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Mankind has always been very inventive in finding pretexts for waging war
on others, the most convenient being of course religion. If somebody
quotes religion as the reason for his aggression or violence he thinks
himself automatically on the side of God, and absolved of baser motives
like jealousy, greed, or fear of aliens. The most poignant reminder of
what this can lead to are the belt-buckles of the soldiers in WWI: The
English ones were stamped with an inscription saying "God with
us", while on the German buckles it said "Gott mit
uns".
The basic question here is: "Do you accept that your neighbour may
have a different religion and a different way of striving for salvation
than you do?" This is exactly what the American constitution
guarantees in the freedom of the pursuit of happiness - and is exactly
what fundamentalists of all descriptions want to squash.
We, in Europe have fought vicious, prolonged and extremely bloody battles
over this issue in the 16th. & 17th. centuries called the "Wars
of Religion" that were after more than a hundred years of fighting
finally resolved in the "Age of Enlightnment". The American
Constitution is the clearest formulation of the ideas then
developed.
These freedoms, this acceptance of others as self-defined, free-willed
individuals are what fundamentalists, whatever their guise, fear and
hate. That the Taliban has made Christianizing into a capital offence is
one of the more glaring examples; the ongoing campaign of certain
American fundamentalists against "Evolutionism" that even
succeeded in having a scientific theory struck out of school-books in
several States, is another.
As an aside, I'd urge everyone most strongly not to equate Islam with
intolerance. The opposite is the case: Judaism and Christianity have
always been fully recognized by Islam as religions "of the
Book", and especially Jews have until recently found more acceptance
and freedoms in the Islamic than in the Christian world. When did the
Pope proclaim his acceptance of Judaism? That's only a few years ago
while on the other hand even under the present regime, the Persian
Christian community has a seat in the Iranian parliament.
On a practical level, I'm afraid we have become much too complacent as
regards our philosophy, and we have sadly neglected the need for an
ongoing dialogue with the Islamic peoples. The budgets of "The Voice
of America" and the German "Goethe Institut", to name only
two, have in the past years been pared down so much, that these
institutions which I regard as crucial to the spreading of our culture
and world-view, have been reduced to near insignificance.
As long term success in fighting extremism must to an important extent
depend on the Islamic countries, intercultural exchange should be
re-instituted or intensified. Let's start immediately with upscaling the
aforesaid agencies and others like them.
Jan Willem Roberts
I
could not agree more. Religion (any of them) must have killed more people
than plague, aids and cancer put together! God is just a poor excuse for
not taking responsability for our own action and destiny. Religion is the
worst plague than humanity never had to fight.
Herve
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-metastock@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:owner-metastock@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]On
Behalf Of voltage
Sent: Saturday, September 15, 2001 10:25 AM
To: metastock@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Religion
Throughout history it has been the excuse of all radical
fundamentalists as an excuse for murder.Lets restart day one with no
religion to compensate for those lowest common denominators.We are the
masters of our own destiny,not "God"
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