Letters to the Editor
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Gerry
You're making some assumptions about the religious orientation of those you mention.
But, beyond that. There is no "scripture" coming from secularists or atheists. There is no secular "scriptural" guidance that legitimizes mass slaughter. There is no secular "scripture" calling for mass slaughter.
The three monotheistic religions of the Levant DO have such scripture. Their god enacts genocide several times in the bible. Their god orders it several times. Their god holds massive slaughter over their heads throughout time. The very concept of the End of Days is the ultimate in genocidal madness. The very idea of hell is a sadist's dream come true. The very idea that one must accept Jesus as the savior to avoid hell IMPLICITLY and EXPLICITLY tells us that all others are damned to hell and eternal torment.
Think about it. Inherent in the religious tenets and concepts of those three monotheistic religion are massive discrimination, justification for slaughter, eternal torture, mayhem, exclusion from heaven, the bizarre idea of hell, oppression and repression. It's in the texts themselves. If someone takes the stories of the bible as factual, rather than symbolic or metaphoric, they accept a worldview that justifies torture, genocide, slavery, discrimination and sadism. They accept a world where billions of people will be damned to hell and eternal torment, while the chosen few will escape to heaven.
That OBVIOUSLY informs earthly behavior. The examples of that are legion. You can actually attribute genocidal actions through history to religious belief. You can NOT conclude that a secularist viewpoint leads to the same.
It's a monstrous worldview, and we need to grow out of it.
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Sarcastic Much, Glenn?
Thank you. I needed the laugh. One thing I'd like to address is the belief of some people who think Barack Obama should have left that church the very moment he heard this kind of talk coming from his former pastor. I think the answer to that is about as complex as the reason that Hillary Clinton and her husband did not split up after the public embarrassment of the Lewinsky matter. Relationships over a long time are not things that are easily abandoned whether it's a marriage, or a friendship or a business relationship or a relationship to a church family. These things usually require a bit of soul searching and it's not an easy process. Anyone who has experienced any sort of break up knows how this feels. Barack had come to feel that this was a spiritual sanctuary for him and his family. Not perfect to be sure, but a safe place. An anchor. There have to be many equally complex relationships that have been formed in this environment that would end up being re-evaluated if the Obamas were to leave. Anyone who thinks this is easily done is either stupid, heartless, or has no experience whatsoever with relationships of any kind. On the other hand, the Clintons were very good at ending whole relationships when political expediency dictated. I would like to think that Barack Obama is above that kind of cynical, calculating sort of ambition. Nothing about the man suggests that to me, and I've had as long as anyone else to give him a good look. Not leaving a church you disagreed with does not rise to the level of a reason not to vote for someone, but I'm quite sure there are people who have left the Obama camp for that very reason, just as there are people who won't vote for Hillary because she didn't leave Bill. Anyone who cites this as a reason was looking for an excuse and this is as convenient a one as you could ask for. Now...can we PLEASE MOVE ON FROM THIS?? How many more STUPID, DUMB-ASS QUESTIONS is the MSM going to ask about this?
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silash
I'm going to bet that by "brains" he probably meant culture, though I've no definitive proof. It seems a little convoluted, but the context seems to suggest that cultural traditions are the difference he meant.
Nope, I listened to the whole thing. He was talking about black people not just in American but in Africa. He said black people think with their right brains, white people in Europe and America think with their left brains.
He couldn't be refering to culture when he linked the races across continents and multiple cultures on each continent. Tell me how this is different from that Bell Curve guy (sorry, can't remember his name off the top of my head)?
Regarding 9/11, if you do some research you can discover why bin Laden says 9/11 happened. I'll give you a hint: US Foreign Policy.
And you know the specific "foreign policy" he objected to? U.S. troops on "sacred" Saudi soil, the land of the holy mosques of Mecca and Medina. That's it.
consider a suicide bomber. Who in their right mind would blow themselves up? The media likes to say those people want their virgins in heaven, but I think the more likely story is that we killed someone's innocent husband/wife/child/sibling by accident, and that person then rationalizes suicide as a way of lashing out at the person who robbed them of their loved one.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. There's purely a religious rationale for suicide bombing. It's glorified and taught to children too young to know better. In fact, every single one of the 9/11 hijackers was from a well-educated, middle-class background. None had lost a family member to anything. Ditto for the terrorist bombers in England and Spain.
What you demonstrate in response to Cuchulain2007 is a logical fallacy called a straw man.
Not at all. He/she was blaming religion for all the word's evils. Go back and read it. I was pointing out that far more people have been killed in the name of secularism/atheism than in the name of religion. More important, what internal tenet of secularism/atheism would condemn such acts?
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Again, the key is how someone views their god, their religion, etc.
Religions can bring enormous joy to people. They can bring great comfort. They can help people through terrible depression, tragedy and beyond horrific obstacles.
They can bring out the better angels in millions.
I, personally, think that the Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount is a giant among humans, a great philosopher and ethicist, a moral giant.
Unfortunately, that Jesus is largely ignored by the Religious Right. They much prefer Yahweh, the vengeful, vindictive, genocidal madman of the early part of the Old Testament. They prefer the god who punishes to the god who loves outcasts, minorities, the oppressed. They forget that the earliest Christians were themselves persecuted as outsiders, outcasts, and so on. They forget that the merger of Christianity with the empire of Rome was its death knell, as far as that initial conception, Jesus's real mission, which was to defend the weak, the powerless, the helpless, the sick, the lepers, etc. etc. His mission was the feed the hungry, clothe the naked, house the homeless.
The Religious Right's conception forgets all of that in favor of a Christian empire.
It's all in the way one views the world, one's god, one's religion.
Currently, the view in vogue is dangerous, all too dangerous.