"Why should I respect these oppressive religions?"

Hari is an interesting writer, and I certainly agree with him about oppressive religions, but there is a caveat.

He was among those supposedly on the left who initially supported the war on Iraq in 2003, for reasons of opposition to the brutal dictatorship. To his credit, he has since acknowledged the enormity of his error, and the even worse human rights conditions under war, occupation and a breakdown of civil society.

I do find it problematic that the article quoted centres mostly on oppressive religion and theocracy in the Muslim world, when there have also been very oppressive religous forces in the so-called "West", from the strong influence of born-again evangelical Christianity in the Bushite regime in the US to the viciously misogynistic and homophobic government recently in power in Poland (and subsequent changes in guard have been more cosmetic than of substance in ensuring the democratic rights of women and LGBT people in that country).

And extremist religious parties and movements also play a disproportionate role in Israel, for example, there is no civil marriage, and would-be converts to Judaism (and all benefits of citizenship in a "Jewish state") have to be converted by Orthodox rabbis, with the sexual discrimination that entails.

I am less familiar with the influence of religious oppression and fundamentalism among the non-Abrahamic-monotheistic socities, but the Hindu fundamentalist in India have also been extremely oppressive to relgious minorities, and I'm sure one can find other examples.

All of this to say that while I agree with the general thrust of Hari's article, the omissions are important - in particular the omission of the role of imperialism and the singling out of Islamic fundamentalism as an enemy, for reasons that have everything to do with petroleum and power, and nothing to do with democracy or human rights.

Thanks for that, lagatta.  I agree with you.

Seems to me religious freedom should end where it infringes on the human rights of individual human beings or violates the laws we share: Assault, murder to establish a reign of terror ... these are crimes that adherence to a religion does not excuse: What is the difference then between religion and terrorism? There is none if religion rules people by fear of harm.

One is not engaging is religious freedom if one is not free to disagree, or if one coercing another.

I don't believe this is the last we will hear about this. Not the final judgment. However, freedom to speak out about oppressions of others means we have to check for skeletons in our own closets and practices and systems first.

I am reminded of a canvassing call I made where a defensive young woman said "I can't ... We don't vote. That is is for the husband."

I said "Well ... then ... perhaps your husband would like to read this." She hesitated and then her eyes gleamed with a smile, she took the flyer and said ... "and I read it first and then ... to him." We both laughed ... gave each other the thumb's up.

Don't sweat the small stuff, like face coverings and choices of gender roles.

And ... are we really protecting our own vulnerable people from oppression?

To what extent are we responding to a stereotype promoted against Sharia? Do we know? I don't think I do.

I see evidence of concern, and of response:

http://www.amnesty.org/en/ai_search?keywords=Sharia&op=Search&form_id=search_theme_form&form_token=388fcb20b695519580d4697578cf2e1b

 I see an ongoing dialogue that centres around personal safety, human rights and freedom of choice, but is best not centred on one religion or another. There are flaws everywhere.

Since nobody else has said it: why are religious extremes conflated to represent what the given religion may mean to people simply living their lives? Many Muslim critics have gone on record as saying that all those oppressive examples that are trotted out, are not in fact rooted in the Q'ran at all.

As we well know, oppressors will use whatever stick works. Sometimes it's religion. It doesn't mean the religion is only the way the oppressors present it.

And I have a bit of a red flag alert to anyone who only focuses on Islamic extremists when discussing "oppressive religions".

And, what lagatta said. 

Great post, lagatta.

Doctor's alleged refusal to treat lesbians sparks rights complaint

PATRICK WHITE

From Wednesday's Globe and Mail

January 28, 2009 at 4:05 AM EST

WINNIPEG — Andrea Markowski says she sensed the doctor's unease from the first waiting-room handshake.

She thought she'd been upfront about her background when she asked for a meet and greet with Dr. Karmeila Elias at Winnipeg's Lakewood Medical Centre.

It was pretty simple. She and her same-sex partner Ginette had just arrived from Yellowknife. They were looking for a good family doctor. Dr. Elias was accepting new patients. In a country where finding a GP can take months of agony, the match appeared to be a no-brainer.

But judging by the confused look Ms. Markowski she says she saw on Dr. Elias's face, nobody had mentioned their sexual orientation ahead of time.

"When I introduced myself and introduced Ginette as my partner, it took [the doctor] a little while to put it together. When she did, she looked really uncomfortable."

It was the beginning of an alleged incident that has prompted a human-rights complaint and raised thorny questions about how the Canadian medical system acculturates foreign-trained doctors.

There are an estimated 7,000 international medical graduates, or IMGs, in Canada. Most go through some form of cultural sensitivity training before earning a Canadian licence, but if Ms. Markowski's experience is in any way accurate, the primer falls short.

She says her encounter with Dr. Elias - who trained in Egypt and moved to Canada five years ago - turned for the worse when the trio retreated to an office.

"We started running through my medical history and [the doctor] could not look at me. She was flustered. She couldn't focus. I knew something was up, so I asked her, 'Is our sexual orientation an issue for you in terms of your ability to treat us?'"

Ms. Markowski alleges Dr. Elias soon confirmed her suspicions.

"She said, first thing, that it was against her religion, and second, that she had no experience caring for lesbian or gay patients."

 http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090128.wdoctor28/BNStory/National/home

Air Liquide tech

Xenophobic trash, actually.

Perhaps Ghislane will deconcstruct the origin of the term 'Islamist" for us, and explain how it came into to being, and try and determine if it has any basis for existance originating within Islam?

And Mr. Hari's last question could be turned in this way:
To the people who insist on ATTACKING Muslim culture(and on implying that "Muslim culture" is the only religious or cultural system that oppresses anybody these days), I ask:

Which Muslim culture(s)?  The one(s) that actually exist(s), or the ones you pretend exist because their existence would make building support for your imperialist dreams easier?

_________________________________________________________________________________________________ Our Demands Most Moderate are/ We Only Want The World! -James Connolly

"Since nobody else has said it: why are religious extremes conflated to represent what the given religion may mean to people simply living their lives? Many Muslim critics have gone on record as saying that all those oppressive examples that are trotted out, are not in fact rooted in the Q'ran at all."

Well, it's part of a broader problem that has no one causation.  But, I think we can point the first finger of blame at our media, that seeks to infotain us with the most extreme representatives of this religion, that political party, or this social movement.  Every demographic suffers from that.

Blame, too, has to be apportioned  to the moderates who tend to let the extremists carry the flag for their cause, particularly when the extremist is attacked.  The enemy of my enemy is my friend syndrome. 

In the foggy sphere of religion, why is it left to secularists to blow the whistle on extremists?   Where is the furor from the moderates, who's version of belief is being highjacked and perveted?

And, the same could be said for many other organizations that are not religious.

We are a clannish lot, us humans. 

To return to the opening post and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the UN.

If our ideas regarding the rights  embedded in that declaration have taken on new meaning within the UN, we are perhaps guilty of seeing substance in semantics.

The arguments grow ever more obtuse.  

Saga's deliniation of the question was on the button.

What is the relevance of saying that certain oppressive forms of Islams (real or imagined) are not well-founded in the Koran? Religion is a social construct. Is abortion in the bible? No, but it is a very real religious position to millions of evangelicals, it is a real part of their religion. Some of you may disagree with my position on the grounds that religion is a supernatural truth.

One thing which I find racist is that a lot of "progressives" in the west like to believe that there are no problems outside the west, aka 1) the concerns about fundamentalist Islam are fabricated propaganda 2) The general theory of the noble savage 3) All international problems originate in Washington. It is these people who are in fact racist, as they are patronizing the rest of humanity and projecting their (western) idealizations onto other human beings. The truth is that there is darkness and ugliness everywhere.

The issue isn't religion (although that is an issue), the problem is and remains a human need to dominate and control other humans. Religion is merely a vehicle.

I wanted to share that anecdeote and I didn't want to wave a red herring lol, but since you justly asked ...  I'll embellish this ...

However, freedom to speak out about oppressions of others means we have to check for skeletons in our own closets and practices and systems first.

Christian churches and child abuse in Canada was what I had in mind, to speak of skeletons ... and government complicity too ...

As The Globe and Mail has reported, bodies of aboriginal children lie in unmarked graves across Canada, on the grounds of residential schools where the federal government sought for more than a century to extinguish aboriginal culture.

-Reconciliation cannot be imposed on a society. The most a commission can do is clarify past events and amplify the voices of people who have been stigmatized or silenced. Reconstructing facts without euphemism and restoring the dignity of victims are first steps toward national reconciliation, but they are only the beginning.

Thanks to the Canadian commission, federal researchers are working to identify the thousands of aboriginal children who vanished from the residential schools; many of the children are thought to be in the anonymous graves at the school sites. It is their memory that Canada should honour as it presses forward with its historic truth commission, and works to achieve a healthier, more united country.

IE, Do our governments' have the international credibility to be accusing other countries of oppression, when we have not yet properly acknowledged the victims we buried to establish a (formerly) Christian Canadian 'regime' on Indigenous land?

Frankly, I don't believe we do.

Maybe Amnesty does have that credibility ...

http://www.amnesty.org/en/ai_search?keywords=&region=1892&issue=2135  [15]

But I don't think Canada or Canadians do until we face the fact that our foundation is 'compromised', and that the Catholic, United and Anglican churches played a huge role in that.

Such as politics, countries and other large organizations. 

(A bit of a thread drift I know.)

 ______________________________________________________________________________________________ We are like cloaks, one thinks of us only when it rains.

saga, excellent example, thank you. The oppression of First Nations people is rooted in Christianity. Which is of course at the root of Western imperialism and colonialism.

500, I have no idea what you're talking about. 

Such a statement. 

1) They are if somewhere along the line the solution is to bomb or starve them. In the case of Afghanistan, for example, we were quite comfortable with their killings of girls and mass executions so long as they were also killing Soviets. Only when we decided we need to kill them did their practices come up  for public display and revulsion.

2) Whose theory is that exactly? I mean, who identifies other human beings as savages? Margaret Wente? When did she join the left?

3) It is difficult to find a conflict anywhere on the planet which does not have Washington's, London's, or Tel Aviv's fingers in it or a tyrant not supported by them. Of the few tyrants not endorsed by the Western Troika, all are under attack or facing sanctions. Of those who are, it is their populations who are under attack or facing sanctions.

Absolutely true. But my observations suggest darkness and ugliness is not undermined with more darkness and ugliness.

I agree ... and religion is the red flag used to arouse passions and create wars and sell arms ... 

Hmm religion as 'convenient marketing ploy for the war industry'?

 I have a problem in that the thread title says "these" ... religions.

-edit- Are we not talking about all oppressive religions? ... and also the powers that manipulate them for personal gain?

What lagatta said.

With the proliferation of all these godly threads, and the Left seemingly consumed with the genre of late, might that not be a sign in itself that the end is nearer than we think.

The end of religion, the left or the internet?

All three!

And, what Frustrated Mess said.

I thought they were the same thing, to be honest.

I'd like to see an end to capitalism in general.  Few people talk about the ongoing cultural genocide of indigenous people who were and are very spiritually minded people. The ongoing physical elimination of native people worldwide and confiscation of their land has occurred for centuries, and it's due to a genocidal drive for ever expanding profiteering and enforced by undemocratic banking arrangements and trade organizations controlled by capitalists. And we wont be able to do anything meaningful for the environment until world economies and means of production are brought under democratic control and subjugated to peoples' needs and  environmental limits instead of control by a handful few wealthy people and supranational conglomerates. Religion is not nearly the same threat by comparison.  Capitalism will end humanity long before religion ever will.

First, I think one might want to know if Indigenous people agree with you about ending capitalism on their behalf.

Second, I am not as willing as some to give up my right to earn a living by selling, trading, etc my products or services. Free enterprise with strict limits on corporatization and control of the marketplace is more to my liking.

 And I support strict controls on religions too, that should not be exempt from the laws of the country, including taxation, imo.

Dont ask me, ask the Amazonian tribes being eliminated by bounty hunters and land clearcut by logging companies.

Ask the Mayans of Central America what they think of the holocaust of their people from last century this one and general conditions for grinding poverty today.

Cohesive social organization often conflicts with the requirement for individual autonomy characteristic of the culture of capitalism.  Indigenous societies tend to be more egalitarian than societies of the culture of capitalism. The need to assert status by  commodities is not as important to indigenous people.

Fine. But that kind of economy existed long before the first stock markets and well before private property laws were exported to the western world from England. What we dont need are mountains of plastic junk made from oil byproducts, or the excessiveness of using thousands of thousands of gallons of fresh water to make a plastic shower curtain liner. They can't really afford to use so much fresh water to backwash shrimp ponds in Thailand and destroying coastal wetlands there, so that we can afford to eat seafood here.

I think we should tax corporations -  take the profit out of making war - put the monetary system through bankruptcy procedures - and democratize the whole setup from Central Banking to advanced democracy and evening things up a little so as one person equals one vote in this frozen Puerto Rico.

I guess I am making a distinction between 'corporatism' (a monster that consumes whole forests and the people in them) and simple capitalism, eg, a family logs sustainably from their land and sells or trades for needed goods.  My main point is I do not want a monolithic socialist bureaucracy telling me I can't sell my blueberries or handiwork or plumbing skills for profit. Not my thing.

Secondly, I think they can speak for themselves and should not be used to bolster your own ideology. For example, the mom-and-pop free enterprise tobacco business is a critical source of income for Indigenous people in Canada.

 I guess my real point is that there are choices other than monster-corporatism v socialism. There is the reality that most people don't want the constraints of either extreme.  Brazil's approach ... 

All of that is unfettered monster corporatism, not capitalism per se. I'm not splitting hairs: I am pointing out that socialism is NOT the logical alternative to corporatism: Simple capitalism is, and can be integrated with aspects of socialism too - just the ideal people want.

I agree that in an ideal world there should be no profit to be made in war.

So maybe we should get our shit together and run our democracies properly so politicians can't make wars.

I doubt the catastrophic solutions you suggest are ever going to happen, nor do I believe they'll accomplish what we want.

Realistically, though, we can hope to put constraints on rampant corporatism and also protect our individual right to engage in free enterprise, as well as protecting our collective right to (eg) equal medical insurance, employment insurance, etc., as we generally agree on those socialist measures too.

It's been said ... the best thing we can do to regain control of the economy is for ALL of us 'little people' to take our money (and our debts, especially mortgages, our biggest bargaining chip) out of the big megabanks and deal only with local ones or credit unions, etc.

I would like to see that happen, just to see what would happen. Would it matter at all to them?

I don't know, but it is worth a try.  I already have.

Joe Bageant covers as much philosophical ground - ideational and material - as this thread:

"Perfection necessarily implies some ultimate rightness, allegiance to highest truth available, and acknowledgement of even the most brutal ones ... such as Gaza and our functional support of those mass murders. The truth, especially for Americans living inside a deadly media illusion of our own making, is the new frontier. We can blame the media snake charmers all we want, and the soulless corporations they serve, but our seduction has been a willing one.

The truth was always the only frontier and it has always been an inner one about seeking and unflinching acknowledgement of what one discovers -- which in the end inspires universal compassion. Looking upon the world with eyes as cold as ashes but with a heart like a furnace.

And that makes it spiritual. Not religious, not esoteric, not mystical, not cosmic, not New Age, but utterly and humanly spiritual. We are not and never were individuals, but merely brief swimmers in the river of flesh called mankind. Yet inside each frail sentient being there is that small bead of light, of self, of the truth of pure existence. It can guide us in those right things before us, that we either will or will not rise to doing. That is its purpose, if it can be said to have one.

Now that Cotton Mather's City On The Hill has proven a vapor, there are worse things we could attempt than fix upon that light as a beacon for crossing our spiritual Jordan's turbulent waters, toward some more perfect inner shore.

Perfection, whether of the stripe sought by socialists, Christians, atheists, Buddhists or Muslims, is within each of us. It's unhip, unscientific, archaic, politically incorrect and guaranteed to hurt. But it's the truth."

----------------------------------------------------------------

I think he deals with "oppressive religions" (even Fidel's capitalism) rather well. "We have seen the enemy" said Pogo.

I respect other people's spirituality, but I'm not remotely spiritual. It always annoys me when people look at my artwork, or the fact that I'm more interested in my cat or houseplants than in shiny baubles, and say how "spiritual" I am. I'm a hardline atheist, and dialectical materialist.

"All of that is unfettered monster corporatism, not capitalism per se. I'm not splitting hairs: I am pointing out that socialism is NOT the logical alternative to corporatism: Simple capitalism is, and can be integrated with aspects of socialism too - just the ideal people want."

There is no such thing as "simple Capitalism" nor will there ever be. People trading or exchanging things does not make it capitalistic. The whole constuction of the individual self and the philosophy of individualism is a product of capitalism as well. Socialism is not monolithic either there are many kinds.

Yeah, but you have soul.

Yeah, FM too.

I am including the possibility of profit making, and also redistribution of wealth, limiting corporate control of wealth, and including the social programs we have, and more.

I don't know what you call it. I just think it is what people want - the best of what we have.

The kind of small market and barter you speak of existed long before the first stock market was created in Holland and the first capitalist asset inflation bubble that was the tulip craze, and well before John Law single handedly sabotaged France's banking system with speculating on swamp land in Louisiana and leading to French revolution, and some say, the birth of socialism.

Just so long as you arent trying to tell me that indigenous people support capitalism by choice. Indigenous people around the world would probably be among the first to reject capitalism given the choice to repossess valuable land stolen from them by capitalists and their hirelings in governments throughout history.

 As a socialist, I reject capitalism and the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few. Vast wealth in the hands of a few is totally incompatible with the idea for government of the people, run for the people, and by the people. Albert Einstein said that mankind has progressed in phases throughout history, from imperialism to feudalism to colonialism, and now predatory capitalism. And he said in his political essay that the next logical phase of human development is socialism.

That made me smile.  

_______________________________________

Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!!

Saga:

"I am including the possibility of profit making, and also redistribution of wealth, limiting corporate control of wealth, and including the social programs we have, and more.

I don't know what you call it. I just think it is what people want - the best of what we have."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sounds like the "mixed economy" we grew up with Saga, the one that came out of depresseion and war.  The one we lost control of.

Now we have to recapture it, but without the use of fossil fuels. And I hope we're all up to it. I used to think that E.F. Schumacher's "Small is Beautiful" was written only for third-world edification. But that was before I understood that it was our energy source that was doing us in - hastened by the nasty products of our economic relations.

Frustrated Mess wrote:

"The issue isn't religion (although that is an issue), the problem is and remains a human need to dominate and control other humans."

Perhaps it is because I am an atheist product of a devoutly Christian home, but I believe that the problem at the root of this phenomenon is not fundamentalism or extreme religion, but religion itself, precisely because religious institutions propagate and sustain themselves by domination and control.

Religion has been the scourge of free thought and free speech for as long as it has existed.  It is a denial of the most fundamental defining characterisitics of humanity; our rational capacity, our curiosity, our desire to create new things, our need for each other. By demanding faith in archaic rituals and systems of faith, the human capacity for intellectual growth is twisted and deformed into a source of "temptation" and guilt when it should be the instrument of our release from the bondage of superstition.

The notion that religion is entitled to special consideration in society's affairs is embedded in Western culture, and most of the rest of the world, as well.  In Canada, while we were finally accepting same sex marriage as a right, churches were assumed to be exempt and are still permitted to collect money without taxation and use the proceeds to disseminate political propaganda advocating the denial of equal rights to gays. The repulsiveness of fundamentalist Mormonism has no excuse, and yet we will be forced to listen to serious-sounding arguments in a court of law and see them on the front page of supposedly enlightened news publications as the Bountiful case is handled with kid gloves by everyone. If anybody but a religious advocate subjected children to the sort of brainwashing that is routinely employed in religious indoctrination they would quite rightly be packed off to jail.

The spinelessness of western intellectuals and institutions confronted by radical religious bigotry is rooted in a sense that placing limits on "belief" for one set of believers will have implications for all others.  When religion held real secular power in western society there would have been no such pussy-footing; the competing bigots would have been denounced as Satan spawn and that would have been that.  It is the creeping marginalisation of religious power has caused Unitarians to leap to the defense of their more extreme spiritual relatives out of a sense of self-preservation. The idea that religious belief is exempt from the obligations attending fundamental rights and freedoms is allowed to prosper because people feel they should "respect spirituality".

Spirituality is dangerous crap in its most insipid manifestations, and outright evil in its worst forms.  I refuse to accept its influence here. I reject the proposition that as a citizen of a western country I have no right to speak against the evilness of mullahs, rabbis, monks or shamans in countries where people cannot oppose them, or denounce the nastiness and stupidity of their beliefs.

Wow, great post Peter3, have to say that I completely agree with you.

Maybe we don't have to respect oppressive religions but we have to respect the choice of others to immerse themselves in their opprressive beliefs. The criticism on religious practices reminds me of stories about encounters with indigenous practices of cannibalism which prompted 'enlightened' Europeans to bring them to the light by force and at the expense of these cultural identities.

In the defense of spirituality, atheism is only another belief system that has proven itself as dogmatic in this early stage and seeks to silence its competitor belief systems as can be witnessed by the current bus campaign.

I'm dramatically more worried about the government sponsored brainwashing in the media than I am about how Afghanis seek to identify their position in creation. There are no bigger oppressors than the banksters and the multinationals that sponsor our governments and induce world wide suffering on a scale never seen before, even when compared to the crusades.  The 'struggle' against spirituality and religious practices is a straw man deflecting attention from far more desperate issues and turning populations into stooges arguing over the rights of Afghani women while Western militaries embark on the rape of the men as well as the women and children in the target nation.

I do not have to respect my oppressors.

I think Religion and Capitalism are both threats.  Both are dangerous, both use massive brainwashing tactics, both oppress and kill others in their names. Both are used as tools for government oppression of the people.

Nope, there will be no respect from me. 

Dismissing atheism as "just another belief system because you can't prove there isn't an invisible man in the sky" reminds me of a bumper sticker I saw yesterday: "Gravity is only a theory."

I don't believe in God, and I do believe in gravity, which makes me equal to every other crackpot in the world, I suppose.

And how does the bus campaign "silence" anybody?  The bus campaign is a counterpoint to all the religious iconography we see all over the place all the time.  Every year around the time of the Pride Parade, a big billboard close to my house sprouts a homophobic Biblical quote for a few weeks before and after Pride Week (eg, "Pride Goeth Before A Fall.")  So I'm looking forward to the buses.

You seem to be casting you net rather wide if you equate not just all religious belief but all belief in any spirituality. I don't think it is particularly valid or reasonable to say that Bishop Desmond Tutu is the same as Jerry Falwell or Liberation theology to the beliefs and actions of the Vatican.  Your quite welcome to denounce ignorance and brutality but it is erroneous to say that all ignorance and brutality is due to religion or spirituality. Christianity in most its forms is certainly complicit in European colonialim it is absurd however to lay the blame on indigenous shaman or for that matter other faiths. 

I am also curious as to why the concern is always with the other, who is "over there " is there a lack of ignorance and brutality in the "western world". Do you honestly belief the actions of the western world are distinct and separate from areas that are colonized?

Your post also contains elements of those you criticize and point to the fundamentalist and dogmatic worldview you claim to reject. You still divide the world into the believers and the non-believers, the rational elect and the others.  This is a dangerous dichotomy and I don't think athiest fundamentalism and ratinionalist dogma is any less dangerous than religious ones Stalin and Mao certainly demonstrated that. Claims to absolute knowledge are always dangerous in my mind.

I'm an agnostic and while your argument isn't totally clear here, I actually think you are on to something. A better example would be the coalition of groups headed by the American Humanist Association which recently tried to use the courts to block Rick Warren from doing the prayer at Obama's inauguration. Not to mention the odd lawsuit or complaint by atheists and humanists over such ridiculous things as the word "God" on coins, or Christmas trees on municipal property. Yes, my fellow non-believers can be afraid of criticism too, I just wonder how Johann Hari feels about that.

Stargazer, I personally find my monthly bank fees and super inflation far more oppressive than what the local Baptist billboard has to share today. I don't feel that any religion is imposing itself on my life today. As far as I'm concerned someones ideas are theirs to express and I'll make up my own mind on how I feel about an issue. 

On the other hand, we say that innocents shouldn't be murdered but our taxes are a direct contributor to the death of millions around the world. I don't see any leftist (or other) groups taking out ads that scream 'down with our bought and paid for politicians', or 'Canadian mercenaries out of Afghanistan now'.

IMO, being a contributor to the death of millions around the world by supporting my corrupt political system and paying into its war coffers everytime I get a paycheque feels far more opprresive than the mullahs opinion on homosexuality or the Popes view on condoms. I assure you that our government and the money bag companies that fund our stooges are infinitely more responsible for deaths around the world than bare back sex can ever hope to be.

Have you read the civil action filed against the inauguration?  It was far from an example of dogmatic atheism, but a legitimate complaint that the inauguration in question clearly violates the 1st and 5th ammendments of the constitution of the United States of America.  Common sense really. 

Trevor, gun control also violates the constitution but I haven't seen many voices raising the alert here.

I think that atheism has contributed a great deal to the struggle towards justice, but I also think that many atheists get caught up in shadow-boxing. 

I've written two articles that may or may not be relevant.  Here's one that sings the praises of atheism:

 http://www.republic-news.org/archive/187-repub/187_nenonen.html [49]

And here's one that's critical of some expressions of modern atheism:

 http://www.republic-news.org/archive/173-repub/173_nenonen_enlightenment.htm [50]

Well panhead, you either aren't female, or gay (I'll assume) because they are not "just words". They are words that have been put into action to kill, main, silence and destroy women's voices the world over. Not to mention the effect religion has on the real lives of gays and lesbians. Get back to me when you figure out that the "Good Book" is used to oppress, stifle and vilify everyone who doesn't fit within a specific dogma.

And we don't have any mentions of the "right to bear arms". This is Canada, not the US and whether or not it is written in the constitution of the US is debatable as to its meaning. 

Stargazer: I think that there's something deeper than religion that's driving homophobia.  And, yes, I've written some articles about that, too:

http://www.republic-news.org/archive/86-repub/86_nenonen_lobster.htm [53]

http://www.republic-news.org/archive/152-repub/152_nenonen.htm [54]

I was just going to say that "panhead" must be a non-gay white man, stargazer. 

___________________________________________________________ "watching the tide roll away"

No sorry TMK, I did not read the actual legal brief. I read about it, and I listened to Michael Newdow talk about how he was personally offended, how he felt like he and all other atheists were somehow being treated as second class citizens, and how the word God was so awful to his ears that even hearing that word would imply coercion of citizens by the state to accept God's existence. The argument was at least as irrational and obtuse as the argument that criticizing a religion automatically implies dehumanizing that religion's followers, as Egypt, Pakistan, the Vatican, and Saudi Arabia are arguing at the UN.

Stargazer I know this is Canada. I was responding to Trevor's concern over the unconstitutional nature of the inauguration.  The American right to bear arms as covered in the constitution is not really debatable. The intent for such a right was clearly defined by those who framed the constitution.

I'm sorry you feel oppressed by the Good Book. I don't understand how this infringes on your legal rights to exist as a human being free to make your own choices today. I don't think we will ever reach a state where everyones personal behaviour and choices will be condoned by everyone else, and if we do, I hope I'm long dead by then.

Remind wrote, "I was just going to say that "panhead" must be a non-gay white man, stargazer."

 Because God knows that every woman and every gay man is an atheist.

Jesus, will we have to go through the entire 21st century before all forms of public religion are relegated to the trashbins where they belong.   

Even the none threatening ones like the Quakers, the United Church, or Unitarians are not necessay. We don't have to be part of some religious network to do good.

Sick of all the religious nonsense in the world, which lead to more and more divisions on our planet. Don't we have enough problems as it is, without having to listen to some religious fanatic demand his free speech. I think a lot of religions border on hatred, and I thought we had laws against that. Off with the religious heads I say.

The only fanatic behaviour here seems to be yours NorthReport. You'll find a good playbook for your views in the history of the Inquisition. Live and let live and mutual respect seems the better course of action to me.

Yup, your wonderful religions have contributled to peace in the Middle East, and peace in Ireland, and peace around the planet.

Panhead, I'm not sure why you refuse to understand they are not JUST WORDS and it is not JUST ME who is oppressed. Do you not understand the very high connection between religion and politics? Just look to the south for that. Jesus, I can't believe I even have to say these things.

Sorry I feel oppressed? Please! Debates about whether or not religions are used to control (yes, in the real world) women's bodies have no place on a lefty discussion board. 

Religion is used as the excuse to withhold funding to Africans who suffer from HIV (no meds for you!). Religion is used to omit funding for any group that offers up alternatives to abstenense. Religion is used to bring back the abortion debate, and take away a woman's right to choose. There are many US states that have outlawed abortion and many places in the world where women are treated as less than men. All over the world women are raped and killed for some reason or other, usually justified by some religious writings and in times of war (God told Bush to kill all those Iraqi people don't you know. Bush said so). 

You need to understand that "sorry you're feeling oppressed" is a pack of bs and why. And it is a rather horrible show of silliness when you actually can only say "you're sorry I feel oppressed". This isn't about me. It's about women, and those who are deemed the unwashed heathens going to hell (and by god they will help ensure they get there). 

That's the end of my talking to you on this subject, as it seems you have no true understanding as to how religion is, has been and probably always will be used to control and destroy women and gays and lesbians. 

And BTW, they get no respect from me until they begin to respect other people who do not fit in with their holy views. Screw religion, and screw those people who are apologists for it's toxic effects on people. 

I disagree entirely. Religion is not only a vehicle for human beings to exercise power and control of one another, it is only one of many available vehicles. Here is an excellent example, IMO:

There is a lot in there.

First, we see the "yellow peril" propaganda model in action where fear is generated among the members of one group against another group (exactly pertaining to the topic of this thread), but presented in a very rational, real politk manner (by a man representing an ideological persepective completely founded upon a religious fundamentalism and somehow that goes unnoticed).

We see the "yellow peril" propaganda model go to the next step of labeling Islam "terrorism". This has a double value. First, in line with the "yellow peril" propaganda model, dialogue with the Islamic world is out of the question as one can't have a rational discourse with a zealot intent on murder. Second, the only motivation to be assigned to Palestinians is that of a zealot intent on murder. That fact that not all Palestinians are Islamic, religious at all, or that Palestinians have legitimate grievances are rendered mute. It doesn't matter. All that matters is that they are out to kill us all. Finally, we see that the attack on Gaza is not about the Israeli occupation, collective punishment, or even the Israeli excuse of rockets, but it is about a longer, wider, and ultimately more deadly and violent war against Iran. Go and hug your kids ...

And so we have a rational, secular, political vehicle to complement our religious vehicle for violence. It's quite the hateful program is it not? Can anyone think of a historical parallel?

I'm an atheist, too. But the more I observe and filter, the more I learn that God and religion have nothing to do with it. I think all men and women of power are atheists. They must be. Because the alternative is knowing they've betrayed their own God. And how could they do that to an all powerful and knowing deity with whom they claim an immortal covenant?

We use men of the cloth to persuade the masses, and suits with glasses, powerpoints, and infrared pointers to persuade the social elites, and both require the suspension of critical thinking and challenge to the word spoken from those being persuaded.

Stargazer wrote, "And BTW, they get no respect from me until they begin to respect other people who do not fit in with their holy views."

This is interesting, because religious people like the Dalai Lama, Archbishop Tutu, Ghandi, Martin Buber, and many, many others have demonstrated considerable respect for people of other faiths (and those of no faith, assuming, for the moment, that this isn't a faith position).  Do these people not count?  Or are you only interested in the sort of religious people who conform to the stereotype of intolerant self-righteousness...the sort, for example, that refuse to acknowledge the virtuous members of the groups they criticize, preferring to define those groups solely on the basis of their most ethically debased representatives?

Perhaps you gave us your answer when you wrote, "Screw religion, and screw those people who are apologists for it's toxic effects on people." 

God didn't tell Bush to do anything and I find your position incredibly naive. Halliburton told Bush quite a lot as have Shell and the other oil moguls, along with the massive defense contractors that make their living off human suffering, not to mention a significant ethnic lobby that ties its interests with political instability in the midddle east. Pharmaceutical companies also dip their hands into large scale murder in Africa and other places around the world.

You are right that religion is used to support these actions, but so is secularism when the plight of Afghani women is used as a pretext to encourage support for the Canadian military to share its liberal views with Afghanistan by shelling them and shooting them.

Breaking the tool is completely irrelevant. If your concern is oppression then you should worry more about those who use any means necessary to further goals that really, have nothing to do with religion or atheism but more to do with world wide dominance and money.

Tear down the political system that is funded by a shadow government of oligarchs and their dominating monopoly of the mass media who tell you who you need to hate today, and you might find that you'll get along better with people who have different beliefs than yourself.

"The third — and toughest — challenge to nation states is the prevalence of unconventional threats in the "use of terror"

Humm....I guess they must have overlooked multinationals or capitalism in their survey.

What nonsense.

Oh please! Seriously, this is insulting., Here are men defending religion, and so much so that you'll use any tactic to prove a point (which you are failing miserably at).

Get back to me on religion when you are a woman. Until then, you can insinuate that religion is just keen because the Dali Lama was religious. Like that makes all the rest so much better. 

Oh and panhead, the topic is RELIGION, not capitalism. Religion. Nice try though. Really. Doing a fine job apologizing for all the horridness caused by those who "believe". 

Where did you find that North Report, in the CIA world fact book?

Stargazer, the discussion evolved out of your statement that religion is the active catalyst of war, famine, HIV in Africa and the plight of the North American lesbian. I'm not defending the actions of religious and non religious zealots. I'm simply pointing out the fucking glaring fact that religion has never really had much to do with any of these world wide conditions, except when used as a propaganda tool by those who wield political power and that mutual respect , even between those who hold completely different world views, is necessary if the real ailment is going to be addressed.

Here is another sound reason to reject all public expressions of religion.

Abortion is essential to our survival.

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article5627634.ece

very funny!

Eeew ... not so funny.

True

 Did somebody say 'United Church'?

Because I personally do not believe one is obligated to respect institutions like the Anglican and United and Catholic churches in Canada, that 'laundered' Indigenous lands on Canada's behalf, for the benefit of the extraction industries and themselves, etc. They still refuse to say how many children died in the 'Indian' Residential Schools, in their care, and they never informed families.

The government already bailed them out once when they screamed 'bankruptcy', due to its own complicity and responsibility. It isn't over yet as the investigation of missing children is just beginning. Freedom of religious practice is a given, and freedom of speech means none is sacred to everyone.

We can speak truths about corrupt organized religions. We have to.

But that is a separate issue in my mind from spirituality.

It's really not pleasant to read Stargazer's posts being misconstrued.  It is undeniable that religion is oppressive to women.  Please take your strawmen elsewhere and don't even try to post shit like that on babble.

Well stated Stargazer.  I have respect for this discussion but not when men are trying to deny the oppression.

Case closed.

And yet, interestingly enough, at least in Christianity, women outnumber the men in the pews big time. I know one of the reasons is that women live longer than men, but that doesn't account for all of it.

I think it has more to do with their patriarchal environment, which fortunately is changing, although not fast enough.

I understand you North and said I have respect for the discussion but panheads responses pissed me off. 

Last thing, plenty of religions don't have pews.

Is that why you dissect the statements to take quotes out of context? You could try arguing a point if it's not too much of an intellectual leap for you.

Explain to me how I took a quote out of context?  Because it has some bafflegab disguising it?

My point is, as stated earlier, you can't deny that religion oppresses women, LBGT, the poor and many others. 

There's my intellectual leap, good luck following.

Revolution Please: Brilliant.  Only women can comment on oppression and religion, provided that they believe that religion is inherently oppressive, since women who are religious (I'm thinking of rather brilliant women like Elaine Pagels and Karen Armstrong) have necessarily been co-opted by the patriarchy.  It really is an airtight and utterly useless tautology. 

You said that you found Panhead's responses upsetting.  Console yourself with the knowledge that Panhead didn't say something like, ""Screw atheism, and screw those people who are apologists for it's toxic effects on people."   

Anyway, yes, religion has often been used to oppress women and gays...just like politics, law, economics, literature, philosophy, psychology, psychiatry and pretty much every other field with the possible exception of mathematics. And yet, I haven't heard many feminists demand the elimination of politics, law, economics, etc; rather, they advocate for systemic change in these fields in order to eliminate their patriarchal bias.  Similarly, feminists in various religious traditions are trying to bring about positive change within those traditions, or to create new religious traditions.  How do women such as these fit into your binary atheism good/religion bad schema?

Just to be clear here, because I'm not really sure of the argument, is it being suggested that if there was no religion we would be free of oppression, gender, racial, class, and there would be an end to colonization, conquest, and (wo)man's inhumanity to (wo)man?

 I don't think it's true but I'd be willing to ban religion and all silly belief systems to find out. Who's with me?

Talk about taking things out of context.  I never said only certain people can comment.  But, babble, like elsewhere seems to have all these men trying to silence the very few women that are brave enough to put up wiith this crap.

I've said I respect the discussion but feel too many men are now attempting to control it.

Frustrated Mess: You should be careful what you wish for, given that a very strong case has been made by the philosopher John Gray that all of our political ideologies are forms of secularized millennialism, and therefore inherently religious.

RevolutionPlease: I'm sorry, but the only ad hominems I'm seeing are the ones being launched by the atheists on this board.  And as for silencing, no one has told you something like, "Please take your strawmen elsewhere and don't even try to post shit like that on babble."

Now, since it seems that you posted your response to my posting while I was adding another paragraph to it, I'll repeat that paragraph here, because I'd like to hear your answer to its closing question:

"Anyway, yes, religion has often been used to oppress women and gays...just like politics, law, economics, literature, philosophy, psychology, psychiatry and pretty much every other field with the possible exception of mathematics. And yet, I haven't heard many feminists demand the elimination of politics, law, economics, etc; rather, they advocate for systemic change in these fields in order to eliminate their patriarchal bias.  Similarly, feminists in various religious traditions are trying to bring about positive change within those traditions, or to create new religious traditions.  How do women such as these fit into your binary atheism good/religion bad schema?"

FM,

I'm with you in so far as it is in the public domain.

What people do in the privacy of their own minds is..... well you know the rest.

I just don't want to hear about horseshit things like religion anymore.

But if you really want to read about religious bullshit read "Angels & Demons" by Dan Brown. It's hilarious!

North Report: Then why are you participating in a thread entitled, "Why should I respect these oppressive religions?"

Stargazer, you wrote that I was insinuating "that religion is just keen because the Dali Lama was religious. Like that makes all the rest so much better."

I would appreciate it if you would at least try to respond to the argument I'm making, rather than the argument you would like me to make.  What I insinuated wasn't that religion is keen because the Dalai Lama is religious.  I insinuated that it was intolerant and self righteous to refuse to acknowledge the virtuous members of the groups you are criticizing, and to define those groups solely on the basis of their most ethically debased representatives. This is like judging all atheists by the examples presented by people like Mao, Hitchens, and Harris.

Spare me the nonsense.

Religion has been used as a tool to suppress, abuse, torture, maim, kill, and impoverish people way, way too often for me to ever want to waste my time trying to find its miniscule redeeming features.  

Off with any religious zealot's head, I say.

North Report: If you ever have an argument to go with that conclusion, let me know.

As for the "off with their heads" quip, I'm not sure that very many of the Tibetan Buddhist monks who have been imprisoned, tortured, and executed for their faith by the Chinese would find that comment quite as amusing as you seem to.

Well, technically, the ones who have been executed likely won't find anything humorous, but you get my drift.

I think the Dalai Lama is a terrible example of an ethical religious leader, by the way. When the Dalai Lama demonstrated he was fully prepared to overlook the spilled blood of Iraqis and sit with the occupier and butcher of Iraq to attempt to win some small advantage for his campaign for Tibet, I lost all respect for the man (or God ... whatever).

But I like this ...  " all of our political ideologies are forms of secularized millennialism, and therefore inherently religious". In fact, we are as dogmatically tied to many of our political beliefs as we are to our religious beliefs and often enought they are similarily divorced from reality.

Frustrated Mess: I'm not terribly taken with the Dalai Lama, either, for the reasons you mentioned along with a number of others.  For all his ethical shortcomings, however, he cannot credibly be accused of religious intolerance, which was the point I was trying to make when I brought him up.  

Michael, view the following link: http://www.trimondi.de/EN/deba03.html

I post it only to demonstarte that in human affairs, there are always critics to pull the skeletons from the closet.

No thanks, I'll leave you boys to play in the "defend religion" playground.

So far I've been called too stupid to get it, intolerant of religion, and it is being continuously implied that I am far too stupid to understand anything you religion defenders post.

I'll pass on your pro-religion sausage fest. Now go hate on someone else. Like maybe the men who wrote the book's pages, and the men who interpret them for harm. But my guess is, you could give a rat's ass about that. Religion must be defended at all costs from the intolerant bigots such as myself, clearly playing in some fantasy land of make believe oppression. Ideologies are never dangerous, especially extremely well funded ones based upon patriarchy and colonialism. Oh wait, they are? Just not religion. I forgot. 

Religion is entirely benign. That's the point right? Okay guys, thanks. A woman like me, you know, clearly not bright enough to understand what you are saying, cannot possibly have any credibility in the face of MN's and panheads fully subjective and biased arguments. 

I don't know why you work so tirelessly for a system of ideology that is used to do countless nasty deeds. You must be super proud to defend religion - it is such an underdog on the world stage. 

Michael, as you know, you and I disagree fundamentally about religion. Just as a quickie reminder: I consider all religion to be akin to an inoperable brain lesion which encourages people to hate each other and prevents them from understanding the world. Religion is not the cause (as has been pointed out) but rather one of the most valuable tools of oppression throughout history.

Having said that, please try to confine your loathing for what you call "atheists" within the bounds of accuracy (see the bolded portion in your post above). 

For a very long time I've been extremely uncomfortable with the free-flow of anti-religion sentiment on babble. I've rarely wandered in to speak my thoughts, and now I am. Of course it's a valid political position to take, but as a few have said, looking at the extremes of religion and having the extremes represent the entire religion is, well, problematic at best.

I've used the following example before, and I'm going to try again.

Let's look at Christianity in the context of the transatlantic slave trade of the 18th century. Yes, it was used as a colonizing tool, yes it was used o justify stealing people from their homes, to justify slavery genocide rape and murder. But somehow, over time, it has come to mean something different. Many African Americans who attend church have a deep connection, via Christianity, to community and refuge from racism. This is a deep and profound reality, and it's these communities I think of when I see worlds like "throw all religion in the garbage" or "inoperable brain lesion" and other such thoughts. My disagreement stems from this.

Yes, religion can be oppressive. Yes, religion is often the very tool used to justify oppression. Maybe we can even say it's this way, what, 80% of the time? 90%?

So? These two ideas are completely compatible to exist together.

I respect the opinions of babblers who say they hate all religion and want all religion to go away, and who think the entire world will be better if all religion was gone. I disagree, however, completely. I say this as a person who never had religious influence in my family or anywhere. My only exposure/brainwashing was in Brownies/Girl Guides and the "secular Christianity" agenda as a kid/teen in public school.

For the record, no, I don't support any form of institutional oppression, from the ranks of religious institutions or anywhere else.

Both Michael N and NR Kissed have mentioned some good points about liberation theology and other religious-based radical political mobilization. The religion can't be separated out of those movements.

I really don't think either side will "convince" the other, and that's not why I've posted. I think that understanding the role of religion in people's day to day lives brings, to me at least, a deeper understanding of how communities come together and survive under oppressive circumstances. 

P.S. Re. systemic oppression: Just because you haven't, personally, experienced a particular systemic oppression doesn't mean, as progressives, we can't still oppose it. So just because I can walk up the stairs into a building doesn't mean I shouldn't also advocate for ramps to be installed so that all others can have access. One small example.

P.P.S. There is a huge difference between "religion" and "spirituality". 

That's a fabulous post, Maysie.  I agree with it completely.  I have a lot of contempt for organized religion, having had some pretty bad experiences with it.  But on the other hand, I've also had some pretty good experiences with it as well (not enough to overcome the bad, unfortunately) and got my first taste of progressive activism within the walls of my church.  I'm betting a number of other people have had similar experiences within the walls of their religious institutions.

I want to be very clear about this. My opposition is not to the "extremes", as you put it. It's to religion, period, as a vehicle for division among people and distortion of reality.

In fact, focusing on the "extremes" is the unfortunate ploy of the "anti-fundamentalists" who invariably see extremism in those strange off-white folk far away, but never in their own heads. That's how they reconcile sending nice non-extremist soldiers to murder the "extremists". That's how Islamophobia works, and indeed, most xenophobia. The "other" always looks so non-human.

It is these same people of "moderation", whether themselves religious or atheistic, who wail and moan about the mistreatment of Afghans by Afghans, or Iraqis by Iraqis, and whose moderate God (or sense of civic duty) induces them to commit aggression and slaughter. It is they who say, "but what will happen if we pull our troops out?", as if the evil God of the Lesser People will then be restored to His throne and our nice God will gaze from afar, helpless to do good.

No, my opposition is not to "extremist" or "fundamentalist" religion. That's just an alias for "the religion of the other".  Those are politically correct code words for "primitive" or "barbaric" or "savage", which sound so very condescending these days.

As for African Americans taking solace and finding solidarity in Christianity, I fully support everyone's freedom of conscience. Those who feel they can find salvation in God (even if it's the God of their colonizers) are fully entitled to believe that and to practise their beliefs. The day still comes, however, for all of us, that we have to walk out of our own church, join hands with all the believers and non-believers, and change the world together. 

What an excellent post unionist. Especially this part:

"The day still comes, however, for all of us, that we have to walk out of our own church, join hands with all the believers and non-believers, and change the world together."

In the here and now, it's not been because of Christianity that Iraqi and Afghans and those in the former Yugoslavia suffered medieval sieges in modern times followed by death from above. 

It's not the Church threatening Iranians and Russians alike with Trojan horse defensive-offensive missile installations in Ukraine and Czech republic.

They were and continue to be Roman gods of war and prosperity. And they are false gods. Alan Greenspan himself admitted that Iraq was about oil. New Gingrich among others say hawks are waging a phony global war on terror. Beware of false gods. They're everywhere.

Yes, it was a good post, thanks Unionist.  There was a valid point made earlier as well, regarding individuals who work within the construct of their faiths, seeking to change the oppressive nature of the respective dogma.  Regardless of what atheists, (myself included) may view as a fundamental error in maintaining a belief in supreme beings, those that work towards ridding themselves of the oppressive elements of their faith should be viewed as exercising a fundamental right to believe in whatever they want, a right to their own thoughts, so long as it doesn't intrude upon others.  I find it problematic to discount their efforts to build some sort of neo-religious model that minds it's own business.  Equally though, by writing off the justified views of those who have been oppressed by religion, by silencing their right to express hatred of religion based on their own experiences, we demonstrate a willingness through the convenience of our own arguments to ignore the effects that oppression has had on others.  We become fragmented by the distrust that we create, instead of finding solidarity wherever it exists.

Okay, that didn't work...let's try this again.

Unionist: Regarding Tibet--you know as well as I do that Tibetan Buddhism is intimately interwoven with Tibetan politics and Tibetan culture.  China is attacking Tibetan Buddhism because it knows that to do so will radically weaken Tibetan national identity, and thereby weaken Tibet's resistance to China's domination.  Towards this end, China has destroyed over 6,000 monastaries, leaving many nuns and monks homeless and creating a major disruption in Tibet's educational system, imprisoned and tortured and imprisoned many monks and nuns, created reams of propaganda demonizing Tibetan Buddhism, and otherwise attempting to disempower Tibetans by attacking the institutions and leaders of their faith.  So, yes, in a very real sense these monks and nuns are being persecuted specifically because of their faith.

As for my supposed "loathing" of atheism, look, I'm not describing atheism as a "an inoperable brain lesion which encourages people to hate each other and prevents them from understanding the world." As you'll recall, earlier on in this thread I posted a link to one of my articles that offers significant praise for atheism (once again, http://www.republic-news.org/archive/187-repub/187_nenonen.html [49])  The rhetoric of loathing in this thread is coming solely from some (though not all) of the atheists participating on it.

Finally, when we're talking about fundamentalism, we're really talking about right-wing authoritarianism's religious expression (once again, thank you, Robert Altemeyer: http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/ [99] ). 

When authoritarians become religious, they tend to become fundamentalists. Similarly, when they become political, they tend to gravitate to authoritarian political ideologies and leaders.   It's perfectly legitimate to distinguish between the religious expression of right-wing authoritarianism and religion itself, and to condemn the former while acknowledging the virtues of the latter.

Frustrated Mess: The similarities between religion and political ideologies (including those promoting social justice) are startling, and, of course, conveniently overlooked by many modern atheists.  Here's an article I wrote on the subject, one that draws heavily on John Gray's work:  http://www.republic-news.org/archive/183-repub/183_nenonen.html [100]

Duplicate post deleted

Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth

Now there's a case where phony religionists and the CIA wanting throwing the hell out of the country

Michael, you misunderstood, but it's partially my fault for unclarity. I never said, nor intended to say, that you loathed atheism, or even atheists in general. I said:

I meant, "please try to confine your loathing for what you call 'atheists'", meaning, your loathing for the Chinese authorities and their repressive behaviour - nothing more than that. Sorry for the confusion.

You know, if religion weren't a watchword in mutual slaughter to this very day among people that should be friends and allies; if religious authorities of all flavours were frequently the first, instead of usually the last, to recognize the need for gender equality and opposing homophobia and treating all nations and races and faiths with tolerance and genuine equality; if religion wasn't constantly raised, even in 2009, in opposition to human learning about the world and self-knowledge; if the Pope and his minions, and the pro-Israeli settler Rabbis, and the most medieval of the mullahs, were all to climb into a spacecraft and go try to sell their ugly wares to some other civilization; and if the not-at-all-"fundamentalist" priests hadn't  blessed the fascist collaborators that helped the Waffen S.S. murder my family; then I too would try to appreciate the virtues of religion.

On balance, however, the damage so far outweighs the benefit (in my experience and my humble opinion) that I think I'll carry on for a little while longer with my unmitigated hostility.

Do let me know when that spacecraft leaves, though...

This thread reminds me of a new movie that is about to be launched:

 "He's just not that into you"

Kinda reminds me of the way I feel about organized religion.

I take it that this is your explanation as to why Communist China feels it has very little choice but to exterminate the ones involved with these practices?  Benevolent intervention on behalf of religiously oppressed peasants certainly has a nicer ring to it than political repression and colonial expansionism.

Would the Nazis have had to put the brakes on planning the Holocaust and mass exterminations in Russia and Ukraine without the blessings of a few fascist priests?

Did US hawks seek assurances from the Pope before planning operation cyclone and Talibanization of Pakistan and Afghanistan - sieges of several nations and murder of over 1.5 million people in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq? Cart-horse?

 Thanks for that link fidel, I had referred to those truths in Buddhist history before to MN, but was poohed poohed, as being biased against religion, and had no external on line links to support my contentions. And I could not be bothered to look for them, so I really appreciate the link and the reality check information that it provides.

___________________________________________________________

"watching the tide roll away"

We'll never know, would we Fidel, what might have happened if the spiritual leaders of the community had said, "Please don't murder your neighbours; there's a commandment somewhere about that."

I'm happy, though, to learn that there were only a few fascist priests. The rest must have been busy risking their lives to provide sanctuary to Roma and queers and Jews and socialists, while running guns for the Resistance. You can always count on the priests to be on the front lines of the fight for freedom.

Political and religious Dissidents 

It's really sad that it's basically impossible to have a conversation about religion without it devolving like this.  Anyone who supports even the slightest element of any religion becomes a "defender of religion" (as though the beliefs and actions of the several billion religious people on Earth can all be lumped together).  And anyone who criticises any element of religion is intolerant and xenophobic (as though there aren't serious problems with many practitioners of religion).

It seems quite clear to me that many people on both sides are intolerant and dogmatic, and it's one of those discussions that seems impossible to have in any meaningful way when more than a few people are involved.

Fidel:

"In the early years of the Third Reich, political prisoners were a significant portion of the concentration camp inmates. At the end of July 1933, about 27,000 political prisoners were being held in concentration camps in "protective custody."

---------------------------------------------------------

For a good look at the emergin situation in 1933 through to 1945 have a peek at Victor Klemperer's two volume diaries: I Shall Bear Witness and To the Bitter End."

My library has them. you can use inter-library.

This fellow was actually saved by the bombing of Dresden in the winter of 1945.

And I find the "intolerance", Bish, only arises in the company of people who have not read such works - about any religion, even their own.

My inlaws are against such inquiry because it is more comfortable to go on faith. And some of them are gentle, kindly people. But they elected Bush.

Hopefully, folks intimate with the IT world can read Klemperer et al outside of the "dead tree" media. It's really the unread who are dead (sorry, can't pass up a chance for a little alliterative license).

It's a good thing he didnt live through catastroika. He'd have been  disappointed with capitalism.

He never wanted it, Fidel. Google up his bio. You're not alone in your pre-occupation, you know. Just more obdurate than most.

I agree with The Bish, I also agree with Maysie's excellent post.

I am reluctant to participate in these posts due to the responses of those who I believe are athiest fundamentalists and seem to believe not only that they alone have access to the truth but are willing to attack anyone who does not entirely share their opinions of what a good athiest should believe. I deeply resent it being implied that I am "defending religion" and in doing so defending the oppressive practices engaged by religious institutions and persons. I also resent it being implied that my postings themselves are an act of gender oppression.

Like many others who are posting here I don't really have a lot of time for organized religions. I also suppose that I am an athiest ( although I would prefer agnostic); I don't believe in a supreme being although this could also be said for some who consider themselves religious. Not only do I not believe in god but I also don't make a faith out of reason or science, belief in any true faith or dogma can lead to oppression. I also don't feel the need to have an attachment to the label athiest so that I can be derisive of other people nor do I necessarily wish to be associated with all those who are athiest, many who have also been guitly of perpetrating brutality and oppression. AYN RAND EWWW!!!

I do not think it is necessary or accurate though to  speak of "religion" as a monolithic thing, focusing only on fundamentalist beliefs and all the countless atrocities that have been carried out under the banner of various religions. Perhaps I am using the term fundamentalist too broadly because I might actually include probably the majority of believers.

There are those though who consider themselves religious who have dedicated themselves to social justice and anti oppression. I do think it is a great disservice to the progressive strains within various religions to have their beliefs lumped in with those who are oppressive. The liberation theologist fought on the side of oppressed and were tortured and murdered. There actually were some priests that opposed the Nazis and were also imprisoned and killed because of it.  I also have a friend who has frequently gone to Rev. Jerimiah Wright's Trinity United Church and was blown away by the uncompromising anti oppressive stance and sense of inclusivity of this community. I don't think it is appropriate to lecture this community on their connection with their faith and its practice. This does not mean that the monolithic beast "religion" needs to be praised and all the atrocites committed forgiven. I might hope (perhaps unrealisticly) that people might consider that there are some religous people and beliefs that are not accurately represented by this constructed beast. It is also worthwhile noting that progressive traditions within religious faiths have historically been viciously attacked by the orthodoxy I really wish to have no part in perpetuating that.

Unionist I don't think it is particularily genuine to suggest that people are going to "walk out of church and join hands" with you after you have been calling them deluded idiots and perpetrators of atrocity.

I also have a problem with people that conflate organized religion with spirituality.

Isn't it though.  There is some merit to be found in NM's view, that cult like behaviour can turn worthwhile alliances of thoughtful individuals into an equally extreme polar opposite from that which caused their formation in the first place.

Good post.

Kinda reminds me of our discussions in the Mid-East threads. 

Okay people, the thread's getting a bit long. Please continue a part two if you like.