My Religious Odyssey. Part Two by Dave Jaffe.
Although I was raised in a very orthodox Jewish family, my religious education exposed me to other religious trends. In my mid teens, I had classes in Bible studies and came across Jesus's wonderful Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel according to Saint Matthew. Parts of it appealed to me in a way that my father's religion never did. Now there were parts of the Sermon that struck me as absurd. For instance the idea that adulterers should be put to death seemed to me then and now as idiotic.
Yet other sections of the Sermon glowed with a tolerance and a compassion that impressed me no end. In any case I filed the sermon away in my mind and only came back to it thirty years or so later. By that time in the late 1980's I was a full blown socialist and a member of the New Democratic Party. In fact now looking back at my journey from Judaism to socialism, it all seems logical.
"Religion when pushed to the extreme generalization," writes Randall Collins, "turns into political ideals. The modern doctrines of conservatism, liberalism and socialism emerge out of the declining belief in religion." These creeds, Collins says continue concerns "in a new form."
I ditched Judaism in my late teens and replaced it soon after with another religion, namely socialism. Yet in the late 1980's, life threw me some new curve balls. I developed neurofibromas or non-cancerous tumours all over my body. The doctors I went to couldn't find a cure for these tumours and hesitated to cut them out of my body for fear of hurt my breathing and muscle use. In the end, I started to go to the Unitarians Church in Vancouver for spiritual sustenance. Here in this church on Vancouver's west side, I met many fine people and had some good times. Yet I found the church week in the spiritual sense.
Most Unitarians didn't believe in God. I did. I also found that the political views of many Unitarians leaned to the right. "People here are socially progressive," Barbara, a long time congregant said. "Yet they're not politically progressive." In other words, Unitarians support same sex marriage, a woman's right to abortion and gay and lesbian worshippers. and ministers. Yet many Unitarians I met supported a strong Canadian military, weak social programs and low taxes for the rich. "Unitarians say nice things," a former Unitarian told me. "But they don't do nice things."
The turning point for me came in early 2003 when U.S. president George W. Bush started the second Iraqi war. He launched a U.S. invasion of Iraq along with British and some other troops. By this time I'd left the N.D.P. and my political commitments had tapered off to very little. Yet I still remained a progressive. I thought that the Unitarian minister, who was an American like many other Unitarian ministers at the church, would denounce this invasion. Yet as far as I can recall he said nothing about it. I also met people in the church who supported the war. This did disturb me.
Wednesday 28 February 2018
Monday 26 February 2018
Ends and Odds; The Ravings of an Old Man by Dave Jaffe. Chapter Seven Part One.My Religious Odyssey.
My Religious Odyssey. Part One.
A few weeks ago one man asked me in a place of worship what my religious background was. When I explained it to him, he said, "You're still in transition." I agreed and told him that I still hadn't reached my final destination "either in my life or in religion." In my life I've moved from one religion to another to yet a third. And there's still another worship place I'm attracted to.
Now as the American sociologist Randall Collins points out either you believe in religion or you don't. "In one case," he says talking about religion, "it's a Supreme Reality that transcends everything sociology is concerned with. Or it's an irrational superstition about things that don't exist."
Most social thinkers seem to support the second view:Religious belief is plainly irrational. I belong to the first camp. I believe in god and I'm not alone. In Canada close to one in five people still worship somewhere every week. So when Canada's latest governor general Julie Payette put down religious believers she faced a lot of flack.
In any case back to my beginnings. I was born into a Jewish household in the early 1940's in war torn England. My father Monty Jaffe was a short intense believer in orthodox Judaism. He believed every word of the Old testament and kept most of the religious and dietary laws of Judaism. He went to synagogue every Saturday and often pressured his three growing children to go there also. He found solace in Judaism even though this religion had already scarred his life. When he was 11 and when he was 12, his father a stern Victorian-style of patriarch refused both times to let my dad write important exams on a Saturday. He applied the same rule to my father's younger brother Ted.
"I never write a word on Shabbas," he told both his sons. "And you won't either." So both his sons who were quite clever didn't write exams that could have taken them further up the English educational ladder. As a result both boys left school at the age of 13. My grandfather's Judaism hurt both his sons.
Growing up in my dad's households in Montreal was full of weird rules and restrictions. In my teens, I broke them all. I ate pork which was a supposed unclean or "unkosher" meat. The pork came in Chinese food which I adored. I rode on buses and smoked cigarettes on Saturday or what on Hebrew is called "Shabbas". My father thought this was breaking God's rules. I read books by the atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell and told my dad that the Jewish religion was derived from other religions.
My father would plunge into towering rages when I'd argue over religion with him. At the age of 18 or 19 I gave up clashing with him- at least on religious issues . "Your father's crazy on religion," a friend of mine said at the time. Or did he say, "Your father's crazy"? Maybe he said both.
A few weeks ago one man asked me in a place of worship what my religious background was. When I explained it to him, he said, "You're still in transition." I agreed and told him that I still hadn't reached my final destination "either in my life or in religion." In my life I've moved from one religion to another to yet a third. And there's still another worship place I'm attracted to.
Now as the American sociologist Randall Collins points out either you believe in religion or you don't. "In one case," he says talking about religion, "it's a Supreme Reality that transcends everything sociology is concerned with. Or it's an irrational superstition about things that don't exist."
Most social thinkers seem to support the second view:Religious belief is plainly irrational. I belong to the first camp. I believe in god and I'm not alone. In Canada close to one in five people still worship somewhere every week. So when Canada's latest governor general Julie Payette put down religious believers she faced a lot of flack.
In any case back to my beginnings. I was born into a Jewish household in the early 1940's in war torn England. My father Monty Jaffe was a short intense believer in orthodox Judaism. He believed every word of the Old testament and kept most of the religious and dietary laws of Judaism. He went to synagogue every Saturday and often pressured his three growing children to go there also. He found solace in Judaism even though this religion had already scarred his life. When he was 11 and when he was 12, his father a stern Victorian-style of patriarch refused both times to let my dad write important exams on a Saturday. He applied the same rule to my father's younger brother Ted.
"I never write a word on Shabbas," he told both his sons. "And you won't either." So both his sons who were quite clever didn't write exams that could have taken them further up the English educational ladder. As a result both boys left school at the age of 13. My grandfather's Judaism hurt both his sons.
Growing up in my dad's households in Montreal was full of weird rules and restrictions. In my teens, I broke them all. I ate pork which was a supposed unclean or "unkosher" meat. The pork came in Chinese food which I adored. I rode on buses and smoked cigarettes on Saturday or what on Hebrew is called "Shabbas". My father thought this was breaking God's rules. I read books by the atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell and told my dad that the Jewish religion was derived from other religions.
My father would plunge into towering rages when I'd argue over religion with him. At the age of 18 or 19 I gave up clashing with him- at least on religious issues . "Your father's crazy on religion," a friend of mine said at the time. Or did he say, "Your father's crazy"? Maybe he said both.
Wednesday 14 February 2018
Ends and Odds: The Ravings of an Old Man by Dave Jaffe: Chapter Five, part two.
Statistics and Politics: Or Why I Left the N.D.P. by Dave Jaffe. Part Two.
I spent about 25 years in the New Democratic Party of British Columbia. I was just one of tens of thousands of anonymous envelope stuffers, envelope licker and telephone canvassers. (The first two tasks are now done by machines.) In the 1990's I finally realized how the percentages I've mentioned remain fixed for long periods of time. So no matter how hard I and other low ranked canvassers worked or toiled for the N.D.P., the N.D.P. would rarely win an election. Still ,the B.C. N.D.P. did win some elections in 1972 and afterwards. Of course they won no federal elections.
In fact in t he early 1990's the really right wing Reform Party came on the scene and decimated the federal N.D.P. and the Conservative party. So Canadian politics did change as did the voting percentages for the various political parties. Yet for me this was a bad change since the rise of the Reform Party just swung Canadian politics even further to the right.
"This politics is so boring," a woman said who went to an N.D.P. convention in the mid-1970's. About 20 years later I came around to her way of thinking and left the N.D.P. By this time the various voting percentages had become fixed in my mind. Also I was now in mid-fifties and realized that I had left in my life only 25 years or so. I didn't want to spend the last third of my life worrying about or working in the political scene. Lastly, with greater self-understanding I also grasped that I had caused many problems in my journey through the N.D.P. I talked too much, asked too many questions and panicked on key occasions.
"It's time to leave the political scene," I told myself in about 1995. Six months or so later I had left not only the N.D.P. but also the anti-poverty work I had been in and my involvement in the housing co-op I live in. "You left the N.D.P.," one N.D.P.'er commented when he saw me in the street in 1997. "It's not for me anymore," I replied. "I've left politics and it's all good."
Statistics, advancing age and self understanding pushed me out of politics. Yet statistics played the biggest role. They gave me the way to understanding Canadian and B.C. politics. I shall always be grateful to them.
I spent about 25 years in the New Democratic Party of British Columbia. I was just one of tens of thousands of anonymous envelope stuffers, envelope licker and telephone canvassers. (The first two tasks are now done by machines.) In the 1990's I finally realized how the percentages I've mentioned remain fixed for long periods of time. So no matter how hard I and other low ranked canvassers worked or toiled for the N.D.P., the N.D.P. would rarely win an election. Still ,the B.C. N.D.P. did win some elections in 1972 and afterwards. Of course they won no federal elections.
In fact in t he early 1990's the really right wing Reform Party came on the scene and decimated the federal N.D.P. and the Conservative party. So Canadian politics did change as did the voting percentages for the various political parties. Yet for me this was a bad change since the rise of the Reform Party just swung Canadian politics even further to the right.
"This politics is so boring," a woman said who went to an N.D.P. convention in the mid-1970's. About 20 years later I came around to her way of thinking and left the N.D.P. By this time the various voting percentages had become fixed in my mind. Also I was now in mid-fifties and realized that I had left in my life only 25 years or so. I didn't want to spend the last third of my life worrying about or working in the political scene. Lastly, with greater self-understanding I also grasped that I had caused many problems in my journey through the N.D.P. I talked too much, asked too many questions and panicked on key occasions.
"It's time to leave the political scene," I told myself in about 1995. Six months or so later I had left not only the N.D.P. but also the anti-poverty work I had been in and my involvement in the housing co-op I live in. "You left the N.D.P.," one N.D.P.'er commented when he saw me in the street in 1997. "It's not for me anymore," I replied. "I've left politics and it's all good."
Statistics, advancing age and self understanding pushed me out of politics. Yet statistics played the biggest role. They gave me the way to understanding Canadian and B.C. politics. I shall always be grateful to them.
Tuesday 13 February 2018
Ends and Odds: The Ravings of an Old Man by Dave Jaffe. Chapter Six. Part One
Statistics and Politics by Dave Jaffe. Part One
"There's lies, damn lies and statistics," I heard one person say a few years ago. Maybe this is true but statistics or more accurately percentages unlocked the key for me to Canadian politics. They also pushed me out of any involvement in politics. In the long run this too was a good thing.
In Canadian federal elections the centrist Liberal party usually wins a little over 40 per cent of the total vote. The right wing Conservative party comes in second with about 35 per cent of the total vote. And somewhere between 15 and 20 per cent of the voters cast their ballots for the left leaning New Democratic Party or "the N.D.P.' as it's referred to. Then there's the Green Party and the Bloc Quebecois who pick up the rest of the vote. To-day these two parties are distinctly minor parties. Elizabeth May, for instance is the sole elected Green Member of Parliament in the House of Commons. The Bloc Quebecois which once formed the official opposition now only wins a handful of seats.
So with a first past the vote system of voting, the Liberals usually win a majority of seats in the House of Commons and forms the federal government. The Conservatives most of the time sit in the parliament as the official opposition. Once in a while they beat the Liberals and form the government. Then the N.D.P. win 25 seats or less of the 338 seats in the House of Commons. They're usually squeezed into a corner of the House.
In British Columbian politics there's also an underlying pattern to voting that rarely changes. The N.D.P. in B.C. usually gets 40 per cent of the vote in a provincial election. Yet they rarely win more than this two-fifths of the vote. Three out of five voters will never put an X or a tick besides an N.D.P. candidate. "I'm a free enterpriser," says Frank a big chunky 50's something bus driver. "I'm against socialism and won't ever vote for the N.D.P."
Frank's not alone. 60 percent of the voters agree with him. So since about 1933 most voters on the right vote for a right wing party. At one time between 1933 and 1940 that party was the Liberals. From 1940 to 1952 a Liberal-Conservative government ruled the roost. After it collapsed, the Social Credit party became to the choice of most conservative voters. Now these voters once again prefer the Liberals.
Every forty years or so, the conservative voters switch to a new or old right wing party. A new
or old time political party comes along and takes votes from the incumbent conservatives. Once again the N.D.P. stay in opposition as the conservative group wins one election after another. "Forget the hoopla," one N.D.P. organizer once pointed out to me " and just study the percentages. That' all that counts.." Once I did this, I realized what federal and provincial politics were all about. Yet once I did this I also realized how little I could change B.C. or Canadian politics and swing them to the left.
"There's lies, damn lies and statistics," I heard one person say a few years ago. Maybe this is true but statistics or more accurately percentages unlocked the key for me to Canadian politics. They also pushed me out of any involvement in politics. In the long run this too was a good thing.
In Canadian federal elections the centrist Liberal party usually wins a little over 40 per cent of the total vote. The right wing Conservative party comes in second with about 35 per cent of the total vote. And somewhere between 15 and 20 per cent of the voters cast their ballots for the left leaning New Democratic Party or "the N.D.P.' as it's referred to. Then there's the Green Party and the Bloc Quebecois who pick up the rest of the vote. To-day these two parties are distinctly minor parties. Elizabeth May, for instance is the sole elected Green Member of Parliament in the House of Commons. The Bloc Quebecois which once formed the official opposition now only wins a handful of seats.
So with a first past the vote system of voting, the Liberals usually win a majority of seats in the House of Commons and forms the federal government. The Conservatives most of the time sit in the parliament as the official opposition. Once in a while they beat the Liberals and form the government. Then the N.D.P. win 25 seats or less of the 338 seats in the House of Commons. They're usually squeezed into a corner of the House.
In British Columbian politics there's also an underlying pattern to voting that rarely changes. The N.D.P. in B.C. usually gets 40 per cent of the vote in a provincial election. Yet they rarely win more than this two-fifths of the vote. Three out of five voters will never put an X or a tick besides an N.D.P. candidate. "I'm a free enterpriser," says Frank a big chunky 50's something bus driver. "I'm against socialism and won't ever vote for the N.D.P."
Frank's not alone. 60 percent of the voters agree with him. So since about 1933 most voters on the right vote for a right wing party. At one time between 1933 and 1940 that party was the Liberals. From 1940 to 1952 a Liberal-Conservative government ruled the roost. After it collapsed, the Social Credit party became to the choice of most conservative voters. Now these voters once again prefer the Liberals.
Every forty years or so, the conservative voters switch to a new or old right wing party. A new
or old time political party comes along and takes votes from the incumbent conservatives. Once again the N.D.P. stay in opposition as the conservative group wins one election after another. "Forget the hoopla," one N.D.P. organizer once pointed out to me " and just study the percentages. That' all that counts.." Once I did this, I realized what federal and provincial politics were all about. Yet once I did this I also realized how little I could change B.C. or Canadian politics and swing them to the left.
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