On 7/2/07, Phil Gasper <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> I agree that the biggest threats to reason

> "reside in our state and corporate

> bureaucracies," but that doesn't mean that

> religious fundamentalisms don't also pose a

> threat (frequently because they are allied in

> contradictory ways with state and corporate

> elites).



We face two mutually reinforcing threats to liberty: religious

fundamentalist terrorists of the Al Qaeda variety on one hand and the

ruling classes and power elites of the US-led multinational empire.

The problem is that the latter have used the specter of the former to

introduce what Michael E. Tigar calls "A Permanent State of

Emergency":

<http://www.monthlyreview.org/1106tigar.htm>.  In this context, the

dogmatic atheists in the West, many of whom tend to paint, with broad

brushes, Islam in particular and religion in general as the problem

(and do so opportunistically, capitalizing on many Westerners'

Islamophobia) aid and abet imperialists.



What we need is a truly historical materialist approach to religion,

and only through that can we see who are our allies (strategic or

tactical), who are our enemies, and who are fellow travelers.



I suspect that Dan Hind is trying to suggest where the political line

should be drawn through his tactical reclaiming of the Enlightenment

from Christopher Hitchens, et al.

-- 

Yoshie