On Dec 3, 2007, at 5:03 PM, Nick Arnett wrote: > In hopes of going somewhere more interesting with this topic, let me > offer > this challenge -- can you (or anybody else who can stomach the > subject) come > up with external causalities when religion and evil co-occur? If > we're > going to argue about whether or not faith is anti-scientific, how > about if > we do so in a reasonably logical manner? It only seems fitting.
If I understand the question properly, examples of the politicization of religion might fit the bill. There are are times when religious fervor has been manipulated as a tool by those in power to control various factions. There are clearly inimical examples of this too obvious to bear mentioning, but there are other cases where it's considerably more subtle, such as the successful demonization of nonheterosexuals; or the ongoing war on pornography waged by strange bedfellows indeed in the form of extreme right-wing fundamentalists and feminists (of which the latter raises better concerns about porn, IMO, than simply pointing to the "forbidden" status of onanism). And, of course, when manipulation teams up with anti-intellectualism, you have scientists being booted from their education posts for daring to suggest that the religious perspective might be, at best, questionable. To me these are all examples of shades of evil, but it would be a mistake (I think) to lay the blame wholly at the feet of religion. It's just a convenient handle to grab if you're after power and control, because so many are trained to respond unthinkingly to it. -- Warren Ockrassa Blog | http://indigestible.nightwares.com/ Books | http://books.nightwares.com/ Web | http://www.nightwares.com/ _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
