Robert Reich, the former U.S. labor secretary under President Bill Clinton, believes people who follow God pose a more significant threat to the modern world than terrorists do.
"Terrorism itself is not the greatest danger we face," writes Reich in a column titled "Bush’s God" published in the American Prospect.
Reich begins his column criticizing the Bush administration as he pushes for a liberal understanding of America’s separation of church and state.
He uses the term "religious zealots" and says their problem is that "they confuse politics with private morality."
Reich concludes his column by taking aim at those who believe in God:
The great conflict of the 21st century will not be between the West and terrorism. Terrorism is a tactic, not a belief. The true battle will be between modern civilization and anti-modernists; between those who believe in the primacy of the individual and those who believe that human beings owe their allegiance and identity to a higher authority; between those who give priority to life in this world and those who believe that human life is mere preparation for an existence beyond life; between those who believe in science, reason, and logic and those who believe that truth is revealed through Scripture and religious dogma. Terrorism will disrupt and destroy lives. But terrorism itself is not the greatest danger we face.
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And Reich confuses the Natural Law, which applies to everybody, as something totally subjective and private.
7 comments
Sounds like someone should read “Fides et Ratio”. Nice to know that someone in the oh so educated and intellegent Clinton White House has such little knowledge about how people of faith think and percieve the world. Furthermore, how dare he assume that all people of faith are ready to become terrorists. Bloody idiot!
“Bloody idiot!” I think that sums it up quite nicely.
What a turkey. I’ve been hearing this sort of thing for years, generally from technology geeks who have as much grasp of reason, logic, and Western civilization as the kitchen cat. The primacy of the individual? Christianity invented the individual. Until then, religion had been inextricably bound up with civic and national identity. It was Our Lord who told people that what you do and believe is what counts.
I just love the name you gave to the title of this article: “Turd Reich”. Cracks me up everytime I read it.
In a way . . . . he has a point.
The real battle that will soon ensue will be between those who believe in God and those who don’t. His problem is that he is on the wrong side of the fence on this one. This battle has been going on for years as we have battled secularism and secular “progress.” The secularists see us as an impediment to their “progress” because we are concerned not only with what we can do, but what we should do.
Now, how is that the athiesm is more rational than Christianity, again?
I wonder if he feels this way about Islamic terrorists….we might have a chance to find out soon….the left is so damn ignorant….as one well-known radio host says “liberalism is a mental disorder”….
Battles are hardly exciting or noteworthy. They are a pragmatic option when, given a goal, one is met with an obstacle which poses a difficulty to achieving said goal. Specifically, this obstacle is posed by party with a goal in opposition to one’s goal. Battle should be impersonal, regardless of the fact that the parties taking part are indeed both personal. It is me belief that there exists at least one person who sees battle as a force of anger, of domination, of subjugation, of pride and of chest beating; in short, of “power”. But I claim that battles require none of this superfluous connotation. They are merely a possible solution to a specific kind of problem, the resolution of conflict between two force personal in nature.
However, there is no battle if there is no conflict, i.e. when two goals are non-contradictory, or when at least one goal is impotent, or, not a threat to the other. Since the goal of ideologies is the claiming of human real estate (the hearts, minds and souls of men), then the goal is inherently impotent. How? Start with the self. If one recognizes that one’s internal self is invulnerable to the internal selves of those attempting to somehow claim us, then what we are left with is our own peace, and the frustration of those that engage in the futile conquest of others. Some may conform to the conquistador, but one can never be claimed save by oneself and by God (the latter doesn’t in the way men may attempt to do so, as it would interfere with free will).
If these men were the true relativists that they claim they are, then there couldn’t exist the impetus that could justify the intensity of their zeal. Instead, they adopt a hidden absolutism that, if they were to become aware of it, would lead them into a stark realization about the insanity of their half-baked philosophy.