Plato's Playground
so the penalty for not being muslim is death. that's more effective at keeping folks in the fold than that stupid wall the commies had. 'course the commies shot people for even approaching the wall.
what kind of dialogue do you envision with proponents of sharia, or proponents of christian theocracy? poor israel is having a tough time with fundamentalists too.
i read that progressive christians (is that an oxymoron?) are insulted when their religion is referred to as a myth.
I'm not necessarily expecting a dialogue with these folks any time soon, but I am hoping perhaps for a bit of talk about whether military action is the best approach to encouraging them to think a little differently, or whether there might be a more effective one.
Also, I'm interested in people's thoughts about how one might distinguish among religious systems. The Christian church, of course, used to have the same rule -- plenty of burnings at the stake, garottings, torture on the rack, etc., to attest to it. Why did they change? Why has Afghanistan not changed in this particular regard? Why do some Christians want to take us back to those days?
In other words, there is a lot you might say about this. And if somebody wants to defend it, please step up!
"Progressive Christians" an oxymoron. I think there are such beings.
Definitely there are progressive Christians who are not insulted by the charge of "myth." They themselves recognize the mythical aspect of religion, including Christian. It's a very big and important aspect of religion. Fundamentalists, on the other hand, do start to foam at the mouth over use of the word "myth," which they equate with lie, untruth. They can only think in strictly literal terms.
Cervantes refers to the bloodthirsty past of the Christian church and asks why they changed.
That's a very interesting question.
As to Islam, like all religions, it has various strands, liberal, fundamentalist, mainstream, fringe, modern, progressive (maybe, I hope), wide, narrow, reasonable, ridiculous.
It is said that humans are "hard-wired" for religion. It does seem to be so. I look at the United States and watch what is happening to cause fundamentalism to turn the state to theocratic approaches. It scares me. They are starting to notice. Pray God, they will pull back from the brink in time. There is a former congressman, forget his name (Dansbury?) who is also an Episcopal minister, who is writing about this danger in that country.
Thanks for coming by Pilgrim. I hope you'll think about contributing to this site and maybe we can get it going again.
If people can accept myth for what it is, than religion can play a somewhat different role than it does for the fundamentalists -- not as the source of truth about physical reality, but as a framework for thinking about what it means to be human and how to live successfully. But that's a sophisticated trick.
You put that quite well, Cervantes.
The name of that Episcopal clergyman, I read it today, is Danforth. His point is so important, that the Republican party is hijacked by the religious fundamentalists. If I were an American I would be a Democrat. But I think the Republican party has been quite respectable and reasonable in the past. Now...even some Republicans are starting to see what is happening because...
Well, John F. Kennedy said it best, "Those who thought they could ride the tiger ended up inside."
All that biblical literalism (no room for myth or poetry or parable), all that heavy emphasis on sex issues, so different to Jesus. Their idea of morality is sex, a laundry list of do's and dont's. It's pitiful, but alas, also dangerous.
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