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An
inadequate understanding of God that reduces “him” to an idol in our own image
who gives our likes and dislikes sacred sanction is the worst form of spiritual
tyranny. Such arrogance has led to atrocities like the Crusades. The rise of
secularism in government was meant to check this tendency, but secularism
itself has created new demons now inflicting themselves on the world.
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In the West, secularism has been a
success, essential to the modern economy and political system, but it was
achieved gradually over the course of nearly 300 years, allowing new ideas of
governance time to filter down to all levels of society. But in other parts of
the world, secularization has occurred far too rapidly and has been resented by
large sectors of the population,
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Shiism had for centuries separated
religion from politics as a matter of sacred principle, and Khomeini’s
insistence that a cleric should become head of state was an extraordinary
innovation.
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In the same spirit, Hassan al-Banna
(1906-1949), founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, began his movement by
translating the social message of the Koran into a modern idiom, founding
clinics, hospitals, trade unions, schools, and factories that gave workers
insurance, holidays, and good working conditions. In other words, he aimed to
bring the masses to modernity in an Islamic setting. The Brotherhood’s
resulting popularity was threatening to Egypt’s secular government, which could
not provide these services.
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In the Middle East, overly
aggressive secularization has sometimes backfired, making the religious
establishment more conservative, or even radical.
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John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama have invoked faith as
a shared experience that binds the country together -- an approach that recognizes
the communal power of spirituality without making any pretense to divine right.
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it is not God or religion but violence itself -- inherent in
human nature -- that breeds violence. As a species, we survived by killing and
eating other animals; we also murder our own kind. So pervasive is this
violence that it leaks into most scriptures, though these aggressive passages
have always been balanced and held in check by other texts that promote a
compassionate ethic based on the Golden Rule
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"religious" wars, no matter how
modern the tools, always begin as political ones.
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In recent Gallup polling conducted in 35

Muslim countries, only 7 percent of those questioned thought that the September
11 attacks were justified. Their reasons were entirely political.
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Fundamentalism is not conservative.
Rather, it is highly innovative -- even heretical -- because it always develops in
response to a perceived crisis. In their anxiety, some fundamentalists distort
the tradition they are trying to defend.
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All fundamentalism -- whether Jewish,
Christian, or Muslim -- is rooted in a profound fear of annihilation.
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The Bible
and the Koran may have prohibited usury, but over the centuries Jews,
Christians, and Muslims all found ways of getting around this restriction and
produced thriving economies. It is one of the great ironies of religious
history that Christianity, whose founder taught that it was impossible to serve
both God and mammon, should have produced the cultural environment that, as Max
Weber suggested in his 1905 book, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism,
was integral to modern capitalism.
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the religious critique of excessive greed is far from irrelevant.
Although not opposed to business, the major faith traditions have tried to
counterbalance some of the abuses of capitalism. Eastern religions, such as
Buddhism, by means of yoga and other disciplines, try to moderate the
aggressive acquisitiveness of the human psyche. The three monotheistic faiths
have inveighed against the injustice of unevenly distributed wealth
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Religion is not simply a matter of subscribing to a set of obligatory beliefs;
it is hard work, requiring a ceaseless effort to get beyond the selfishness
that prevents us from achieving a more humane humanity.
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in their rebellion against the modern ethos,
fundamentalists tend to overemphasize traditional gender roles. Unfortunately,
frontal assaults on this patriarchal trend have often proven counterproductive.
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But their reading of scripture is
unprecedentedly literal. Before the modern period, few understood the first
chapter of Genesis as an exact account of the origins of life; until the 17th
century, theologians insisted that if a biblical text contradicted science, it
must be interpreted allegorically.
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Ironically, it was
the empirical emphasis of modern science that encouraged many to regard God and
religious language as fact rather than symbol, thus forcing religion into an
overly rational, dogmatic, and alien literalism.
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What
has alienated many Muslims from the democratic ideal is not their religion but
Western governments’ support of autocratic rulers, such as the Iranian shahs,
Saddam Hussein, and Hosni Mubarak, who have denied people basic human and
democratic rights.
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a 2006 Gallup poll revealed that 46 percent of
Americans believe that God should be the source of legislation.
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A fatwa is not universally binding like a papal edict; rather,
it simply expresses the opinion of the mufti who issues it. Muslims can choose
which fatwas they adopt and thus participate in a flexible free market of
religious thought, just as Americans can choose which church they attend.
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Religion should be studied with the same academic
impartiality and accuracy as the economy, politics, and social customs of a
region, so that we learn how religion interacts with political tension, what is
counterproductive, and how to avoid giving unnecessary offense.
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DOJ | Antitrust | Health Care - 0 views

www.usdoj.gov/...health_care.htm

healthcare antitrust competition DOJ department of justice antitrust laws antitrust legislation hospitals doctors medicine health

shared by Aviva Gabriel on 16 Oct 09 - Snapshot

The Crime of Our Time | The Business of America - 0 views

dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/...al-reviewed-by-stephen-lendman

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shared by Aviva Gabriel on 15 Oct 09 - Snapshot

Aviva Gabriel on 15 Oct 09

"The business of America is big business with a strategic long-term plan for co-opting world governments, waging permanent wars for profit, dominating everywhere militarily, ending social safety net protections, crushing civil liberties and freedom, tolerating no concern for human rights, controlling global markets and resources, turning workers everywhere into serfs, and extracting, unimpeded, as much public wealth as possible."

<div class="cArrow"> </div><div class="cContentInner">"The business of America is big business with a strategic long-term plan for co-opting world governments, waging permanent wars for profit, dominating everywhere militarily, ending social safety net protections, crushing civil liberties and freedom, tolerating no concern for human rights, controlling global markets and resources, turning workers everywhere into serfs, and extracting, unimpeded, as much public wealth as possible."</div>

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