Zarqawi Killed

[VinnieK]

People usually only vote for revolutionists because they're peed off an don't have a job. If you think religeon has the answer why not sign up for my 'omnipitant squirrel' party? or better still ake a good long look at the system.

 

Well, apart from the startling news that the situation in north korea is 'minutae', revolution, by definition, rarely relies on the nicities of elections. Aside from that, getting rid of religion would do little, if anything, with regards to securing a peaceful world (if such a thing is even possible). Even those most religious of wars, the Crusades, had at their root economic and political motives that had little to do with the religious theme.

 

The enduring, and largely unquestioned notion that the world can be rid of strife and conflict through an absence of religion, is, perhaps slightly ironically, the same kind of utopian idea that finds itself at the heart of the same religions and quasi-religious ideologies that have featured so prominantly in wars throughout the ages. It's not a question of power being in the hands of the few; power has always been concentrated in the hands of the few, and it always shall be. The greatest danger (ignoring petty thugs and gangster administrations) comes when power is concentrated in the hands of those who both believe in utopia and their own capacity to lead humanity towards it - when what's at stake is a veritable paradise, it's hard for the ends not to justify the means in such minds. The past century has been characterised by savage cruelty and devastating war in the name of two such utopias, neither religious (one being racial, the other class/economic and veheremently atheist).

 

To put it simply, the human tendency to veer towards religious like thinking and notions, that is to say that element of humanity that enables religion to flourish in the first place is what is so dangerous. To simply identify religion itself as the problem is to notice only the symptoms.

[Albert Tatlock]

People usually only vote for revolutionists because they're peed off an don't have a job. If you think religeon has the answer why not sign up for my 'omnipitant squirrel' party? or better still ake a good long look at the system.

 

Well, apart from the startling news that the situation in north korea is 'minutae', revolution, by definition, rarely relies on the nicities of elections. Aside from that, getting rid of religion would do little, if anything, with regards to securing a peaceful world (if such a thing is even possible). Even those most religious of wars, the Crusades, had at their root economic and political motives that had little to do with the religious theme.

 

The enduring, and largely unquestioned notion that the world can be rid of strife and conflict through an absence of religion, is, perhaps slightly ironically, the same kind of utopian idea that finds itself at the heart of the same religions and quasi-religious ideologies that have featured so prominantly in wars throughout the ages. It's not a question of power being in the hands of the few; power has always been concentrated in the hands of the few, and it always shall be. The greatest danger (ignoring petty thugs and gangster administrations) comes when power is concentrated in the hands of those who both believe in utopia and their own capacity to lead humanity towards it - when what's at stake is a veritable paradise, it's hard for the ends not to justify the means in such minds. The past century has been characterised by savage cruelty and devastating war in the name of two such utopias, neither religious (one being racial, the other class/economic and veheremently atheist).

 

To put it simply, the human tendency to veer towards religious like thinking and notions, that is to say that element of humanity that enables religion to flourish in the first place is what is so dangerous. To simply identify religion itself as the problem is to notice only the symptoms.

Remind me to introduce you to 'bullet points' Vinnie.

[simon]

An interesting subscription free article about him here at The Atlantic magazine website.

 

The Short, Violent Life of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi