But to think that the people running to Syria and dreaming of emigrating to the U.S. with the dream of church/state separation is a little bit of a stretch.

I don't think so at all. Consider this quote from the second article I cited:

Mustafa Shahrour, a Shiite Muslim computer technician, says he's going to Saudi Arabia this month to work in a restaurant. “Everything here has become about who you support, if you're Shiite or Sunni or Christian,'' he says. “I don't want to live like that.''

...“I'm not coming back until Lebanon is a secular state,'' he says.

That may apply to some but definitely not all. Here in Australia, and also in the UK, there are imams declaring that democracy & Islam don't mix, denigrating Western values, denouncing women for the way they dress & for daring to speak out on issues that, in their opinion, only men should be discussing.

Others bring their ethnic rivalries with them; Serbs & Croats from the former Yugoslavia immediately spring to mind. These rivalries often erupt into violence, particularly at soccer matches between teams supported by the opposing groups.

Once there's no one left in the disputed territories but fanatics, it may be that they'll realize how pitiful and backward they've become compared to the rest of the planet, and finally decide to set their grudges aside and seek peace.

It's more likely that they'll continue to fight until one side is completely wiped out, that seems to be the way of fanatics.

It would be interesting to talk to people about this. I wish I had taken the opportunity while I had it! I am not convinced that religion is the *driving* force behind the war. I certainly agree that the lines drawn have religious names, but I am not convinced that religious ideas are the major issue. I think that if the people in Iraq had comfortable homes and incomes and food and boats and motorcycles and X-Box and Nascar and stability and tranquility, then the religious fervor would look more like it does here.

I am not certain, but this warfare in the name of religion may actually be the symptom and not the pathology.

Thoughts?

Matt

That's the explanation for the bombing of the Al-Askari Mosque, the repeated suicide attacks on Shi'ites on pilgrimage to the holy site of Karbala, the religious militias of Muqtada al-Sadr (who calls his force the "Mahdi Army", named after a mythological Muslim savior figure), the anti-Shia rhetoric of al-Qaeda members like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the attacks on people whose names betray a particular religious affiliation, and so on.

Making things worse is that, unlike many forms of political or nationalistic warfare, religious conflict is particularly resistant to diplomatic resolution. When two factions are fighting over their form of government, or access to natural resources, those are material concerns rooted in the real world, where a compromise can usually be reached. But when the warring sides are each convinced that they best represent God's will, that they are carrying out his wishes, then diplomatic resolution is almost impossible.

I wonder if it is the issues or the conviction of the people arguing the issues that ultimately control whether compromise can be reached. I think that the conviction of a person is more important than the issue at hand. For example, I am not as attached to religious ideas as,say, a radical who is willing to kill for a point of theological minutiae, therefore a religious idea will probably be easier for me to compromise on than another idea, such as stopping the war in Iraq, which I feel very strongly about.

I am also curious if you are proposing that the conflict in Iraq is a religiously motivated conflict. Certainly religion plays some role, but I think that to give it a major role would be fallacious.

Cheers,

Matt

But to think that the people running to Syria and dreaming of emigrating to the U.S. with the dream of church/state separation is a little bit of a stretch.

I don't think so at all. Consider this quote from the second article I cited:

Mustafa Shahrour, a Shiite Muslim computer technician, says he's going to Saudi Arabia this month to work in a restaurant. ``Everything here has become about who you support, if you're Shiite or Sunni or Christian,'' he says. ``I don't want to live like that.''

...``I'm not coming back until Lebanon is a secular state,'' he says.

Although the U.S., Canada, Europe and Australia are known for being industrialized First World countries with healthy economies, the obvious reason so many people want to emigrate there is more basic: because those countries, unlike Lebanon or Iraq, have a real separation of church and state, and are not convulsed by warfare between competing religious sects.

I doubt that people want to emigrate here because of our separation of church and state. That is a luxury (assuming that people from these regions even know what it is, or if they do, that they do want it) relative to safety, security, and much better way of life. Perhaps it is because of the separation that we have these things. But to think that the people running to Syria and dreaming of emigrating to the U.S. with the dream of church/state separation is a little bit of a stretch.

Once there's no one left in the disputed territories but fanatics, it may be that they'll realize how pitiful and backward they've become compared to the rest of the planet, and finally decide to set their grudges aside and seek peace.

I would think that the higher percentage of fanatics in the country, the less likely we are to have resolution.

My wife and her family are from Beirut, Lebanon. My wife was too young to really experience the civil war 30y.a., but my F-i-L got the full blast. He could tell what size shells were passing overhead by the sound. One day, the "Christian" military goons (or police, I don't know if there was a distinction) were looking for "donations." They brought him to the station for questioning and put him against a wall and fired a machine gun in an outline around him. Then he offered them a substantial amount of money and he was free to go.

There are no liberators, only factions - some with less awful agendas than others. Religion has always been about obtaining power. Those naive enough to believe it's something else had better be careful or they'll end up as sheep to the slaughter.