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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: greenspirit who wrote (152186)	6/11/2001 11:59:22 AM
From: Bill Jackson	Respond to of 769670

Mike, Hard to say. Some were religious and some were political. In any event even one for political or religious reasons is one too many. Bill

To: greenspirit who wrote (152186)	6/11/2001 10:08:51 PM
From: D. Long	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

I disagree with Bill but understand where he is coming from. I certainly would never assert that most professed Christians would be so zealous as to attempt to force religion on their fellow citizens, by force or otherwise. However, one must admit that religion has been a very convenient justification in the past, and even in the present. The problem with religious belief is that it is exclusionary for the most part. One's religion is revealed truth, and all others are "mistaken" at best. When one is certain that one's beliefs are not only absolutely true, but that it is the truth as specially revealed by the Absolute, it breeds dangerous rigidity and intolerance. Such rigidity and intolerance has, in the past, made it monstrously easy for whole populations to dehumanize others who do not share their beliefs, and so makes it easier to stomach wholesale slaughter in the name of God. Any system of values may be twisted, whether that be Islamic fundamentalism or the Nazi movement's twisting of Darwinism into a monstrous international Eugenics program. But the belief in a monopoly on truth makes religion quite prone to abuse, you must admit. Derek