What's under siege here is nothing less than the Enlightenment. Please recall that what we benignly remember as the Renaissance coexisted with centuries of vicious religious persecution -- Christians persecuting heretics like Galileo, expelling and slaughtering Muslims and Jews, then doing bloody battle with each other following the Protestant Reformation.
The philosophers of the Enlightenment were men of science who understood that faith could not be disputed but that reason could be subjected to the test of logic and evidence. The American Revolution was a triple triumph -- for political democracy, religious tolerance, and for the free inquiry demanded by the scientific method.
Today's religious extremists are not only trying to use the state, with all its power, as religious proselytizer. They oppose science when it happens to conflict with their version of revealed truth. They twist history to claim that the Republic's freethinking Founders, like Jefferson, Adams, and Madison, were really theocrats like themselves. They long for the predemocratic world of absolutes circa 1500.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Pages
Powered by Blogger.
Blog Archive
-
▼
2005
(5762)
-
▼
April
(608)
- Beyond Fear
- Counterpane Internet Security
- U.S. contracting firm accused of bilking millions ...
- Mossad: US Must Invade Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran
- Planet 'seen' around distant sun
- Flight 93 - Flight 93 = Y
- Prescription for Power
- How Far Will The Army Go?
- The Disengaged
- The End of the Vietnam War, 30 Years Later
- Two Explosions in Two Hours Rock Cairo
- Israel blacklisted by U.S.
- Military recruiting center attacked
- Wolfowitz Gets Formal Sendoff
- Internet posting stirs Osama mystery
- U.S. accused of pro-Israel bias at 2000 Camp David
- Saudi Arabian King Clinically Dead
- Abu Ghraib Judge Covered Up Vietnam Atrocities
- Oh, What a Lovely War
- News as Commodity + Pervasive Information Control ...
- 400,000 Signatures Needed
- Iraq Victim's Mother 'Will Take Blair to Court'
- Two Women Open Fire on Tour Bus in Cairo
- Genetic Mingling Mixes Human, Animal Cells
- "Leash Girl" to Plead Guilty to Prisoner Abuse
- A Story from Occupied Palestine
- Net-powered computer
- Putin offers aid and arms to Palestine
- Not Exactly Must-See TV
- Iraq Through the Eyes of Independent Journalist
- Cuban, Venezuelan Leaders Woo Latin American Natio...
- Interrogations Faked at Guantanamo, Witness Says
- Democratic backlash
- A spymaster's view of the world
- Marine hung 'death sign' by bodies, witnesses testify
- Quantum leap in secure web video
- Buried Treasure
- Scientists Confirm Earth's Energy Is Out of Balance
- Sony Librie
- There is no war on terrorism
- Alabama Bill Targets Gay Authors
- Putin hardens line on Iranian nuclear programme
- 10,000 Demonstrate in NYC Against Israel
- Iranian newspaper warns against Israeli nuclear ar...
- Benefits and Costs of the U.S. Government's War Ma...
- Belgian Doctors Bill U.S. for Treating Iraqi Girl
- Seventeen Techniques for Truth Suppression
- Secret Iraq war advice published
- Pentagon Report On Abuse Has To Be Joke
- He's now Mr. Oil
- All the News That's Fit to Blog
- Finger Scans at DisneyWorld
- How to fake fingerprints?
- Bush to Hold Prime Time News Conference Today
- European Libraries Fight Google-ization
- Your Papers Please!
- Worldwide cancer rates 'double'
- Guardian pulls ricin terror debunk from website
- I never lie, says Blair
- More Fearmongering
- US set to sell bunker-busters to Israel
- Annan warns against strike on Iran
- RFID for prisoners and travellers in Japan
- Attorney General, FBI and CIA directors asking for...
- New York Times Minimizes Palestinian Deaths
- Blair's lawyer had doubts about Iraq war
- The first horse successfully cloned in North America
- Space Elevators are suddenly close to becoming rea...
- Putin Makes Historic Visit to Israel
- Bush Taken to Bunker After Radar Blip
- Desktop fusion
- Bush's handholding with the Saudis
- Whose nation under God?
- Interrogators 'botched hunt for Iraq's WMD'
- Climate change poses threat to food supply, scient...
- Ozone layer most fragile on record
- Israeli settlers poisoning our sheep, say West Ban...
- Spain's top Qaeda suspect condemns 9/11
- Refugee or deserter?
- Florida Planning Son of Matrix
- Across Nation, Students Getting Paid To Be Informants
- HIV Positive Kids Used As Guinea Pigs?
- Russia to Get 2 Newly Equipped Nuclear Submarines ...
- Putin Calls for Middle East Peace Talks in Moscow
- This is our Guernica
- Were 5 Unarmed and Wounded Iraqi's Murdered By U.S...
- Canadian killed in Iraq by U.S. forces
- Official Says Vatican Priest Was Informer
- Woman MP shot dead in Baghdad
- Rights Group: Abu Ghraib Abuses 'Tip of Iceberg'
- Bush Signs Bill to Let Parents Strip DVDs
- Thousands of Israelis Pour Into Gaza Strip
- Why Lebanon Matters
- The end of analog TV
- "Nuclear option" - the term
- Libraries...a key target of the Patriot Act.
- Rumsfeld and Abu Ghraib
- The Frauds of the Clergy
- Saudi Arabia detains 40 Christians
- U.S. considers sending money to help Chávez opponents
-
▼
April
(608)
0 comments:
Post a Comment