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Can you explain more? I just watched a Netflix doc on Marley (thinking they'd have more music than they did) and what I understood from that was that Rasta was

Can you explain more? I just watched a Netflix doc on Marley (thinking they'd have more music than they did) and what I understood from that was that Rasta was really unpolitical and pushing unity/peace. At least from Marley's perspective, it sounded like various groups/gangs used him and the movement.

giraffe_lady 3y ago
It's still an abrahamic religion and tends toward the same sexism and homophobia as its cousins. Look into the specific practices and beliefs of the different mansions (denominations), because they vary a lot. Some are quite morally rigid. A lot of individual rastas are personally apolitical like any other religion. But overall the religion certainly has its own outward politics, historically closely linked to the black liberation struggle. There are active and mainstream currents of black nationalism & separatism in the religion. Which, whatever you think of their merits, are not particularly chill worldviews.
- mattbrewsbytes 3y ago
  > chill worldviews I haven't validated this thought but here goes: dive deep into any religion and I bet none of them have chill worldviews (i.e. accepting of all, etc.). In my mind the only candidate might be buddhism but I haven't dove into that hardly to see what lurks
  - giraffe_lady 3y ago
    Pretty much agreed. A calm unworried soul is not particularly interested in the questions religion is positioned to answer. A contradiction pretty directly addressed by a strand of eastern christian mysticism (and others). Where many historical saints were illiterate and essentially ignorant of the fundamentals of their own religion, and this is considered good and correct: they naturally follow god's will and so have no need to learn about it any other way. And then you get into theory vs practice I guess without a useful distinction either way. The pali canon might be chill, but devout buddhists have still done genocide. The archetypal tolstoyan pious serf might be chill but the russian orthodox church certainly never has been.

giraffe_lady 3y ago

It's still an abrahamic religion and tends toward the same sexism and homophobia as its cousins. Look into the specific practices and beliefs of the different mansions (denominations), because they vary a lot. Some are quite morally rigid. A lot of individual rastas are personally apolitical like any other religion. But overall the religion certainly has its own outward politics, historically closely linked to the black liberation struggle. There are active and mainstream currents of black nationalism & separatism in the religion. Which, whatever you think of their merits, are not particularly chill worldviews.

mattbrewsbytes 3y ago
> chill worldviews I haven't validated this thought but here goes: dive deep into any religion and I bet none of them have chill worldviews (i.e. accepting of all, etc.). In my mind the only candidate might be buddhism but I haven't dove into that hardly to see what lurks
- giraffe_lady 3y ago
  Pretty much agreed. A calm unworried soul is not particularly interested in the questions religion is positioned to answer. A contradiction pretty directly addressed by a strand of eastern christian mysticism (and others). Where many historical saints were illiterate and essentially ignorant of the fundamentals of their own religion, and this is considered good and correct: they naturally follow god's will and so have no need to learn about it any other way. And then you get into theory vs practice I guess without a useful distinction either way. The pali canon might be chill, but devout buddhists have still done genocide. The archetypal tolstoyan pious serf might be chill but the russian orthodox church certainly never has been.