Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Religion and politics

Kurdishaspect.com - By Peter Stitt

In response to the report: "Kurdish Parliament Pushed Through Disputed Religion Law" I must say that religion and politics should be kept very far apart in any society that wishes to behave in a rational manner in its treatment of its citizens.

It is one thing for a political leader to have certain religious convictions but to enshrine such views in a constitution is suicidal madness.

I remember Tariq Aziz the "Christian", and his uneasy relationship with Saddam as Saddam realised he had to pretend to be a Muslim in order to gain support within Arab states. I have seen the atrocities carried out in the name of God in Iran and Afghanistan.

As a man with strong religious convictions myself, I believe wholeheartedly in secularism. You cannot run a national health service, an economy, a ministry of defence etc on religious lines. That is crazy, that is Iran, a redundant backward country that relies upon natural resources to make up for the lack of innovation and imagination of its leadership.

When challenged about such issues Jesus responded "Give to Caesar what
is due to Caesar, give to the Father (God) what is due to the Father." Even two thousand years ago there was a realisation that the secular and the religious should be kept separate. Are the Islamists contradicting the words of one of their most celebrated prophets?

This law should be repealed immediately. Church is church, state is state. When the two come together it invariably ends up with the persecution of minorities, chaos and economic disaster, and international alienation and isolation.

I will gladly pray with Sunni or Shia brothers but I would never subject people to my own beliefs of what is religiously right or wrong. I have no right to do so, I cannot judge another human being. By putting religion into law making people are judging and going against the teaching of Jesus, and Jesus' teaching was precious to Muhammad, peace be upon him.

Can we not learn the lessons they had already learned 2,000 years ago? PUK and PDK, what are you thinking of? You are taking your people backwards.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Jesus’ Attitude Toward the State When Jesus Christ was on earth, he set higher standards for his followers, and he refused all involvement in political or military matters.

After Jesus had miraculously fed several thousand people with a few loaves of bread and two small fish, Jewish men wanted to seize him and make him a political king. But Jesus avoided them by quickly withdrawing to the mountains.

(John 6:5-15) Regarding this incident, The New International Commentary on the New Testament states: “There were fierce nationalistic longings among the Jews of that period, and doubtless many of those who saw the miracle felt that here was a divinely accredited leader, who was just the one to lead them against the Romans. So they set themselves to make him king.” It adds that Jesus “decisively rejected” this offer of political leadership. Christ gave no support to any Jewish insurrection against Roman domination.—Luke 21:20-24.

John 18:36 “Jesus answered:”My kingdom is no part of this world. If my kingdom were part of this world, my attendants would have fought.”