Currently reading The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright. This book won a Pulitzer Prize; it basically explains how 9/11 became 9/11, going back the better part of a century to help us understand what has gone on in Egypt, in Afghanistan, in Saudi Arabia, and other parts of the Middle East that foreshadowed where we are today.
In many ways, the book is spooky and forces one to acknowledge that there are two radically different value systems and mindsets out there: one that promotes religious totalitarianism, and one that promotes religious pluralism. There is a traditional mindset and a modern mindset; a mindset that worships freedom and one that is wary of it; one that welcomes diversity and change and one that does not.
In my view, the two biggest obstacles to world peace at the moment would be fundamentalist Islam and fundamentalist Christianity. They are both quite scary. The Looming Tower tells us quite a bit about the Islamic version; Sam Harris's The End of Faith does the same with both Christianity and Islam.
I am afraid that in my lifetime, I will not see organized religion--at least, the fundamentalist versions of it--be reformed in any meaningful way. But someday--maybe a century or two from now--people will read what others believed at this time, and believed with absolute certainty because it was decreed by either God or Allah, and they will shake their heads and mutter in disbelief. For now, however, I must write this from within the "loony bin" that is the world of 2008, and it's truly a more certifiably crazy world than most people seem to think.
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