Much has changed in a post 9-11 world, yet very little has changed. We still go about our daily lives as though little has changed. Flying is a huge pain. Getting a drivers’ license is more involved. We have codes and security measures but on the whole, not much has changed for most of us. Oh yes, we have been involved in 2 wars. But, like most modern wars, they don’t really impact your every day American.
I renew my anger and rage on 9-11. I need to not be complacent. I need to feel how I felt on 9-11-2001, just for a while. It is all too easy, because I haven’t been impacted by 9-11 on any real and personal level, to just let it drift off like those horrible national events that have gone before it….blurred by the annals of time.
Film footage is a good stimulus to bring all my rage roaring back.
We cannot let new debates, wars, and politics change the real message of 9-11. We were an innocent people just going about our daily lives when evil took over for the day; when zealtory, in a flash, wiped out the lives of over 3,000 people and left their families and friends without fathers, mothers, children, aunts, uncles, grandparents, girl friends and boyfriends. We must remain vigilant. We must restoke our rage when it starts to diminish. On 9-11-2001 we were all Americans. We seem to forget about that also.
“We must restoke our rage when it starts to diminish.”
At whom is our rage directed?
My rage is at the people who drove planes into the pentagon and WTC and the field in Shanksville, VA. I don’t know who else it would be at other than those who plotted and executed such a horrible act.
I hope that wasn’t a US govt type of question. I find that theory an abomination and politics at its ugliest. I forget what you call that group of nuts.
@Moon-howler
“Truthers”. Charlie Sheen, Rosie O’Donnel, Ed Asner, etc.
Thanks, Slow. That is exactly the word I am looking for. Truthers. Idiots. I couldn’t think of it to save my life. Of course, I am up to my ears watching right now.
The History Channel has great 9-11 shows on. Very informative.
@Moon-howler No, that’s not where I’m going with this. I don’t see the point in keeping anger stoked over 19 dead people who can never hurt anyone again. Who have we been at war with all these years? Who is the enemy that Obama refuses to name?
and I ask that question broadly, Moon, not as a challenge to what you specifically are saying.
I will never forget that day, where I was, what I was doing. In my minds eye, I can go back to that moment, as if it were yesterday.
Why any idiot would think that ANY president would purposefully allow such a tragedy is blinded by partisianship.
Hidden in the Post online today, with no comments allowed, is an article about a new report from the Washington-based Bipartisan Policy Center, which consists of the former heads of the 9/11 Commission. The report identifies immigrants and domestic Muslims as a terror threat in the U.S.:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/10/AR2010091006958.html?nav=hcmodule
I was going to write a comment here about today. I turned it into a blog post at United Conservatives of America. I don’t usually advertise my blog on other blogs, but I would appreciate a review and comments about my thoughts.
Hmph…..United Conservatives of Virginia. See Moon, we are all Americans. Your post had me thinking that way…..
Cargo, it is fine to advertise your blog here. It is a different point of view from ours but…we are all Americans with freedom of the press. You are a member of the moonhowlings blog community. Even though we often disagree by 180 degrees, we don’t always. I often use you as a model about how others are to act on a blog. You disagree without being disagreeable most of the time…and most of the time is what counts.
There is a link to United Conservatives of Virginia on the blog roll. UCV
http://unitedconservatives.blogspot.com/
Emma, I am better off if I focus on those faceless someones who planned, plotted and executed the attacks on 9-11.
I have had a long journey. After 9-11 I would have thrown every muslim out of the country, throw an invisible shield over us and kept out the foreigners. The maddest I ever was at George Bush was him admonishing Americans for singling out Muslims and defending those who got put off a plane a few weeks after 9-11 and who were subsequently suing. I had to work towards not broad brushing and it hasn’t been an easy heal…it took me about a year to get over that initial reaction.
President Obama has been no more accommodating to Muslims than President Bush was. Perhaps many people have forgotten. Good for Prez. Bush. He brought me back from the abyss of really nasty thinking. (and it really pissed me off.)
@Cargo,
I seem to recall some fairly violent passages in the Christian Bible that we share with the Jews.
Your characterization of all Islam makes me uncomfortable. I think that to characterize all of Islam by a passages from their sacred works leaves us Christians awfully vulnerable. An eye for an eye hops out at me as does some descriptions of stonings. Lot sleeps with his daughters, Abraham attempts infanticide, the list goes on. Leviticus seems particularly “unChristian,’ yet it is our religious heritage.
Not sure I want to be judged by all that, even though I am sure all sorts of people claiming to be Christians justify everything including owning slaves and sleeping with their women from biblical passages.
I prefer to judge by behavior. If you come here and drive planes into buildings or set off bombs various places in the world for religious or political purpose, then I will hate your frigging guts. I won’t extend my feelings to everyone in your religion, any more than I would hate Christians because a few of them shoot doctors or protest funerals of fallen soldiers.
The Biblical passages you cite predate Christianity, Moon.
Fla. pastor’s son: Church won’t burn Quran on 9/11
RELIGION » Eleven Afghanis injured in protests of plan
By ANTONIO GONZALEZ
The Associated Press
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The son of a pastor who suspended plans to burn copies of the Quran to mark the 9/11 anniversary says Islam’s holiest text will not be torched at their Florida church today, while Muslims in Afghanistan protested the church’s plans Friday.
Luke Jones, the son of the Rev. Terry Jones, told reporters Friday that the event will not take place Saturday. But he says he can’t speak about whether there will be a future event. The pastor called off the Quran-burning event after claiming he had commitments from Muslim leaders that a mosque would not be built near ground zero in New York. When that was met with denials, the minister said the burning event was suspended.
The pastor says he will to fly to New York to meet with the imam overseeing the mosque project there.
In Afghanistan, at least 11 people were injured Friday in protests.
Police in the northern province of Badakhshan said several hundred demonstrators ran toward a NATO compound where four attackers and five police were injured in clashes. Protesters also burned an American flag at a mosque after Friday prayers. In western Farah province, police said two people were injured in another protest.
Speaking to NBC’s “Today” show, the Rev. Terry Jones said if he meets with the imam in New York, he won’t burn the Quran. It wasn’t clear if he meant the burning would be halted indefinitely or just for Saturday.
@Moon-howler
I see your point. The difference is that Christians and Jews have…..transcended those verses. And neither uses the Bible as a political and legal system. Islam acts upon those verses and uses such as a political, legal, and social system.
Personally, if they wish to act that way within their own countries, that’s their business. My problem is when they export it.
the old testament advocates numerous activities that are not acceptable by christians and jews in the modern world. these activities include stoning to death for adulterers and homosexuals, slavery, genocide, etc. ingenious methods have been employed to rationalize how the word of god is not carried out literally. for example, the talmudic rabbis explain that an eye for an eye is not really an eye for an eye, but the monetary compensation for the loss and emotional suffering for the loss of an eye. and so on. the muslims, on the other hand, were never exposed to the rational hand of athens and rome, of the renaissance, a reformation. the quran is the final seal of all knowledge, with no wiggle room for nuance. a stoning is a real stoning, and a physical eye will be gouged out. i read a few days ago that the family of a man in saudi arabia who was paralyzed in an altercation is demanding that the perpetrator have his spine paralyzed as well in order for justice to be done for the aggrieved.
Some of the comments here describing the Islamic faith are clear evidence of why we need more interfaith centers. Moderate Muslims don’t condone stonings or any other punishments that those who malign them seem to consider par for the course. They most definitely make vast “wiggle room” for interpretation of the Koran and Sharia law, as much as any liberal-minded person makes for interpretation of the Bible. They share the injunction “Love your neighbor as yourself” and are thoroughly modern people with the same capacity for tolerance, love, and good will as the most exemplary person of any faith tradition. Perhaps you could benefit from an inter-faith experience where the Islamic faith was represented and celebrated together with Jewish and Christian traditions. You might be greatly surprised by the sameness of spirit at the heart of each.
Moderate muslims, where they exist, are moderate to the extent that they don’t live their lives according to what their faith dictates. if a muslim drinks alcohol, or carries out an adulterous affair, he/she is aware that a dictate of islamic law is being violated. this is quite different than a reinterpretation of the quran or hadiths to accomodate modernity. the very nature of islam precludes, in fact, any reinterpretation, because the prophet mohammed is the final messenger of divine guidance in the affairs of man.
this is why the muslim world has contributed next to nothing to the advancement of culture, science, and civilization in the last thousand years. they can fly airplanes into buildings, but i’d be curious to know if there is a single airplane manufacturing plant in the entire muslim world spanning from morocco to indonesia. besides the peace prize, how many muslims have won nobel prizes? i can count them on the fingers of one hand.
my comments might seem rude and impolitic, but true.
as far as love, i would like to know how many times it says in the quran that allah is love, in the sense that the christian god loves his children. perhaps i could benefit from an inter-faith experience. perhaps salman rushdie and ayaan hirsi ali can be invited as well.
BoyThree reminds me of someone.
Boy George?
Yes, those verses do pre-date Christianity but we have adopted the Old Testament as part of our holy word and incorporated the OT into our body of religion as Christians. We still even fight in the public square over the 10 Commandments which are clearly OT.
Somehow as Christians, we don’t renounce our OT roots. It is very much a part of our base of beliefs.
Boythree is welcome on here and will be treated with courteousness even by those who disagree. He in no way has been disagreeable.
Muslims preserved much of civilization in ancient times. They also were the healers. Much of what we know of the ancient world has been translated from arabic. Christians have long enjoyed too much book burning.
I intensely dislike radical Islam but we need to make certain to put away that broadbrush and not tar all billion people with it. Much of what Europe knew about medicine, music, science, philosophy, etc came from the Muslim world.
One of my favorite books illustrates the impact of that civilization on western civilization.
The Physician by Noah Gordon is an excellent read and not a chick book.
@e
e, unless you have been Muslim or know Muslims well, you might want to study the belief system a little more. You might also study history. To say a group of people have “contributed next to nothing to the advancement of culture, science, and civilization in the last thousand years” because of their religious beliefs is neither accurate nor fair. How can you say millions of people have contributed nothing? Have you ever listened to Muslim music or chanting? Looked at art from Islam? Experienced a religious ceremony of peace that Muslims take part in? Your anger or resentment or whatever is blinding you, and so you have written off an entire population based on your perceptions of THEIR beliefs.
@BoyThreeOne
>>> Some of the comments here describing the Islamic faith are clear evidence of why we need more interfaith centers.
How do you plan on getting people to these
camps“centers”?ok, maybe my overarching generalizations were not entirely fair, but they’re not totally unfair, either. i am not an art critic nor a theologian, but a moslem to my understanding could never create a michelangelo’s david or a mona lisa because the graphic representation of a human is haram, forbidden. i hope someone will be able to spirit these works of art out of eurabia before they suffer the same fate as the bamiyan buddha by the hands of the practitioners of the religion of peace.
i’m not angry or resentful; i have no kids so i leave no hostages to fate. i just call it as i see it. when the next catastrophe befalls us, on a scale that makes 9/11 seem like child’s play, i will not be shocked or surprised or wringing my hands “oh why do they hate us so.”
e, I don’t think that muslims have to create statues, icons and great paintings to make contributions to the world. Just the contributions to the field of medicine, science, when Europeans had traveling barbers as healers should count for something. The great medical schools were amongst the Jews and the Muslims. What we know of the ancient world has been translated from Arabic because Christians and barbarians purged and burned.
I am watching 9-11 footage (and have been all day) as I write this. I HATE radical islam but not everyone fits that description.
I don’t know how to stop people from being Radial Islamic terrorists. I just don’t think pouring gasoline onto a situation will stop them. I don’t know what makes that kind of thinking. All of Islam is not bad. I do know that. I have known too many good Muslims.
How many people go to Spain simply to see Moor architecture and art? Quite a few. I can’t claim to know much about it but plenty of people can.
most of islamic contributions to the arts and sciences were made a long, long time ago. my claim that the muslim world has contributed nothing of great significance in the last thousand years in not entirely without merit. the only exports from their part of the world today are oil and terror. and one day the oil will run out.
if only every muslim became a buddhist or an atheist tomorrow, imagine how much more peaceful our planet would be
I have watched 9-11 footage all day long…probably too much. Those idiot bureacrats, dispatchers or whoever they were telling people to stay where they were rather than get to hell out of those buildings should have a guilty conscience the rest of their lives. Giving pat answers without really knowing is unforgivable.
In some cases people were told to go back in the building. WHAT were they thinking? At what point to people follow their instincts rather than always doing what they are told to do? Anyone who goes back into a burning building is a damn fool. Unless its your job to go in there, get to hell out and get away from whatever is burning.
It sickens me to think that people were sent back into a building. It was bad enough to start with but to hear some of thse low level idiots rudely telling people just to stay put….I am speechless…again this year.
All of this was so senseless. There is much I don’t understand about human beings. Why would anyone, regardless of how brainwashed, think God wanted them to do something like 9-11 or any other religious mission where people are harmed.
e, do you think the huge disparity in haves and have nots is somehow behind this zealotry? There is the vast wealth of the kings…pure opulence and then there is everyone else. Turkey doesn’t have this disparity in wealth, and it is a much more democratic country. Now.
Has there been a time in history when Christians behaved this badly?
Conquoring the Aztecs and Incas, the Spanish Inquisition, all 300 years of it, the Salem witch trials, the religious killings in Great Britain during the reformation are not highlights for sure. Then there are the crusades. What drives people?
I think you are going to say it was a long time ago.
the theory (a central theme in marxist doctrine of how the bourgeois is always screwing the proletariat) that disparity in wealth is responsible for this zealotry cannot be correct; other parts of the world are just as poor as the middle east sans oil, yet don’t revel in this death cult of “we value death as much as you value life.” east asia after world war two was quite poor, yet look how robust the pacific basin is today. furthermore, obl, ksm, and many of the 9/11 attackers, for example, were educated and were not lacking for money. in fact, your average jihadi in the west is of above average intelligence, above average educated and above average wealthy. yet his alienation from western values and society is so great as to propel him to carry out his violent acts against the society that nurtured him, because his religious upbringing prevents him from identifying with the host culture.
as far as turkey goes, ataturk the founder of the modern turkish state is responsible for lifting that country out of the morass after ww1 by jettisoning the islamic nature of the country in favor of a modern, secular system. unfortunately the islamists are creeping back into power today.
as far as christian atrocities: all monotheistic religions carry within them the seed of intense intolerance, because the implicit or explicit message of the monotheist doctrine is, to one degree or another, my way or the highway. fortunately, judaism and christianity were exposed to numerous factors (athens, rome, renaissance, reformation, enlightenment) that mitigated and attenuated the religious zealotry of the denizens. two devastating 30 year wars (1914-1945 being the second) hastened the process further. if alexander the great had conquered the arabian peninsula and had lived for several decades to oversee his entire dominion, perhaps a thousand years of darkness and superstition could have been avoided and our world today would be unrecognizably better
@e
e, do you know Muslims hand carve furniture, chests and other items? Did you know they handcraft brass decor and jewelry? They make baskets, pottery and household items. When the industrial world comes to an end, Islamic peoples will survive. We probably won’t.
Here is a site full of art from the Muslim world: http://www.visualdhikr.com/
Plus, there is good reason why we rarely hear about science springing from the Muslim world: “Indigenous knowledge, too, would have received a tremendous boost. Muslim countries have a valuable, although largely untapped, reservoir of expertise in medicine, agriculture and husbanding natural resources. Islamic medicine and healthcare, for example, led the world for some eight centuries–before the 18th century, when research into and teaching of Islamic medicine was prohibited by the colonising powers.”
Read more: http://www.islamonline.net/servlet/Satellite?c=Article_C&pagename=Zone-English-Living_Shariah/LSELayout&cid=1158658507953#ixzz0zKYgZB9m
@e
e, More:
“Similarly, traditional agricultural and water management systems have proved highly effective and ecologically sound. For example, traditional chain wells, known as karez in Persian and qanat in Arabic, have been shown to be superior to modern irrigation schemes. These ingenious systems consist of one or more mother wells, drained through a network of tunnels. For centuries before the arrival of tubewells, the ecologically sound and the exceptionally durable qanat supplied most of the water for irrigation to villages and towns throughout the Middle East.
There are also big philosophical questions just waiting to be asked. What happens to modern science if its basic metaphysical assumptions about nature, time, the Universe, logic and the nature of humanity are replaced with those of Islam? If nature, for example, is seen not as a resource to be exploited but as a trust to be nursed and nourished? What would then replace vivisection as the basic methodology of biology? Human values are considered not so much as external to science but as totally internal and integral part of science. How would that change science itself?”
It was also forbidden to export such knowledge in the middle ages.
if the industrial world comes to an end, how is egypt going to feed its teeming millions without grain from kansas? his royal highness from jordan and every other potentate in the region comes to the cleveland clinic for open heart surgery and the mayo clinic for cancer treatment. why do all the call centers outsource to india and not pakistan?
china was humiliated by the west (boxer rebellion) but i think the next man on the moon will be speaking mandarin. japan was humiliated with utter decimation and 2 atom bombs.
let’s all move forward into the next epoch of human advancement and not be consumed with eschatological obsessions with the return of the 12th mahdi, extermination of every jew on the planet, and completing the conquests of mohammed until the whole world bows down to mecca for prayer
e,
People here who defend the core religion of Islam do so out of respect, not any desire to elevate it above other religions. It has suddenly become totally acceptable to say whatever we want about a religion that has a billion followers.
Islam has a radical arm that we all hate. We don’t hear much about the non radical arm, do we? It is all about the bad guys.
Perhaps a religion that kept science and medicine alive during the dark ages, when my people were having teeth pulled by barbers and died off like flies, has some good elements. You mentioned the distant past. Unless the Koran was re-written, they are still dealing with the same holy words. Perhaps the people have changed, rather than the faith. Perhaps they get instant news on small TVS and news stations in the middle east and Indonesia continue to pump political rhetoric and single-minded point of view in the directiion of relatively uneducated people.
All of this should sound familiar. It is being done in the United States.
Bob Shieffer had a wonderful essay at the end of his halfhour Sunday morning show. He talked about how, during the days and weeks after 9/11, this country came together in a way that hasn’t happened since WWII. We were truly ONE.
And look at the way we are today. Big gaps between so many groups that it seems impossible to agree on anything and the atmosphere is filled with so much hatred.
It’s very, very sad.
@Moon-howler
“Islam has a radical arm that we all hate. We don’t hear much about the non radical arm, do we? It is all about the bad guys. ”
Agreed. but I do not think it is our fault that we are not hearing enough from those who would advacate against terrorism, against violence against women or Sharia – or the extermination of Israel. It is their continued silence on those very issues that scares the hell out of me. Where are the american muslem counter demonstrations? Lets see some Iranian and Hamas flags being burned by the muslem community. Where are the Imams who are willing to stand-up for the right. I do not see it — do you? and when we do see American Imas on TV – they slice and dice their responses in ways that do not instill confidence. I do not see it in the victory mosque either. Its give me give me or else (but it won’t be my faulit it will be your fault.
I read the Rosa parks analogy and thought it missed the point at several levels. Now imagine American Japanese after Pearl Harbor advocating Japanese Imperialism or even something more subtle – like the godliness of the Emporer. I know of no such examples, yet we ran scared. Here I think we have a much more grounded and common sense of the fear. I worry agbout the political correctness on this issue because it has and will continue get more innocent americans killed.
@Moon-howler
Perhaps they get instant news on small TVS and news stations in the middle east and Indonesia continue to pump political rhetoric and single-minded point of view in the directiion of relatively uneducated people.
All of this should sound familiar. It is being done in the United States.
Excuse me? What single minded point of view would that be? Between the millions of websites, the dozens of tv channels, the millions of magazines and books, multiple flavors of political opinion even within one party, much less the numerous parties out there, what single minded point of view is that? Fox? The Tea Party? Kos? CNN? Al-Jazeera?
Compared to the transmittal of the unchanging and unchanged Koran, the word of law, to a billion people. Also, why is it small TV’s? These people in the Mid East, Indonesia, etc are in huge cities with big screen TV’s and cable. Most have access to the world’s news. Now if you mean that they refuse to open THEIR minds to the world around them and listen only to their Imam’s interpretation of the world’s events, then you might be right.
As to the science…while the Islamic world did advance or preserve science between 8th-13th century, what have they done since? they have never recovered. However, much of their science came not from the Arab but the Persian Muslims, who had a deeper scientific tradition. The modern scientific tradition came, not from the East, but from the political, religious, and social traditions of the West.
Here is a good article on science, the West, the Islamic world, and China.
http://www.globalpolitician.com/23768-islamism
Its a little long, but fascinating. I will be looking for the books referenced.
One thing that the Muslim world enabled was the spread of knowledge. During their conquests, the copied Greek, Persian, and Asian texts. Because all Muslims must learn Arabic to read or understand the unchanged words of Mohammed, they had a common language. Unlike latin, arabic was not restricted only to a small section of the population. Arabic was the internet of the 8-13th century.
Very interesting site: http://www.islamicscience.org/pages/engMain.htm
Basic Goals and Strategy for Islamization of Knowledge and Higher Education in U.S.A. and World-Wide
Excerpt from C1. NORTH AMERICAN ISLAMIC SCHOOLS: ACHIEVEMENTS
AND BOTTLENECKS
Islamization is not reinventing the wheel. It is partly borrowing and assimilation of the “truths”, regardless of their pre-Quranic or contemporary non-Muslim or Muslim origins. Islam is the system of truth, din al-haqq. God Almighty is the Originator ( badi` ) and Creator ( khaliq ) of the true laws and principles of the natural sciences and technology as well as the social and humanistic sciences; men discover them by applying God-given reason ( `aql ) if it is not contaminated by man’s own un-Islamic association ( shirk ) of any kind. Therefore, Muslims have no hesitation in borrowing the “truths” of science or philosophy from the contemporary non-Muslim peoples of the West or the East. Historians of ideas and civilization can prove to some extent that the best in the modern West or East is of medieval Islamic origins. Muslims must thus apply the principles of ijtihad ( formulating an expert Islamic opinion ) to develop modern Islamic thought in every discipline.
Get it? Scientific truths are “truths” and have to be judged by a religious point of view. Remember, the “laws” of physics only work because Allah wills it to be so, at this time.
I have already confessed to wanting to throw every single Muslim out of the USA after 9-11. I don’t think that is a realistic wish though and I have overcome that initial feeling.
@taxpayer,
I don’t think Muslims feel free to demonstrate against the radicalsm even in this country. There are retributions. Sometimes it is just better to live your life the way you feel you should live it rather than demonstrating and being politically vocal.
If you aren’t in this country, I would imagine it would be a very dangerous thing to do.
@Cargo, I simply cannot condemn one religion. I can condemn behaviors of a religion but not the entire religion. For most of your examples I thought of people claiming to be Christians as counter examples. Sometimes I even thought of Jews like Bernie Madoff who stole especially from older Jewish charities and relief funds. What a self, evil person he was to violate their trust.
Sometimes I think of the KKK who uses Christianity to bellow out and justify their hateful message.
I think of Salem and their laws and town ordinances. Then I think of FLDS who brainwash their women and hold wives and children as hostages to the men to fall in line. Branch Davidians certainly weren’t shining examples of what Christians should do.
There are very few jews left in the world. Perhaps if Christians and Muslims hadn’t had so many conversions by sword, there might be many more. As for wanting Israel to cease to exist, do all Muslims feel this way? I would say no. On the other hand, there has been bad blood there for a long long time. I can’t really address it any more than I can address the English and the Irish. Too confusing and too deeply rooted.
As for scientific truths, Galileo comes to mind.
March 13, 2000
Saving one of his most audacious initiatives for the twilight of his papacy, John Paul II yesterday attempted to purify the soul of the Roman Catholic church by making a sweeping apology for 2,000 years of violence, persecution and blunders.
From the altar of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome he led Catholicism into unchartered territory by seeking forgiveness for sins committed against Jews, heretics, women, Gypsies and native peoples.
Fighting through trembles and slurrings caused by Parkinson’s disease, the Pope electrified ranks of cardinals and bishops by pleading for a future that would not repeat the mistakes. “Never again,” he said.
Centuries of hate and rivalry could not recur in the third millennium. “We forgive and we ask forgiveness. We are asking pardon for the divisions among Christians, for the use of violence that some have committed in the service of truth, and for attitudes of mistrust and hostility assumed towards followers of other religions.”
Plea for brotherhood
Defying warnings from some theologians that the unprecedented apology would undermine the church’s authority, the 79-year-old pontiff asked God to forgive the persecution of the Jews. “We are deeply saddened by the behaviour of those who in the course of history have caused these children of yours to suffer, and asking your forgiveness we wish to commit ourselves to genuine brotherhood.”
That apology is the difference between Christianity and Islam. Christianity does evolve and grow. Islam doesn’t see anything wrong in what they advocate.
Moderates cannot speak out nor gain followers because they cannot point to Koranic justification for their principles, while the violent fanatics can.
Funny you should mention Galileo….He WAS a priest. The Catholic Church was the scientific researchers in Europe for 1000 years. They were the only ones that could read…..
Oops, not a priest….misread….. but closely associated with the Church. His persecution, did not prevent him from discussing the possibility of heliocentrism, just from asserting that it was the only theory possible…. Papal politics was his downfall, not his science.
Give them time. It took hundreds of years to extract that apology. Had it not been for John Paul II being sort of a cool guy, it would have probably never come. He was advised NOT to do it.
Galileo was treated horribly. I hold all sorts of things against the politics of religion. Burning of Aztec works, stomping out native languages in America, Galileo, child abuse in Utah that continues to go on, etc. Its enough to turn a person away from organized religion.
Its a good thing, then, that organized religion was the motivation to get rid of the Aztec organized religion. That whole human sacrifice thing could totally make for a bad day……
Does that bother you that much? They were highly evolved as far as polytheistic societies go.
Bother me?
I was just pointing out that the term organized religion could talk about any religion and that not all “abuses” were actual abuses. Not all of the abuses are religiously motivated. Pedophilia in any church, unless supported by doctrine, is not church supported.
As for the Aztecs being highly evolved as far as polytheistic societies go….. as compared to whom? The Greeks, Norse, Romans, Celts, Babylonians? Ritual sacrifice does not appear to be a good evolution. The Hindu pantheon supported Thuggee and wife burning. One cannot find a more highly evolved polytheistic society than them. It was the Christian British that put an end to those practices. Such practices was one of the reasons Christianity spread throughout the pagan world on the basis of conviction alone. Not all pagans were converted by the sword.