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Subject: Re: Slaughter in the Name of God
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Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2002 22:42:28 -0400

John Hall wrote:

>>From: Stephen D. Williams [mailto:swilliams@hpti.com]
>>    
>>
>>Bush's reluctance to blast blind obeyance of religion as taught by
>>
>your
>  
>
>>local madrassa or KKK leader, apparently because he is fully involved
>>with the general effort to expand unfettered religiosity as the
>>    
>>
>solution 
>
>>to the world's ills, is disappointing.  He has spoke against madrassa,
>>but what I heard sounded lame and carefully crafted to shield religion
>>in general from scrutiny.
>>    
>>
>
>1. Which religion and how it is currently being expressed matters.
>
A)  Which religion is it that can claim no foul actions in its past? 
 Certainly not Christianity, Islam, etc.
B) "How it is currently being expressed" amounts to a tacit 
acknowledgement that the sophistication of the society involved and 
people's self-limiting reasonableness are important to avoid primitive 
expression.  This leads to the point that religion and less 
sophisticated societies are a dangerous mix.  It also tends to invoke 
the image of extremes that might occur without diligent maintenance of 
society.
C) Many splinter Christianity religions have 'clean hands' but they also 
aren't 'found in the wild'.

(By "primitive expression", I don't mean to slight any society, but that 
there is some chronic evidence of irrational mob actions and uncivilized 
behavior (killing infants, women to break religious blue laws, etc.). 
 The US has only really been mostly free of "primitive expression" for 
40-50 years, although large categories, including serious religious 
conflict, were settled quite a while ago.)

D) The Northern Ireland Protestant vs. Catholic feud, recently more or 
less concluded, is not completely unlike this kind of friction generated 
by splitting society too much along religious lines.  One Post article 
pointed out that the problem basically stemmed from the vertical 
integration of areas along religious lines all the way to schools, 
government, political party, etc.  (Of course both cases have a heritage 
of British conquest, but who doesn't?)

(I couldn't find the article I remember, but here are a couple of others:)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A33761-2001Jul8&notFound=true
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A15956-2002Jul16&notFound=true

'Northern Ireland is a British province of green valleys and 
cloud-covered hills whose 1.6 million people are politically and 
religiously divided. About 54 percent of the population is Protestant, 
and most Protestants are unionists who want the province to remain part 
of Britain. The Roman Catholic minority is predominantly republican, or 
nationalist; they want to merge with the Republic of Ireland to the south.


In 1968, Catholic leaders launched a civil rights drive modeled on the 
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s campaign in the American South. But 
violence quickly broke out, with ancient religious animosities fueling 
the political argument. Armed paramilitary groups sprung up on both 
sides. Police records and historians agree that the most lethal group by 
far was the IRA, fighting on the Catholic side with a goal of a united 
Ireland

The provincial police force estimates that about 3,600 people were 
killed during the 30-year conflict known, with characteristic Northern 
Ireland understatement, as "The Troubles."'

>2. The US is trying to avoid making war on the Muslim religion.
>
That's fine, as it would be an inappropriate concentration.  It would be 
difficult to address the issues raised here in a clean way.  I'd be 
happy with an acknowledgement that the connection is there.

>3. US Leadership remains reflexively multi-cultural.
>
This is ok to a point, as long as it doesn't shy away from logical, 
objective analysis of when a society could be seriously improved in 
certain ways.

>>We all have
>>disagreements, but at some point it becomes a crime against humanity.
>>    
>>
>
>I didn't say burning the train was a good thing.  I said I understood it
>wasn't a spontaneous attack on people who had done no wrong.
>

True, although I don't think you were as clear originally.  :-)

sdw



