Atheist Girl

It isn't a problem. I am classified the same as you. I don't think we need to worry about labels, unless you want to make one up for those of us who are on the left when it comes to issues of abortion and gay marriage, but on the right when it comes to addressing Islam.

In Canada, we have 4 parties. The Progressive Conservatives which resembles your Liberal party. The Liberals which resembles your Labor party, and the New Democratic Party which resembles communism (not quite but close) and the Party Quebecois which is a French separist party.

I choose the PC's because I feel the biggest threat to Western freedom doesn't come from abortion issues but Islam. I also think that abortion and gay marriage will be sorted out with us realists prevailing.

 

The problem as I see it, is that the right is also religious. It may not be Islam, but Christianity is also against western freedom and not just on abortion but freedom of speach, etc.

The Christians have taken over the Liberal party here and are using Islam to take people's minds off christianity. Islam may be the most noisy one but christianity is not much better.

I don't want to choose between the bad and worse, the same way the Iranian elections works.

There is no party here that really cares about the dangers of religion and that is annoying.

 

My philosophy is in order to eliminate religion from the state, you must have a state to begin with. So supporting those who understand the reality of radical Islam is the lesser of two evils for the moment.

Sure, once (if ever) radical Islam does not become a worry anymore, then we can worry about eliminating the religious right from politics.

Don't forget, evolution, an ancient earth, and even dinosaur fossils are fairly recent in our history....these discoveries wipe out the literal bible, and to the logical, explain that God isn't needed in the equation anymore....There are a lot more Atheists and Agnostics by percentage than there were 100 years ago.

In other words, give it time.

 

Athiest girl, I hear yeah!!!

There is hope for us confused and disatisfied liberals:

The Eurston Manifesto

Liberty, progress, no excuse for terror.

 

you are a Libertarian. :)

 

Steve, the key word is percentage.
The earths population has doubled in the last 45 years I believe.

Right now, Islam is a much bigger threat than Christianity is to the free world. I'm not saying that certain Christian factions aren't a mental threat. However, take Canada for instance.....nothing was open on Sunday when I was a kid......that changed. Far less people on a percentage basis go to church or synagogue.

Harris realizes that Islam is a much larger worry than Christianity....but I feel Christianity will be tamed over time.....in the West we are seeing society lean more toward secularism than state religion. Look at Denmark and Sweden where Agnostics/Atheists make up around 50% of the population.
As long as those percentages grow in the West, state and religion will separate even further.

 

Hi Roya. Wow, after being dormant for so long, you have had quite a burst of activity on your blog.

I share the same feeling about party affiliation. I don't feel either the Democrats or the Republicans here in the United States represents me all that much. But when you have a limited choice of options, you go with the candidates that are more in line with the things that are important to you.

If you are socially liberal but are more hawkish on foreign policy, then you should vote for liberal candidates for local offices and conservative candidates for national offices. That way the liberal candidates support the socially liberal policies in the place where you live, while the national conservative officials take a stand against Islamic fundamentalism.

As for terrorism, as a Kurd, I would hope that you make a statement against the terrorist bombings carried out by Kurds in a couple of coastal cities in Turkey recently. Terrorism by all groups, whether it be Al-qaida, the Tamil Tigers, or secular Kurdish groups, should be condemned.

Best regards,

Tom

 

Bacon, I think one of the problems is that Islamic fundamentalists are the mirror of Christian fundamentalists here in America. Now of course, American fundamentalist Christians are not carrying out suicide bombings and such. But if we had a situation where Democrats had the Presidency, the congress and the courts, and abortion and gay rights expanded, I could see some of the zanier Christian rightists resorting to violence because they would feel that they could not achieve their aims through the democratic process. Also, the rise of Islamic fundamentalism can serve to strengthen Christian fundamentalism by convincing the Christian fundies that we are living in a time of holy war and that the apocalypse is coming and all of that crap.

 

I really don't believe we can fight religion if me don't strike the core of the problem which is religion itself. Even the right wings are scared of talking about the problem with Islam, and instead redirect the issue to the problem of misrepresentation of Islam. This is NOT good.

There is no garantee that the war on terror will continue and I actually see more and more muslims having seen an opportunity to potray themselves as victoms and they ae wining peoples opinions on this.

Not only we have to show to Muslims that Allah is not going to help them win but we also need to show the truth about Islam which no political party dares to do.

Also, as christians are gaining more and more power there is no garantee that we will have an opportunity to undo what they are doing.

I agree with you that this fight is a long term fight but we have to start NOW that we have some tiny say left in the government and media. This may not be so 10 to 20 years from now.

We need people who can represent our concern on reigion and there is NO party which does that.

 

"As for terrorism, as a Kurd, I would hope that you make a statement against the terrorist bombings carried out by Kurds in a couple of coastal cities in Turkey recently. Terrorism by all groups, whether it be Al-qaida, the Tamil Tigers, or secular Kurdish groups, should be condemned."

I absolutely agree. I do not like what they do and I can tell you many Kurds agree with me as well. Even the Kurdish leaders understand that we cannot win by violence. It is not right nor civilised to murder innocent people for any cause anyway.

I may not have talked about it as I have not talked about the bombing of kurdish villages by Turkey or the dam project in the Historic Hasankeyf region which has historic and cultural significance for the Kurds and Humanity in general. Read:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/5243588.stm

I'm not against Turks, in fact I love what Ataturk did for his own people. I am also more against the division of Kurds into different countries than for the creation of a state for Kurds. I'll be happy for the Kurds to be all part of either Turkey or Iran.

The problem I see, is that the Kurds of Iran cannot understand the Kurdish language of the Kurds in Iraq or Turkey and vice versa. That is the bouderies within Kurdistan that are the problem not the boundaries around it.

I'm not racist nor much of a nationalist. I see myselve as an Iranian as well and a member of female community which knows no boundaries. There is NO one identity for me.

 

Also a member of Humanity. :)

 

I'm not sure if it is true that the Christian Right has gotten stronger in the US. Just louder. I can remember Christian shows on TV all my life. I think if anything, they have gotten weaker. Prayer in school for example. Sunday shopping. Etc.

Science is really the biggest enemy to religion. If there is a war on religion in North America, the best way to fight it with scientific fact.

The problem with Islamic nations is that to my knowledge, science in school is not a major requirement.

 

Supporting any political party seems like an act of treason against my own convictions as they are all so warped and idiotic. But as BEAJ says, you just have to try to pick based on a select few vital issues and accept that you'll probably be screwed on them anyway. I'm not a fan of the whole left-right classification either as it is far too simplistic. I recently got labelled as a entrenched leftist on another blog simply for dissaproving of nationalist rhetoric. It seems to me that the left-right divide is just an excuse not to listen to specifc arguments on specific topics. It's just laziness - classify and object asap without actually exploring the issue.

 

I certainly still regard myself as Left of Centre (in the main) with a few far left & a few less far right beliefs thrown into the mix. I'll probably never vote Labour again... but I'm still a Lefty at heart!

Viva La Revolution!

However, political words mean different things to different people. A friend & I whilst in Rome tried to explain our political beliefs to two lovely yound Italian women. We described ourselves as republicans (after being asked about The Queen)... Fascists! they exclaimed... No, No we're socialists we said.

Communists! they said... and fled.... [rotflmao].

 

Roya, I would love it if you bloged about what it was like growing up Kurdish in Iran.

Where there a lot of religious police in your neighborhood? Was there strong sense of nationalism in the kurdish community?

Thanks!!!