Quote:
Originally Posted by waiting4something
Religion in the USA does not scare me.
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No? Fair enough. How about we use a word like "concern" instead of fear. For instance, are you not concerned about those wackos that picket the funerals of KIA'd American soldiers, waving plackards and screaming that America is being punished by God for its sinful ways and that all gays should die? Those people refer to themselves as Christians. In fact as far as I can tell they regard themselves as "good" and "righteous" Christians. Christianity, a faith supposedly based on love and compassion as taught by Christ himself, and here are these "good and righteous" Christians spewing forth hatred of the nastiest variety. Not to say that Australia is without similar nutjobs. Luckily here they relatively rare and have the good sense to keep much more to themselves.
A chunk of that essay in the opening post relates to genocide, focussing on the Nazis and Islam. Well there have been incidents of genocide, attempted genocide and ethnic cleansing in modern times which were perpetrated by people other than Muslims. As a matter of fact some of the genocide committed during the 1990s in the Balkans was committed BY Christians AGAINST Muslims. Anyone remember that? Many of those involved in the Rwanda and Burundi massacres were Christians too. Not to say Christianity is inherently evil, far from it. Christianity CAN be a great force for good in the world. Moving on.
In India from time to time there are some really vicious outbreaks of religious violence and some of the worst have been perpetrated by extremist Hindu groups, against Muslims. And finally, spare a thought for all those moderate, modern thinking Muslims in the world who look upon the violent actions of extremist Muslims with abject horror and disgust.
I dunno, perhaps as a species we just need to kill, and religion is just a handy excuse when other excuses aren't readily at hand.
Edit: Perhaps I should emphasise that this is not me intending to bash America or Christianity. The point I've tried to make is that demonising any one particular faith in the way that article did is fraught with the danger of sliding into hypocrisy. It seems to me that given the right circumstances just about any group of people can engage in abhorrent behaviour towards their fellow men.