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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (117303)	10/21/2003 8:23:28 AM
From: aladin	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Jacob, Your religious bigotry would have a point if Christian evangelicals were abroad blowing up innocent Muslims. Last time I checked they were abroad providing food, shelter and medicine. John

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (117303)	10/21/2003 5:01:38 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

The Crusaders: Bush: Quotes: "this crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take awhile." - 9/16/01 According to Abbas, immediately thereafter Bush said: “God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them.” haaretz.com “With the might of God on our side we will triumph over Iraq. God will watch over our troops and grant us a victory over the threat of Saddam’s army. God will bless us and keep us safe in the coming battle.” (before Regime Change) “God has granted us a great victory in Iraq. We can thank God the war came to a quick conclusion without greater loss of life to our troops. God has helped us to defeat the evil might of Saddam and liberate Iraq. With the help of God Iraq is now free.” (after) _________________________________________ "What I hear is a holy trinity of militarism, masculinism, and messianic zeal," says Lee Quinby, professor of American Studies at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York. "It does follow the logic of apocalyptic thought, which has a religious base but is now secularized in the militaristic mode. Apocalyptic thought always has an element of instilling helplessness and promising victory in the face of that powerlessness. In this instance, Bush plays up the vulnerability we feel because of terrorism or Saddam Hussein and then accentuates the military as the assurance that our helplessness will be transformed." progressive.org It is their (moderate Muslim's) support for Washington's war that could be undermined by the sort of language on the president's lips, warns Hussein Amin, a former Egyptian ambassador who now lectures on international affairs. "The whole tone is that of one civilization against another," he finds. "It is a superior way of speaking, and I fear the consequences - the world being divided into two between those who think themselves superior" and the rest. 216.239.57.104 Is Bush getting apocalyptic advice? Message 19259035;

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (117303)	10/23/2003 11:34:57 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Respond to of 281500

The Crusading Clerics: Reverend Pat Robertson: "Maybe we need a very small nuke thrown off on Foggy Bottom to shake things up" "This man (the Prophet Muhammad) was an absolute wild-eyed fanatic. He was a robber and a brigand. And to say that these terrorists distort Islam, they're carrying out Islam. I mean, this man was a killer. And to think that this is a peaceful religion is fraudulent." "The Antichrist is probably a Jew alive in Israel today." "The Almighty does not hear the prayer of a Jew." "How can there be peace when drunkards, drug dealers, communists, atheists, New Age worshipers of Satan, secular humanists, oppressive dictators, greedy moneychangers, revolutionary assassins, adulterers, and homosexuals are on top?" Says feminism is a "socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians." Agrees that 9/11 was punishment by God because America tolerates "the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians". Jerry Falwell: "I think Mohammad was a terrorist". "...he was a violent man, a man of war". "...Jesus set the example for love, as did Moses, and I think Mohammad set an opposite example". Reverend Franklin Graham: (son of the Reverend Billy Graham and heir to his giant televangelist empire) called Islam, "a very evil and wicked religion". Jerry Vines, past President of the Southern Baptist Convention, called the Prophet Mohammad a "demon-possessed pedophile". ______________________________________________________ The ethical dilemma facing all religions today, but perhaps especially religions of revelation, is laid bare here: How to affirm one's own faith without denigrating the faith of others? The problem can seem unsolvable if religion is understood as inherently dialectic - reality defined as oppositions between earth and heaven, the natural and the supernatural, knowledge and revelation, atheism and theism, secularism and faith, evil and good. If the religious imagination is necessarily structured on such polarities, then religion is inevitably a source of conflict, contempt, violence. My faith is true, yours is idolatry. My God is bigger than your god. My God is a warrior, and so am I. commondreams.org