Several items related to church and state issues this week. First of, Ayaan Hirsi Ali wonders why Islam’s moderates are silent.
It is this order to choose Allah above his sense of conscience and compassion that imprisons the Muslim in a mindset that is archaic and extreme.
This call is for an inter-religion reform, that is, one made without government intervention it seems. Ironic, from a religion which holds a dominant position in the governments of several countries.
But then again, the US Government is actively promoting religion these days as well. U.S. House Resolution #847, Recognizing the importance of Christmas and the Christian faith, was easily passed Tuesday. While its still pretty far from institutionalizing religion ala Islam or England, it was obviously more important than getting a budget out.
Lastly, the state seems to be coming down hard on a particular religion in Germany as the country moves to ban Scientology.
From a number of sources, some of them not available to the public, it has been determined that (the organization) seeks to limit or rescind basic and human rights, such as the right to develop one’s personality and the right to be treated equally.
Though in our forums, Christopher Roussel has argued that things might not be so cut and dried.
CNN isn’t always the best source for news in other countries. This article link from the German news agency Deutsche Welle explains that some members of the government are trying to ban it, in addition to its perceived ties to the far-right political group NPD.* The CNN article makes it seem like it’s a done deal. Spiegel also has an article (in English: link).
More Religion: the Pope approves a special indulgence.
Political Links
This new Ron Paul ad declares the easy way to end the income tax.
A robot heckles Bill Clinton in Iowa.
Philosophy
An interesting article on Expiremental Philosophy by Kwame Anthony Appiah.
Christmas
12 Days of Christmas. Kinda.
Germany has a terrible human rights history. This is just another in a long-line of German officials (a very small number) attempting to dictate what its citizens have access to in the way of knowledge, particuarly as that country has its own state-sponsored religion.
SCIENTOLOGY: RELIGIOUS BONA FIDES
The world’s most respected theologians and religious scholars, including Urbano Alonso Galan, a Vatican advisor on non-Catholic religions and Fumio Sawada, leader of Japan’s oldest religion (Yu-itsu Shinto), did individual in-depths studies. Each concluded that Scientology is a religion in every aspect. Read what these scholars wrote:
http://www.bonafidescientology.org/Append/07/index.htm
Thanks for commenting, Tom Cruise…er, I mean James Lightfield (wink wink).
But I do agree that Germany is horrible on human rights. Parents who homeschool their children are thrown into jail. Anyone who questions the Holocaust are imprisoned.
I like Ron Paul and I don’t like income tax, but his ad leaves a lot of unanswered questions. Do his figures adjust for inflation? Will reducing spending to 1997 levels balance the budget too? If not, how will he make up the difference? These are just a few that come to mind. Can anyone shed light on any of these?
Not to be to harsh James,
But I miss the days when you would put your own thoughts into words and not just copy and paste the scientology fluff and links. As for the post its self…..
Without a non scientology link to back it up we just can’t belive it. scientology has a history of using peoples names without them knowing about it. In fact scientology has a very dark and evil histoy period. I wish they were let you surf the web so you could see xenu.net and xenutv.com