Egypt Court miraculously sentences 12 Christian suspects, Acquits 8 Muslim suspects

Arab spring?

 

Tolerent religion?

Not.

DD

 

Stop spreading your religion and forcing them unto other people. Of course this crap is going to happen.

 

I know right? This happens in all sorts of civilized countries like the US, Canada, most of Europe...

Oh wait...

 

you're a ****ing idiot

 

This is one of the things that worries me about the Arab Spring is whether it will be hijacked by the ultra-religious. The move though from an authoritarian rule though to a democracy isn't going to be easy and it's not surprising the religious are asserting themselves but hopefully moderates will be able to assert themselves in the presidential election.

 

We all were at 17. He's young. At least he has an opinion.

 

That's not the point. We're talking about periphery countries. Its sad to see how people kill each over something as trivial like religion.

 

To you religion is something "trivial." To many there is nothing more important. You say they are sad, they'd say you are sad. Why should either of you be arrested or killed for holding that belief?

 

Political partis will always try to subvert the democratic process to consolidate power. This is why a strong court system is so key to a free society. It's not just Egypt...look at Russia. Look at s. America. Heck it happens in the u.s. with the recent activities of the right to prevent poor minorities from voting.

These countries are not ready for democracy and I do think the middle east will become more fanatical vs. secular democracy.

 

There is plenty of unjustness in the world. People are idiots. They use religion as an excuse. But I guess I'm preaching to the choir.

 

Egypt's probably in for a lot of turmoil for a long time. You don't have a revolution and go to a peaceful representative democracy in a day. The US had a revolution and couldn't abolish slavery until 100 years later. France had a revolution and couldn't even persist in a democracy until 100 years later. Russia cast off the tsar and 100 years later they still don't have a true democracy. Obviously, no country is going to ever be perfect. But, even to reach an acceptable minimum of democracy and civil rights after throwing off an establishment of authoritarian government and oppression takes multiple generations.

I'm not saying injustice in Egypt is okay, nor that we can't expect better. I am saying that making facile explanations about the oppression of Islam ignores what we see historically about how hard it is for any culture to make the transformation we want Egypt to make.

 

I don't like it either for the ultra-religious in Israel, Saudi and other and other countries in the Middle East to have such power. In Egypt, with the grinding poverty of the masses and a few US backed millionaire/billionaires, we should hope for a secular left. We can be damn sure there won't be moderate of the road trickle down types winning power democratically.

 

They are usually the instigators. You don't see atheists running around killing people because they believe in something. However you see tons of theists running around killing other theists.

Religious strife isn't as bad now as it was in the past. Crusades, persecution, etc. However, the fact that it remains a variable for which people decide to use to segregate themselves from other human beings then I think it is a tragedy and should be seriously reformed (not abolished). Seriously. It dehumanizes those that don't believe the same way you do. Or at least sets a condescending vibe where you consider all non-believers of your faith to be uncivilized, dumb, unenlightened, etc.

 

How many atheists run volatile countries?

Most theists running around killing other theists are doing it for land, money, power. I think it highly unlikely that they have all truly been believers in their faith.

 

True. The ringleaders of all this murder and corruption are just using religion as a medium, however religion creates a massive amount of blind followers that are willing to do the dirty work and kill. Nearly all religions leave little room for free will and conscientious thought. Faith they call it; its really just masked ignorance.

 

Agreed. I think what you're going to see Egypt transition into over the course of the next decade or so is something that parallels more closely with 19th century/early 20th century America that had an extremely weak central government that couldnt protect minority communities against mobs from majority communities (white v. black violence, catholic v. protestant, anti-immigrant violence, etc.).