A Quote by Ross Douthat

I think religious individualism doesn't fulfill impulses toward community and solidarity and it doesn't necessarily work for people when things go really bad. — © Ross Douthat
I think religious individualism doesn't fulfill impulses toward community and solidarity and it doesn't necessarily work for people when things go really bad.
The whole Hollywood conception of Tibet as this peace-loving country denies the complex humanity of the Tibetan people. Their ideas exist in a high degree of tension with impulses toward corruption, toward violence, toward all sorts of things. The Dalai Lama himself would say that he has to fight these impulses himself on a daily basis.
You know, I think a lot of times what happens when we as actors know we're playing a bad guy is we get into bad guy mode. You know what, man? In real life, bad people do good things too and good people do bad things. So you don't necessarily have to be the stereotypical bad guy to still do bad things.
I do a certain amount of work in religious communities on these issues. It's not the central focus of my work but it is certainly an area where I have worked a lot. It has gotten much better over the years, especially over the last couple years. There wasn't a religious environmental movement 15 years ago, but there is now - in the Catholic community, the Jewish community, the mainline Protestant community, and in the Evangelical community.
There are really two core principles at play here. There's giving people a voice so that people can express their opinions. Then, there's keeping the community safe, which I think is really important. We're not gonna let people plan violence or attack each other or do bad things.
There are so many stupid things that steal that purpose from us. The stupid things that you believe a lie that we ‘re not as important as we really are. That our life isn’t as important as it really is. It’s important to the people that you love, it’s important to the people that you will love in the future, it’s important to the world around you and it’s so important that you fulfill the purpose that only you can fulfill the way that you can fulfill that.
I think that spirituality is important for all people to develop. I don't mean there necessarily has to be a religious aspect to spirituality. Some people are spiritual in a religious way, other people are spiritual in their work and in their art and in their treatment of other people.
A lot of people think technology is a solution, but it's really just a canvas for your work. It can make good things amazing and bad things terrible. Facebook allows you to have access to mass audience really quickly if you do creative really well.
If you are really spontaneous, people will think you are mad. If you go to a tree and start talking, or to a flower, people will think you are mad. If you go to a church and talk to a cross or to an image, nobody will think your are mad, they will think that you are religious. You are talking to a stone in a temple and everybody thinks you are religious because this is the authorized form.
Solidarity is not the same as support. To experience solidarity, we must have a community of interests, shared beliefs and goals around which to unite, to build Sisterhood. Support can be occasional. It can be given and just as easily withdrawn. Solidarity requires sustained, ongoing commitment.
I think there is unnecessary conflict right now between the vehemently religious and the LGBT community. The extremes of religion I think and the LGBT community have an issue and because a lot of black families in America are more religious, I think that is where the conflict comes into play.
In fact, because people are religious, they think they can do bad things.
Some people think that, inevitably, every robot that does any task is a bad thing for the human race, because it could be taking a job away. But that isn't necessarily true. You can also think of the robot as making a person more productive and enabling people to do things that are currently economically infeasible. But a person plus a robot or a fleet of robots could do things that would be really useful.
The things you have to do to be effective - like forming a union at a fast food joint or a telemarketing company - aren't going to work unless you do things like solidarity strikes. Solidarity strikes are illegal. They've been illegal since the '40s, and they were made illegal because they work.
The vampire craze is kind of fascinating. We're interested in the idea of immorality and I think we're drawn to people or creatures who can give in to those base impulses and just be bad and not feel bad about it.
I most certainly am not harboring any sort of negative feeling toward the gay community. I don't have an opinion on people with different religious, sexual or political preferences. I'm one of the most liberal artists that I think you will ever meet, and I pride myself on that.
I don't think my father considered allowing a teenager to follow his dreams was necessarily good parenting, or even parenting. I think he thought I was a teenager with teenage impulses. I'm pretty sure he knew that if he just let me follow those impulses, it would wind up being very expensive and perhaps even life-endangering.
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