Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 21:10:05 +0200 (CEST) From: Salvo Bartolotta <bartequi@neomedia.it> To: Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in> Cc: Salvo Bartolotta <bartequi@neomedia.it>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: fundamentalism (was Re: helping victims of terror) Message-ID: <1001617805.3bb3798d9bd0f@webmail.neomedia.it> In-Reply-To: <20010926104925.A318@lpt.ens.fr> References: <1001447850.3bb0e1aa11dfc@webmail.neomedia.it> <20010925222900.A71817@lpt.ens.fr> <1001463692.3bb11f8ccca43@webmail.neomedia.it> <20010926104925.A318@lpt.ens.fr>
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Scrive Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in>: > And, where India (perhaps Pakistan too) is concerned, *this* is the > problem. The Muslim masses look to their mullahs for inspiration and > not to their scientists, artists, writers or even the forward-looking ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ This is one of the most dangerous effect of ignorance, ignorance associated with the inability to think for oneself. It's worse than cancer. :-) Those who distort, inter alia, religion essentially wish to take away your freedom [of thought]. Those "people" would use any pretext for their purposes, and distorted religion happens to be one of the most poweful means. > politicians, while these latter don't make an effort to reach to the > masses (well, maybe some of the politicians do, but they're not very > successful). <snip> > > I believe that 1) the distortion of Islam/any religion has nothing > > to do with Islam and with religion at large; 2) these ideas can only > > be accepted by **ignorant** and [more or less large] [more or less] > > poor masses; 3) most of these religious/political leaders, for a > > variety of reasons, wish to keep these populations as ignorant [and > > poor] as they can. > > Partially right on 1: I think every religious text has things in it > which seem barbaric from our present-day point of view, and while we > can justify moderate behaviour by quoting the Koran, these people can > equally well justify their extremism from the same source. I won't > argue with them there, since their knowledge of the Koran is obviously > vastly greater than mine. Quite right on 2 and 3. Yes and no. A few days ago, a moderate Egyptian mullah stated that, in the Koran, there's no mention of "holy war". The fact is, the people good at misrepresenting religion are very good at creating packs of lies. If religions didn't exist, they would simply create other lies. Also, I was thinking of Christian religion(s). The figure of Christ as a thinker is strikingly universal. However, in the past few centuries, this hasn't prevented many people from perverting his thought and, in particular, from: 1) organizing crusades (the speeches of certain popes on the subject are very illuminating, as well as the real motives of the ahem "crusaders"); 2) burning, among others, Bruno at the stake; condemning and humiliating one of the greatest *Catholic* scientists of all times (viz Galileo); 3) making wars of "religion" -- religion being a mere pretext. <other [medieval] filth snipped> I once read (fortune cookie?) that government lies, and newspapers lie, but in a democracy they are different lies. :-) I consider myself lucky to live in the West. Nowadays, to be able, ie to have the opportunity to think for oneself is real luxury. -- Salvo To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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