Here we have an anti-religionist, a member of the Secular Party, using the Afghan tragedy and one religion stuck in the 7th Century, to rant against all religions.

In 2017, only 9% of people in the world claimed to be atheist; 25% said they were not religious but 62% said that they were religious.

I don't think the author will get much of an audience outside his little secular club.

NO! It is not religious belief that's to blame! But its extreme versions and the fruit loops who practice and inculcate others with their demonstrably false belief!

And as long as we accept the right of a few nut jobs, to practice their extremism that includes the wilful murder of innocents and the subjugation and sexual slavery of one gender!

It will continue and grow even worse per, brainwashed from birth, generation!

Perhaps a nuke or two will allow them to question their own, primitive, stone-age BS!? BS that makes a bone pointing witch doctor, look positively benign!
Alan B.

Poor deluded fool!

When the author is able to offer a comparable system to religion to the seething masses of humans on the globe, to conquer the pervasive sense of death as their largest challenge in life, then his argument will stand a chance.

But right now, there is no form of living comparable to religion that has that power over the individual.

Dan

I'm not sure how much support the Taliban actually
has in Afghanistan or how closely the religious
doctrine is followed there - or whether people
simply fear the Taliban and practice their religion
differently in private. Women certainly tried to make
the most of things while the Taliban were not in power -
and insisted on jobs and an education.
Look at how many Afghans tried
scrambling onto planes to get out of the country.
Look at how many refugees there now are globally
from Afghanistan.

It's a sad situation all round. One of the Taliban members
when questioned about people's rights under them - replied
that the rights will be according to Sharia Law - who's
to say how that law is to be interpreted.

It doesn't look like a happy ending is in sight.

If the dark age religion practitioners like the Taliban think that holding our people hostage while they demand subservience or unfettered ability to sell their drugs of addiction/killer evil to the world?

Then our reply must include the nuking of Taliban strongholds in either Afghanistan or Pakistan or both! It changed the course of history before with another, equally/more fanatical medieval belief system!

And will again if w have a leader with balls and implacable resolve like e.g, President Kennedy! One of a few leaders who also served in the military! And in his case, as a hero!

Let the cage rattlers rant and roar but leave that threat to nuke on the table for as long as they make unacceptable demands or kill our people!

And if our people don't turn up at appointed transit out points, let's assume they have been assassinated and the threats we made should this occur, be made real!
Alan B.

Yes it is quite obviously the case that much/most of the world's present time troubles are very much being caused by back-to-the-past religious "traditionalists". Which of course are merely the historically dominant Middle Eastern religious cults that won the religious culture wars in their time and place. These cults are now at war with one another for global dominance.

This is very much the case with the world-dominant cults of Christian-ism, Juda-ism and Islam-ism which are first and foremost political outfits.
This has always been the case with Christian-ism and Islam-ism which were and still are State religions. The "catholic" church is an independent political state which quite openly interferes with the politics and culture in most parts of the world, even with the backing of international laws and treaties - see http://www.concordatwatch.eu

In recent times via the Zionists this now also the case with Juda-ism as it is being dramatized in Israel/Palestine. And in the so called "holy land" altogether which is effectively a large scale lunatic asylum.

This article rests in whole on the false assumption as if the practices and political movements described therein were indeed religious or constitute religions.

The author may be forgiven for not having a clue what religion is, demonstrating his total ignorance throughout the article, left, right and center - but we should know better.

---

Dear Daffy,

While the author is so ignorant, from you, since you understand better, I would not expect such sloppy language:

«This has always been the case with Christian-ism and Islam-ism which were and still are State religions.»

How possibly can a dog, even a brown dog, be a brown cow?
How possibly can anything which is not a religion be a State-religion?!

A reasoned and logical perception of what the Taliban represent should have witnessed a flash of atheism envelope our globe. That it failed is not a reflection upon the value to humankind of those concepts but upon the inability of humankind to cast aside the cerebral pathology of fear of the unknown and the bowell-evacuating dread of taking responsibility for themselves.

"The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself."
Sir Richard Francis Burton (1821 - 1890)

In the Taliban we encounter little boys playing at being real men in pathological fear of the other half of humankind....the cognate, the distaff. It is essential to their peace of mind that their profane natures be made the responsibility of the female. They use a scapegoat to hide their inadequacies, a scapegoat to rape, to witness, to inheritance, to uncleanness. The scapegoat upon whom the iniquities of little boys playing at being men can be heaped and expiated. It has become a given in even modern christian societies that little boys "hate" little girls and shun their presence. It has been the medium of humour and derision in many forms.

"With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."
Steven Weinberg (1933 - ), quoted in The New York Times, April 20, 1999

Is left wing religion a positive influence on the world?

https://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=21593&page=0#google_vignette

ttbn, Tuesday, 24 August 2021 9:41:51 AM writes: "In 2017, only 9% of people in the world claimed to be atheist; 25% said they were not religious but 62% said that they were religious."

I'm sure you won't think me presumptuous if I ask for a checkable source for your figures. In fact this sentence of yours reads like you might be expecting an enquiry from a scurrilous old skeptic like me.

Where it's been allowed to fester and stink up the place religion has brought a lot of tragedy to humankind. Were I to add the word "querrulous" to my self-description, I might resort to adding a similar ad hominen flavour to my observations that I detect in your post. But it's best avoided if at all possible. The religionist is undoubtedly and inevitably pretty vulnerable in this sort of exchanges.

Hello Pogi, Thank you for proving my point that left wing religion is the most evil force in world history.

imacentristmoderate, Wednesday, 25 August 2021 5:43:04 AM :
It requires very little effort really. Theists do most of the work for you. A spoonful of martyrdom does wonders for their self-respect.

Apparently my reference to the non-existence or the religious prophets and to the lack of evidence for supernatural beings indicates my "ignorance of religion". Presumably this also applies to my reference to the contents of the Koran as being the determinants of Taliban policy. What I observe is an emotional reaction by those who cannot accept their irrational beliefs being challenged.

Dear John Perkins,

Your ignorance of religion has nothing to do with the existence or non-existence of this or that prophet and/or supernatural being: your ignorance, in summary, is in referring to certain social behaviours as "religion".

Don't you agree that such cruel and selfish behaviours, take the Taliban for example, do not come from God and do not lead to God?!

Why then do you buy their version of reality?
They claim that what they do constitutes a religion - what nonsense... and you believe those idiots?

I say that religion is real, that it has a reality, thus mere claiming "I am religious" or "God told me/us" or citing creation myths, is insufficient to establish that as fact, that to be considered religious, one has to as a fact follow and seek God, not just as a fantasy.

On the other side of the coin, there are people who never claimed to be religious, never speak of God or the supernatural or some theory of creation, yet are more religious than most of us, in the sense that the way the live their life brings them closer to God faster than any church/mosque/synagogue/temple/etc goers.

You do not need to agree with me, of course: as an atheist you may perhaps wish to claim that religion does not exist, that all claims of "religion" are false without exception, that since there is no God there is no way to approach God either. Fine, I could take on such discussion, but that is completely unlike what you wrote in your article.

Agree, John, religion has a lot to answer for, including the Christian religion! The blind tribal faith of Christian fanaticists is every bit as misguided and dangerous as that of any Islamist. Religion however is not the reason for Afghanistan's sad descent into chaos.

The Afghan people overthrew the Dawd dictatorship in 1978 and installed a secular modernist government which had wide popular support. Its policies were progressive and well received and there was no Islamic uprising. The big problem for Afghanistan however was that the US perceived its new government to be socialist and as it's done in so many other places around the world it decided to bring it down.

To do this, it bribed and armed religious zealots, the mujahedin, to oppose and undermine the new government. It was this newly-created jihadist threat that neighbouring Russia responded to in 1979. The US continued to arm the mujahedin to fight against the Russians, a fight which lasted 10 years. The progressive Afghan government was overthrown in 1992 and its popular leader hung on a lamp post. It was at this time that the Taliban emerged and it too began to resist US interference. It took over government in 1996.

There was no need for the US to invade Afghanistan in 2001. It could have waited and taken out Bin Laden with the same surgical precision it's used to kill others. The Taliban offered to surrender, but the US wasn't interested. 9/11 was just the cover it needed to invade the country and take strategic control of the region and its resources.

Very naturally, the Taliban have resisted the US occupation of their land. They've been ruthless and brutal, but their determination to free themselves from foreign invaders is to be expected. Unlike the US, the Taliban haven't had access to billions of dollars worth of fighter jets and modern weaponry. They've had little, but sheer brute force. They were not fighting for their religion. They were fighting for the return of their land. It is the US and not religion which has created the mess in today's Afghanistan.

Dear Bronwyn,

«religion has a lot to answer for, including the Christian religion!»

There you fall into the same trap as the author: his whole argument depends on the assumption that Islam, or Christianity for that matter, were indeed religions.

For some, rather a minority, Islam and Christianity are indeed used as religions, but for most it is only a social identity-thing, packed with beliefs taken out of context.

Otherwise an interesting analysis. Nationalism of any kind is a terrible thing, but it has nothing to do with religion except for cynically quoting it out of context for its own ends.