Read This Article.

[badstar]

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20126665-7583,00.html


Whether you agree with it or not, it's food for thought. Especially this paragraph:

The truth is that it is now too dangerous for religion to be given the special status it has always had. When large numbers of people, some of them living among us, want to kill us and our innocent children (surely "innocent children" is a tautology) for no other reason than that we do not believe in their God, we can no longer afford to tiptoe around religious sensitivities. It is time to get rid of the taboo that says religious beliefs have to be quarantined from criticism. It is time to hold some religious beliefs up to ridicule.

Comments

[psyilax.livejournal.com]

:nods: Yesiree!

[skye-windsinger.livejournal.com]

Did Roxanne write this article??? ;O}

[fuego.livejournal.com]

hehehe....no. Right country though.

[saratoga80.livejournal.com]

This is exactly what is wrong, actually.

"The truth is that it is now too dangerous for religion to be given the special status it has always had."

That is the ultimate fallacy. Atheism of fear or convenience in the face of such dangers as bin laden presents is precisly what Ben Franklin railed against in the phrase "Those who give up their liebrty in order to obtain a little temproary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." (corrected quote from first post)

Religions have never been quarantined from criticism - critics have been occuring for centuries. I am not quite sure what planet she's on, but, in no particular order, Confucuius, Jesus of Nazareth, Mohammed, Martin Luther, Galileo, have all criticised the church or the dominant religion at one time or another. All risked death for said, and in the case of Jesus, He met it.

Ridiculing religion is not a solution. Degrading it is a fallacy. Understanding and discussing each other's beliefs as a means of achieving a better degree of interpsersonal enlightenment is.

[psyilax.livejournal.com]

This all depends on if one considers killing in the name of god a certain religious belief ... which apparently many people do.

[pagandenma.livejournal.com]

I disagree that making polite fun of religion is unhealthy - it's one of the things I absolutely adore about Paganism (you know, "He is a sun god, He is a fun god, Ra, Ra, Ra!" or the Pagan version of "Olde Time Religion".) Humor and the ability to recognize and deal withone's mistakes - and correct them and move on - is vital to a living spirituality.

Taking concepts of a religion that don't make sense and whittling away at them until the absurdity is revealed is vital. Paganism has been doing this with the old "handed down for centuries" myths in various traditions as of late, and it's high time that other world faiths owned up to their mistakes and started examining and correcting them. Even Christ Himself remarks that one should get the plank out of their own eye, before picking at the speck in someone else's.