Letters to the Editor
-
Where's the toon
I came to this page expecting to see links to the cartoons. Shock and horror, there was no link. The talking head on Tucker Calson was wrong. I guess the Editor did not know what was actually happening.
-
Islam is another awful religion...
Atleast as awful as the Roman Catholic church, rejected by Europe in the Protestant Revolution for its dishonesty and injustices. Of course the West rejects Islam. How could we tolerate its opposition to secular truth? Is Islam anything more in the modern world than a tool for keeping the peasants under control, as Christianity degenerated into being under the Roman Popes? The sincere Muslim demands freedom from ridicule, and reserves the right to kill if you laugh at his religion or its founder. These people are wrapped way too tight. Do they really expect to move in among us and not get laughed at? They don't know us very well, do they?
-
Cartoons and a New Age of Reason
It is sad, alarming and enlightening to see people rioting and dying over political cartoons that raise legitimate issues about terrorism carried out by Islamic extremist. While we should be sensitive to people’s religious beliefs, we must also strive to keep religions evolving to be more tolerant of alternative views, and to embrace higher moral values. Much of the Muslim world is now at the stage Christianity was at a few hundred years ago, when heresy would bring the death penalty, women had few rights, and the Christian Holy Wars (Inquisitions) killed millions of innocent people in the name of God. Fortunately, Christianity has evolved and we no longer embrace Biblical guidelines, such as Deuteronomy 13 that advocate killing non-believers; and other outdated decrees such as Exodus 21:15 & 17, which are immoral by today’s standards. Unfortunately, the Koran has its share of intolerant guidelines that Muslims are suppose to embrace since only a literal interpretation is allowed by the Clerics. For examples of its intolerance to other religions see sections 3:86-91, 2:190-93, & 5:86. Regrettably, the rights of Muslim women are still at least a century behind the Western world because of this orthodox interpretation of the Koran.
It is telling that Muslim leaders are quiet with regard to how Islamic extremist are perverting their religion. Their muteness goes beyond their resentment of the West, as they must fear their own extremists who tout the death penalty for heresy. The question we need to now ask is: How do we get Muslim extremist to evolve and not embrace religious superstitions that suggest immoral ideas such as getting rewarded with a multitude of virgins in Heaven for suicide bombings. Muslim democracies that promote secular education may indeed be the best way to accelerate the evolution of Islam and to stop terrorism.
Fortunately, our founding fathers realized that religion should be separated from government, and made that division a key part of our Constitution. It was not simply freedom of religion that drove this separation of church and state; it was also driven by that fact that many of the architects of our constitution (e.g., Madison, Jefferson, and Adams) were Deist and believed that Christian dogma stifled man’s progress. Read Thomas Paine’s book Age of Reason, or visit the Deism.org website to understand these beliefs that helped shaped a secular America that leads the world morally today.
Besides worrying about Muslim extremist, we must also be on guard to protect our own society from religious zealots who want to reunite government and religion to promote and justify their own particular religious beliefs. Intelligent Design is the latest attempt to do so in this country. Despite the fact that fossil records and DNA mapping give direct proof of evolution, and that we can even see evolution occurring in real time, some of our top leaders support the teaching of ID. While this is hopefully only political pandering, it is absolutely the wrong direction for this country to be moving. It is, in fact, an example of regressing back to when religious superstitions ruled. This lack of reason is what we want Muslim extremist to evolve away from. One final point on ID, if a complex world requires an intelligent designer, doesn’t that criteria apply to the designer who is even more complex? It is hard for us to say we just don’t undertand it all.
While religion does not provide real answers to questions such as: where do we come from? It does provide comfort in a harsh world, and provides moral values that are strongly reinforced by the promise of Heaven and the fear of Hell. This carrot and stick approach to morality was of real value during the more barbaric stages of man’s evolution. And, still has value for those that do not have their own built-in moral compass. Religion is also an important social binding force in developing countries like much of the Muslim world. In addition, in developed nations like our own, where both the government and businesses are cutting back on social safety nets such as healthcare and pensions, where else can people turn but god for help? What the world really needs is for religions get past the dogma of their Holy books, and start a New Age of Reason where all that matters in God’s eye, is how well we treat each other.