[Peace-discuss] Faith and fanaticism

[LAURIE SOLOMON]

Excellent point David.

 

From: peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net
[mailto:peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of David Green
Sent: Friday, December 19, 2008 9:28 AM
To: Peace Discuss
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Faith and fanaticism

 

"A serious conversation about faith and how it works, should have become one
of the leading topics of our national conversation."

 

A serious conversation about not having serious conversations, and why they
don't work, should have become one of the leading topics of our national
conversation.


 

  _____  

From: Brussel Morton K. <mkbrussel at comcast.net>
To: peace-discuss Discuss <peace-discuss at anti-war.net>
Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2008 9:26:37 PM
Subject: [Peace-discuss] Faith and fanaticism

Maybe it's not about faith and god, but I couldn't resist posting this.  

Maybe it's just faith in our leaders which causes the trouble

--mkb 

 

 

Why We Need To Study God

by Larry Beinhart

"Religious faith will be of the same significance to the 21st Century as
political ideology was to the 20th Century."  -- Tony Blair

Mumbai. 9/11. Chechnya. Sectarian violence in Iraq. Somalia. Afghanistan.
Nigeria.

The man with the most military power in the history of the world is reported
to have said, "I'm driven with a mission from God. God would tell me,
'George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan.' And I did, and then
God would tell me, 'George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq .' And I did."

It was called a Crusade.

These are the defining events of the new century.

After a brief, semi-retirement of a few hundred years, religion has returned
as the number one cause of violence, war and death.

So the fundamental national security questions of our time have to be about
faith.

What is it about faith that makes people eager to commit suicide so long as
it enables them to commit mass murder while they're at it?

What is it about faith that makes world leaders like George Bush and Tony
Blair - with armies, bombers, missiles, artillery, and navies - ignore good
advise, abandon good sense, and lead their countries to two of the stupidest
wars in history?

And while they're at it, to radically change the moral positions that their
countries adopted just sixty years ago and commit what were then called war
crimes: initiating a war of aggression, torture, and the failure to provide
for the populations of the countries they occupied?

What is it about faith that made it suddenly re-emerge as the driving force
in American politics and in the politics of the Islamic countries?

It seems self-evident that God should have become our number one area of
study during the last few years. Governments, universities and foundations
should have all rushed forward with funds to create programs and recruit
students to find out what this God thing is.

The war in Iraq ought to have taught us here in the West, two lessons.

We are very, very good at invading countries and smashing their armies. Even
better than we thought we were.

But that doesn't stop suicide bombers. It only encourages them.

The nature of the people who attacked us, and the results of our response to
them, make it obvious that understanding fanatical faith is at least as
important as developing a reusable hypersonic cruise vehicle, more useful
than developing new tactical nuclear weapons, and if we can find a way to
reach or to undermine the faith of fanatics, it will be far more economical
than invading a series of foreign countries.

But the opposite has happened: billions for bombs! Not a penny for thought!
A smart bomb remains as dumb as a brick if the people firing it don't know
who to hit or the right reasons to hit them.

God and religion should have become important to us, we, the just plain
people. Whether or not our leaders are people of "faith," we really need
them to balance their faith with good sense, so they make better decisions.

A serious conversation about faith and how it works, should have become one
of the leading topics of our national conversation.

What we had was a public parade of politicians on television competing to
prove how much faith each of them has. It was embraced by a universal
assumption that religious faith is a good way to pick our leaders. Although
the evidence before us - George Bush, Tony Blair, Osama bin Laden - points
the other way.

God, religion, faith, spirituality - whichever face of the prism we are
looking at - runs like a vertical pillar through all the levels of our
lives.

Our international policies are fixed largely around this war on terror. Our
most volatile domestic political issues - regulating our sex lives,
abortion, birth control, homosexuality, separation of church and state - are
rooted in our religious views. Our social circles, our family structures,
our individual lives, our world views, how we live and die, our health and
happiness, are organized around our spiritual views, or lack thereof.

All this, without a serious attempt to find out what religion really is.

Larry Beinhart is the author of
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/156025663X?tag=commondreams-20/ref=nosim> Wag the
Dog,  <http://www.amazon.com/dp/1560256362?tag=commondreams-20/ref=nosim>
The Librarian, and
<http://www.amazon.com/dp/1560258861?tag=commondreams-20/ref=nosim> Fog
Facts: Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin. All available at
<http://www.nationbooks.org/> nationbooks.org

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.chambana.net/mailman/archive/peace-discuss/attachments/20081219/abe21afd/attachment.htm