The case seems simple at first. Dominique Hakim Marcelle Ray was convicted in 1995 of the rape and murder of a 15-year old girl and sentenced to death. Ray subsequently converted to Islam in 2006 while incarcerated. The death sentence was to be carried out Feb.
Reading this recent article about a jailed neo-Nazi trying to hide behind “religious freedom” to protect his hate speech reinforced my faith in our collective ability to differentiate between legitimate arguments and specious ones—between those worth protecting and those who would go to any lengths to hurt others so they themselves could somehow feel strong.
Somewhere, thousands of years before Christ, deep in China, a spark was lit. We don’t know if it was a man or a woman but someone looked away from the pain, toil, and terror of life and saw a light. Religion was born.
Probably everyone reading this post has personally observed the large and growing problem of homelessness in the United States. And whatever the cause or causes, we’d all have to agree that the homeless are in need of help.
Somehow religion and government, these two important arenas of human interaction, must come to terms with one another and acknowledge the potential goodness and intent in both.
Isn’t that one of the key reasons religion exists? Besides recognizing and enhancing the spiritual aspect of humankind, its staple values are solidarity and succor.
Until the mid-1300s, witchcraft and magic had been quietly accepted as part of the mystic melting pot that was Europe. That now changed. Early inquisitions in France targeted witches as the source of the catastrophes.
Some people see freedom as dangerous. They see people who cannot be enslaved as dangerous. They are the type who think that if people were free, those people would be as mean and cruel as they themselves are.
On September 11, 2001, all that changed. As the nation focused on the War on Terrorism, religious freedom was no longer a priority. That’s quite ironic, because international religious freedom may be the only way we can really eliminate both terrorism and regional wars.
These “Bloggers of the Round Table” are an eclectic bunch: musicians, writers, lawyers, pilots, business owners, clergy… you name it, and despite the seriousness of their mission, they’re an insouciant lot and great company.