Good will to all men? Not from the grumpy atheists! (Thank God not all atheists are grumpy but there sure seems to be a lot of them)
Why is it that so many in the atheist community cannot bring themselves to get past their anger whenever they engage in discussions? The language of many of their contributions in public debate is laced with invective and dripping with sarcasm and bile. There are exceptions of course, but they tend to fall more into the category of being the 'exception that proves the rule' when compared to the hostility of many of today's atheist posters. Comment offered by the theists in the public square is often depicted as being 'malicious' or 'venomous' and intended to enslave the 'feeble minded and weak' by those who post. Nothing could be further from the truth. Venom is something that is oriented to death. Christians are oriented in a 180 degree different direction. We speak not to the culture of death that grips our world but rather for the culture of life and light which ends with the gift of eternal life. For example, the Catholic Church in its hum...
In this modern world, would you rather live in a secular state or a theocracy. But the catch is you don't get to pick the religion that is controlling the theocracy.
ReplyDeleteMichael: Clearly a liberal secular state is the best milieu for religious and non-religious adherents. However, that's not the point of the article. The question it tries to answer is that old saw about exclusively secular states never starting a war. Clearly there are lots of examples even from within our lifespan where this has been disproven.
DeleteFr. Tim
I think the distinction should be made for dogmatically driven states. For a secular state that started a war one need look no further back than the US invading Iraq. While W may have had some theological reasons to invade Iraq (He told the French president that Gog and Magog were afoot in the Middle East causing what I'm sure was the first emergency call to a French theologian at 2:00 in the morning).
DeleteLeaving aside the US because they are different in so many ways it remains that liberal secular democracies like the modern Scandanavian countries, France, UK, England and even Canada are extremely unlikely to start a war.
If one were to list the countries likely to start a war today (again excluding the US, especially with TRump), they would all be religious countries.
Michael: You have a short view of history. Germany and France went to war three times over a 75yr period spanning the late 19th to mid 20th centuries. They were secular states at the time. The UK and Argentina went to war as well in the late 20th century; both secular countries. It really isn't very hard to find quite a few examples where your logic fails. All this said, I do very much agree with your premise that it is much less likely to get involved in a war if one lives in a modern liberal secular state - exempting the US from the equation. Personally I am very happy to carry a Canadian passport. Thank God we won the War of 1812, eh?
DeleteFr. Tim