How will the public act after the next attack?

[tw]

Originally posted by godwulf
tw....

We sometimes hear that Islamic fundamentalism is "inconsistant with democracy".

In your judgment, how true would that statement be?

Anytime religious values are justification for morality, government action, or laws, then we have corruption. That is corruption by American standards and not necessary by other local standards. Religion was good in its time; the only basis for civilization. That time has long since past in the first world. Trend probably first started when Socrates so successfully used logic to expose the contradictions of religion.

Islamic fundamentalism is based upon the principles of religion. Those principles are ordered by 'interpretation' of clerics and by the 'emotion' on which religion is based. Islamic fundamentalism was as good for government as a Kingwas good for government. Some (religions and dictatorships) do good for people and culture; others are destructive. Since then we have advanced to a better 'inferior' system of government. Democracy can work when religion is removed from the process. Democray based upon religion is the unstable situation in Iran; where democracy really does not exist. Government only by religion and dictators is the unstable situation in Saudia Arabia (unstable but not in the form so often believed by Americans).

And so we again have the real purpose of any religion. A relationship between you and your god (period). Once your religious beliefs are imposed upon others, then we have 'religion gone wild' - and the resulting videos if they can be leaked out.

Lets keep something in perspective. Not all people want democracy. If not obvious from the interviews by BBC et al; almost no one in Iraq even knows what democracy is (except in Kurdish areas). How could they want something that they don't even understand? The current administration says Iraqis want democracy while Iraqis in the street think democracy means a dictator government that does not torture. Democracy means the people must take responsibility - still a foreign concept to many people. This requirement still is not understood in many parts of the world where government and religion are considered same.

IOW first the people must learn what democracy is; that government and religion are two separate entities. Such concepts are completely foreign in a large part of the third world.