The Universal Declaration of Human Rights stated 60 years ago that "a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief is the highest aspiration of the common people". It was a Magna Carta for mankind – and loathed by every human rights abuser on earth. Full Story »
Posted by Chris Finnie
an important issue which in this country doesn't get much msm attention, and so, confirms and contributes to what mr. hari is stating eloquently. it so contributes to the discrimination which exists in religiious communities.
i was happy and surprised when pres. obama in his inaugural speech mentioned non-believers in the list of those religions to be respected.
Mr. Hari has written an excellent, thoughtful op-ed that reveals a serious threat to the ideals of the United Nations, in particular, the ideal of freedom of speech. Cohesively organized, Mr. Hari makes a well-reasoned, cogent case worth a careful reading, especially by all religious and/or freedom-of-speech loving persons.
We saw Christianity, an institutionalized shell of the truer, earlier Christianity, become little more than a rubber-stamping, god-sanctioning shill of the Roman Empire's brutal military adventures. We see it today in pseudo-Christian support of the immoral Iraq war, contrary to Jesus' love-the-enemy ethic. It would be disastrous to see the United Nations become a tolerant, if not sanctioning, body of evils done in the name of various religions.
Well-reasoned and thoughtful, Hari makes a good case that religious views are imperiling civil liberties, with many examples of how that is happening, and what the results are.
An excellent article by a man who believes what he believes in period. I live in the Bible Belt, and the first words after"' Howyadoin'"is What church you go to? When I tell them I don't believe in organized religion, I get the "stink-eye" and they walk away. If they would have stuck around, I would have explained that I also don't believe in anything that is organized by man. Be it Boy Scouts, little league, and especially City Hall. I might be agnostic, I don't know, but seeing is believing.
If there is a God, how can he look down and see grown men murdering and maiming innocent women and childred. By the way, if there is a God, AMEN
Mr. Hari explores a very delicate issue with a forthright and candid logic that cannot be denied. I am a tad more religious than he, a Catholic, by the way, and I suspect that the Almighty would certainly not condone a whole lot of actions we purport to undertake in His name, i.e. the Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades are but two of many. Nor would He approve of the stoning of women. I cast no stones, but the only way for us ALL to learn and progress is through open dialogue.
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