On Sunday 26 Dec 2010 4:06:30 am underscore wrote: > Everything possible has also been legislated to death in europe. > Anything that does not fit within a strict set of rules is upsetting > the apple-cart ... the examples you mentioned and even very simple > things are all going to contravene one rule or the other at some > point...everything from traditions for naming a new born baby...to > wearing a turban ...eating with your hands ...eating unapproved EU > food items ...burial / cremation protects ...rites of passage > ceremonies (like circumcision ..) ..... etc >
Beautifully put. And this is exactly what I am talking about. I stated earlier that Western democracies were built upon the ruins of a Christian empire. What his did was to cause the formulation of rules and laws that would stop the Christian Church and Christianity from usurping power from secular forces. In other words - if you were opposed to the dictates of Christianity and the Church, laws were created to protect your views as secular views. This was not a problem initially because there was no competition. The people were mostly Christian and generally in a state of informal agreement about behavior in the public sphere. In other words Christianity had no competition in the private domain and secularism allowed no competition in the public domain. All this was fine as long as the numbers of people from other religions was low. As the numbers of Muslims in Europe increased - they too had to abide by European laws regarding the public domain. Government was and remained seular. But in the private domain, Christianity started seeing the effects of competition. The secular right to religion enabled the setting up of mosques from where the muezzins call impinged on the public sphere and dress codes and codes of morality changed. The Muslims of course had a point. If their behavior upset European sensibilities, they were still within the law. But here is the rub. Secularism killed Christianity and allowed morality and social codes that were very un- Christian to develop. But mixing Islam with this created a situation in which Islam could not be legally suppressed and forced to accept the social changes that had already occurred in a formerly Christian society. All those new laws about dress code are in my opinion a naive secular reaction to try and control religion (Islam in this instance) while simultaneously trying to maintain a charade of "freedom of religion" in the private domain. The conflict is particularly poignant because European ethos is fundamentally Christian and not Islamic. The fact that decorations and lights are put up for Christmas, the fact that Easter is an important holiday and the fact that Sunday is a holiday (and not Friday) are alll evidence of the Christian hangover (or christain ethos) of Europe. If a secular European (or US) government allows islam to thrive, it will have to allow the resurgence of Christianity. If it suppresses islam, they will have a religious conflict on their hands. shiv
