[Peace-discuss] Faith and fanaticism

[LAURIE SOLOMON]

>A study in displacement: liberals, their principles revealed as a Potemkin 
>village and their heroes unmasked as con-men, are reduced to the
fundamental 
>article of their faith -- how nasty religion is.

This not just true of liberals but also applies to progressives and other
leftists as well as those on the right. In point of fact, it probably
applies to everyone but you and me.  And frequently, I am not sure about
thee.  Moreover, the article of faith is not always religion; sometimes it
is class struggle and/or imperialism. None of us can empirically prove the
art5icles of faith that we assume as the bedrock of our worldviews without
engaging in a self-fulfilling prophesy in which we have to use the self-same
assumptions to define what is evidence and what is not, what comprises proof
and what does not, and when something is proven and when it is not.

>Meanwhile, in the real world, the Clinton-Bush-Obama war crimes are not a
result 
>of religion but of the long-standing (and rational if vicious) US policy of

>controlling Mideast energy.  And the resistance to the generation-long
assault 
>-- driven into religious institutions after the suppression of its secular
forms 
>-- commits crimes of its own in a struggle generally just, for reasons that
are 
>primarily political, not religious.  

References to the "Clinton-Bush-Obama war crimes" are general, vague, and
ambiguous since you are not referring exclusively to personal war crimes
committed by those persons but to those committed by and under their
administrations by all those who may be acting on behalf of the
administrations or who in performing their duties with respect to those
administrations committed personal war crimes in the name of some implied
policy but for very personal reasons, which may be religious.  Many
individual actors working in and under an administration and the auspices of
its policies could very well "kill a Commie for Christ" so to speak without
any motivation apart from a personal hatred or belief. 

Moreover, there is nothing to say that religions cannot be secular (they
just cannot be profane as opposed to sacred) and that the political cannot
become a religion in its own right. What distinguishes a political ideology
from a religious one, political policies and practices from religious
policies and practices, etc.?  You are employing a very narrow and
traditional distinction between the two; any narrower and political would be
restricted to partisan party politics as the notion has come to be used in
the US as opposed to governmental.  Political is a much broader notion than
you suggests; we often talk of bureaucratic politics, academic politics,
family politics, electoral politics, legislative politics,  political
correctness, etc.

-----Original Message-----
From: peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net
[mailto:peace-discuss-bounces at lists.chambana.net] On Behalf Of C. G.
Estabrook
Sent: Friday, December 19, 2008 9:58 AM
To: David Green
Cc: Peace Discuss
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Faith and fanaticism

A study in displacement: liberals, their principles revealed as a Potemkin 
village and their heroes unmasked as con-men, are reduced to the fundamental

article of their faith -- how nasty religion is.

Meanwhile, in the real world, the Clinton-Bush-Obama war crimes are not a
result 
of religion but of the long-standing (and rational if vicious) US policy of 
controlling Mideast energy.  And the resistance to the generation-long
assault 
-- driven into religious institutions after the suppression of its secular
forms 
-- commits crimes of its own in a struggle generally just, for reasons that
are 
primarily political, not religious.  --CGE


David Green wrote:
> "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.

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