Really this isn't so much a religious issue as its a cultural problem. Somali's have emigrated in sufficient numbers to now be affecting the culture of the Minneapolis area. Just like how you Vietnamese restaurants are a lot more prevalent in the DC area post 1970s, the Somalis are taking their little traditions with them into the American workplace.
All of these practices break down if you scrutinized them too closely. For example -- there are a plethora of products which contains pig aside from bacon. Cosmetics (just as an example) often contain pork based gelatin but curiously there is no story about Somali's refusing to touch Max Factor products.
Alcohol as another example is contained within the breath of anyone who has downed a glass of whiskey. Curiously cab drivers don't seem to refuse picking up fares from bars or perhaps more logically asking each passenger to take a breathalyzer before entering a cab.
Everyone has their quirks, the religious folks I respect the most are the Amish -- their beliefs are internally consistent for the most part (as far as religious beliefs go) and most importantly they don't seem to seek the benefits of what modern society has to offer while rejecting the parts that they disagree with.
Memory is a strange bell, jubilee and knell.
(And not the one that Oprah's pushing. First off, apologies to Bob, as this post won't have much to say about his writeup. These thoughts have been building up for a while, though, and finally bubbled up this week into a desire to post.)
Marx famously claimed that "religion is the opiate of the masses", and the aphorism has been repeated so often that it's become cliche. So let me ask this-- since Marx was so wrong about a whole slew of other things, shouldn't this assertion be reconsidered, especially with religion making so much news in the last couple years? Especially with a president and party who have made religion a virtue not to be questioned?
A look at European history doesn't seem to bear this out much. The Inquisition is the usual whipping boy here, but the wars of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation are what I'd point to instead. Were there other factors involved in, say, the 30 Years War? Sure, but religion was certainly a major factor-- likewise with the English civil war. Asking whether religion was a cause or an excuse seems hopelessly reductive; "both" would be my answer, with religion being the force driving other conflicts (between Parliament and crown, say) into foreground issues. An opiate? A lot closer to meth, if you ask me.
So why did this destruction end? In part because commercial centers like Antwerp and Amsterdam started looking like very attractive alternatives, especially when the news of the carnage and destruction in Germany started spreading around Europe. (The extent is now questioned by historians, I see, but that doesn't change how the reports were viewed at the time.) Tolerance became the norm not because of any deep religious or philosophical underpinnings, but rather because tolerance was better for business-- and a whole lot of people were beginning to benefit directly from trade at at level never seen before. In short, Business replaced God as the proper center of the State.
Simplistic history, and I apologize for that, but I think it's necessary background to the argument that first step toward democracy is turning citizens into "bad" Christians. (Bad in the sense that devotion, zeal even, take a back seat to other concerns.) And not just Christians: you can buy pork all over Israel, for example, even though it's a thoroughly Jewish state. Taken literally, every religion in the world except Christianity is either heretical (Islam, Judaism) or the work of Satan (everything else.) Yet only a zealous few American Christians (and I've met a few) take this notion very seriously-- in short, they're "bad" Christians, as Jack Chick is quite willing to tell you. In the example of the pharmacist, the quick reaction is that he should place business ahead of God, or else find a different line of work-- a radical statement 400 years ago, now commonplace.
So when we get to the tinderbox that is the Middle East, and the Islamic world in general, one solution to the violence- and the solution that will last, IMO- will be to turn the majority of the population into "bad" Muslims. No prayers five times a day; no Ramadan; alcohol for sale seven days a week at the corner store; and so on, and so on. Business ahead of Allah-- radical now, but perhaps worth working for as a commonplace thirty or fifty years from now. Anyone want to jump on this train with me?
A simple solution, but one very, very hard to bring about, especially without massive turmoil. It's going to be even harder to bring about because the driving force in the world, America, has nobody in power politically that can embrace it. Certainly not Republicans, who are constantly flattering religious voters, or the Democrats who have been hammered for years at the polls on the matter. Liberals? Forget it, not with a long tradition of skepticism toward capitalism. Conservatives? Slightly better, except for the loud contingent who are either looking for a new holy war themselves, or are too xenophobic to bother-- or both. (Lou Dobbs is working to make Dems competitive in this area too, from what I gather-- hardly good news.) This was one reason why McCain as president isn't a disturbing thought, even if he's more conservative than he pretends; he "gets" the religion thing, IMO, and that would be a huge step forward in US foreign policy in the ME. Whether or not his party would follow is a depressing question to consider . . .
Too simplistic, probably, and maybe not worth your time. But I haven't run across anyone along the political spectrum who has written or spoken much along these lines, or at all. Flipping around the accepted CW, and challenging Marx's cliche, seemed worth doing. As always, thank you all for your time and patience.
Ex ignorantia ad sapientiam; e luce ad tenebras
(Or: I know it's light beer, but COME ON!)
This one time when I was living in an extremely conservative religious area of the country I went to the store with a co-worker. She bought a case of beer, and (no joke) the cashier left her station after scanning it to go wash her hands, leaving us waiting over five minutes in the middle of the transaction and allowing the line to back up, all so she could do her little show of religious piety. To this day I regret not making a bigger fuss about the whole thing.
There's a story on Salon's Broadsheet blog column about a relevant ruling on birth control:
Here's an interesting question: Is it sexual discrimination for a company's health plan to exclude coverage of contraceptives? The answer is "no," according to the 8th U.S. Circuit of Appeals. The court just ruled that Union Pacific Railroad's health plan is not discriminatory because it neglects coverage of both female contraceptives (like birth control pills and diaphragms) and male birth control methods (like condoms and vasectomies). Sounds like UPR's health plan needs a snappy new slogan: "All plan members receive the same crappy treatment!"
This story is thick with irony. Christians and Muslims don't see eye to eye, but yet they are bed fellows in a dispute over religious beliefs. Only in America!
On a similar theme, some people might be interested in this - some key elements are different - this is about the UK Government making it illegal for organisations (in this case adoption agencies) to discriminate against gay or lesbian couples. Basically, if they won't assess same-sex couples on the same terms as man-woman couples as potential adoptive parents, they will be breaking the law, in about 18 months.
My instinctive reaction to this was to be delighted and relieved that the PM, whose moral and political judgment is all over the place, had made this decision. However I did (honestly!) think it over again in light of some of the complaints that prayed in aid religious freedom, etc - definitely not any of the ones from this bloke, who is a walking joke about Jesuitical rhetoric.
The main complaint was that Catholic adoption agencies will be "forced to close". Hmm. In the first place, catholics working in adoption may have some funny views - as might anyone working anywhere - but they are more likely than priests to be pragmatic when faced with a child and what seems to be a stable couple. So that cuts the numbers down. However, even if some agencies did close, where do all the children, and the married couples who would otherwise have used Popetots inc, go? er, to the non-closed agencies, surely. The campaigners even specifically went on about "hard-to-place" children being the ones their agencies deal with - an increase in supply of parents can hardly be a bad thing. Only if a number of (otherwise) sensible, stable married couples, who would have made great adoptive parents, decide to shun the whole process because now they know that poofs have sat on the same waiting-room furniture, can I see a problem. (And what sort of parents would they turn out to be if their "hard-to-place" child turned out to be a criminal against nature and God?)
I am glad that the govt made this decision, via the reasoning above or otherwise. If treating a same-sex couple fairly in assessing them as parents is simply impossible for some people, I frankly wouldn't trust them to judge the good marrieds from the bad.
