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To: milo_morai who wrote (54559)	9/11/2001 9:53:15 PM
From: fyodor_	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 275872

Milo: Bob, again you continue to lump everyone who's religious into the same group. The Truth and obeying Laws that tell you to Love your Brother as Yourself do not lead people to ignore the value of others. I hope you can see that important difference. America was founded on Religion and [...] I agree with you completely. Religion is not the problem. Fanaticism is. The Fanatic's excuse can take many forms, one of which is religious fundamentalism. There are certainly many others, however… "Captitalism", "globalism", even "freedom" (one example of the latter would be the many US "militias" who fight for their "freedom" against the federal government) have all been invoked as the excuse du jour. Singling out individual religions is to be avoided at all cost. It makes absolutely no sense and has no basis in reality. Today it may be predominantly the religion of Islam that the Fanatic invokes, but the ongoing issues in Ireland demonstrate that Catholicism and Protestantism also regularly suffer the indignity of being used as excuses by Fanatics. A more massive case of Christianity would, of course, be the Crusades. Btw, all major religions have the same basic teachings of being kind to your neighbor, the value of life etc. etc. etc. The Koran actually condemns suicide and guarantees a one-way ticket straight to hell for those who do this. Not exactly what the Fanatics invoking Islam claim will be their fate (I recall something about heaven and 70 virgins…). Evil exists and it can be in the form of Religions and will continue to exist for some finite time. The Fanatic will hide behind any convenient facade. The actual content or construct of the facade has no bearing on the Fanatic's actions. If religion ceased to exist, the facades would simply change. The actions of the Fanatic would not be interrupted for a second. -fyo

To: milo_morai who wrote (54559)	9/12/2001 12:05:22 AM
From: eCo	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 275872

Milo:I hope you can see that important difference. America was founded on Religion and "IN GOD WE TRUST" has been the motto for centuries and that Motto is continuing to fade away and you can see how America has been decaying morally. America was founded on the principle that man has certain inalienable rights. This includes the freedom to believe as I choose with respect to religion. I doubt you would trust MY God. It's certainly not in YOUR God I trust. Yet this is my country every bit as much as it is yours. Second, I hope you're not trying to establish causation between the belief in God and morality. History abundantly shows that link is tenuous at best. The moral 'decay' as you put it, IMO is more related to the dissolution of the harmonious family unit predominantly due to increasing work-related stress (because of diminishing returns - often leading to two worker households) compounded by the misapprehension that one must acquire certain specific materialistic milestones in order to be successful - a relative and subjective state which is tragically mistaken for happiness. The divorce rate in this country now stands at 50%. Children raised under these circumstances (particularly in poverty) are often understandably rudderless. I don't doubt, tho, that a strong belief in one God or another can help stabilize some of these situations. Moreover, your assertion that morality is worse today than previous decades is most certainly a misperception based on your extremely limited life experience (as compared to our generations as a species). Do you really believe the dozen compounds and water that is the building blocks of us randomly occured? What intellegence is it to direct 2 cells to divide and divide and decide to form a hand, a eye? Just random luck? I don't think so. You're right...these things evolved by natural selection. But you don't have to take my word for it. I'd be happy to point you to any number of credible scientific references. For the layman, try Richard Dawkin's: The Blind Watchmaker - a classic. eCo