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Dear Javed
Here are some of my comments on some of your
comments.
“disagreements or having an ideology different
from others is not only very welcome here but extremely desirable”
I am pleased to hear it. Since this is the
case, feel free to call me Peter.
“The recent connotation attached with word
‘fundamentalism’ is that of political nature as a means to a specific end,
so let’s be careful about the pitfalls.”
Defining terms can be a useful exercise, but
I’m not sure that we need to get too concerned about semantics here. The
point I wanted to make was that those who have a literal interpretation of
Islam set off more bombs than those who have a literal interpretation of
Christianity.
Many beliefs which are considered extreme in
the so-called Christian world are mainstream in
Islam. The most obvious point here is that most citizens of western
countries simply no longer believe, and among those who profess belief,
very few pray or attend church. And among the minority who do, only a small
number believe in the divinity or inerrancy of the Bible. Some Christians
are even happy to doubt that Christ actually existed!
“You are wondering if we are socialists. Some
of us may be, but the group consists of a people with a wide variety of
beliefs from political and religious points of view including those who
consider themselves atheist and some agnostics.”
Perhaps. But if that is so, I wonder, for
example, if there are any capitalists. The reason I ask is that a
capitalist would probably agree with much of what I wrote about politics
and economics, yet I had the impression that no one did. Perhaps they are
the sleeping majority, who never post any comments.
“You say that you do not believe in the
existence of the Western imperialism. It seems that either you understand
some thing different from the term imperialism or you are simply not aware
of its existence.
I have tried to explain this point in my last
post, I hope, it may have been of some help.”
Regarding your first point, there is another
possibility: that my understanding of the term is the same as yours, but I
simply do not agree that it exists...and of course, I just could be right!
In fact, your last posting has made clear what you, at least, mean by it.
However, I simply do not agree that it exists…at least, not in any
pervasive way. However, there are of course economic conditions that some
people would call imperialism, especially if they were unrepentant
socialists, but I would not agree with them.
I will send a longer posting some time in the
weekend, explaining some of my ideas in more detail, because I know this
has been rather skeletal and general.
Regards
Peter Joyce
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