Quote:
Originally posted by Agamemnon@Sep 26 2005, 05:57 PM
Agree whole-heartedly w/ Cheese.
How about this example. McVeigh, while being a Christian (we assume), bombed the Oklahoma Government building for political reasons. He believes the world should be a certain way, and went about achieving it. Did his spirituality provide him with the 'faith' he needed to do the job? We'll never know.
We call him 'terrorist'.
Where I think Cheese has a fantastic point is, if you take the same type of guy, but paint him brown and put him in Iraq, his dissent immediately takes on a religious character (because that's what our media tells us). He may be just as religious (or not) as McVeigh, but he bombs the crap out of Baghdad because of his political beliefs.
It seems that the former is accepted without question. The latter seems to constantly confuse political beliefs and reasons w/ religious beliefs and reasons.
We tend to automatically assume that every fighter in the Middle East is Muslim before Middle-Eastern.
You can certainly avoid seeing the point though, if you like. It seems crystal clear to me.
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That is a very good point... however, when you look at many middle eastern countries... politics and religion are very much hand in hand... look at sharia law for the biggest proof of that.
Many of these Arabic fighters use religion as a weapon to galvanize support and keep hold of their people, much like Christians did during the Crusades. That gives it a bit of a distinction from Christians today since our society is firmly secular (at least in theory) and the use of religion as a weapon is much less feasible.