Believing in Child Labor, Sweatshops and Torture

For whatever reason, a lot of Christian-oriented blogs are coming across my radar lately, but it's not as though Jews have a monopoly on social justice.

This post discusses how the ways in which we act may or may not accurately reflect what we think we believe. That's a rather convoluted sentence (for a rather convoluted concept), so here's an excerpt:

"Take the example of buying chocolate from a corner shop. If I know, or suspect, that the chocolate is made from coco beans picked by children under the conditions of slavery then, regardless of what I say, I believe in child slavery."

Of course, it's not that simple. It's worth reading through the comments as well for a variety of perspectives.

Breaking up with God

I found this piece over on Huffington Post very interesting. It's written by a woman who throughout her life has struggled with her relationship with G-d, even hearing a calling to become an Episcopal priest. As of her writing this post, she and G-d are no longer together.

My relationship with and opinion of G-d has always been ambivalent. I'm grateful that my sponsoring rabbi specifically said that belief in G-d wasn't a requirement of conversion. Sometimes I long for the security of a firm belief in a deity with specific characteristics, but then I remember that that way lies fundamentalism in its unpleasant sense, and I don't want to go there.

Is G-d required for democracy?

At a graduation I attended recently, the keynote speaker suggested that, in societies where most people follow all of the laws all of the time, human societal obedience is based on a fear of punishment. This punishment can come from either a human dictator or G-d. He further suggested that, in order for democracy as we understand it to work, the society must be predicated on the latter, even if that society has drifted (for better or worse) from its faith-based roots, e.g. the United States.

He further posited that dictator-based societies upon which democracy is imposed from the outside tend to break down rapidly. He used Haiti as an example of this; ousting the Duvaliers, as bad as they were, did nothing for Haiti's political stability, and the country still struggles today.

This is, of course, a simplification of what he said, which must in and of itself be a simplification of the concept; I'm sure tomes could be written about this, but he had to fit it into a small part of a graduation speech. A quick Internet search does not reveal that he's written about this, but I'll see if I can't find something more in-depth later.