PHM-Exch> Food for a pious thought

[Claudio Schuftan]

Human Rights Reader 304



*RELIGIONS HAVE BEEN USED TO SUPPORT CONCERTED SOCIAL ACTIVISM AND
HUMANISM. DOES THIS LINK THEM WITH HUMAN RIGHTS?*


-Because they are closed thought systems, the supposed advantage of all
religions is that they have an answer to all questions.
-The ship of our church is navigating against head winds in storms that
threaten it; we have sometimes even thought that God is asleep and that he
has forgotten us. (Pope Benedict XVI)* *



One can be religious as a humanist and not believe in God. But people are
drawn to God by, what seems, an irresistible force. Religious people
perhaps too often make use of God above all else in their arguments.  Religions
claim they have given happiness to mankind. But have they? (Does this mean
then that, by definition, a rebel atheist cannot be happy...?)



In a way, atheists claim atheism is a logical reaction of contemporary
rationality and, in the view of many, the proper antidote to centuries of
superstition.  Atheists would say: Twenty one centuries of Christianity (or
many more of Judaism), for example, have passed without a sign from heaven
to mankind. Not only that, but during the Inquisition, fires burned
endlessly for the greater glory of God and 'heretics' were burned. Before
that time already, Roman Catholics passed-on all authority to the figure of
the Pope who wields it till today.

The full Reader can be found at

http://wp.me/plAxa-1Et

Claudio
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