Posted on 10/20/2001 7:37:11 AM PDT by independentmind
Every liberal instinct in the West is against seeing the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon as anything but products of "extremists." The enemies are called "terrorists," a most unfortunate abstraction. If we have a secular Western mind-set, we cannot easily comprehend a vaster geopolitical or religious project that does not stem primarily from weakness or resentment or a feeling of injustice caused either by Israel or by random use of Western power. Supply food and help the poor, limit retaliation to a bare minimum. The problem will go away.
At the recent Synod in Rome (October 2, 2001), the Cardinal Archbishop of New York warned against feelings of "revenge," even in his own city, the one most violently attacked. In his Rhetoric, Aristotle writes that "to passion and anger are due all acts of revenge. Revenge and punishment are different things. Punishment is inflicted for the sake of the person punished; revenge for that of the punisher" (1369b12-14). Thus, it is possible to think of punishment without necessarily indulging in revenge. What seems less comprehensible is to think of acts of such "terrorism" without also thinking of justice, of due punishment. The "do-nothing-to-retaliate," either on religious (turn the other cheek) or prudential (will cause something worse) grounds, makes such attacks appear to be both more successful than they are and worth trying again.
The purpose of just punishment, which was implied by the Holy Father in his comments on the New York attack as well by President Bush in his various statements, is prevention of immediate or long-planned attacks by those still capable of and willing to carry them out. Even though no one so far has had the courage to claim responsibility, such hostile forces cannot any longer claim "innocence" or "ignorance" to describe their moral status before the world. In the current case, punishment, however realized, could not be intended for the "reform" of those who carried attacks out, or even vengeance against them, as they are already dead.
The planners are being hunted down because they threaten, with evident seriousness of purpose and plausible means of delivery, to multiply the attacks almost anywhere in the non-Muslim world. They will not be stopped even by the fear of their own deaths, which are conceived as a kind of perverted religious glory. In this background, none of the commonly applied deterrent tools seems to work. We are puzzled.
Rest of article here.
I don't agree that Islam is unique in justifying conquest on religious grounds. The cross has been used to justify the sword on many occasions. The Jewish reconquest of Israel is justified on religous grounds. Shinto emperor worship played its role in the building of the Japanese empire. Lately, and in response to Moslem militants, the Hindus have become more militant themselves. Luckily the Buddhists and Confucianists seem resistant to the trend, futher constrained by the sponsorship of atheism by the Communists.
In Northern Europe, after the deaths of millions (including one-third of the population of Germany, it was established that the State trumps Religion. The Prince gets to decide the religion and the subjects either accept the decision, live with any downside of not belonging to the Prince's religion, or emigrate.
Lot of them emigrated to America. In America it was decided that, although the State trumps Religions, the State must forebear from establishing an official Religion. In fact, the religions are subject to the power of the State whenever the religions come into conflict with secular laws and regulations.
I would go further and assert that the State must adopt secular laws regulating religion which prevent any religion from overthrowing the above principles and establishing itself, e.g. a State must prevent Muslims from establishing Sharia as the law of the State.
Unfortunately, many Moslem majority countries, a number of Catholic countries, and Israel do not effectively assert the power of the secular state over religion, do not guarantee freedom of religion, and do not take measures to prevent religious groups from usurping power from the state.
Unfortunately, things have gotton to the point where we may have to fight a Thirty Years War with Islam. Hopefully, it will result in less than one third casualties -- 2 billion dead.
You thus enshrine your own position in the government, and forbid others from attempting to do so. So long as you make no pretense of neutrality, my only argument with your philosophical position is that you enshrine a false faith. On the plane of history, however, I believe you misrepresent the founding. It was not so much an agreement that the State was supreme and religion its inferior, but rather an agreement that religious disputes should remain apolitical lest we return to the bloodshed of the Reformation-era civil wars. It was based upon prudential considerations rather than secularist principles
You note any similarity in "consciousness" between the radical Muslim and the militant atheists re: the gramscian destruction from within as manifest by using the West's once greatest strengths as their greatest weaknesses once secularized and stripped of common sense?
The faith that I would enshrine is the faith that since religions contradict each other on important points, not all of them can be correct. It is not the governments business to choose between them, or to allow its powers be used by the adherents of one over the other.
As for the founding fathers, a number of them were more than a little skeptical of the orthodoxy of their time. I don't think that they necessarily feared civil wars over religion -- after all, if you were a baptist, you could move from MA to RI! Religious establishment could have persisted in the states after the founding without much risk.
The prudential basis for separation of church and state is a weak one, since as soon as one religion becomes strong enough, there is no moral argument for them to seize the State's power so long as they can do it with minimal bloodshed, e.g. it is not morally wrong for Muslims, once they are in the majority to seize power and establish religious despotism, so long as they do it efficiently.
This isn't faith, it is simply the application of the principle of non-contradiction. It only proves that only one religion can be true, not that religion should not be established in government.
It is not the governments business to choose between them, or to allow its powers be used by the adherents of one over the other.
But if this is argued on principle, then it is itself a choice that favors some adherents, namely the secularists, over others. That is why I see the current arrangement as a matter of prudence, rather than a matter of principle since the principle itself is self-contradictory.
I don't think that they necessarily feared civil wars over religion -- after all, if you were a baptist, you could move from MA to RI! Religious establishment could have persisted in the states after the founding without much risk
Religious establishment did, in fact, persist for decades in a few states. I wish I knew a good book about it. The Founders realized that they could not create a more perfect union if they brought religion into the Federal government. Nor could they take what would soon become the French position whereby religion was abolished entirely. The American system, being a product of political compromise, was by nature circumspect about such matters--and I hope it remains so despite the constant secularist drum-pounding.
The prudential basis for separation of church and state is a weak one, since as soon as one religion becomes strong enough, there is no moral argument for them to seize the State's power so long as they can do it with minimal bloodshed, e.g. it is not morally wrong for Muslims, once they are in the majority to seize power and establish religious despotism, so long as they do it efficiently.
There is certainly no legal argument. If our nation were meant to be a secular one in perpetuity, it could not allow for amendments abolishing the disestablished status quo. In fact, all that is required for amending the Constitution in such a manner is outlined in Article V. Not that anybody pays attention to the Constitution anymore, but it is of certain historical interest in some circles.
I fail to see why, if "legitimate governments rule by consent of the governed," it is immoral per se for the governed to consent to a government which favors an established religion. They are but establishing a system on what they perceive to be the truth.
And if I may request a clarification, you equate "separation of church and state" with "the subjugation of the church to the decrees of the state." Why cannot this separation mean that the state is subject to the decrees of the church? The separation of church and state is an ancient distinction in Christian theology, but it taught the second view and not the first.
It doesn't favor secularists exclusively. It also benefits the religious who would convert by persuasion, rather than coercion.
In fact, all that is required for amending the Constitution in such a manner is outlined in Article V.
True, but they wisely required a supermajority to ammend the constitution. Requiring a supermajority protects the rights of minorities from being abolished by a simple majority.
This action will serve as a deterrent to state support of anti-American terrorists.
And even though Schall shows courage in approaching some of the most troubling aspects of this confrontation (can't call it a "crusade"; Congress won't declare "war") even he draws away--in fear? confusion? loathing?--when appoaching some of the most depressing aspects of the "Thing".
Every liberal instinct in the West is against seeing the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon as anything but products of "extremists." The enemies are called "terrorists," a most unfortunate abstraction. If we have a secular Western mind-set, we cannot easily comprehend a vaster geopolitical or religious project that does not stem primarily from weakness or resentment or a feeling of injustice caused either by Israel or by random use of Western power.
But this is our "home"!! The "Western secular mindset" is the homeland where we dwell! We have no place to run or hide. There is no sanctuary in the sanctuary either. Western "secularism" is IT. That is what is going to war (oops) here. And when the oil pipeline has been made somewhat more secure--the forces of "homeland security" will return to their normal pastime which is picking over the dried bones of Christendom.
In other words--Christendom has no earthly place to live anymore. And certainly no champions to defend it's women, men and children from actual bodily harm and cultural homelessness.
The pathetic performance of our Holy Father in his declining years has been a ghastly thing to observe. He places himslef alongside any passing American politician. They get their photo op and then go home and essentially crap all over the Church. So Bush "consulted" the Pope before decideing that 23 human beings could be tortured for science. After all they were all ready on the rack. Well isn't that nice? So considerate of him. I won't even mention Clinton's appearances.
And those loathsome tours the Pope has been obsessively taking in the past few years. His kissing of the Koran in Palestine while a mullah bawled out the call to prayer to drown out his words. His acceptance--albeit with all the typical, meaningless codicils about "peace"--of the murder of Serbs on behalf of separatist, jihadist Balkan muslims. Who does he think he is helping by these elite gestures of noblesse obligeand painless self mortification? Certainly not the poor and powerless in Africa, Asia or even the US.
The Elite of the Church has been absorbed--lets face it. And with the overwhelming truimph of the secular anti-humanists in the surrounding culture I see no signs that the Flock will be able to rise up and save itself. The Church has lost its barbaric vitality. Dare I say it--its maleness?
Schall even gingerly approaches that subject when he writes:
"...Islam has bodies, millions upon millions of them. They are rapidly moving into western countries because of the killing of our own kind by our lethal policies. They use our political freedom to establish bases within the very heart of our civilization. European decline of population is drastic, as is ours. From this angle, the war against us is a war against a corrupt civilization too introspective to keep up its own defenses or its own morals or its own population. We are the cause of our own problems...."
As a Jesuit, Schall should know that what happens in the first seven years of life can rarely, if ever, be overcome. Just thinking about what happens to males and females in our "Homeland" in their first seven years is so depressing that I can understand why he wouldn't want to tackle it. Whatever the battle-cry of the revolution that comes out of our human-hating, child hating and especially male-child hating culture--it won't be Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Pense, will it?
Oh, and this section:
"... Such an encyclical would also have to call our specific attention to the fact that Christian peoples have been and are still being persecuted in Islamic lands. The section of the Martyrology that simply lists those killed in Islamic lands needs to be widely known....Can, as Augustine said, we be merciful while fighting a necessary and just war, a war imposed on us, even when necessary to kill someone who would kill us?..." produced the same sensation in me--although slightly less visceral--as when I watched Shoeless George do his "Islam is a Peaceful Religion" riff in the mosque. That's what "tolerance" means. To lie about a thing in order to tame it for our saccerine appetite.
Why are you talking about 'mercy" Father, when it is far from apparent that we will ever be in position to offer mercy??!!! I could only imagine the blood and body parts of the millions of dead, enslaved, "converted" peoples swirling around George's clean, white socks (did you notice he wore white socks so they would show up on the camera?). But those are only brown, black and yellow brethren (or demonized white people--like the Serbs and Russians). What do they make of our clean, white delicacy? Our academic discussions of "mercy" and "just warfare"?
That's it!! I've got it!! The battle cry of freedom 2001:
CLEAN WHITE SOCKS AND FLOWING BLACK GOLD!!!
(Oh dear. I think my hangover is showing. I'd better go pop some oil of evening primrose. Thanks again for the article. Lots more to say. But what's the point? It's all hopeless. Oooops. Big sin there...)
I am fairly confident that the War on Terrorism will eventually throw the spotlight on what you call our cultural homelessness. If the terrorists appear to be winning, I predict that many will turn toward religion as a both a source of comfort and an attempt to provide meaning in their lives. If on the other hand, the War on Terrorism succeeds, it will probably do so at the cost of a virtual domestic police state. The human spirit will eventually revolt at such measures. Either way, it's probably fair to say that tough times are ahead for us as a nation.
The pathetic performance of our Holy Father in his declining years has been a ghastly thing to observe. He places himslef alongside any passing American politician. They get their photo op and then go home and essentially crap all over the Church. So Bush "consulted" the Pope before decideing that 23 human beings could be tortured for science. After all they were all ready on the rack. Well isn't that nice? So considerate of him. I won't even mention Clinton's appearances.
I am a fan of John Paul II, who has stated many times that he sees materialism and utilitarianism as Catholicism's major foes. His attempts at ecumenism were driven by the belief that unity among the major faiths was critical in countering the effects of secularism. Whether he went too far in his attempts at rapprochement with Islam is open for debate. I am also not overly concerned by the Pope's meeting with American presidents. He has made his views on major issues very clear; efforts at diplomacy should be viewed exactly as what they are.
But I think his great early political success in confronting the Soviet Union may turn out to have been a more "complex" victory than it first appeared. I'm not sure the institution itself will be able to absorb all the "refugees" that will begin showing up soon--precisely because it hasn't held itself "aloof" enough from the culture that represents the most sinster threat in the long run. The "separateness" of the monestaries is what gave the Irish the ability to save Western Civilization by the skin of their teeth. But that vital aloofness is precisely what the Church--especially in America--fights against....
Thanks for the post. It deserves wide distribution and commentary. Regards.
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