On Freedom is another book Professor Timothy Snyder wrote among the prolific outputs of his many works. Professor Snyder is one of the leading minds of our time on history of Europe, and on American politics. As a public intellectual, he has turned that knowledge toward counsel and prediction, working against authoritarianism here and abroad. Another historian, Heather Cox Richardson, praised the book as another magnificent meditation on the nature and meaning of humanity : “he rejects the idea that freedom is merely the absence of restraint, establishing instead that it is the presence of the conditions necessary for people to choose a better future.” Freedom as professor Snyder argued, is the great American commitment, but we have lost sight of what it means – and this is leading us into crisis. Too many of us look at freedom as the absence of state power: We think we’re free if we can do and say as we please and protect ourselves from government overreach. But true freedom isn’t so much freedom from as freedom to – the freedom to thrive, to take risks for futures we choose y working together. Freedom is the value that makes all over values possible. Once explored and understood, it is the way forward to good government.
Huston Cummings Smith was a Chinese-born American religious studies scholar, author, and professor known for his influential work in comparative religion. His landmark text The World’s Religions sold over three million copies and became a standard introduction to global faiths. His master piece explores the essential elements and teachings of the world’s predominant faiths, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam and the native traditions of Australia, Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Smith echos the sentiment of Snyder, but emphasized the inner – rather than the institutional – dimension of these religions, coveys the unique appeal and gifts of each of the traditions and reveals their hold on the human heart and imagination.
So faith is a tonic for the human spirit and a requirement of the soul; it is also a primary force in unlocking human wisdom. Just as the human body requires nutritional sustenance to sustain life, the human psyche likewise needs spiritual nourishment to remain healthy and sound. As a person who put on a lot of energy to study Buddhism and cosmic principle, liberation from suffering is my on-going learning efforts. Understanding Suffering is the initial discussion Buddha started to explore the liberation for human life . He further analysis the 8 type of unsatisfactory causes of human suffering, In addition, Buddha expound extensively the three types of dukkha (Sanskrit) or dukkha (Pali) — often translated as “suffering” — which is not just physical pain, but the unsatisfactoriness and instability inherent in all conditioned existence: The Suffering Of Suffering, The Suffering Of Change, The Suffering Of Existence. From there he led the disciples to 8-fold path for the way of liberation.
But religion is a complex issue, so many fights and violence were also created in the name of religion. In The Astrology of American Destiny, Dane Rudhyar believed that Christianity can be revitalized and made a fecund power in the dawning future, just like Teilhard de Chardin’s works had proved it. But the doctrines of American fundamentalists have little to do with what Jesus brought to mankind and with the early Christianity that was a powerful force of socila transformation. In the “paradigm-influencing” book Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation, acclaim scholar Kristin Kobes Du Mez fundamentally transforming our understanding of white evangelicalism in America. Mez went over the last seventy-five years history of white evangelicalism, revealing how evangelicals have worked to replace the Jesus of the Gospels with an idol of rugged masculinity and Christian nationalism.
Separation of Church and Hate: A Sane Person’s Guide to Taking Back the Bible from Fundamentalists, Fascists, and Flock-Fleecing Frauds by John Fugelsang is another urgent calling for American to return to its tradition when the country was initially established. For more than two centuries, the United States Constitution has given us the right to a society where church and state exist independently. But Christianity has been hijacked by far-right groups and politicians who seek to impose their narrow views on government, often to justify oppressive and unequal policies. The extremists who weaponize the Bible for earthly power are acting—literally—in bad faith. Fugelsang takes readers through common fundamentalist arguments on abortion, immigration, LGBTQ rights, and more—exposing their hypocrisy and inaccuracy through scripture, common sense, and deeply inappropriate humor. It offers practical tips on how to debate your loved one, coworker, or neighbor on the issues that divide us using that Bible they claim to follow.
Now with Israel we have another religious issue, A History of Zionism: From the French Revolution to the Establishment of the State of Israel by Walter Laqueur is an earnest attempt to clarify religion and nationalism that had such huge impact on United States as a nation. Laqueur outlines the differences between the various Zionist philosophies of the early twentieth century—socialist, Communist, revisionist, and cultural Utopian—and he discusses both the religious and secular Jewish critics of the movement.
Like Dreamers: The Story of the Israeli Paratroopers Who Reunited Jerusalem and Divided a Nation – How Brotherhood and Ideological Conflict Shaped the Modern Middle East, acclaimed journalist Yossi Klein Halevi interweaves the stories of a group of 1967 paratroopers who reunited Jerusalem, tracing the history of Israel and the divergent ideologies shaping it from the Six-Day War to the present. Following the lives of seven young members from the 55th Paratroopers Reserve Brigade – the unit responsible for restoring Jewish sovereignty to Jerusalem – Halevi reveals how this band of brothers played pivotal roles in shaping Israel’s destiny long after their historic victory. While they worked together to reunite their country in 1967, these men harbored drastically different visions for Israel’s future. One emerges at the forefront of the religious settlement movement, while another is instrumental in the 2005 unilateral withdrawal from Gaza. One becomes a driving force in the growth of Israel’s capitalist economy, while another ardently defends the socialist kibbutzim. One is a leading peace activist, while another helps create an anti-Zionist terror underground in Damascus.
The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy originally published in 2007, Professor John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen M. Walt of Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, provoked both howls of outrage and cheers of gratitude for challenging what had been a taboo issue in America: the impact of the Israel lobby on U.S. foreign policy. A work of major importance, it remains as relevant today as it was in the immediate aftermath of the Israel-Lebanon war of 2006.
Mearsheimer and Walt describe in clear and bold terms the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the United States provides to Israel and argues that this support cannot be fully explained on either strategic or moral grounds. This exceptional relationship is due largely to the political influence of a loose coalition of individuals and organizations that actively work to shape U.S. foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction. They provocatively contend that the lobby has a far-reaching impact on America’s posture throughout the Middle East―in Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, and toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict―and the policies it has encouraged are in neither America’s national interest nor Israel’s long-term interest. The lobby’s influence also affects America’s relationship with important allies and increases dangers that all states face from global jihadist terror.
On September 11, 2001, five Israeli nationals were arrested in New Jersey after witnesses reported seeing them celebrating and filming the World Trade Center attacks. They were held for 71 days before being quietly deported to Israel. The Dancing Israel documents the declassified FBI investigation into the incident.
On the other hand, Radical Islam had its problem as well, we can trace the public discussion back to Osama Bin laden. Why there are so much hatre of America ?
Brigitte Gabriel, born Hanan Qahwaji, is a Lebanese-American conservative activist, author, journalist, and national security commentator. A survivor of the Lebanese Civil War, she spent seven years in a bomb shelter before moving to Israel as a news anchor and later immigrating to the U.S. She founded ACT for America, the largest U.S. grassroots group focused on national security, and authored bestsellers including Because They Hate and They Must Be Stopped.