[whataretheysaying] Mary Madigan: Bad faith politics

[Email subscription to blog articles]

Posted by Mary Madigan:
Bad faith politics
http://whataretheysaying.powerblogs.com/posts/1197135969.shtml


   In a discussion about [1]Ali Eteraz's post on the Canadian Islamic
   Congress' lawsuit against Mark Steyn:

     Mark Steyn epublished an excerpt of his book, American Alone, in
     Macleans Magazine Canada, the called it "flagrantly Islamophobic"
     and asked for "equal space" for rebuttal. When denied it, they took
     the magazine before the Human Rights Commission.

     I write about all this at Guardian. The article is entitled,
     [2]Their Own Worst Enemy: "When Muslim groups try to silence the
     press, they live up to the most negative prejudices about Islam."

   Reader [3]Arnold Harris commented:

     the more I read about this fantastic crap, the more I'm convinced
     that religion is the original poisoner of all humankind.

     Your religion. Their religion. My religion. Anybody's religion.

     Fantastic. Unreasoning. Unreasonable. Murderous. Hate-inducing. You
     name it.

     I pity the world and its inhabitants in the coming of the next Age
     of Belief.

     The unfettered human mind has known greatness.

     Now it is being systematically poisoned once again.

   I don't totally agree with Arnold. Blaming religion for current
   extremist beliefs is like blaming nationalism for the rise of fascism.
   These beliefs enable the violence and extremism, but they're not the
   cause of them.

   But religion combined with politics does 'fetter' the mind. A brutal,
   authoritarian secular regime is still capable of advancing, of
   developing new technologies that benefit everyone. A theocracy is not.
   They do the opposite.

   History proves that theocracies enforce ignorance and destroy
   accumulated knowledge. They use this [4]enforced ignorance to keep
   power, and it works fairly well for them. History also proves that
   imperialistic theocracies are much more tenacious than secular
   autocracies.

   I don't agree with everything Steyn writes, but we really do need to
   listen to all warnings. When people get lost in the mire of
   faith-based politics it's hard to get unstuck.

References

   1. http://deanesmay.com/posts/1197057550.shtml
   2. http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/ali_eteraz/2007/12/their_own_worst_enemies.html
   3. http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1197057550.shtml#134232
   4. http://whataretheysaying.powerblogs.com/posts/1181582767.shtml