document.write('<div id="pan_container"><div id="pan_header"><div id="pan_stationAsksImage"></div><div class="pan_pad"><div id="nocodeBridge"></div><div id="pan_tq"><div id="pan_content_title">Is religion getting a bad rap?</div><div id="pan_content_question">Religion is getting a lot of attention in the news these days -- from politics to global unrest, much of the conflict seems to stem from religion. Why is religion being blamed for society\'s divisions?</div><a id="pan_replyImage" href=\'http://action.publicbroadcasting.net/pri/posts/list/925011.page\' style="display:block;"></a></div></div></div><div id="pan_messages"><div id="pan_commentsTitle"></div><div class="pan_messageContainer"><div  class="pan_messageStats"><div class="pan_pad"><span>Re: Is religion getting a bad rap?</span> Added: 03/30/2008 5:56:41 PM</div></div><div class="pan_messageBody"><div class="pan_pad">I think it is interesting to note...that during later half of the 20th century...it was more about how political ideologies, be it "Communism" or "Capitalistic Democracies" for example, were understood to be the cause of divisions among the world\'s societies. I remember growing up in the 70\'s and early 80\'s, as an young American...we, as a country at the end of the 70\'s, were still "smarting" from the fall of Vietnam. Most of the the world was described as either belonging/supporting "NATO" or the "Warsaw Pact"...or, one of my favorite ways of putting it, was "behind the Iron Curtain". Of course, let us not forget the "OPEC" nations. I remember that this was something perpetuated daily through out the news media. The U.S. government based all of it foreign policies on this world view. It was all about fighting Communism and working with OPEC...due to one form or another of the oil crisis. I remember looking at world maps in textbooks at the time, on the page after a general cartographic view of the world, there would be the political map where countries with a Communist or a Socialist lean where DISTINCTLY set apart from the rest of the "Free World" in a blood red. OPEC nations were set apart in orange I believe. That was the world view at the time. <br/> Now, after the "fall of Communism", the U.S. government no longer has to fear the possible threat represented by the Warsaw Pact. NATO is now just the "good ol\' boy\'s club"...and the rest of Eastern Europe is just waiting to get into the European Union. Our oil interests have spread beyond the confines of the Middle East...now we have oil coming from South American, the Gulf of Mexico, Southeast Asia, etc. So how then does one divide up the world? How does one keep the distinction going between "us" and "them". Iran was that which fueled the fire for the new world view. Here in the 80\'s, we had the collapse of a government due to a strong "religious vision"...and that vision directly threatened American life with the hostage situation that developed thereafter. The picture of the Muslim world moved that from the "producers of oil" to that of a "society that wished harm to United States and American values". What is interesting is that Islam, which was ALWAYS there during the time that of the held "oil producer" view, now became the reason for the "evil" behind the fall of a regime that was very pro-West. We had the creation of an Islamic religious state...not necessarily so sympathetic to the Western world view...and American for that matter.  <br/> So here we have this religion that societies value, and these societies then replace governments with systems based on principles from that religion thereby making itself more felt due to the fact that this religion is sets the official policy for those societies and how it will now deal with the rest of the world...how they wish to define themselves against the rest of  the world view. Yet, this is something that is so foreign to the American system of government. Church and State are SEPARATE! We are a Democracy first...a society based on democratic/capitalistic policies. As a people, we cringe just when we hear how the "religious right" is making a move on the political system. We really have no conception in our consciousness in regards to societies wishing to based their government on religious principles...but at the same time, I feel that we, as a Nation, would really love to. However, that is not our inherited value...due to the experience of the religious persecutions in 16th/17th century Europe. The founding fathers believed in freedom, truth, and justice...humanistic principles...as opposed to being directly defined by a prevailing religious ideal. It is something that our society was based on when the founding fathers set up the structure of this society and the principles that govern it. God was indeed brought into the equation...but that God was humanistic...and it is interesting that nowhere was there made mention of Jesus Christ...the son of God...the defining principle of the Christian religion. So American society developed on this undefined principle of God...most probably just automatically equated it with the Christian concept of divinity. We as a nation just kept going along, doing our thing...until the beliefs of John F. Kennedy became an issue. <br/> I remember reading how it was a huge concern that JFK was a practicing Roman Catholic. In the end, he became one of the Nation\'s most beloved presidents. Was the concern with his practicing beliefs really necessary? I am thinking not. Then came the issue of prayer in the classroom, etc. We as a society seem to have this aversion to a defined, public belief system. So maybe as a Nation, we need to look inside our own fears and doubts when we hear that about societies defining their governments based on religious opinions. We, as a people and as an individual, need to look inside our own personal convictions and see where our biases lie. People will always be different, have different views, beliefs, convictions...and that is okay...because at the end of the day, we are all brothers and sisters in humanity. There are how many billions of us now on the face of this planet? Each and everyone of us is a unique experience...no two of which will EVER be the same. So with that said, we could contribute so much to each other\'s lives...different ways of being, offering different possibilities to solutions of some of the major crises that we face as a world. We all wish for the same things...security, freedom, love, trust, peace...but, we NEED each other in order to make these become manifest. This is what I believe we need to realize as brothers and sisters of a kindred spirit...that we are ONE humanity.</div></div></div><div class="pan_messageContainer"><div  class="pan_messageStats"><div class="pan_pad"><span>POLICTICS</span> Added: 05/13/2008 1:29:35 PM</div></div><div class="pan_messageBody"><div class="pan_pad">the word is "POLITICS".</div></div></div></div></div>');