The fruits of exclusionary monotheisms

On democracy, the distinction needs to be made between liberal and illiberal democracy. Liberal in this sense is the 18-19th century use of the word that supports limited, elected, representative government that protects individual rights and freedoms. This is an Enlightenment idea which is why Western democracies and other democracies similarly modeled are called liberal democracies. You can also have liberal autocracies. Fareed Zakaria's Future of Freedom is an excellent book on the topic.

I agree that exclusionary monotheisms are the root of a great many of the world's evils. Another is the belief that "democracy" necessarily produces good government. If the US is anything good, it is because it is a republic, although with democratic aspects. And at the root of that republic is a set of rules intended to make things like factions and aggressive monotheisms significantly less dangerous. Of course, that only works if people follow the rules, which people tend not to do if they think they can get away with it. And unfortunately, for the last 100 years or so, they have been able to get away with it.

Steven T Abell
Author of DAYS IN MIDGARD: A THOUSAND YEARS ON

I think Jason and some of the others have hit the nail on the head here. If everyone (govt, religion, people) would stop FORCING their opinions on others and simply expressed their own belief, we would live in a much-changed world. Just because I disagree with someone doesn't give me the right to persecute them.

I don't want to force a CHANGE in anybody's faith-related opinions, and I can either listen to or read of them at my own discretion.

If you THINK your way is the only way, then express that opinion when asked, and let others get on with living their own lives.

Stop shouting what you believe and start living it. If others agree or are impressed, they may follow your example. My example is to quietly live my own beliefs and to answer questions when asked, not to recruit semi-willing sheep to fill my ranks and coffers.

Coerced conversions and blasphemy laws are BOTH archaic concepts that have outlived their usefulness.

clearthinking: i guess according to your thinking, there is no good news then. Of course there is no such thing a definitive number as these rolls change hourly. However most commonly held stats place The majority of the world is Christian and Muslim nearly 4 billion combined 1.1 billion secular/atheists etc,1 billion Hindu, about 700 million Buddist, with the rest siginficantly less. Places Christianity and Islam in the 52-55% range of religions or higher if you dont count secular etc as religion which of course by definition they arent.

THE BAD NEWS: Christianity & Islam are the 2 religions always involved in religious violence on one side or both. Their supremacist beliefs bring out the worst in everyone as well. Not an impressive record of spiritual development for these religions.

THE GOOD NEWS: The majority of the world is not Christian or Muslim. Most are Hindu, Buddhists, Sikh, Jain, Confucianist, Taoist, Atheist, etc. These other "religions" do not promote religiously motivated violence.

Islam is impressive for a "religion" in terms of the violence and hatred. Just look at Pakistan today and the so-called moderates celebrating the murder of an innocent. The killer is showered with rose petals, and the victim is blamed. The victim did not even commit blasphemy, which should be a capital crime anyway. He just spoke against blasphemy laws.

Where are the usual apologists for the Islam as the religion o' peace?

Mmmm, after reading other comments regarding democracy...

It's not that all governments must be democratic (though I am a fan of democracy myself).

It's that people should at least understand what form of government they have, they should be able to compare forms of government and they should be able to discuss how different forms of government live up to various **informed** ideals, or not (a theocratic democracy cannot live up to either equality or democracy, for example).

Likewise, they should be able to discuss those informed ideals and if they or their governments support enabling various abuses between people of different religious/cultural identities, then they should either fix the problem, really fix it from the root level, or be honest about it and able to debate their position in an intelligent manner rather than with violence, injustice and cellophane rhetoric. Heh.

Any power struggle (usually belief-based identity clashes but it doesn't even have to be religious) that can take our focus off of our behaviors in favor of anything oppositional to informed functional equality (not to be mistaken with a dysfunctional path to mediocrity, reverse racism or other garbage) is a power struggle that begs multiple abuses.

It really is better to teach people how to think than to tell them their beliefs are wrong, crazy, damned, criminal, insane or less.

It really is better to cultivate an informed awareness of who we are based on what we do in relation to well examined ideals (functional equality, robust pluralism, healthy high quality interfaith communication) rather than a sense of who we are based on belief-based identity divorced from how we treat each other.

Otherwise, all that talk about equality, separation of church and state, communication between factions/denominations and interfaith communication will get lost in the belief-based identity clash fray. Again.

Education is key. We have to not only be better educated but we have to be able and willing to apply what we know to real life situations. Most cannot identify the form of government the U.S. (democratic republic), most can't sufficiently define equality, abuse, or even democracy and most certainly can't identify enough elements crucial to each of those. We've forgotten what makes these things tick and what is deleterious. Until that's corrected, a lot of good stuff can get lost in heavily politicized belief-based identity clashes and it won’t matter if it’s rationalist against rationalist, rationalist vs. religion(ist), religion against religion, denomination against denomination (something that always happens in theocracy or “culture” wars), or any version of The Forces of Good™ vs. The Forces of Evil™ dualism.

Yes. Secular does not equal democratic. There are religion-based democracies and there have been secular tyrannies.

"History suggests..." is an awful rhetorical device. History doesn't suggest anything. People create histories to suggest whatever they want.

Actually, Nunivek he didn't say 'Democracy,' he said 'secular government with a wall of separation between church and state that protects the rights of each individual,' ....I don't think that in these parts of the world, you're going to find that, especially where the religious violence is the worst.

That religiously-polarized people might not *vote* for such a government, or want one to *stand* when they'd rather have religious control is fairly immaterial when discussing causes.

"There'd be no war if I didn't 'have' to attack you" isn't much of a claim for some inherent peacefulness of elements (in government or not) who simply *aren't.*

You're right, though, just being a 'democracy' doesn't do it, when people are only having a referendum on which religious faction should exercise control.

HUH? Isn't this like the Bush plan for the Middle East?

It's like a total misunderstanding of history within the Middle East, some of these countries actually had a secular government including having the protections under the law that are described here. Yet not only did it not result in less violence or in fact a better system, it was one of the major catalysts for the modern international terrorism that we see today, as individuals responded (albeit in the worst possible way), to the corruption and foreign controlled governments in place in their country.

They saw due to outside force their governments taken over by dictators essentially proposing secularism, only now to replace them with even worse dictators who have supported religious extermism. The pendulum only swings back in forth in the worse possible ways it seems.

No, I must honestly reject your simple claim, democracy has brought nothing to the Middle East, you can't create a secular government where one is not wanted or is not understood.

Unfortunately, we must perhaps question the enterprise altogether. I am unsure of what is a proper solution but history suggests that it is not secularism...