In Reply to: interesting point of view from the Australian newspaper posted by susie on August 16, 2006 at 00:59:59:
An article obviously written from an atheistic point of view. Taken with a grain of salt. I wonder why the author doesn't point out such things as fanatical Islamists willing to kill their own people, their own children to fufill their destiny? Why it is said that I believe Golda Meir stated, "We will have peace when Muslims love their children more than they hate us." And if these fanatical Islamists only wanted to wipe out Christianity or Judaism, and certainly, religion of this nature is on the decline (more people in England attend mosques than go to church), they feel the need to blow up train stations in order to wipe them out completely? In this case, I think this is a murderous ideology, not a religion. They really just hate our way of life, including atheists or even more so.
When you consider that Judaism was the first religion to preach the sanctity of human life and to magnify the value of each individual being in the eyes of his creator--hence, equally, in other human beings, you have to admit to the benefacts of religion on our thinking. It was Christians who pushed for the freeing of slaves. It is only the western countries that decry this savage method while many other countries still practice it, in particular certain Muslim countries.
It's amusing to me how the author leaves out all the benefits that these two religions have brought to society. Even Islam at one point (before it went back to the dark ages) in its glory days brought great scientists and artisans as a benefit to society. But I guess having to tick that spot on her form due to some sort of perceived public pressure must have been the thing that sent her over the edge.