RELIGION: Egyptian democracy and religious clashes...

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In my last blog, I was talking about the growth in secularization and gave as one reason, the growing realization that many religion(s) have a dark and harmful side.

Take the case of Egypt’s Muslims and Coptic Christians. Coptic Christians are a minority in Egypt but they number in the millions (15%).

A rumor was spread that a Christian woman married to a Muslim man was abducted ostensibly because she wanted to convert to Islam?

Gangs of Muslim youth, after being incited by ultraconservative Muslims, went out to torch Christian churches and kill Christians. When the dust settled, 12 people were dead and hundreds injured on both sides. The Christians can also be instigated and rampage through the streets looking for Muslims to kill.

Hosni Mubarak, the former Egyptian dictator did not stand for sectarian violence but since he was deposed, the ugly head of religious intolerance has risen again.

How many thousands have died in the name of religion in our history and continue to die as we speak and it does not have to be clashes between different religions (Christian vs. Muslim) but can occur between Muslims (Shiite vs. Sunni). It does not take much to incite a crowd over perceived slights to their religion.

I am always amazed that people would justify killing a fellow human in the name of their religion / god.

True, many of those rioting are youth from the slums which probably makes them poor, ignorant and easily incited but they are incited by adults with an agenda and that agenda is usually to gain power and control through religion; remember bin Laden?

Religions in the United States can peacefully co-exist and have for hundreds of years but it was not easy to reach that state and still requires a lot of work today as many Christian conservatives try to dominate our government and impose their religious ideology on the rest of us; at least we are not killing ourselves over religious issues.

We are the best example of religious tolerance in our world today albeit not a perfect example.

With the advent of what is being called the “Democratic Spring” in the Middle East, religion will play a huge role and if not controlled by a democratic but strong government, will end up like the murderous theocracy in Iran.

I guess I should be happy that a revolt by regular citizens in the Middle East is at least happening and that those people have had enough and want to try a little freedom and with that, hopefully some prosperity after all these years.

The people in the Middle East deserve a new life, a life with a future, so I hope they will resist and not allow religion to doom them once again to a dark reality with no hopes for a better future.

Related articles

• Egypt cracks down on Muslim-Christian clashes (ctv.ca)
• You: Religious conflict becomes the biggest enemy of Egypt's revolution (latimes.com)
• Muslim mobs attack Christian churches (moretinythoughts.wordpress.com)
• EGYPT: Religious conflict becomes the revolution's biggest enemy - Los Angeles Times (news.google.com)
• Egypt: the two women at the centre of the clashes (telegraph.co.uk)
• Muslim extremists burn down another Coptic Christian church in Egypt (cifwatch.com)
• Christians, Muslims clash in Cairo (edition.cnn.com)