>>>>>>The Ayatola of Iran's actions must be an example of Islam in action, so I want no part of it. Lying to your people and beating asnd murdering them is not an example of a peaceful religion in action. Indeed, any religion that requires a motor cycle gang of enforcers is not a religion at all.
>>>>>
>>>>>Those are extreme cases, that shouldn't be taken as representing all of Islam.
>>>>
>>>>They are a pretty good representation of the policies of many of the Islamic nations.
>>>
>>>Say, uhh . . does the Pope have a motorcycle gang to enforce Christianity's laws on followers with whom he becomes angry?
>>
>>The real question is : if the he *could* would he *want* ... ( I'm betting yes <s>)
>
>The department certainly exists; the current Pope used to run it. They used to call it the Inquisition, but it has another name now.
>
>Tamar
Yeah, I don't think the Matawa - Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice - is a concept foreign to the history of the Catholic Church or the puritans who considered it the Great Beast. And the current Pope was definitely God's pitbull - though lack of control over the secular levers of power anyplace certainly ameliorates the effect.
I guess there is a lesson in there about theocracies.
Ecrasez l'infame.
Charles Hankey
Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.
- Thomas Hardy
Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm-- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
-- T. S. Eliot
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.
- Ben Franklin
Pardon him, Theodotus. He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.
