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LadyEllen -> RE: "... kill Jews and Americans "to the very Last One." (5/3/2007 5:22:54 AM)
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In my opinion, its not Jews or Americans (by which I think Christians is meant) or Muslims that are the problem.
The problem derives from the totalitarian natures of their religions and the consequent and inevitable conclusion they must reach, that anyone not of them is evil and being evil must be destroyed, and in destroying evil they show their particular aspect of the one God they all worship, how dedicated they are. We can be sure of Bush's Christian credentials by way of his own use of the same sort of language in relation to the "war on terror".
The problem for totalitarianism, is that people being people, we are all different from one another. Whilst we share commonalities that might cause us to come together as one, we also tend to divide into smaller groups within the whole according to shared ideas and goals. But even in the smallest and most closely allied of such subgroups, we find the members to differ amongst themselves - observe the squabbling in churches, clubs, LGBT groups, political parties et al. Totalitarian approaches rarely work for this reason, although most totalitarian approaches find value in such dissent by way of scapegoating the dissenters for their own failings.
The other problem for totalitarian approaches derives from the same factor of the variability of people. Totalitarianism proposes that the world is of a single nature and that there is only one single solution for any problem - that solution being utter adherence to the system of totalitarian organisation in place, and any problem having origin from failure to so comply. Whilst fear of the system may produce compliance in a population, we have only to look at the opinions of the inhabitants of former eastern bloc countries to realise that such compliance was always under quiet protest and that regardless of such imposition they tried to express their own natures, interests and aims, and to look at those countries now, having been freed from the fear of their former systems, where diversity is being acknowledged as the natural human condition.
In my opinion, the only way to solve the problem of nazi totalitarianism was to destroy it. The only way to solve the problem of communist totalitarianism was to destroy it. What that says about the means of solving the problem of totalitarian religions can be inferred perhaps, though it must be borne in mind that it is the systems that warrants such solution, not the people finding themselves under such a system, unless they are so closely identified with the system as its drivers and controllers and beneficiaries that they too must be destroyed - Hitler and his circle as an example.
Now I shall be flamed for saying that Christianity must be destroyed I expect, but such anger is unjustified as we are not necessarily discussing violent means to destroy it, even though it alike with its cousin Islam, owes its place in the world to violence. Far more potent means lie in the education of the masses, not only the facts but just as importantly the ability to reason and thereby realise that for all the goodness preached and exemplified by Jesus, and for all the good that Christians have done and do, Christianity nevertheless represents a totalitarian worldview which is contrary not only to the concept of personal freedom but also contrary to our nature as human beings in an ever more complex world that I hope has outgrown such totalitarianism.
E
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