Rtwt, natch.The early emancipation freed man from speaking to G-d through intermediaries. Once man had a direct relationship with his creator, not through Pope or Rabbi, he was able to think about other forms of emancipation--beyond his spiritual self. Free Will was the conceptual result and Western Religions transformed as well (or they’d have lost all their members).
The idea that G-d put the world in motion and filled it with temptations that a good man must resist is uniquely Western.
The Middle East is still mired in the cultural mindset that man must make man resist temptations, by removing them. Hence, women are still shrouded because man is not capable of resisting her temptations.
The terrorists may have adopted the war matériel of The West--they may even understand our technology and financial habits, but they do not understand that we have 600 years of deviation in the path of man’s relationship with G-d and himself.
You cannot re-shackle the mind of a culture that chose freedom 600 years ago.
Is this tradition intact? Hate speech and sexual harassment laws chip away at this aspect of freedom. We'll no doubt get to those topics some rainy day.
But as to Muslim minds being in thrall to priests see these earnest inquiries from the faithful (here, here) regarding the most minute details of existence that hour-by-hour non-Muslims answer for themselves with the application of their own common sense.
PS -- Here's an answer to the second conundrum posed: do what you want with your hands in the mosque if you would feel comfortable doing the same thing in visiting a restaurant, riding a bus, or being questioned and tortured by the religious police.
2 comments:
r u promoting christianity or wat..and to think of it it is not that muslims or christians r bad..there is nothing worse than a fucking religion...it is only that humans r bad
This part of what I quoted is probably the key:
"Once man had a direct relationship with his creator, not through Pope or Rabbi . . . ."
Freedom from people who want to interpret life for us takes away a lot of power from the priests and mullahs. I want people of all faiths to have that freedom.
You're right about the nature of humans. The U.S. Constitution attempted to limit how far zealots could go in the temporal realm by having different political power centers. The drafters were convinced of the fallen nature of man, I am sure, though that happens to be a Christian formulation of the point you are making. But you don't have to be Christian to believe that man is flawed.
I don't agree that all religion is bad. The Christianity I've been exposed to emphasizes loving your fellow man, mutual forgiveness, and so on.
Some so-called Christian sects are repellent, and that's a fact. The vast majority do a good job of reminding people of their moral duties.
Yes, I would rather live in a mostly Christian country but the most important thing is that there should be a tradition of limited government. I am only a Christian wannabe. I doubt I'll ever be a real Christian because in the end I just can't bring myself to believe some of the basics. However, it's an excellent faith that transformed the world. As the Wall Street Journal writes in its editorial page every Christmas Eve, in the Roman world before Christ came, what was one man more or less?
Christ's message really did change things. In the wonderful book How the Irish Saved Western Civilization the author tells how St. Patrick convinced the Irish that human sacrifice was no longer necessary now that Christ had died for all of us.
See my post on this: "And what will fill that void?".
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