[Assam] Defenders of the Faith -NYT Op ed --Ho Ho Ho

Fri Mar 17 15:35:58 PST 2006

Ram-da,

  When someone makes sweeping statements that atheism is the only solution -and atheism is the only peaceful alternative --to a militant Islam or Christianity -- then the response will also be a sweeping one. The most famous atheists were the communists - and they killed mercilessly. 

  Why are these people so against organized religion/God -when barely 0.1% of any religion's folowers take to violence?

  Umesh

Ram Sarangapani <assamrs at gmail.com> wrote:
    Umesh,
  >About Athiests -- they were the greatest killers the world ever saw -- 10 million citizens >murdered by Stalin's Soviet communist forces. Millions killed by Maoists in cultural >revolution in China . See the documentary " Killing Fields" (of Cambodia) to see their evil >nature. Atheists - are the cruelest - since they have no morals to fall back upon 

  I am surprised you can make such sweeping statements. Stalin's killings had nothing really to do with atheism.

  Yes, Stalin. like Engles, Lenin, Marx were atheists. Stalin took to heart the concept of Dialectic Materialism, and was a Marxist-Leninist. But the big point here is this:
  Religion was as oppressed in that era as some believe. The Soviet Govt. in fact built churches etc, and people were free to practice religion. Stalin just got rid of people for totally other reasons (Power, advancing Communism etc) - religion had nothing to do with it. That is what made him diabolical (and evil if you will) - but don't attribute that to his "atheism". 

  >Atheists - are the cruelest - since they have no morals to fall back upon

  This is way off base. If you can give us succinct definitions of "Morals and Ethics", I will respond back on this issue.

  Till then,

  --Ram da

  On 3/16/06, umesh sharma <jaipurschool at yahoo.com> wrote:       Ho Ho Ho!!!

  Now these guys are coming out with what was in their hearts when they ridiculed Prophet Muhammad's image by publishing cartoons.

  Iran's President did raise a valid point by saying that if freedom of speech was so sacred in Europe then why are people imprisoned for decades -if they deny that Holocaust of Jews (by Christain Nazis) ever took place. 

  About Athiests -- they were the greatest killers the world ever saw -- 10 million citizens murdered by Stalin's Soviet communist forces. Millions killed by Maoists in cultural revolution in China . See the documentary " Killing Fields" (of Cambodia) to see their evil nature. Atheists - are the cruelest - since they have no morals to fall back upon. 

  Umesh

  PS: Further, Mao spread his vice (STDs) by seducing wives of his officials -hundreds of them . 

Ram Sarangapani <assamrs at gmail.com> wrote:
    >Do you want my vote on it? 

  Of couse I do (and thanks). Lately (you may have noticed) I have been thrown to the wolves and have been fighting a lonely battle :))

  On 3/16/06, Dilip/Dil Deka <dilipdeka at yahoo.com > wrote:       Do you want my vote on it? I agree that organized religion has done more harm than good. 
  Dilip

Ram Sarangapani <assamrs at gmail.com > wrote: 

      You are welcome C'da. And see I am not that "lungi kheda" anti this or anti that (of religions) that some often would like to paint me as. :)

  I too think this was a brilliant piece. Organized religion has done more harm than good to the world, IMHO.

  --Ram

  On 3/16/06, Chan Mahanta <cmahanta at charter.net > wrote:   Thanks for sharing it Ram.One of the finest
pieces I have read on the subject with reference
to current events. Brilliant! 

c-da

At 12:28 PM -0600 3/16/06, Ram Sarangapani wrote:
>This is an interesting article and advances the
>importance of Atheism in the world religious
>order. I think, many of us (even though we claim 
>to belong to some religion or the other) will
>find the benefits of Atheism.
>
>______________________________
>
>Defenders of the Faith
>By SLAVOJ ZIZEK
>
>London
>
>FOR centuries, we have been told that without
>religion we are no more than egotistic animals
>fighting for our share, our only morality that
>of a pack of wolves; only religion, it is said,
>can elevate us to a higher spiritual level.
>Today, when religion is emerging as the
>wellspring of murderous violence around the
>world, assurances that Christian or Muslim or
>Hindu fundamentalists are only abusing and 
>perverting the noble spiritual messages of their
>creeds ring increasingly hollow. What about
>restoring the dignity of atheism, one of
>Europe's greatest legacies and perhaps our only
>chance for peace? 
>
>More than a century ago, in "The Brothers
>Karamazov" and other works, Dostoyevsky warned
>against the dangers of godless moral nihilism,
>arguing in essence that if God doesn't exist, 
>then everything is permitted. The French
>philosopher André Glucksmann even applied
>Dostoyevsky's critique of godless nihilism to
>9/11, as the title of his book, "Dostoyevsky in
>Manhattan," suggests. 
>
>This argument couldn't have been more wrong: the
>lesson of today's terrorism is that if God
>exists, then everything, including blowing up
>thousands of innocent bystanders, is permitted - 
>at least to those who claim to act directly on
>behalf of God, since, clearly, a direct link to
>God justifies the violation of any merely human
>constraints and considerations. In short,
>fundamentalists have become no different than 
>the "godless" Stalinist Communists, to whom
>everything was permitted since they perceived
>themselves as direct instruments of their
>divinity, the Historical Necessity of Progress
>Toward Communism.
>
>During the Seventh Crusade, led by St. Louis,
>Yves le Breton reported how he once encountered
>an old woman who wandered down the street with a
>dish full of fire in her right hand and a bowl 
>full of water in her left hand. Asked why she
>carried the two bowls, she answered that with
>the fire she would burn up Paradise until
>nothing remained of it, and with the water she
>would put out the fires of Hell until nothing 
>remained of them: "Because I want no one to do
>good in order to receive the reward of Paradise,
>or from fear of Hell; but solely out of love for
>God." Today, this properly Christian ethical 
>stance survives mostly in atheism.
>
>Fundamentalists do what they perceive as good
>deeds in order to fulfill God's will and to earn
>salvation; atheists do them simply because it is
>the right thing to do. Is this also not our most 
>elementary experience of morality? When I do a
>good deed, I do so not with an eye toward
>gaining God's favor; I do it because if I did
>not, I could not look at myself in the mirror. A
>moral deed is by definition its own reward. 
>David Hume, a believer, made this point in a
>very poignant way, when he wrote that the only
>way to show true respect for God is to act
>morally while ignoring God's existence.
>
>Two years ago, Europeans were debating whether 
>the preamble of the European Constitution should
>mention Christianity as a key component of the
>European legacy. As usual, a compromise was
>worked out, a reference in general terms to the
>"religious inheritance" of Europe. But where was 
>modern Europe's most precious legacy, that of
>atheism? What makes modern Europe unique is that
>it is the first and only civilization in which
>atheism is a fully legitimate option, not an
>obstacle to any public post. 
>
>Atheism is a European legacy worth fighting for,
>not least because it creates a safe public space
>for believers. Consider the debate that raged in
>Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, my home 
>country, as the constitutional controversy
>simmered: should Muslims (mostly immigrant
>workers from the old Yugoslav republics) be
>allowed to build a mosque? While conservatives
>opposed the mosque for cultural, political and 
>even architectural reasons, the liberal weekly
>journal Mladina was consistently outspoken in
>its support for the mosque, in keeping with its
>concern for the rights of those from other
>former Yugoslav republics. 
>
>Not surprisingly, given its liberal attitudes,
>Mladina was also one of the few Slovenian
>publications to reprint the infamous caricatures
>of Muhammad. And, conversely, those who
>displayed the greatest "understanding" for the 
>violent Muslim protests those cartoons caused
>were also the ones who regularly expressed their
>concern for the fate of Christianity in Europe.
>
>These weird alliances confront Europe's Muslims 
>with a difficult choice: the only political
>force that does not reduce them to second-class
>citizens and allows them the space to express
>their religious identity are the "godless"
>atheist liberals, while those closest to their
>religious social practice, their Christian
>mirror-image, are their greatest political
>enemies. The paradox is that Muslims' only real
>allies are not those who first published the 
>caricatures for shock value, but those who, in
>support of the ideal of freedom of expression,
>reprinted them.
>
>While a true atheist has no need to boost his
>own stance by provoking believers with 
>blasphemy, he also refuses to reduce the problem
>of the Muhammad caricatures to one of respect
>for other's beliefs. Respect for other's beliefs
>as the highest value can mean only one of two
>things: either we treat the other in a
>patronizing way and avoid hurting him in order
>not to ruin his illusions, or we adopt the
>relativist stance of multiple "regimes of
>truth," disqualifying as violent imposition any 
>clear insistence on truth.
>
>What, however, about submitting Islam - together
>with all other religions - to a respectful, but
>for that reason no less ruthless, critical
>analysis? This, and only this, is the way to 
>show a true respect for Muslims: to treat them
>as serious adults responsible for their beliefs.
>
>Slavoj Zizek, the international director of the
>Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, is the 
>author, most recently, of "The Parallax View."
>
>
>_______________________________________________
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> assam at assamnet.org 
>http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org 

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Umesh Sharma
5121 Lackawanna ST
College Park, MD 20740

1-202-215-4328 [Cell Phone]

Ed.M. - International Education Policy
Harvard Graduate School of Education,
Harvard University,
Class of 2005   

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Umesh Sharma
5121 Lackawanna ST
College Park, MD 20740

 1-202-215-4328 [Cell Phone]

Ed.M. - International Education Policy
Harvard Graduate School of Education,
Harvard University,
Class of 2005

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