Religion’s Role in America
Great op-ed piece in yesterday’s Seattle Times/PI Sunday paper: “God Help Us: Religion’s Role in America“.
Often when this sort of opinion piece shows up, I read through it and can quickly sense the bias (either toward or against religion)… a bias that tends to undermine the message. But I was impressed in this piece to sense a very well rounded perspective on what’s wrong (and what’s right) about religion in this country, and what we should, nee MUST, do about it.
Having recently finished the “Reading Lolita in Tehran” book, I was particularly interested to read the section on Turkey. One of the key messages of the Tehran book was that the oppressive regime had mandated certain behavior in the name of religion — in my opinion, quite undermining the actual practice of religious faith.
But the brief discussion of Istanbul, Turkey in the op-ed piece was used as a demonstration of how a society containing people of varying religious belief can get along nicely — allowing the very observant to be very observant, while allow the less observant or non-religious to be less observant or non-religious, respectively.
