TJ, we have religious cranks here too, including Falun Gong people who stand around the Chinese embassy on Great South Road near where I live. If they block traffic or otherwise be a problem, they'll be removed and punished. They seem reasonable enough to me. I've had a chat with them and read their [English] pamphlets.
Far more dangerous are the Maori religious cranks who are coming up with ways to maintain their sacredness as Maoris. Miscegenation is diluting the racial basis for their being special. More and more, religion is being used as a cultural weapon to keep the cash flow going. Religion is traditionally, around the world, the way to keep the serfs in line and profits of control flowing, backed up with some head-hacking, heart-eating, sacrifice-offering, burnings at the stake and other horrors.
Our nominally secular government toadies to such absurdity for political expediency, but doesn't have a bar of regular cults such as Anglicans, Protestants, Catholics, Judaism other than in the privacy of their own lives though they still enforce Easter holyday anti-shop-trading laws. Parliament stupidly starts with a prayer. An incantation to the supernatural.
I must renew my membership of the Rationalists Association. I am not sure whether I need an apostrophe alert there or not. Islamic Jihad is coming down the pike in NZ. Maori and Taniwha vs Allah and Mohammed should be fun.
Mqurice |
