In The Name Of God (Blair, etc.)

[donsu]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/attackonlondon/comment/story/0,16141,1534014,00.html


Blair has appeased and prevaricated. Now, as the death cult strikes again, he must oust religion from public life


Two weeks on, London is stricken once more. The death cult strikes again, unstoppable in its deranged religious mania. This time no deaths but a savage reminder of the unknown waves of demented killers lining up to murder in the name of God.

-snip-

Iraq is the immediate trigger, but this is about religious delusion.

All religions are prone to it, given the right circumstances. How could those who preach the absolute revealed truth of every word of a primitive book not be prone to insanity? There have been sects of killer Christians and indeed the whole of Christendom has been at times bent on wiping out heathens. Jewish zealots in their settlements crazily claim legal rights to land from the Old Testament. Some African Pentecostal churches harbour sects of torturing exorcism and child abuse. Muslims have a very long tradition of jihadist slaughter. Sikhs rose up to stop a play that exposed deformities of abuse within their temples. Buddhism too has its sinister wing. See how far-right evangelicals have kidnapped US politics and warped its secular, liberal founding traditions. Intense belief, incantations, secrecy and all-male rituals breed perversions and danger, abusing women and children and infecting young men with frenzy, no matter what the name of the faith.

-snip-

It is time now to get serious about religion - all religion - and draw a firm line between the real world and the world of dreams. Tony Blair has taken entirely the wrong path. He has appeased, prevaricated and pretended, maybe because he is a man of faith himself, with a Catholic wife who consorts with crystals. But never was it more important to separate the state from all faiths and relegate all religion to the private - but well-regulated - sphere.

-snip-

All the state can do is hold on to secular values. It can encourage the moderate but it must not appease religion. The constitutional absurdity of an established church once seemed an irrelevance, but now it obliges similar privileges to all other faiths. There is still time - it may take a nonreligious leader - to stop this madness and separate the state and its schools from all religion. It won't stop the bombing now but at least it would not encourage continued school segregation for generations to come. And it might clear the air of the clouds of hypocrisy, twisted thinking and circumlocution whenever a politician mentions religion.
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"It is time now to get serious about religion - all religion - and draw a firm line between the real world and the world of dreams."



yes

[Benbow]

1. Consumer-alert: Toynbee is paid to be provocative

and she never lets facts get in the way of whatever insane thesis is preoccupying her at any given time. This is, I must say, one of her - er - finest.

[Spider Jerusalem]

2. dupe

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=141487&mesg_id=141487

[Demeter]

3. I Don't Think It's Religion

I think it's politics, using religion as an incendiary tool. Just like the GOP.