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Technology: Fueling Hatred and Misunderstanding
Red Leader. writes "This Thomas Friedman op-ed entitled "Global Village Idiocy" and this article by George Packer, entitled "When Here Sees There," both touch on some interesting observations regarding technology's impact on tolerance and understanding. My favourite quote from Friedman's piece is "the Internet, at its ugliest, is just an open sewer: an electronic conduit for untreated, unfiltered information."" We've previously posted the Packer piece, but combined with other story, I think it's worth a retread.
http://www.majcher.com/nytview.html
Technoli
You really need to read more Tom Friedman before you go foaming off at the mouth, specifically "The Lexus and the Olive Tree", one of the best books ever written about globalization.
Friedman completely realizes the power of the Internet, but that doesn't refute for ONE MINUTE the points he made. The Internet is, by and large, a refuse-ridden electronic drooling cup, and we haven't BEGUN to tap its power for good yet. There is no doubt in my mind (or Friedman's, if you read his book) that we can do so.
Islam's interaction with other religions has always been with its followers holding a sword to the followers of the other religion's necks.
I can't tell whether you're thinking of the Crusades, when all those horrible Muslims kept marching deep into Europe over and over with a stated intention of killing as many Christians as possible to "liberate" their holy land, or Britain and France in the first half of the 20th Century, when all those Muslims colonized Britain and France and treated their residents brutally until after World War II.
What? Backwards? What about a history class? Huh?
Other religions like Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Wicca and probably a lot more allow for secular coexistance and equal rights. They allow for freedom and tolerance. They make it easy to believe and yet be a rational human being.
Hmmm. I'm a research scientist and educator by training and profession. I've never had any problems with Muslims, or Jews, directly. I and my associates in my field have, however, had lots of problems from Christians. These have ranged from being told in a shopping center parking lot that I was going to hell for working on cosmology and "believing" in the Big Bang, to the Tennessee state legislature, acting with biblical justification, passing a law that teachers in Tennessee could go to jail for teaching that evolution is an accepted paradigm of the scientific community (thank heavens for a gubernatorial veto).
Not that I think that such problems with intolerant Christians tar all Christians or the entire faith; but when you make absurd blanket statements about all of Islam, and then simulataneously make blanket statements that Christians are tolerant and encourage reason, I don't know whether to laugh or cry.