>>>Cooooome ON Dude - don't try to compare religion with democracy.
>
>Why not? If it's true that religion is guilty of atrocities under religious government, then democracy/republicanism is responsible for atrocities committed under democratic/republic government. That the people voted for the culprit doesn't make it OK.
Your point - as it is so often - is well taken. Democracy only derives any "goodness" from the people and so is only as good as the people whose will it claims to represent.
Religion attempts to define goodness and have it trickle down to the people.
Both systems have obvious flaws. And either in combination or separately they have given us slavery, anti-slavery, atrocity and sacrifice for a greater good, war and peace.
Both have collectivist aspirations and are often manipulated to control others rather than emphasize their individual responsibility.
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.
