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God would be an atheist...
A rational look at religion, morality, politics and daily life |
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HOME / This Week About GWBAA WEEKLY COLUMNS Previous Print column Why subscribe? Schedule Terms & Rates Subscribe Online column Subscribe BASICS Definitions Atheism Faith God Religion etc Analysis The meaning of life Morality etc REVIEWS CONTACT Link to this site Your support for advertisers helps to provide an income for this website. All Rights Reserved World Copyright © Martin Foreman PREVIOUSLY... An eye for an eye has always been a superficially appealing argument. It satisfies the desire for revenge and brings a sense of closure for many who have lost loved ones – whether the criminal is the leader of a nation or the man down the street who murders his neighbor. An eye for an eye Atheism is also getting increasing coverage in the opinion columns of the nation’s press. I see mostly the east coast Axis of Moderation – the Boston Globe, New York Times and Washington Post – but after years of silence these papers are suddenly acknowledging that for a sizeable proportion of their readers the Christian perspective on reality is as false and harmful as Neo’s Matrix. Reasons to be cheerful With no first-hand evidence of Jesus’ existence and with circumstantial evidence either missing or contradictory, it is reasonable to doubt that he ever existed. Which means that celebration of his birth lies somewhere on a scale between misguided and hypocritical. Whose birthday is it anyway? As regular readers know, I’m not a fan of children in general. One of the biggest mistakes in my life was the sixteen or so years that I spent as an infant and child. Mom loves you so much... In a free society, the behavior of individual adults is of no concern to the state or their neighbors, as long as that behavior respects the freedom of others and as long as the vulnerable are protected. I have no more objection to Christians worshipping God than I do to marijuana smokers, model railroaders or students of Klingon. One person's moderation... Ok, Yahweh, we get the point. Having usurped your father El and siblings Baal and Asherah, you’re still not secure in your position as The One And Only God. You need to enforce loyalty in your worshippers. In modern terms, commandments one to four are the equivalent of martial law – military decrees after a coup d’état. One commandment will do |
April - July 2008: This site is being renovated - apologies if some links do not work. To return to the active website, click here Column 112 A plague on all your houses Sunnis and Shias in the Middle East By © Martin Foreman Word Count: 793 words Publication date: June 17, 2007 Print publications wishing to syndicate the column should click here. Individual subscribers wishing to receive columns by e-mail should click here. Last week two minarets of the al-Askari shrine in Iraq, one of the holiest sites in Shia Islam, were destroyed by explosions. Some fear that this act will lead to another surge in sectarian violence across the war-torn country. That was the case last year following the bombing of the dome of the shrine. Both attacks, it is assumed, were carried out by Sunnis. A quick review of Muslim theology reminds us that Shias believe that leadership should have stayed within the Prophet’s family after Mohammed’s death and each leader should nominate his successor. Sunnis, on the other hand, believe that leaders should be elected by and among anyone capable of the task. Over the fourteen centuries since Mohammed died, the split has led to various doctrinal differences, such as the raising of Shia imams to a status similar to saints in Christianity. The theology of Islam may be no more relevant than Klingon dialects but the political implications are profound. Much of the conflict in Iraq stems from the fact that after three decades of Sunni rule, the majority Shias are reasserting themselves. Here’s a rough overview of the crowded field of Middle East politics, with apologies for errors and over-simplification. (A) is the government of Saudi Arabia, a Sunni fundmentalist state, US ally and birthplace of fifteeen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers. The Saudi government reportedly (Seymour Hersh, New Yorker, March 5, 2007) supports clandestine operations against (B) Hezbollah, the Shiite political / military movement in Lebanon, which is funded by (C) the government of Iran, a Shia fundamentalist state which also supports insurgency against American operations in Iraq, which are directed at shoring up (D) the Shia-dominated Iraqi government which is nominally a US ally, but members of which are deemed to be supporters of (E) Moqtada Sadr, Shia cleric, whose Mahdi Army is seen as hostile to US forces, which are also fighting in Afghanistan against (F) fundamentalist Sunni Taleban forces which were supported by the US when they fought the Russian occupation in the 1980s, but who are now seen as America’s enemy for having hosted (F) Osama bin Laden, figurehead of the fundamentalist Sunni Al Qaeda, who is rumoured to be hiding in (G) predominantly Sunni Pakistan which is proving an unreliable US ally. Others in the field include (H) nominally Sunni Syria (US enemy), (I) Sunni Egypt (ally) and (J) Sunni Jordan (ally), (K) Jewish-secular Israel and, in Palestine (L) Sunni Hamas and (M) secular Fatah, whose rivalry threatens to further destabilise that failed non-state. Tiring, isn’t it… Note that US allies include both Sunnis and Shias, as does the list of its enemies. According to Hersh, a respected analyst of both Middle Eastern and Washington politics, the administration is, at least theoretically, trying to support moderate Muslims of either sectarian stripe rather than fundamentalists. This goal, however, conflicts with realpolitik. One of America’s staunchest allies in the region is the government of Saudi Arabia, despite the fact that many of its laws and customs are antithetical to the US ideals of individual freedom and democracy. Nor does it offer unconditional loyalty to the US. In November 2006, Hersh reports, the Saudi king warned Vice Cheney that if the US withdrew from Iraq, the Saudis would aggressively support its fellow Sunnis against any Shia aggression. Sounds like blackmail to me… As the various players maneuver for supremacy, different strategies come to light, such as the American desire for the Israelis to bomb Iran in the event the latter country came close to building nuclear weapons – which would conveniently deflect any blame aimed at the US. To a visiting Martian, all these competing interests and machinations are the stuff of farce. To those caught up in the violence that sweeps the region from Beirut to Basra, it is nothing less than tragedy. At the end of the day, of course, none of this is about religion. On a macro scale, religion is rationale used by political leaders seeking to preserve and enhance their power at the expense of internal and external enemies that appear to threaten them. On the micro scale, conflict is the inevitable offspring when youth and alienation mate. As the young seek meaning in their lives and find it in the illusion of religion, young men in particular are drawn towards violence and aggression. That same religion is a blindfold which prevents them from seeing how their minds are exploited and abused by older men as insidiously as the victims are abused by sex offenders. The conflict in the Middle East will not end when religion finally disappears but it will lose much of its fuel. Those who long for peace must wait until Allah-Yahweh dies; such a day, unfortunately, seems many years away.
April - July 2008: This site is being renovated - apologies if some links do not work. To return to the active website, click here |
If God existed, he would... If God existed, he would be an atheist. "According to ASSIST News Service, a young Muslim man arrived at the mission center and demanded an audience with the pastor. “I directed him to see one of my co-workers,” says Pastor Yusif, a national missionary active in West Africa. “But he insisted it was personal and wanted to see me.” The man introduced himself as Ahmed, 33, from a strong Muslim background. He said he memorized the entire Koran by 11 and later became a Koranic instructor. Ahmed told Pastor Yusif about a profound emptiness at the core of his being. He was looking for God but doubted he existed. Internal anxieties robbed him of peace. After his wife left him, he struggled to find meaning in life. In his desperation, he asked God to speak to him and show him if he is real. One night a vivid dream terrified him. “A huge man appeared to him in the dream and said he had to cut off his head and put on a new one,” Pastor Yusif reports. “The man was holding a long sword... the handle of the sword had a cross.” When Ahmed awakened, he suddenly realized the man meant for him to take off his Muslim head and replace it with a Christian head. Pastor Yusif shared the way of salvation, and Ahmed prayed to receive Jesus as his Savior and Lord." story spotted on religious news service Crosswalk Seven years ago, Chuck Johnson started walking across the USA carrying a ten-foot cross and surviving on the kindness of strangers. He does this "to remind people they need Jesus in his life". Chuck's devotion to his religion loses some of its luster, however, when you read that his original 86-pound oak cross has been replaced by a 12-pound version made of PVC fencing with two wheels on the bottom.... story spotted on www.religionnews.com According to an Associated Press story, the split between two faith-based political groups has intensified, with the new leader of the Christian Coalition of Alabama suing the organization's old leader. Randy Brinson, the new president of the Christian Coalition of Alabama, claims in a lawsuit that John Giles took the assets of the Christian Coalition of Alabama when he left to start Christian Action Alabama and won't return them. In Brinson's view, Giles is setting a bad example for Christians interested in Alabama politics. "This is not the way to engage people of faith in the political process," Brinson said. Giles calls Brinson's suit "frivolous and baseless" and said a close examination of the suit will show that the new Christian Coalition of Alabama is in the "palm of gamblers." Montgomery Circuit Judge Gene Reese, who's handling the suit, has not yet scheduled any hearings. story spotted on religious news service Crosswalk |
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