View Full Version : The roots of evil
I bite my tongue when people talk about salvation or the Truth of their cause or belief.
To my mind, it seems as if the only precondition for evil is a fundamental belief in the universal Truth of a cause or religion, to the exclusion of any compassion, independent thought or capacity for critical reasoning.
I don't understand what else can lead people to believe their neighbours to be less than human because they don't share the same culture, religion or identity.
When you add a belief in a judgement in some other world then true evil is possible:
- the attacks on the World Trade Center, Madrid and, now, London
- a Texan on TV during 'shock and awe' saying "bomb them all, let god sort them out"
- countless large and small acts of hate and violence.
Morgan
Dana Gold
07-07-05, 03:03 PM
In the 60's many young people spoke of the Age of Aquarius and the dawn of an era of peace and harmony..........it seems the opposite is happening, a return to the Dark Ages. My sentiments are contained in this quote and the paragraph below it.:
At least two-thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity: idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religous or political ideas.
Aldous Huxley
English critic & novelist (1894 - 1963)
My feelings about human misery and cruelty :push: :brick: is contained in my mantra: "correct and control" with the concept of "normalcy" :omg_smile , and religious fundamentalism :devil_smi as the "Hammers"
:pizza: Dana
It's that almost hysterical fundamentalism that gets me...the segregation of the religions, etc. This to me is the problem...why can't we integrate and accept each other with all our differences whether they be religious, physical sex, sexual orientation, gender ID, political, racial, and so on. Even on the school playground this afternoon I was conscious of this issue.
In the kids' bags today was a letter regarding the Ofsted report for our school - Ofsted is the government body set up to monitor the perfomance of schools. There was one clause which said that any child of a different faith/religion should be allowed to opt out of any religious education. A couple of the mothers I know, who do belong to the Church of England chuch affiliated to the school (I am one of the Sunday School teachers) kept asking why these children were at a CofE school if their parents didn't want them taught anything to do with our faith. Now, in some ways I agree with them...and certainly the Catholic schools and Jewish schools locally, insist on all children following the religious teachings of their schools. However, I do feel that if a child is attending their local school because they live close-by and not because it is a church school, why should they be made to follow a faith that is different to their own? These 2 mothers would undoubtedly say that they should still find another school ....Anyway, it's only a small thing in the scheme of things, and on an ordinary day what I observed wouldn't have bothered me. But today it did. Why can't there be more acceptance and tolerance of difference? Why are people so afraid and threatened of difference? Isn't being different what makes us all unique and special....in the eyes of whoever/whatever our God is.
Fee
Morgan,
Fillean meal ar an meallaire
Jolinn
Three Candles that illuminate every darkness: Truth, Nature and Knowledge
Hi Jolinn,
I find the phrase "Evil returns to the evildoer" difficult.
In a twisted way, I'm sure that's exactly what the terrorist believes. It's what they use to justify their actions. Just as it's what the soldier believes. What evil is being returned on the casualties of terrorism? or the victims of collateral damage? What's missing in that belief is compassion, and a recognition of our mutual humanity.
To my mind, "Truth" is rarely universal - certainly not in terms of people's _belief_ in truth.
"Nature" is subject to "creeping normalcy", and our knowledge is incomplete.
As candles that illuminate darkness, I personally prefer to start with the UN Declaration of Human Rights and the enlightenment.
Morgan
I still want to make a T shirt that reads 'Annihilate Extremists' ... just to see who's paying attention. :roll:
Dana Gold
07-20-05, 06:09 PM
Speaking of evil....or sinister would be more accurate in this article about a "gay-coversion" center; wherein youth are forced to undergo training to change to heterosexuality
===========================================================
Dad of boy in 'ex-gay' camp speaks out
The father of "Zach" -- a gay teen who sparked outrage in America after stating on his weblog that he was sent against his will to a camp to change his sexual orientation -- has come forward to defend his actions.
In an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network, Joe Stark ended speculation about whether the 16-year old, known on his blog simply as "Zach", actually existed. The Gay.com/PlanetOut Network verified Zach's identity last month but did not disclose his last name or hometown to prevent unwarranted attention on the youth.
Stark told CBN he did nothing wrong by forcing his 16-year-old son to attend Refuge, a two-week live-in gay conversion camp run by Memphis-based Love in Action (LIA). The Bartlett, Tennessee-based dad said he wanted Zach to "see for himself the destructive lifestyle, what he has to face in the future and to give him some options that society doesn't give him today."
"Until he turns 18 and he's an adult in the state of Tennessee, I'm responsible for him," Stark told CBN, a media empire founded by the Rev Pat Robertson.
The interview drew condemnation from Alex Polotsky, of the Memphis-based Queer Action Coalition, which organised protests against LIA and served as liaison between Zach, his friends, his family and reporters.
"Joe Stark coming out to CBN is personally offensive to us," Polotsky told the Gay.com/PlanetOut Network. "We tried to protect Zach as much as possible. I thought that his parents were loving and caring, but just misguided. But by granting an exclusive interview to that network, Mr Stark has sold his son out."
Love in Action drew fire last month from gay rights groups as well as parents and psychologists, who denounced the organisation for its efforts to convert gay adolescents to heterosexuality.
The protests and allegations of mental abuse sparked an investigation by the Tennessee Department of Child Services, which last week found no evidence of abuse.
However, LIA is still not off the hook from the Tennessee Department of Health, which is attempting to determine whether Refuge is operating illegally. The department will issue cease-and-desist orders if it is found to be offering unlicenced drug and alcohol treatment onsite, said Andrea Turner, a spokesperson for the department.
"If they are teaching only from faith-based materials and they send the participants offsite for drug and alcohol treatment, then they are not required to be licensed," Turner told the Gay.com/PlanetOut Network. "But if they are counselling onsite then they are required to be licensed as a drug and alcohol treatment facility in Tennessee."
Turner said that LIA can either ask the department for assistance in obtaining a license, if one is required, or provide documentation to support their dispute for a need to be licensed.
http://uk.gay.com/headlines/8791
And......Another article about similiar "treatments" to cure "homosexuality and gender orienataion problems"
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8234503/
The NYTimes has an article as well today:
http://nytimes.com/2005/07/17/fashion/sundaystyles/17ZACH.html
I really like this opinion piece today...
In the name of God, by Polly Toynbee, The Guardian, July 22
http://www.guardian.co.uk/attackonlondon/comment/story/0,16141,1534014,00.html
A partial quote:
"In the growing fear and anger at what more may be to come, apologists or explainers for these young men can expect short shrift. This is not about poverty, deprivation or cultural dislocation of second-generation immigrants. There is plenty of that and it is passive. Iraq is the immediate trigger, but this is about religious delusion.
"All religions are prone to it, given the right circumstances. How could those who preach the absolute revealed truth of every word of a primitive book not be prone to insanity? There have been sects of killer Christians and indeed the whole of Christendom has been at times bent on wiping out heathens. Jewish zealots in their settlements crazily claim legal rights to land from the Old Testament. Some African Pentecostal churches harbour sects of torturing exorcism and child abuse. Muslims have a very long tradition of jihadist slaughter. Sikhs rose up to stop a play that exposed deformities of abuse within their temples. Buddhism too has its sinister wing. See how far-right evangelicals have kidnapped US politics and warped its secular, liberal founding traditions. Intense belief, incantations, secrecy and all-male rituals breed perversions and danger, abusing women and children and infecting young men with frenzy, no matter what the name of the faith.
"Enlightenment values are in peril not because these mad beliefs are really growing but because too many rational people seek to appease and understand unreason. Extreme superstition breeds extreme action. Those who believe they alone know the only way, truth and life will always feel justified in doing anything in its name. You would, wouldn't you, if you alone had the magic answer to everything? If religions teach that life after death is better then it is hardly surprising that some crazed followers will actually believe it.
"Moderates of these faiths may be as gentle as the carefully homogenised Thought for the Day preachers. But other equally authentic voices of religion, the likes of Ian Paisley or Omar Bakri Muhammad, represent a virulent intolerance that is airbrushed out by an official intellectual conspiracy to pretend that religion is always or mainly beneficent. History suggests otherwise. So do events on the streets of London. Meanwhile the far left, forever thrilled by the whiff of cordite, has bizarrely decided to fellow-travel with primitive Islamic extremism as the best available anti-Americanism around. (Never mind their new friends' views on women, gays and democracy.)
"It is time now to get serious about religion - all religion - and draw a firm line between the real world and the world of dreams. ... ... never was it more important to separate the state from all faiths and relegate all religion to the private - but well-regulated - sphere."
Dana Gold
07-22-05, 01:31 PM
I agree with the author of that article.....however what is really bizarre and frightening is that this person would be proclaimed, by many fundamentalist groups, to be persecuting their flock and practicing religious intolerance. A good example is the particular aversion all religious fundamentalists have toward "liberal thinking" which they view as a threat to their faith; a persecution and "ungodly" act. They have twisted things around to where they are absolutely right and everything wlse is either an abomination or outright sin. And they disguise the act of murder with the self-righteous cloak of their dieties and dogmas. These people cannot be trusted nor reasoned with; they are incorrigible socio-paths with a peculiar attraction for hate and blood lust......what's really scary is that many hold prominent positions within national governments, authoritarian public entities, and religious organizations.
Movie "Contact" quote:
Alien: You're an interesting species, an interesting mix. You're capable of such beautiful dreams and such horrible nightmares.
The nightmares have been at various times, especially these days, been outweighing the dreams...a return to medieval times.
I have, at times, wished I could have been born on a more "humane" world.
One need not wait until death to "go to hell (or heaven)"....that "world" is right here on Earth and in our immediate environments.
:confused6 :dunno:
Hi Dana
I agree with you entirely. Just as an example, I don't think there's ever been a gay man who has blown up a church, but in both the US (Atlanta) and the UK (London) there have been extremist religious (and "Christian") men who have bombed gay venues... sadly and ironically, in London, a pregnant (and heterosexual) woman died in just such a bomb blast.
Polly goes on to say that secular education and a firm commitment by the state to secular values are the only possible answers. I'm not sure that's the full story, but I'd add full equality before the law.
At the moment, and despite some evidence to the contrary in the Netherlands (the trial of Theo van Gogh's murderer), France (banning Muslim headscarves) and the UK, Europe isn't doing too badly. The strength of Christian fundamentalists in the US is something that people here worry about as much as Muslim fundamentalists in Europe.
M
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