Ente transparente

El mundo islámico tuvo una época de esplendor entre los siglos VIII y XII, durante los cuales fue bastante más rico, refinado, tolerante y avanzado que la Europa de su tiempo. La diferencia se puso de relieve durante las Cruzadas, un choque violento unilateralmente provocado por los cristianos, que dieron muestras de mayor fanatismo y brutalidad que los muslimes.

Quedaron conmocionados por la ferocidad de los cruzados, una conmoción que todavía perdura en la zona y que es comparable a la que entre nosotros produjo el ataque de Al Qaeda a las torres gemelas de Nueva York en 2001. La crueldad de la conquista cristiana de Jerusalén contrasta con la caballerosidad y moderación de su reconquista por Saladino, 90 años después.

La sociedad musulmana de entonces era lo suficientemente libre y abierta como para tolerar opiniones divergentes o heterodoxas y para respetar y admirar el trabajo científico. Posteriormente, la cultura islámica perdió todo su dinamismo, frescura y creatividad para caer en el dogmatismo estéril, la intolerancia y la cerrazón mental (el funda-mental-ismo). El mundo islámico no ha desempeñado papel alguno en el desarrollo de la ciencia moderna y apenas tiene presencia en la investigación actual.

Seis de los ocho países más pobres del mundo son miembros de la Conferencia Islámica. Exceptuando las plutocracias hereditarias asentadas sobre el petróleo, la mayoría de los muslimes vive en la miseria, que tiene muchas causas: la explosión demográfica, la educación inútil de las madrazas, reducida a aprender el Corán de memoria, la obsesión por ocultar y reprimir a las mujeres, el fatalismo, la corrupción desenfrenada e incluso la imposición de normas religiosas a la actividad financiera. A diferencia de la mayoría de los cristianos y judíos (y no digamos de los japoneses o chinos), que cada vez se han ido haciendo más escépticos y tolerantes y consideran su religión como una mera tradición cultural entre otras, muchos muslimes conservan un fervor religioso exacerbado.

Extracto del artículo de Jesús Monsterín

Nearly a third of Texans believe humans and dinosaurs roamed the earth at the same time, and more than half disagree with the theory that humans developed from earlier species of animals, according to the University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll. The differences in beliefs about evolution and the length of time that living things have existed on earth are reflected in the political and religious preference of our respondents.

The most common religious denominations in the survey were Catholic and Baptist, with 20 percent each, followed by nondenominational Christians, at 10 percent, and Methodists, at 6 percent. Eight percent chose “spiritual but not religious,” and 7 percent chose “other.” Only 6 percent identified themselves as atheist or agnostic. An overwhelming majority said their religious beliefs were extremely important (52 percent) or somewhat important (30 percent). Only 35 percent go to church once a week or more; 52 percent said they go once or twice a year (29 percent) or never (23 percent).

Indeed, it seems to be a requirement of political office in America that you believe in God. Americans seem to think those who rule us must believe in God because, if they do not, they cannot be “moral”.

Americans do not have to believe in God, because they believe that it is a good thing simply to believe: all they need is a general belief in belief. That is why we have never been able to produce interesting atheists in the US.

The god most Americans say they believe in is not interesting enough to deny, because it is only the god that has given them a country that ensures that they have the right to choose to believe in the god of their choosing, Accordingly, the only kind of atheism that counts in the US is that which calls into question the proposition that everyone has a right to life, liberty, and happiness.

America is the exemplification of what I call the project of modernity. That project is the attempt to produce a people that believes it should have no story except the story it chose when it had no story. That is what Americans mean by freedom. Americans are unable to acknowledge that they have been fated to be “free”, which makes them all the more adamant that they have a right to choose the god that underwrites their “freedom.” It produces a people who say: “I believe that Jesus is Lord – but that is just my personal opinion.” I hope that makes it understandable that Americans expect their presidents to believe in god. They do so because they are confident that the god presidents believe in is not a god that can call into question the American project.

Miracle Mineral Solution (MMS), on its website, claimed it cured cancer, Aids, malaria, and basically most things short of actual death.

US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warning: “The product, when used as directed, produces an industrial bleach that can cause serious harm to health. The product instructs consumers to mix the 28 percent sodium chlorite solution with an acid such as citrus juice. This mixture produces chlorine dioxide, a potent bleach used for stripping textiles and industrial water treatment. High oral doses of this bleach, such as those recommended in the labeling, can cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and symptoms of severe dehydration.”

Jim Humble, the “inventor”, in a video declares “I developed a technique for healing by touch,” before going on to compare himself favourably to Jesus (“What was it that Jesus Christ did first of all, always? He healed the sick. That is what we will be doing but there is a lot more to it than that.”)

he outlines an innovative strategy that will allow him to spread his medical ideas across the world while evading any government interference – setting up a church and saying some half-truths: “Look at the Catholics. Their priests have been molesting women and children for centuries and the governments have not been able to stop it. If handled properly a church can protect us from vaccinations that we don’t want, from forced insurance, and from many things that a government might want to use to oppress us.”

Some people have been campaigning hard to have this menace dealt with in Britain, documenting those selling MMS and reporting them to the relevant authorities.

In the meantime, Jim Humble and his followers are free to roam the developing world, visiting the sick, the desperate and the dying, and making them sip water treatment chemicals for days or weeks on end. And that should make us all unspeakably angry.

La demanda contra el Gobierno la presentaron, entre otros, dos investigadores que han centrado su carrera en poner en duda los beneficios de la investigación con embriones. Ambos, James Sherley y Theresa Deisher, alegaron no solo reparos religiosos, sino también posibles daños económicos. Adujeron que Obama ha favorecido una mayor competencia y restado dinero público a las alternativas científicas que ellos desarrollan, y que son más acordes con su fe cristiana, como el uso de células madre adultas o de animales.

El juez Royce Lamberth ordenó el bloqueo de fondos públicos porque cree que los demandantes tienen grandes posibilidades de ganar el juicio. Se ampara en una norma de 1996 que prohíbe la financiación pública de experimentos en los que se destruyan embriones.

There’s an America where it doesn’t matter what language you speak, what god you worship, or how deep your New World roots run. An America where allegiance to the Constitution trumps ethnic differences, language barriers and religious divides. An America where the newest arrival to our shores is no less American than the ever-so-great granddaughter of the Pilgrims.

But there’s another America as well, one that understands itself as a distinctive culture, rather than just a set of political propositions. This America speaks English, not Spanish or Chinese or Arabic. It looks back to a particular religious heritage: Protestantism originally, and then a Judeo-Christian consensus that accommodated Jews and Catholics as well. It draws its social norms from the mores of the Anglo-Saxon diaspora — and it expects new arrivals to assimilate themselves to these norms, and quickly.

These two understandings of America, one constitutional and one cultural, have been in tension throughout our history. And they’re in tension again this summer, in the controversy over the Islamic mosque and cultural center scheduled to go up two blocks from ground zero.