Lot's Wife Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I have watched enough Maher to know what he does > in those interviews, which is to hop from point to > point in a way that allows no exploration of > anything in depth. It's like a roller coaster or > a carousel: you get lots of excitement but end up > precisely where you started.
You might be surprised.
> > A question for you, Kori. Do you think > non-religious humans are any less susceptible to > tribalism and violent destruction than religious > ones are?
No, but they don't have narratives that end in Doomsday and destruction of non-believers.
And how do Nazism, Soviet Communism, > Chinese Communism, and Khmer Rouge Communism fit > into your paradigm.
They are all different forms of tribalism based upon rigid authoritarian dogmatic ideologies, that unite large groups of people by artificially dividing them from "others".
Its this and other forms of tribalism we must evolve beyond in order to survive another decade.
You said, what distinguishes political ideologies from religions is that the former "don't have narratives that end in Doomsday and destruction of non-believers." My point is that a lot of political ideologies have "Doomsday" scenarios and aim at "the destruction of non-believers." That's the proposition that Nazism, with the destruction of entire races and gender identities; and Maoist/Khmer Communism, with their determination to eradicate "thought criminals," stand for. Pol Pot in particular killed millions of "non-believers."
So the problem of tribalism is not limited to religion. It stems from human nature and is therefore much more difficult to deracinate.
Lot's Wife Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > You missed my point. > > You said, what distinguishes political ideologies > from religions is that the former "don't have > narratives that end in Doomsday and destruction of > non-believers." My point is that a lot of > political ideologies have "Doomsday" scenarios and > aim at "the destruction of non-believers." That's > the proposition that Nazism, with the destruction > of entire races and gender identities; and > Maoist/Khmer Communism, with their determination > to eradicate "thought criminals," stand for. Pol > Pot in particular killed millions of > "non-believers." > > So the problem of tribalism is not limited to > religion. It stems from human nature and is > therefore much more difficult to deracinate.
I know and agree. Maybe the predicament is hopeless, but I refuse to believe it is, as long as we have determination and time. "Nothing is the end of the world, except the end of the world," US President to comfort his worried daughters the night before he handed off the launch codes to the worlds biggest nuclear arsenal to Putin's Puppet, 2 weeks after saying, "We cannot trust the launch codes to this man."
”There are many orchards in Islam, and you just chose two of the nastiest--places I've been (Referring to Egypt & Pakistan)and truly dislike. But why didn't you explore the orchard of Muslims in Malaysia or Turkey or Bosnia or Los Angeles or the greater Washington, DC area? You are intentionally cherry-picking the rotten fruit.“
I would imagine that in Egypt and Pakistan there are many different versions of Islam. I would imagine that people in those countries have a wide variety of beliefs and act on those beliefs in a wide variety of ways. I think you’re falling into the trap of lumping them all together and making a bigoted generalization and lumping them together as “rotten fruit.”
Pakistan and Egypt are nowhere near the worst Muslim countries. I think that ignominy belongs to Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan. Probably also Daesh controlled territories in Syria and Iraq, but they're not internationally recognized.
There are also some pretty nasty Islamicists in Chechnya and Algeria.