Religion and freedom and the flag miracle

Reality currently is turning into a painful real satire. Triggered by cartoons. For heaven's sake. C A R T O O N S !!!! I have to check the calender... which year do we have again? Two years ago we celebrated the Kant year in Germany. Does anyone remember him? Immanuel Kant? The guy with the categorical imperative, the Philosopher of the enlightenment? The father of modernity? No? Admittedly... he is not easy to read. Even for me, a not entirely uneducated person, his text require significant thinking. Thinking. Freeing oneself. Wow. And now: A Cartoon "war". ??ß=&§#*+<>-ß?09/%&-:;??$§*!??

Okay... Tolerance. My saying always was: Almost anything can be tolerated, except intolerance. Of course this is more a Zen Koan, than an overly logical statement. The point is to think. Think it over before you judge. But how about the question: Can freedom of religion be granted to a religion that rules out freedom of religion? That brings it down to a more practical problem. My answer is no. My answer always is: religion must remain a private affair. Otherwise we end up in chaos. The separation of church and state is a must. In the US it is already near dead, but in Europe it is still functioning. More or less.

But there is another aspect to the Cartoon Conflict. Those were expressions of *private opinions* in a *private newspaper* which were perfectly legal under the law of Denmark and which are perfectly legal under the laws of all EU states as far as I can tell. Nothing of that was endorsed by any EU Government. And of course a Danish Newspaper has the right to publish whatever they wish in their own country - only the law of their own country is in charge there. Just like nobody has the right to regulate what I privately express in my own house or my own circle of friends. It is outright ridiculous.

During the history of mankind religion and ideology have been one of the main reasons for human suffering. Much of the European population has been wiped out during endless religious conflicts among Christians, although it requires significant mental twists to find anything in the teachings of Jesus Christ that could possibly justify greed and violence. If we are to believe scripture, he never held a sword and wasn't exactly positive about piling up riches. With the old testament it is slightly different - as it is with the Quran. Anyone saying they are only about peace and friendliness and seeking God apparently never read these books. They both are in fact oozing with blood and violence. They both make absolutistic claims. They both justify utmost cruelties under a variety of rather arbitrary conditions and circumstances.

And now Danish Flags are burnt because of cartoons. Cartoons depicting a Mohammed with a bomb on his head (not far fetched since so many self declared martyrs bomb themselves into oblivion, mass murdering others along with them, all allegedly in the name of Allah and Mohammed.) And the Cartoon with Mohammed and the Log in his eye.

It can be historically traced that Religion - and therefore God - are cultural inventions of mankind. And still it is not allowed to talk about the atrocities that are being brought about in the names of established religions. I stress established religions for if I claimed that I act in the name of, say, the Hawaiian Demigod Maui, who talks to me, I would most likely simply be locked away. It therefore seems that it is acceptable to behave in an utterly implausible way if there only are enough people who also do the same!

But it is not that easy. It never is. There is a level of reality that escapes out understanding, and there spirituality has its place. But in the moment where spirituality serves as an excuse for violence against others, something went wrong in the mind of the believer. Even in Islam, a religion brought about by a warrior prophet, the highest form of holy war is the war against self delusion. People should keep that in mind before they fall into religious psychosis and call for the destruction of a little country that many demonstrators in Afghanistan probably cannot even locate on the map. Makes me think: where actually did demonstrators in Afghanistan, Gaza, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Indonesia suddenly obtain all those Danish Flags? I am living in the middle of the EU, and I would not have an inkling where I could spontaneously buy a Danish flag...