The World Grows Intolerant of Religion
Church and State Separation
According to Pew’s Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life, an U.S.-based research group, nearly a third of the population of the planet lives in countries where they do not enjoy the freedom to practice their religion. The report was issued on Tuesday and says that government action and hostility toward religion grew in the most populous countries of the world from mid-2006 to mid-2009, the period the study covered.
The report says that in these three years the intolerance in most of the countries increased more than it decreased and that only 1% of the population lives in countries that know religious tolerance for their citizens.
The survey shows that the countries with hostile or restrictive attitude toward religion grow even more restrictive or hostile, whereas the tolerant ones do not increase in tolerance.
China, Nigeria, Vietnam, and Britain were among the countries with public intolerance toward religion, while France and Egypt are restrictive ones.
The group focused on national law against religious beliefs that ban different faiths, limit preaching, give preference to some religion over the other.
Hostility was measured by looking at sectarian violence, harassment caused by religious attire, and other forms of intimidation.
Among the countries with the most hostile environment toward religion are China, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Egypt, Iran, Myanmar, Russia, Turkey, Vietnam, Nigeria and Bangladesh.
101 governments out of 198 have killed, physically abused, detained, imprisoned, displaced from home, or destroyed property for religious reasons. Religious-related terror groups exist in 52 countries, while individual religious hatred led to violence in 142 countries.
Christians and Muslims, which are the largest religious groups in the world, were harassed in most of the countries.
The group focuses on the years 2006-2009, but there is cause to think that as the years go by the intolerance toward other’s religion will grow even higher.
The year 2011 for instance started with a cruel massacre of a Christian community in Egypt, where Christian Copts, the ancient Egyptians converted to Christianity, were killed in a church while attending the holy liturgy.
Quran Burn Day
As the pope in Rome protested this action, another Christian was shot dead in an Egyptian train. Egyptian violence continued even after the successful revolution against Mubarak, but it was also in Egypt that a fascinating expression of inter-religious brotherhood was manifested as the Muslim intellectuals decided to make themselves human shields, protecting the lives of the Copts on Nativity day.
Pakistan is a country that has a blasphemy law by which whoever is not a Muslim can be held in contempt of the holy prophet Mohammad. Many people in that country are victims of smear campaigns and lose their lives in the process, under the accusation of not being Muslims.
The same treatment awaits people in China, where Christianity has been banned as religion, or at least real Christianity.
Following into the footsteps of their Communist friends in the former Soviet Union, who had used the Church to some extent in order to create some sort of bond with the people, the Chinese leaders made themselves some sort of Catholic Church in China, by endorsing the actions of a bishop and some priests in China who broke their ties with Vatican and began consecrating priests without pope’s blessing.
Nigeria is split in half on religious grounds, the north being a Muslim part and the south Christian. There is a growing tendency among radical Muslims to kill their Muslim brethren who practice Western customs like drinking.
South Sudan emerged as an independent country at the end of a civil war that lasted two decades and was religiously motivated. The north proclaimed a “second republic” with sharia law as source of jurisdiction as soon as the south was free, on July 9, while the pope blessed the new Christian state.
In the United States of America, a Christian preacher proposed to celebrate 9/11 by burning the holy book of the Muslims.
Even Europe, that fancies itself as a promoter of religious freedom and of all freedoms, has its share of violation of consciousness of both Christian and Muslim.
Italian lawmakers passed a law a few weeks ago preventing the Muslim women to wear burqa, by including them into an older law that specified that no one is allowed to wear masks or anything to cover their face in public.
Thus, the Muslim women were associated with criminals that perpetrate petty thefts. Similar laws exist in other countries of Europe, like France, that has a ten percent population Muslim.
Conversely, Christian children are forbidden to wear religious symbols in schools, and an English student got expelled for it. The motivation is that a little cross at the neck of a student would insult the non-Christian. That ripping it off her neck would insult her nobody seems to be interested.
Religious Intolerance Game
Italy won in the highest European court a process by whose sentence the crucifixes will be allowed in public schools in Italy and by consequence in any other European Union school.
The case was made by those that were saying that Christ is insulting to little Muslim children, though the fundamental book of the Muslims speaks very highly of him.
The entire public education system in Europe is based on constantly aggressing the mind of religious persons. Many states still teach the theory formulated by Charles Darwin as a dogma, and accept no difference of opinion on that, not to mention that they also teach students (including those with a religion) that certain sexual behavior are no more than alternative sexual behavior, whereas their fundamental books teach them otherwise.
Europe also promotes ecology in all public schools, which is excellent, but unfortunately underneath the teaching about loving the environment certain ancient gods are being worshipped even without children or their parents knowing about it. Or teachers for that matter. And that is no less a violation of mind and religious practice tham the blasphemy law. The only difference is that it does not destroys the body, but the soul of the attender.
If we stick to 2011, Europe has the worst record on religious tolerance, established by Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik a few weeks ago. His killing spree was religiously motivated, since a Muslim is nothing without his religion.
