Brainstorming for elements to include in Plan B (non-military efforts for the "ideological confrontation" of the century) is a worthwhile pastime; it might even be a necessary diversion--if that isn't an oxymoron.
Here's a start. Gentle Reader, feel free to add.
1) Let's develop template posters which will be placed in neighborhoods which celebrate the "martyrdom" of suicidal jihadists. Our competing posters would proclaim that there is no "Paradise" in store for anyone who murders a child in the name of Islam, nor is such a person worthy of the title of martyr.
2) On the neighborhoods of madrasas, let's drop leaflets which assert that God is not a pimp, that it is blasphemous to teach, as well as to believe, that God would provide a cohort of women to see to the after-death carnal pleasures of child-murderers.
3) Let us proclaim that dressing to express one's religious beliefs is a personal badge of honor, it loses its religiosity when it is enforced at the point of a sword, knife, or a gun barrel. Further, it is an insult to God to teach that the female is less worthy than a male. God has no gender.
4) While we are doing the above, let us not exclude any Judeo-Christian teachings or practices which are suspect--which more than likely are inspired by the inclinations of humans rather than of a deity. In other words, erase from religious teachings anything that smacks of human emotion rather than the objective balances of the universe.
5) Let us acknowledge that we do not and cannot know the nature of the Deity. All writings are, essentially, metaphorical, and that is especially true of religious writings. We speak of the unspeakable in terms which we can understand; we cannot understand something beyond our experiences; we must not continue in the error that the God of which we speak is a supra-human by necessity of the limits of our languages.
Aristotle's Prime Mover is beyond our ken. We do the best we can, but our best cannot be definitive.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Plan B (Well, no one else seems to want to do it!)
Posted by Unknown at 6/23/2007 09:12:00 AM
Labels: Ideological Struggle, Religion
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