What's getting to me about the Foley thing

[nancylebov]

As bad things go, what Foley did was only fair-to-middling bad. As a result of it, political careers will be ended and elections will probably be affected. There might be criminal charges.

At the same time, the US government has been torturing people, sometimes to death. It's quite plausible that this is still going on, what with all those prisoners being held in secret. A law has been passed making it legal to hold prisoners indefinitely in secret. This has not had nearly as much political effect as the Foley scandal, and the legitimizing of torture doesn't seem to be a big issue in the upcoming election.

I begin to suspect that I am surrounded by crazy people.

Comments

[shagbark.livejournal.com]

Most of the people you just mentioned are not what I would call very religious. In fact, studying with the Jesuits was a major factor in my becoming non-religious. Buddhism comes in two varieties, a folk religion, and a philosophy, and the two have almost nothing to do with each other. Orthodox Jews, and the entire Talmudic tradition, are a tradition of overcoming religion, and thinking independently of and in contradiction to the "holy" books.

As to my never having studied religion, or ethical systems, you are off by a very wide margin.

I am using the term "religion" to refer to systems that involve divine revelation, faith (which appears to mean the suspension of reason), and looking for non-material causes for events.