Re: Are Islam and Democracy Incompatible?

Ron Allen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message 
news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...

> Are fundamentalist and evangelical Christianity 
> and Democracy Compatible?

NO. This is why fundamentalists and evangelicals (at 
least, in the United States) are constantly (and--thank 
God, so far unsuccessfully) trying to subvert the secular 
foundations/principles of the American Constitution
and "democratic form of government" in an attempt to
establish some kind of doomed "theocratic nation" here:
They really are "God-fearing" people, whose fear blinds
them to the blessings that secular/humanistic democracy
has so lovingly bestowed upon them.
 
Their contention is that the laws of man spring from God
or some such nonsense!!! However, the American Founding 
Fathers (most of them children of The Enlightenment) 
knew better; and devised a marvelous system here to keep 
the choking hands of superstition from strangling this one
chance at democracy... the ONLY way such a system could 
be made palatable to the un-enlightened America in which 
they found themselves: by casting "the good prohibition"
as a DEFENSE of every individual's freedom to worship as 
he/she wished! (Read the 1st Amendment yourself.)

Frankly, it's a codification of the SO American praise 
to God: "Thank God for so many religions!" (That in 
seeking to defend them all... it is we, lucky citizens,
who are defended from every damned one of them):
Or, "it's not possible to raise any one of them without 
lowering all the others." However you want to look at it.

Time and time again the 1st Amendment language has 
permitted American courts to bar ANY and ALL mingling 
of religion and state... against American fundamentalist 
& evangelical groups' assertions that the 1st Amendment 
language DOES NOT prohibit such mingling but rather
ONLY "protects religion(s)" ... every one of them (from, 
you might suppose, some impossibly atheistic American 
state conspiracy!?... or perhaps from every individual's 
God-given right to live free of religion itself---which right
such fundamentalist evangelical groups probably can't 
even concede ordinary persons having in "a country 
founded under God"). Today secular/humanistic democracy 
faces a very stiff challenge... in an America with a born-
again president and a resurgent fundamentalist/evangelical 
movement, yes; but to anyone who has studied the 
American experience this is really nothing new--believe 
me: People have been enamored of ignorance and 
superstition a lot more passionately in the past than now. 
And America is still a strong secular humanistic democracy.

Christianity, from its very founding, has been about 
the redemption of the human soul (rather than the 
establishment of "Paradise on earth"). Its geography 
is that of Heaven. And Jesus is "the lamb of God" who 
comes "down to earth" because God has taken unto 
Himself, so to speak, the sacrifice of Abraham in the
Old Testament. And though not all Christian sects see 
it this way (least of all in the historic past): they all 
seem to agree now that it is essentially up to every 
Christian to succeed or to fail by his/her own merits
of faith (rather than it being up to the political/temporal 
organs of Christian Power to see to it that individual 
Christians "do their duty" as is the case with Islam). 
For this reason, Christianity is today a particularly 
benign force... as far as interfering with any secular 
government (democracy), in spite of its having been
hijacked from the time of the Roman emperor Constantine 
as a state religion by many non-democratic and/or "nearly-
democratic" (ha!) subsequent governments and potentates.

However, all religions make bad governments. Priests 
yet reserve for themselves the power to say who goes to 
Heaven/Hell (usually according to how people treat their
Faith--being human, after all)... and not just by how well 
people do by/for themselves); certainly religions which 
are extremely efficient at mind-control (like Islam... and 
other mind-control cults, whether Christian or not) are thus 
particularly destructive and, all of them, tragically fatal if 
they ever come to hold real power on this poor mortal earth 
of ours.

There is no end to nations calling themselves democracies
which are... just a bunch of people shackled in unbending 
bonds posing as laws (laws the people cannot change). 
However, a "democracy" which is not for the benefit of the 
citizenry (and instead is merely falsely proclaimed to be so
... while in reality being for the benefit of some principle/
institution) can never be true democracy: The "demos" is 
the people; and nothing else is any part of democracy. 

Be ever wary of anyone who suggests that there is "too 
much democracy" ... because what they are telling YOU 
is that YOU have too much say on the way you run YOUR
life. This is always deadly. Like the American Founding 
Fathers... trust the people to act in their own best interest 
(if not every single time, then most of the time, and this 
may be enough times). 

Those not interested in democracy, those who do not trust 
the people... whether because they believe they know better 
(than the people know what's best for themselves), or for 
whatever other reason: those who are interested only in 
the destruction or incapacitation of democracy... those will 
try to tell you that the proper role of "rulers" is the lifting of 
the burdens of democracy from your tired shoulders (that
you may enjoy your private life all the better)... but I tell 
you: the struggle for democracy is a burden only slavery lifts. 
And I tell you that the greater the enemy of your freedom... 
the nearer to you he lives: If he is in your heart: you're 
already dead.

Know this at least: Anyone might impose democracy, or 
it may even simply come about by sheer dumb luck. But 
if the people who are given the blessings of democracy 
are not yet ready for it... they have been handed no less
than the power to turn themselves back into slaves--for 
that is the true terrible power of democracy: the freedom 
not merely for the good and for greatness, but for evil 
and folly. Any attempt to thwart this terrible freedom that 
is democracy... that is tyranny (and no matter whether it 
comes out of good or ill intentions): The luck lies with 
the people, not with the law-givers & other gods.*

S D Rodrian
http://poems.sdrodrian.com
http://physics.sdrodrian.com
http://democracy.sdrodrian.com

* No: This is not a rationale for "dictatorship until" the 
people ask for democracy or take it by force, merely a way 
of saying that it is the hardest thing in the world to predict 
how a people may/will stumble into democracy; and harder
still to predict whether they will keep it once they get it, if 
ever they do get it.

I can only say to those who get it: You'll be very sorry 
indeed if you do not value it enough to do "everything 
in your power" to keep it. And that: that is precisely 
what it will take (to keep it)... everything in your power.

I have also been asked, "How can you have democracy
given what happened in Florida in the last presidential
election?" To which I say: Whatever mistakes were made,
there have been no end to the efforts since to correct
them. And every time there is a charge of impropriety or 
fraud: there has been a thorough criminal investigation.
If George Bush won the election even though Gore got
more votes this is acceptable because Bush and Gore
agreed that the winner would not be the one who got
the most individual votes but the one who got the most
electoral college votes. If the American people (in the
person of their politicians) do not agree to run the next
election this way... they have the power to change it now.
This is what establishes the genuineness of the American 
democracy: The eternally unimpeded ability of the people 
to have the final say on how they will run their own lives
for good or ill.


re:

> Thank you,
> 
> Ron Allen
> Atlanta, Georgia