An All-Too-Easy Explanation
This article was brought to my attention yesterday: What Fools These Earthlings Be. About religion, it has this to say:
At the root of the ill will between Israel, Iraq, and other neighboring lands is something called the humans call religion. While the people of this region have common ancestors, they can't agree on who tells the right story about an invisible yet all-powerful being that they think controls the cosmos. And so they kill each other.
Sadly, this secular humanist line of argumentation is all too popular today. These Brights, as atheists and agnostics now call themselves, claim that all the world's problems would be solved if we could just follow the advice of John Lennon (and V.I. Lenin) and "imagine" a world with "no religion," accept of course the religion of Universism, as secular humanism is now called.
The root of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is land, not religion. The Zionist movement was founded by an atheist after all. Palestinian suicide bombers, as vile as they are, attack discos and restaurants, that is secular Israel. They do not atack the yeshivas or the synogogues. In fact, the ultra-orthodox Jews don't even recognize the State of Israel (see this photo).
Religion is also routinely blamed for the troubles of Northern Ireland, when in fact that situation is just a continuation of the struggle waged by the Celts for 1500 years from the time the Anglo-Saxons invaded the British Isles.
To be sure, in both of these conflicts religion plays a role. But that role is a secondary one. The participants use religion as a support for their position. The primary issue, as in almost all human conflict, is land.
This article was brought to my attention yesterday: What Fools These Earthlings Be. About religion, it has this to say:
At the root of the ill will between Israel, Iraq, and other neighboring lands is something called the humans call religion. While the people of this region have common ancestors, they can't agree on who tells the right story about an invisible yet all-powerful being that they think controls the cosmos. And so they kill each other.
Sadly, this secular humanist line of argumentation is all too popular today. These Brights, as atheists and agnostics now call themselves, claim that all the world's problems would be solved if we could just follow the advice of John Lennon (and V.I. Lenin) and "imagine" a world with "no religion," accept of course the religion of Universism, as secular humanism is now called.
The root of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is land, not religion. The Zionist movement was founded by an atheist after all. Palestinian suicide bombers, as vile as they are, attack discos and restaurants, that is secular Israel. They do not atack the yeshivas or the synogogues. In fact, the ultra-orthodox Jews don't even recognize the State of Israel (see this photo).
Religion is also routinely blamed for the troubles of Northern Ireland, when in fact that situation is just a continuation of the struggle waged by the Celts for 1500 years from the time the Anglo-Saxons invaded the British Isles.
To be sure, in both of these conflicts religion plays a role. But that role is a secondary one. The participants use religion as a support for their position. The primary issue, as in almost all human conflict, is land.
Redeemed by Our Savior, I work out my salvation with fear and trembling in Pohang, South Korea, where I live with my wife, daughter, and son and teach English at a science and technology university. Baptized a Methodist and raised a Missouri Synod Lutheran in Buffalo, NY, I spent six years as a guest of the Anglican Communion before being received by the Grace of God into the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church on the Feast of Saint Andrew, my patron, anno domini 2002.
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