Kevin Drum says that all the major religions have objectively been having a bad few decades in comparison with science’s achievements, but that despite that religious extremism is on the rise worldwide.
The last few decades sure have been bad ones for organized religion. Conservative Christians have decided that the sum total of the Bible is about reestablishing the sex and gender mores of the 19th century. Liberal Protestantism is so unassuming that hardly anyone even remembers it exists. The Catholic Church has been responsible for the deaths of millions in Africa thanks to its mindless belief that God hates condoms. Much of Islam has been taken over by the toxic Saudi strain. Israel has turned into an apartheid state. Hindus in India are apparently now dedicated to creating a religiously pure state. And even Buddhists have been acting badly lately.
Meanwhile, science keeps churning out new wonders. Cell phones. The internet. Cures for cancer. Robotic prosthetics. Solar panels on rooftops. Talking computers. Antidepressants. Google Maps. Cheap genome sequencing. Virtual reality. Machine learning. Meatless meat. Missions to Mars. Electric cars. Fiber optics.
None of the points he makes surprised me. But what did was his statement that Israel is now an apartheid state. Not only that, he did not get any pushback for that in the comments, either.
Drum is very much in the mainstream of Democratic establishment politics, someone who favors people like Hillary Clinton and Kamal Harris and does not care much for Elizabeth Warren and especially Bernie Sanders. So his casual throwing in of Israel as an apartheid state, a sentiment that the party establishment definitely does not endorse, and the lack of any defense of Israel by his blog’s readers, is another sign that Israel’s discriminatory policies can no longer be denied or ignored and that the Democratic political establishment is increasingly disconnected from its base.
Or, it hasn’t caught the attention of the outrage democrats yet.
The phrasing “has turned into” implies that at some point in its past, Israel had something like an egalitarian political system.
Alas, this does not appear to have been the case.
Burying the Nakba: How Israel systematically hides evidence of 1948 expulsion of Arabs
No shit, Israel’s an apartheid state — they always HAVE been!
I was a supporter of Israel until the late ’80s when I finally realized how terrible the Palestinians were being treated. Since then, I have hoped for improvements but have failed to see any. With people like Netanyahu in charge, nothing is likely to change. Yes, Israel is an apartheid state and has been since its formation.
As religion, in general, loses traction it is to be expected that they will become more dramatic, extreme, and loud. As we have ample evidence of, trump et al, it isn’t being wrong that is deadly to a movement. Being irrelevant and ignored is the kiss of death.
As long as the preacher on the street can get a shudder of fear when he shouts you are ‘going to hell’ he has power. When you shrug and walk on he has lost it.
Religion is at the ‘up to 11’ moment when their psycho social scam exploiting the known defects of the human brain is failing and they are losing traction even as they are maxing out their methodologies. The next step is ‘rip the knob off’, when they destroy their method by pushing it too hard and becoming a parody of themselves. Failing some new development in the art/science of manipulation they will fade into the mist of time to become mere footnotes as the ancient religions of the Greek have.
Humanity will be better for it. It is easier to see the lay of the land and reality without all those mythological entities and places cluttering up the view.
They’re not going to do it until Angela Merkel double-dog secret swear dares them.