Saturday, December 01, 2007

Sudanese protesters demand death for teddy teacher - Yahoo! News

Sudanese protesters demand death for teddy teacher - Yahoo! News

I am still baffled by how people assume that religion preaches peace. At least monothestic religions are by definition exclusive. In fact, for religious people to live peacefully, they would have to disregard parts of their religious text that would urge believers to do things like stone non-believers.

There is another interesting story that is not being told. Of how Muslim insurgents are carrying out ethnic cleansing in Southern Thailand. You can here the BBC story here. The BBC is very brave for continually reporting on things that we would rather not be bothered with.

1 comment:

Geoff said...

I agree with you that religious fundamentalism is a worrying issue for anyone who wants to see a more tolerant society. And I also agree that newspapers should play a role in uncovering news which is unpleasant and difficult to access politically.

But I do think newspapers have been sensationalising and demonising the religious aspects of conflict at the expense of other things since the end of the Cold War. There are many vested interests in these media portrayals - even religious extremist groups are happy to have the media beat the religious drum, because it makes them look even more influential and part of a Holy War. So for me I would try and take these reports with a big pinch of salt.

I can send you some information about the Thai conflict which goes a bit deeper than the usual media circus if you like. Otherwise there's always Google :)