveries of the workings of the “Saura Agni” or solar/nuclear energy power. But these advances in the material sciences have often lacked a counterbalancing inner development, slanted toward the ego in disregard of real spiritual knowledge or Vidya. The result has been at times the Nietzsche titan, an unspiritual, frightening, SS-man, as witnessed recently. Wotan the Berserker is still around here, skin deep.

4) India has been studying, experimenting, and mapping consciousness through the practice of Yoga for thousands of years. In contrast, the ignorance of Western civilization in this regard astonishes, for we are now starting barely to grope into inner man through the often childish psychology of James, Freud, Jung, Adler.

5) It is now forgotten that India was once the wonder of the world and an opulent country. More is in the process of being discovered about her ancient civilization, more even to be discovered later. Unfortunately, the spiritual giant woke up drowsy, without her right leg (Pakistan), and her left foot (Bangladesh), as such her Dharma has been imperiled. One day, people will understand the terrible consequences to the world of the partition of India. We are living it right now in the Swat valley, Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Kashmir, and Palestine.

6) A synthesis between the East and West if of the essence. The 4th wave mentioned, is the one we are experiencing now, its main message is the spiritual message of Yoga.

May 24, 2009 - 9:55 am 22. vb:

If we are going to get fathers to actually be fathers to their children, we have to give them incentives to do so. I don’t mean money or anthing physical: I mean status and recognition. Girls need to be encouraged to think about the kind of father they would want for their children and then look for and pay attention to boys who exhibit positive characteristics.

Maybe kids at younger ages should be engaged in discussions about relationships. We seem to be stuck between sex now as long as you use birth control and no sex till marriage. We don’t seem to talk about teen years as a time to learn about who you are and what kind of partner you want. I recently read somewhere that some young women didn’t want to marry the fathers of their children because they were afraid he wouldn’t stick around. They wanted marriage but had idealized it and were afraid their partners wouldn’t make the grade. We are talking about kids who haven’t seen the ups and downs of a marriage and haven’t learned how to compromise. Perhaps some of the feminist you-go-girl attitude has led girls to believe that compromise is selling out in the same way that basic academic achievement for black boys has been classified as selling out to the man.

We have become so absorbed with the plight of single mothers that we have neglected to praise the married moms – especially if they choose to give up some career time to devote themselves to child rearing. The Ward and June Cleaver models have been reviled, but we haven’t offered new models for the average Joe and Jane. Our attention seems focussed on super achievers and celebrities.

May 24, 2009 - 7:48 pm 23. BettyBlue:

Sorry, while I certainly blame the proponents of sexual liberation, and the hedonistic culture, I’m not letting feminists off the hook; they went right along with all that, and added to it: “A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle!” http://waysandmeans.house.gov/legacy.asp?file=legacy/humres/107cong/6-28-01/record/chillegalfound.htm

May 25, 2009 - 7:48 am 24. BettyBlue:

The West is also a wonder of the world, and has its own sources of spiritual power.

I like and admire much about Indian culture, but we also need to remember things like the caste system, where Brahmins ruled, and the untouchables got to do all the dirty work, and a horrifying vision of life as an endless cycle of being reborn again and again, which Buddhism arose, to counteract.

The West has its own spiritual vision, it’s own culture and its own power.

May 25, 2009 - 7:52 am 25. MiamaMan:

Yes, you are right, the West has also spiritual power. My point is that in India there is, and has traditionally being, more of this power, much like a battery that is often recharged. We need it now.

I didn’t discuss Indian culture, for the obvious reason you mentioned. I kept it to spiritual power only. The caste system is a blot on Indian culture, no doubt. Your idea of the so-called “horrifying” life of endless rebirth is mistaken. Neither for Hindus or Buddhists is endless. For Hindus ends in “Moksha”, or liberation, the re-absorption into the One Brahman (God). For Buddhists, who are basically atheists, the re-absorption is into an impersonal Nirvana. So, Buddhism did not raise to challenge reincarnation, actually they took the whole thing from Hinduism root and branch. Buddhism arose to challenge Vedic lore and Brahmanism, which had become too rigid.

Reincarnation is the only way to explain spiritual evolution. I do not buy the Christian/Abrahamic concept of “one soul, one life”. By the way, this concept, which was prevalent among the Essene group in Judea, and later accepted by some fathers of the Christian Church like Origenes, was made “anathema” in the Council of Nicea AD 325.

May 25, 2009 - 9:28 am 26. NMSC:

There is more to this story when it concerns African American men. For some reason, AA men starting going downhill drastically in the 1970s, after the implementation of welfare programs and other government intervention programs. Some argue that the conditions of welfare gave AA men no incentive to stay home and they abandoned their families in droves, which led to even more welfare, a lack of will to work, and violent crime by their sons, and the cycle has continued today. I do think in the AA community there is a direct link between fatherlessness, welfare, and high black crime. 90% of violent crime in America is committed by American black men and 70% of men in prison grew up without fathers. AA men are more violent than other minority men in America, by a long shot, and some say this is uniquely tied to their access to welfare and so on (as opposed to immigrant minority men, who do not have access to welfare and all its consequences, and absolutely must work and support their families.)
There is something going on here and it has something to do with the way government programs interfered after the civil rights movement. American blacks were more upwardly mobile in the 1950s (pre-government money and affirmative action programs) than they are today and this needs to be analyzed further.

May 25, 2009 - 3:13 pm 27. Dr S McCosker:

Betty Blue – I agree. For anyone reading this discussion: to get a crash course in the living legacy of what I shall call ‘Jerusalem’ (which is independent of ‘Athens’ and ‘Rome’, and which redeems Athens and Rome, not the other way around), besides the Books of Genesis and Exodus, and the Psalms and the Song of Songs, and Isaiah, and the Gospels, I commend the following: Tom Cahill, ‘The Gifts of the Jews’; Abraham Heschel, ‘God In Search of Man’; Franz Rosenzweig, ‘The Star of Redemption’; Charles Williams ‘The Figure of Beatrice’ (a study of the Divine Comedy), ‘The Descent of the Dove’ and ‘He Came Down from Heaven’; and David Bentley Hart, ‘The Doors of the Sea’, and in his ‘Beauty of the Infinite’ the sections entitled ‘The Will to Power’, ‘The Covenant of Light’ and ‘The Consolations of Tragedy, the Terrors of Easter’; also the second half of Hart’s ‘Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies’. Also anything by Jacques Ellul – but particularly ‘The Meaning of the City’ and ‘The Humiliation of the Word’. Or, for what happens at ground-level when a Muslim encounters Christ: Gulshan Esther, ‘The Torn Veil’ and Hannah Shah, ‘The Imam’s Daughter’. And for what happens when violent macho gang culture meets Christian witness: ‘The Cross and the Switchblade’ and ‘Chasing the Dragon’.

Hart’s ‘The Doors of the Sea’ is a magnificent restatement of the central scandal of Christianity (which is itself, in all sorts of ways, a re-presentation of the scandal that the Jews already presented to the entire world).

MiamaMan in his infinite barely disguised contempt for, and hostility toward, orthodox Christianity (and his attempt at the same time to absorb it and thus neutralise and nullify it, by his nonsensical claim that early Christians believed in reincarnation! – a claim which is completely incompatible with traditional biblical theology, anthropology and cosmology) is merely reiterating the sorts of accusations that always have been made by many a defender of the Way of the World, the World of the Wheel, against those irritating representatives of YHWH the liberator: against Jews first and then against the Christians also. It is very telling that in the ancient world both Jews and early Christians were often accused of being ‘atheists’. They showed no proper respect to the gods of this world. And they insisted on – they *were* – the scandal of the particular: the Jews in their claim to be the bearers of a unique and historic Revelation (it is no coincidence that Psalm 83, in which the Nations unite to destroy Israel, follows upon Psalm 82, in which YHWH marches into the ‘council of the gods’ and puts a flea in their collective ear); the Christians in their even more scandalous (scandalous even to many Jews) assertion that the Infinite-Personal G-d of the Jews, the One who calls and knows each star by its name (and one must assume therefore, also so calls each human person) had manifested himself, once and for all and for ever, uniquely, in one particular Jew, Yeshua of Nazareth.

The ‘West’ (Jerusalem or Zion, the Jews and the Christians) does indeed, as Betty Blue says, have its own spiritual vision, its own culture and its own power; and to be blunt, at its incandescent core that vision, that culture, and that power, which MiamaMan looks down upon and dismisses as inferior to, ‘weaker’ than, the ‘power’ he finds in ‘the East’, is totally in contradiction to the cosmology, theology and anthropology of ‘the east’ (just as it is also totally in contradiction to the cosmology, theology and anthropology of Islam). It cannot be assimilated to, or absorbed within, that ‘eastern’ worldview. To say that is only to state a fact.

May 25, 2009 - 3:28 pm 28. mama pajama:

Response to Evil Pundit:

“Feminists created the fatherless society, and eventually they will reap what they have sown.”

Actually the fatherless society is rooted in the “me generation” – the hippy rebellion, “do your own thing” culture which preceded the rise of the feminist equality movement. The liberalization of sex removed strictures in place based on notions of morality. A term evicerated since from our general vocabulary. Prior to this time the culture of single mothers and babies born out of wedlock pretty much permeated welfare recipients, a generational phenomenon that rewarded single mothers, absent fathers situations as qualifier for welfare recipiency.

May 26, 2009 - 1:00 am 29. MiamaMan:

27. Dr S McCosker:

Namaste Dr S McCosker!

[To say that is only to state a fact.]
This is your opinion.

1) [MiamaMan in his infinite barely disguised contempt for, and hostility toward, orthodox Christianity]

I do not have any hostility towards Christianity, orthodox or not. As per neutralizing, neither, Christianity is dwindling itself to naught, look at Europe: Czechs and others.

2) [by his nonsensical claim that early Christians believed in reincarnation! - a claim which is completely incompatible with traditional biblical theology, anthropology and cosmology]

This is fact not opinion, historical facts. You twists my words, I did not say early Christian believed in reincarnation, I wrote that some did, like father of the Church Origen of Alexandria, and the Gnostic sects. The influence of Plotinus, who believed in metempsychosis as many other Neoplatonists is obvious in the early Greek Christian Church Fathers. It is also a fact that metempsychosis was deemed “anathema” in the Council of Nicea AD 325, a fanatical ruling.

3) [as Betty Blue says, have its own spiritual vision, its own culture and its own power; and to be blunt, at its incandescent core that vision, that culture, and that power, which MiamaMan looks down upon and dismisses as inferior to, ‘weaker’ than, the ‘power’ he finds in ‘the East’, is totally in contradiction to the cosmology, theology and anthropology of ‘the east’]

I agree with BettyBlue, who can deny that the West have had its own spiritual vision, culture and power? That’s not the issue I was discussing.

As per the many books you quote, so as to help your argument, I guess. The mind is finally not an organ of knowledge. It goes round and round and there is no end to its arguments, its contraries, its gropings, its gaspings. This has been the main failure of the West, ultimately a failure of the intellect, which is inferior knowledge.

To all these books, I refer to you one of the shortest, but more concise and pregnant with knowledge, scripture of the world: The Isha Upanishad. It consists of only 18 verses, and forms a chapter of the Yajur Veda. It introduces the aspirant to the realm of spiritual Intuitive Knowledge, and then some.

Hari OM!

May 26, 2009 - 2:36 am 30. Dr S McCosker:

Sorry, Miama Man. I am prepared to stand with you against the Jihad; but you will *never* convince me to abandon my exclusive devotion to Yeshua of Nazareth, no matter how offensive or childish that devotion may appear to you to be; and you will never persuade me to believe that He is anything other than what the historic church has always confessed him to be – a Jewish man, a particular Jewish man, who was and is also in very truth the living Word of YHWH the lifegiver, the liberator, who was publicly executed ’sub Pontio Pilato’, in space and time and history, and risen from death alive in space and time and history, absolutely unkillable. He said the gates of hell would not prevail against his community; I believe him. (As I also believe all the covenants sworn by G-d to Israel, will stand, and stand forever).

Now: so far as I can see, unlike Muslims, ordinary Hindu people accept the idea of a universal ethic involving comprehensible concepts of justice, reciprocity, truthfulness, fidelity, etc; this means that on the day-to-day level, Jews and Christians and Hindus can comprehend one another’s behaviour, do business with one another, and cooperate in resisting the Jihad.

Beyond that, though, there are great gulfs fixed, and it would be dishonest to pretend that the differences did not exist, or did not matter: for example – no Christian can ever accept any denaturing of Jesus by his reduction to the status of either guru or avatar (any more than they can accept the ghastly travesty of ‘Isa’ the lesser ‘prophet’ that appears in the Quran and Hadith); and the concept of Grace is absolutely incompatible with the concept of Karma.

As for Gnosticism: here, from ‘the descent of the dove’ is Charles Williams defining the difference between the Gnostics and the apostolic Christians -

“See, understand, enjoy”, said the Gnostics. “Repent, believe, love”, said the church – “and if you see something by the way, say so”.

And as for knowledge: it is the person and the works of Yeshua that *are*, that define, for a Christian, the meaning of knowledge and love and power.

“For the foolishness of G-d is wiser than men, and the weakness of G-d is stronger than men”.

Look down your nose at me all you like: in my ignorance and weakness I *cannot* bow down to the Hindu gods; instead I choose the weakness and folly of the Crucified and Risen Lord: this pesky first-century rabbi that the Romans put to death, obscenely, publicly; but who (I confess and believe) rose from death. It is between the scarred hands of that Jewish carpenter that I place my life and my death.

I am convinced that in the darkness and chaos of America’s prisons, it is He who *can* recreate the ruined lives of those who – if they do not encounter Him, – may well also be seduced, as these wannabe synagogue-bombers were, into killing and being killed in the service of the arab god of blood and war, allah.

May 26, 2009 - 7:51 pm 31. MiamaMan:

30. Dr S McCosker:

Thanks for the thoughtful answer. I respect your opinion, and am definitely not trying to convince you of anything. Let us continue the dialog as an intellectual exercise (with Phyllis’ permission). Let me pick up topics in order of interest, and not necessarily as you wrote them:

1) Your statement: “and the concept of Grace is absolutely incompatible with the concept of Karma.”

Not so. The Bible “whatever you sow, you reap”, is Karma par excellence. Avatarhood, according to Hindu lore, and as explained in the Hindu Vishnu Puranas, and also, more importantly in the Bhagavad Gita, is verily an exercise of Divine Grace. In the Gita, Lord Krishna (God) states that every time ignorance prevails (Adharma), the Lord, in his infinite wisdom and mercy, bodies himself forth to correct and reset the course. If this isn’t Grace, what is Grace? Besides, in Sanatana Dharma, prayer is paramount, it is studied as Mantra, and constantly exercised, asking the Divine for grace. Grace is the ability of the Divine to set a new course, individually or cosmically. It is accepted that by the practice of Yoga and the help of Divine Grace, Karma can be changed and even erased.

1.1) I love Jesus, but I cannot accept him as the only Son of God, nor I accept that those that don’t follow one or another Christian Church are condemned to hell (Catholic Mel Gibson’ statement a while back about his protestant wife). Alas, I do not accept the Christian Hell either; this is the childish part I was referring to (but never offensive, this is your opinion, I don’t find others’ opinions or believes offensive). What kind of God would punish his son to eternal damnation? I can accept Jesus as an Avatar among several others (very few indeed). We are all sons of God.

2) Your statement: Your description of the Prince of Peace on the first paragraph:

I agree 100%. I even accept that he rose from the dead and lived; this is within the realm of Siddhas (powers) of Yoga.

3) Your statement: “Now: so far as I can see, unlike Muslims, ordinary Hindu people accept the idea of a universal ethic involving comprehensible concepts of justice, reciprocity, truthfulness, fidelity, etc; this means that on the day-to-day level, Jews and Christians and Hindus can comprehend one another’s behavior, do business with one another, and cooperate in resisting the Jihad”.

In regard to Hindus, I notice here (subconsciously perhaps), a little prejudice, or a lack of familiarity with the topic. We Hindus accept the idea of a One, Ineffable, Brahman. We are not idol worshippers, but worship many gods. Who is the say that a god with human body and an elephant head, Ganesh, does not exist? As the Christian church, and Judaism before, has always allowed for the existence of angels and cherubims. According to the Upanishad, in Sanskrit: “Brahma Ekam Eva Advitiyam”, meaning God is One without a Second. These lesser gods are lieutenants of God.

4) Your statement: “Look down your nose at me all you like: in my ignorance and weakness I *cannot* bow down to the Hindu gods”.

I definitely don’t look down on you. Everyone must experience his own experience. Alas, I wish you the best!

5) This is my experience after many years of meditation, mantra, and worship:

5.1 God is everything. There is not one thing that is not God. Alas, the solidity of the world can be proven illusory; bur still is part of Him. The Universe is a play, Lila, whereby God re-discover Himself as symbol and out of Ananda (bliss). Everything, as Bishop Berkeley suspected, is consciousness.

5.2 Evil is contained within God, but differently from the Absolute Truth and Love, evil is not an absolute, but a means to an end, and will be defeated at the end.

5.3 The Mother is the feminist creative power of the Lord. She verily is the womb of the Divine. And as such, we Sanatana Dharmis worship her.

5.4 Finally, man is not final, but a transition step towards the manifesting of God on earth, and a true Supramental Being.

And that said…Who is G-d? I practice Brahma-Abhyasa, meaning the thinking only of That, the cogitation on That, the prayerful attitude towards That. In going to bed, the last thought is God, and in awakening the same. I call Him with every blessed name, God, Dios, Brahman, Adonai, Elohim, Allah.

My main goal in life is to surrender to Him.

May 29, 2009 - 10:20 am