Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: SJackson
However, Cohen and others who argue for a secular society ignore the even heavier price in blood Europe has paid for secular fervor. Secular fervor, i.e., communism and Nazism, slaughtered, tortured and enslaved more people in 50 years than all Europe's religious wars did in the course of centuries.

I like Dennis Prager. He is a pretty smart guy and generally right on the issues.

But here he makes the classic mistake of equating secularism with socialism leaving out the really successful secular system: capitalism. This is your basic red herring/paper tiger argument that compares the damage done in religious wars with the damage done in fighting against the Nazis and the Communists. What it is ignores is the non-wars between cooperating, secular or at least somewhat secular, capitalistic countries. And I include the U.S. in that latter category. The U.S. conduct of business and mutual defense is not based on our religious beliefs at all. For example, what do we have in common with the Japanese and Koreans in the religious realm? The answer is nothing. We have an agreement to trade and provide mutual defense. We don't fight them despite the fact that we do not share religious beliefs with them - it is a purely secular arrangement and is based on a common belief in the principles of capitalism more than any other philosophy.

Sorry Dennis, you are just dead wrong on this one.

11 posted on 12/19/2007 7:42:11 AM PST by InterceptPoint
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies ]


To: InterceptPoint
But here he makes the classic mistake of equating secularism with socialism leaving out the really successful secular system: capitalism

You are 1) comparing apples and oranges, and 2) changing the subject.

1) Capitalism is not per-se secular.

Capitalism addresses only the economic aspects. You can be a Nazi capitalist. All capitalism changes is how you address economic risk, not how you order the rest of (and the larger part of) the lives of the citizenry.

You can also be a Christian capitalist. Capitalism flowered in the Christian world.

2) Whether or not capitalism is successful, it doesn't change the fact that secularist wars killed a lot of folks. On the religious side, the fact that Tibetan Buddhism didn't do wars, doesn't change the fact that Arabian Islam does.

12 posted on 12/19/2007 8:15:51 AM PST by slowhandluke (It's hard work to be cynical enough in this age)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson