Re: So what!

In a message dated 1/30/2003 1:03:07 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
wwagar@binghamton.edu writes:

> But the major positive religions
> of our era originated in pre-capitalist times and are steeped in
> pre-capitalist pre-modern pre-scientific world-views.  If their leaders
> cannot stomach capitalism because of its associations with modern secular
> thought and/or Western imperialism, their default mode is not modern
> secular socialism but an attempt to revert, time-travel if you please, to
> the centuries of their founding, e.g., 7th-Century Arabia.  Actually
> getting there is, of course, impossible, as WS analysis shows, but they
> can try, and sometimes their efforts to resurrect the social relations of
> production that obtained in these earlier centuries can be just as
> oppressive to workers, or more so, than anything cooked up 
> by
> Western-style capitalists.

Here its difficult to presume that, despite your protestations to the contrary, 
you're referring to fundamentalism. Catholics, Methodists, et al haven't shown 
any propensity for trying to turn back the clock to the 7th century.  But, for 
the most part, neither have fundamentalists.  The big exception is the Taliban 
(fiercely denounced by the current Iranian government), and they were amply 
assisted by the various Soviet and American weapons that demolished whatever 
was 'twentieth century' about Afghanistan.

Since scientific humanism produced virtually everything bad associated with 
religion (intolerance, conformity,  inquisitions, etc) and left out the good 
(spiritual ectasy, art, communal rituals) why exactly are we supposed to 
believe it is THE path for the twenty-first century? 

Steven Sherman