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Comments on other issues: Your letters: Rise of intolerance

Nov

The Jakarta Post
Fri, November 27, 2015

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Comments on other issues: Your letters: Rise of intolerance

N

ov. 23, p8

I held a discussion with three Muslims who lecture at an Islamic university. They consider pluralism a good thing, respect lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people and do not believe in violence.

I asked them many things, including their views on the Sunni vs. Shia conflict. They responded by saying that the '€œKoran accommodates everything'€. They said the Koran offered good information and bad, and that people could choose what to believe.

The problem is that many people arrogantly interpret the Koran. A childish interpreter will interpret the Koran childishly, while a mature interpreter will interpret the Koran well.


Your comments:


Intolerance is still rising, and rising, and rising. Every other news article out of Indonesia proves it.

Charles Jarret

The issue is very important indeed. Hopefully, Muslims will understand that right now they are in serious circumstances. They should also protect innocents.

Gregdaru

It'€™s important to remember that there are downsides of a secular society as well. The global refugee crisis is a real challenge for the secular West.

Their logic and the administrations of most countries contradict with the belief in empathy and urge to help strangers.

There have been several totalitarian secular societies through history and even today some remain.

The big challenge for the West is to create a humanitarian, tolerant and empathetic modern democratic society. It will require faith to make it work, since there is no logic or science to help put it into place.

Racism, nationalism and elitism are forces based on science and logic, but they don'€™t fit into the human society most people strive for today.

Therefore a faith in the goodness of every human and the desire to help the next generation is essential to make the modern world succeed.

Orang Biasa


I question the idea of a clash caused by a refugee crisis in the secular West.  Not many theocracies or strong religious societies with non-secular constitutions are struggling with refugees because, firstly, they wouldn'€™t have anything to offer that is on par with a secular country and, secondly, they wouldn'€™t be nearly as open to receiving them for additional reasons often, sadly, to do with race and, of course, religion.  

It is called the developing world for a reason, and it is because of the tribalism that still pervades social structures there. On this point, when you say that '€˜racism, nationalism and elitism'€™ are borne of science and logic, I fear you might be looking into old trends of eugenics or Social Darwinism without updating those bastardized scientific theories that served colonial ends.  

Correct me if I'€™m wrong, but it is a bizarre statement to me and I cannot fully comprehend your meaning.

Totalitarian secularism is a contradiction in terms.

Plenty of people have tried to pin secularism or atheism on the Nazis, for example, who without a God in their state ideology nonetheless worshipped old blood myths and had the Catholic Church celebrate Hitler'€™s birthday from the pulpit every year way past the time it would have been considered morally right

People might also try their hand at making secularism stick to Stalin, who for all intents and purposes plugged his regime into the credulity that was ready and waiting after the fall of the god-king Tsarist legacy to disappoint and torture his people with servitude and superstition more than any of the previous Tsars had ever done.

Nobody in their right mind could look seriously at this history and call any of these regimes secular. When that happens, there may be a point to be made against secularism, but to call the aforementioned modern dogmas a part of the secular world, without noticing the clear links they have to religious societies and impulses, is to try to give balance where there is none.

Religion is and always has been the problem and it'€™s only out of habit that we deny this fact.

L. Millar

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