Not that I didn’t know this before, but if there is Death for Somali Muslims who shirk prayers they must not believe in Islam, or they would not need to enforce prayers. Aren’t we glad that George Bush and his Christian fundamentalists do not incorporate this into the U.S. constitution. Oh, wait that’s why they want Intelligent Design and prayers back into schools. But in reality, prayers of this type are just a secular demonstration of power. Not unlike what kings expected from their followers, a belief that some men are gods. After all, if you control their lives and their death, you are gods. Islamic and Christian clerics alike relish this power on earth. All religion is more or less a power trip to the practitioner. Why should anyone be surprised when religious law is the law of the land, it only substitutes one form of secular control with another.
Don’t you think god could enforce their own religious laws? Why would a cleric need to? Power!
Must be a really weak god.
It doesn’t go quite that far in this part of the world, but in some ways it goes further.
I took my daughter to the 2003 Christmas service at St Andrew’s Anglican Cathedral in Sydney, where the Prime Minister prays.
The sermon would normally be given by the Dean of the cathedral Phillip Jensen, but on that occasion he handed over to his brother Peter Jensen, the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney. Yet another example of their cosy relationship.
The Wikipedia link is worth visiting. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_Jensen
The Archbishop then delivered the most fascist sermon I have ever had the misfortune to witness.
His text was that the first gift of Christmas was when god gave christ to the world, but the second gift was that god gave the world to christ.
It therefore follows that christians, especially the Jensen strain, own the world and that they should assert that ownership to everyone.
He acknowledged that some people might find such an assertion offensive, he added that to those people especially it should be asserted and enforced.
It is this brand of dangerous thinking that the Australian PM subscribes; I have certainly not ever heard of him walking out of a sermon of this kind, and the Jensens both seem pretty willing to unload in this vein.
We sat through it because, in part, we could not believe our ears and in part we wanted to hear just how far this thug would go. He does not appear to have an actual limits.
Then again, that was in the days when Australia was part of a triumphant crus… coalition in Iraq; maybe he has toned it down a little now that he can see the severe flower petal shortage.