So, I'm reading a very good book now passed on to me by my brother called, Lies My Teacher Told Me. It's very interesting because it focuses on the topic of how a lot of the things that our history textbooks have taught us since grade school have either been complete lies, or a bunch of half truths. I would be here forever telling you some things about this country that you just wouldn't believe, but my post today will simply focus on how textbooks can be used as a source of propaganda to make you feel a certain way about people, lifestyles, and cultures. I use the word propaganda because of its definition. Propaganda is information that is spread for the purpose of promoting some cause! My question to you is simply, what's the cause? On page 113 of the book in the chapter titled Red Eyes the author quotes a commonly used history textbook called The American Way ( You can get a feel for the type of propaganda I'm talking about just by the title.) In this chapter the textbook makes Native American religion seem ridiculous and pointless. It goes a little something like this...
"These Native Americans [in the Southeast] believed that nature was filled with spirits. Each form of life, such as plants and animals, had a spirit. Earth and air held spirits too. People were never alone. They shared their lives with the spirits of nature."
The author brings up a good point that when you explain anything in this context it doesn't seem sophisticated, and it almost sounds make believe. Then the author flips the script and describes Christianity in a similiar summary. It goes a little something like this...
"These Americans believed that one great male god ruled the world. Sometimes they divided him into three parts, which they called father, son, and holy ghost. They ate crackers and wine or grape juice, believing that they were eating the son's body and drinking his blood. If they believed strongly enough, they would live on forever after they died."
When you put it this way, Christianity almost sounds like a joke. When you insert words like crackers, juice, and you don't capitilize words like god and father it doesn't have the same effect. I'm not knocking anyones religion, I'm just sayin...
Peace
Trevor Winston Lee
1 comment:
The spirits and fathers represent the same living moment that we are a part of. To live in harmony with yourself and those around you make heaven on Earth... just sayin
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