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“Four disciplines. Four extraordinary minds. Two days. One relentless pursuit of truth.“ (thelemmy.club)
submitted 1 day ago by to c/slop@hexbear.net
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Inspired by the intellectual tradition of ancient Greek symposia, this two-day event brings together prominent thinkers, academics, and members of the public for meaningful discussions about some of humanity’s most important questions.

The symposium will feature four major sections, each led by a distinguished speaker:

Philosophy: Stephen Hicks

Science: Steven Pinker

Religion: Justin Sledge (ESOTERICA)

Politics: Steven Bonnell II (Destiny)

Each section includes a one-hour featured lecture, followed by a 90-minute debate/discussion and a 90-minute community discussion involving the audience.

We are currently inviting academics throughout the San Francisco Bay Area to express interest in joining our speakers on stage during the symposium discussions.

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[–] 26 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (14 children)

Okay but Dr. Sledge is a marxist and fucking cool. Read his dissertation. I can almost guarantee he has no fucking clue who Destiny is as well, might be a funny watch.

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  • [–] 32 points 1 day ago (8 children)

    Sadly, it seems that he's a Zionist. The FAQ section in the bio on his website says, "I am Jewish, belong to the Reconstructionist movement, and closely align myself with the teachings of Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan." Which, as I understand it, makes him a Zionist.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (1 child)

    He might not be:

    Although the Reconstructionist movement officially supports liberal Zionism, it also has a disproportionate number of anti-Zionist members. Of the Jewish Voice for Peace rabbinical council, about 60 percent of their members were trained at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College.

    Wikipedia cites this: https://jewishcurrents.org/a-reconstructionist-reckoning It's about the increasing tension between the RRC and its non- or anti-Zionist students

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  • [–] 6 points 23 hours ago (3 children)

    He’s definitely done a lot of work with academics in occupied Palestine but he also tends to say the right things about the genocide. I don’t think we should make political assumptions about people based on their religious denomination and doctrines. He appears to be a religious Jew and reconstructionism is the denomination that he connects with the most (which is basically the most progressive of all Jewish denominations). I’d rather we judge his politics based on his words and actions about the state and the project rather than his religious affiliation.

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  • [–] 1 point 13 hours ago (2 children)

    "I’d rather we judge his politics based on his words and actions about the state and the project rather than his religious affiliation."

    I didn't judge his politics based on his religious affiliations. I judged it based on his own quote where he states that he most closely aligns his views with that of a zionist

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  • [–] 1 point 12 hours ago (1 child)

    I may not be the Kaplan expert that you are, but as others have pointed out, a significant number of living anti-Zionist rabbis are reconstructionist, which is a movement Kaplan founded, so I do not think it is a fair inference to say a religious Jew who most closely aligns his religious beliefs with Kaplan is necessarily a Zionist. Unless you are saying Judaism and Zionism are the same thing.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 hours ago

    I'm happy for those rabbis who were able to pull their heads out of their asses but we're decades into the formation of the zionist entity and years into a genocide and if his self-professed ideological stance is, "I closely align with a fascist and their fascist, settler-colonial ideology" without so much a peep decrying the zionist entity then I'm not going to give him the benefit of the doubt. And I don't understand why you have an expectation of me to do so. Sorry your youtuber is probably a fascist piece of shit.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 day ago* (1 child)

    Esoterica is an interesting channel, too. Sledge definitely is an expert in his field (religious studies, mysticism/occult) and is a good presenter. Really good if you're into that sort of thing.

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