Monday 7 May 2007

The blessings of religion!

Another choice example - read all about it here.

10 comments:

Jose said...

Barbarians on the loose.

anticant said...

Yes - and there are rapidly increasing hordes of them, all over the world. This type of behaviour is infectious, I fear.

Ms Melancholy said...

This is horrifying. What possesses us to indulge in such barbaric practices, do you think? I can't find an explanation myself.

anticant said...

It isn't 'us' who do such things - it's unfortunates who have been bred to believe that 'Jehovah', 'God', or 'Allah' is a bloodthirsty tribal monster who wants them to kill everyone who doesn't share their particular brand of 'faith'. In TA terms, all religion teaches its followers "We're OK - everyone else is Not OK". See my earlier posts, such as "A Force for Good?"

This is true even of comparatively civilised forms of Christianity, though C of E members don't take it to such lengths nowadays. Both Protestants and Catholics used to, though, for hundreds of years when they were powerful enough to get away with it.

What can be done about it? Heaven knows....Abolish 'Faith schools', for a start.

pela68 said...

I´m not shure you can blame religion for brbarism like this- directly that is. Instead this kind of behaviour probably is rooted in the arabic clan mentalism (the Kurds are very much culture arabs). Stoning of women for adultery and honor are a coustom that has been going around in ME for a long time before MO even was a glint in his Fathers eye.

The main problem (I believe) is that islam (and it´s offsprings), gives leagal as well as culturic and religious and moral right for these people acting as savages (no golden rule= evrything can be excused in the name of the religion). Islam- and it´s likes- are not the cause, they are just the means, the tools and the excuse of savagery.

I´m not in anyway trying to excuse this barbaric behaviour, just trying to say that there is a deeper dimension to this peoples behaviours than just religion. Vile as it is...

Well the subject is too coplex to even begin to unravel in a comment box. Maby I- or someone who is a better writer in English than I am- should do an in depft essay of the whole nastyness of cultures gone hay wild.

"If every culture are equal. Then cannibalism is just a matter of taste"

anticant said...

Pela, it's clear from what you say that even if these horrid notions of 'honour' didn't originate through religion, it is religion which now perpetuates and entrenches them. Until these people move forward to a more humane and less bloodthirsty moral code, things there won't improve - and quite clearly, their religions aren't going to encourage them to abandon the old tribal ways.

You are, of course, right about the mindless relativism of postmodernism. Until we Westerners have the guts to stand up and say "We know we aren't perfect, but in some respects our traditions and insights ARE better than others", we will remain sitting ducks for all the pernicious nonsense which tells us that we should 'respect' barbarism as mere cultural difference. Pah!

Should the British rulers of India have 'respected' suttee [wife-burning]? I suppose the cultural relativists would say "yes - it was wrong to suppress it". And should we now 'respect' female genital mutilation because it is the cultural habit of some people? I don't think so.

Richard W. Symonds said...

I get more worried about those who can drop cluster bombs from 30,000 feet, without 'batting an eyelid'

anticant said...

Richard, I can't do with all this over-scrupulous weighing and comparing of relative nastiness, which allows a blind - or at least a complacent - eye to the 'lesser evil'.

I think the whole lot stink to high heaven, with no 'more' or 'less' about it.

anticant said...

One could argue, though, that vile unpremeditated murders in hot rage and cold blood of individuals or groups, such as those described in the article, are more shocking and MORALLY worse than the actions of military personnel armed with lethal weapons which they use under orders against those who they have been trained to believe, rightly or wrongly, are their country's enemies.

Bodwyn Wook said...

IT Is the problem of Evil that faces his down at every turning; and, which corrupts /every/ tool of our race's creative genius & love, all of them /intended/ for the uplift and deliverance of our kind from the toils of biological anger, fear, greed & lust, and laziness. As the aeons pass, we leap from ice-floe to ice-floe, each one foundering beneath the weight of all our anguished /need/: religion, science, reason, even the incantaion of 'love' itself, all fail.... And, yet, the life of embodied being with all of its horrific deceits and blissful cruelty goes on...and on.