Wednesday, February 28, 2007

Barbarians: Culture or Religion?

It seems to me that it is unarguable that the following are barbaric acts:

Rioting over cartoons.
Killing a non-because the Pope suggests Islam is violent.
Suicide bombings.
Taking hostages and beheading them.
Killing converts to Christianity from Islam (thus assuring that they will never convert back, I guess).

Are the people who do these things barbarians because of their culture? Or because of their theology? That is, what causes the barbarism?

Now we learn that in Muslim Pakistan, kite flying is a popular pastime. However, the kites are often flown with strings laced with ground glass and metal, which may and often do kill other kite flyers. In the last few days, at a kite flying event, 11 people were killed. see DebbieSchlussel.com

Barbaric? Of course. I wonder if the Islamic resistance to social change is partly to blame for the barbaric culture displayed.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would like to suggest that barbarism can be found in all communities. For instance here in America we rally round the tellie every Sunday to watch giant men hit each other with brute force. Most who play die early deaths. Do you know what I mean??

Conservatarian said...

I haven't seen any statistics on early death of football players, but don't you see a difference between watching football and using kite strings laced with metal and glass?

Gender Silliness