A Quote by A.C. Grayling
Christian churches and Muslim groups have no more right to have their say than women's institutes or trades unions. The government has actively encouraged faith-based education, and therefore given a megaphone to religious voices and fundamentalists.
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You have to be realistic about terrorism. Certain groups of people, certain groups, Muslim fundamentalists, Christian fundamentalists, Jewish fundamentalists, and just plain guys from Montana, are going to continue to make life in this country very interesting for a long, long time.
That both Muslim fundamentalists and the Christian right are today focusing their attempts to regain control in a rapidly changing world on frantic efforts to maintain control over women, particularly over women's sexuality. Moreover, given their mythologies about "holy wars," it is also understandable that they should use "divinely approved" violence to do so.
The religious fundamentalists of the Republican party are a mirror image of the religious fundamentalists of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood.
Women were everywhere in the revolution. Women participated in it, and many women were killed. Then we had the right to speak up and gain some more rights, but what happened was there was a backlash. Why? Because we have the Salafists, Muslim Brothers, religious groups.
Bad religion is arrogant, self-righteous, dogmatic and intolerant. And so is bad science. But unlike religious fundamentalists, scientific fundamentalists do not realize that their opinions are based on faith. They think they know the truth.
It is not coincidental that for so-called religious fundamentalists - whether they are Western or Eastern, Muslim or Christian - rigid male dominance and "holy wars" are priorities. Or that competing sects of the same religion, such as Sunni and Shia, are at each other's throats. In these cultures, women are rigidly controlled by men.
Through my Faith-Based and Community Initiative, my Administration continues to encourage the essential work of faith-based and community organizations. Governments can and should support effective social services, including those provided by religious people and organizations. When government gives that support, it is important that faith-based institutions not be forced to change their religious character.
While the primary focus continues to be on religious minorities - the Christian religious minorities and the Jewish community - ISIS will also go after people who interpret and believe the Muslim faith differently than they do.
That the religious right completely took over the word Christian is a given. At one time, phrases such as Christian charity and Christian tolerance were used to denote kindness and compassion. To perform a "Christian" act meant an act of giving, of acceptance, of toleration. Now, Christian is invariably linked to right-wing conservative political thought -- Christian nation, Christian morality, Christian values, Christian family.
All we have and are is based on the Christian faith, which has shaped law, government, morals, music, landscape, and education here for a thousand years.
Hence, within the space of two generations there has been a complete revolution in the attitude of the trades-unions toward the women working in their trades.
There could be no more powerful argument against mixing religion and government than the success of independent African American churches in placing racial segregation and discrimination on a reluctant nation's social agenda. Would black churches have been able to take the lead in the struggle had they been dependent on funds doled out for 'faith-based initiatives' . . . ?
Everyone talks about religious liberty, but no one believes it. So let us be blunt about it: we must use the doctrine of religious liberty to gain independence for Christian schools until we train up a generation of people who know that there is no religious neutrality, no neutral law, no neutral education, and no neutral civil government. Then they will get busy in constructing a Bible-based social, political, and religious order which finally denies the religious liberty of the enemies of God.
As a Christian, there is no other part of the New Right ideology that concerns me more than its self-serving misuse of religious faith.
I hear, more than ever, people actively searching for women to direct, actively wanting to finance women's films, which is not to say it is easy, but I think it's been a great instance of how journalism has put pressure on business to be more fair between genders.
The fundamentalists of every faith remain blind to the truth that the “sigh within the prayer is the same in the heart of the Christian, the Muslim, and the Jew.” I have seen this unity with my eyes, heard it with my ears, felt it with all my being.
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