Greetings on Thanksgiving Day!  I think we in the West can be thankful for being able to express our opinions freely, without being arrested for them. All opinions are welcome on this blog.  Personally I am thankful that the rationalists among us are at last fighting back against superstition and ignorance of science.
The rise in the number of those who are turned off religion and have to some degree or other become nontheist has much to do with the fact that religion is being forced on the unwilling by militant so-called Christians and Moslems. In the US and overseas, fundamentalist groups have halted certain science research, stopped abortions for raped women, reversed gay rights and pushed creationism (of all the really dumb things – an example of how awful the education system must be!).
September 11th saw religious fanatics killing 3000 people, and since that time there have been attacks by the God-fearing believers in Britain, Spain and around the world. Parts of Pakistan are no-go areas, where crazed extremists rule. Afghanistan, owing partly to our own incompetence, could well be lost to the same bunch of religious fanatics. And let’s not leave out India, where extreme, violent Hindus have far too much influence.
What can we make of this? We can absolve the religious by saying, well those people are not real Moslems or Christians. If you call yourself a Moslem or a Christian you have am duty to fight against medievalism in every country, and call these lunatics to account. Are moderate Moslems and Christians , the vast majority, doing this?
Rational beliefs, such as Epicureanism, are growing . Just don’t be afraid to express them!
Publicly prominent religious people, in the US anyway, are actually insisting on an extra war with Iran on top of the current mayhem, dislocation and death in Iraq and Afghanistan.; The preference of Americans of a violent, gun-toting persuasion to solve these problems by attacking them from the air with bombers and bunker-busters is making things steadily worse. We are in Afghanistan in order to be able to build an untroubled oil pipeline from Turkmenistan to the sea. What we are actually achieving is a resurgence of the Taliban and religious militancy and more terrorism. Sorry, but things are not sunny and they are not getting better! The problem is always the ideologues, and we have enough of them on our own doorsteps.
Let this be a lesson to Epicureans – – forget the literal words of Epicurus and use your common sense!
Don’t beleive everything you hear. Afghanistan is a battle, but it’s going our way. Al-Queda is on the run, having lost it’s bases in Pakistan. Not for nuthin’ Musharef made his move now! 🙂
I agree about Iran, not our problem, as long as they keep their nose out of our business. And if they don’t we got options. Let Israel deal with them otherwise.