Tag Archive

DM2525 hits on some of the similarities between radical christian and radical islamic goals and thinking.  I think that a believer from either side would reflexively call this video a gross mischaracterization of their faith and the positions that they hold.

Perhaps, but from an atheistic point of view it really is same poo, different pile – just applied in the differing constituencies to varying degrees.  Are US christians pining for a formal theocracy?  It may certainly seem like it but I think they are just responding to societal pressures in a way that makes sense to them.

The social pressures (mostly due to the plundering of society by the elite) are then analyzed through the looking glass of christian religion and the set of solutions that dogmatic christian thought offers.

Given that the base of christian though is well, based on fear and magic we can deduce why so many religious solutions to societal problems are ineffective and often counter-productive.

Consider the example of given in the video of the Woman and her role.  Is the reasonable answer to the problem of women in society(?) their isolation and cloistering to the domestic sphere?  The answer of course is a resounding “No”, but consider what the religious have to work with as their moral and philosophical grounding with regards to women.

The Koran and the Bible are based on the musings of dudes in a society that treated women as inferior by nature – there is nothing in either text that allows for the progress women have made toward them being regarded as full human beings and thus neither source should be considered when it comes to women and their place in society.

Yet, this exactly the case, that is that people are using religious texts to try to understand the society that they are living in *now* and it just doesn’t work out very well.

I’m not sure if all religious dogma has an logical endpoint in theocratic rule, but the stuff that we are dealing with here (radical islam and christianity) is certainly in love with theocracy and is doing its best to bring those conditions to fruition.