Are we moving backwards?

As a historian of religion I think the trouble with the various fundamentalistic Muslim and Christians groups that have quite obviously managed to find fruitful mission fields in the last twenty years or so are caused in part by two factors.

The one is the fact that the scientific or more properly academic approach to religions as such that made such advances from about the 1860s was just that - an academic discipline that certainly attracted followers at the level of congregations and their ministers, priests, rabbis or imams, but equally made no impact on a vast number of followers of the various religions.

The other fact is that two world wars resulted in many of the generations who lived through them either totally losing faith in God or in organized religion as they had been accustomed to practise it. This gave rise to the feeling that religion is and should be a person's private affair in a democracy.

This is a valid point of view, which I would never dream of disapproving of, but it has meant that the various religions have become hesitant about carrying on any form of missionary work, either at home or abroad.

There are now two or three generations of people within all denominations who have never encountered the form of faith that is partnered by rational academic thought and they, if they are seeking a faith, tend to be easily attracted to the fundamentalistic groups who do have missionaries.

Unfortunately too, outside Europe, a great many churches are today seen as part and partial of the European attempt to colonize other countries whose inhabitants rightly feel that their own traditions and culture were despised and trodden underfoot by the European colonists.

So a reaction has set in, swinging back to what is seen as a truer and more original form of religion.

Whether the world as such is regressing depends on whether modern societies can demonstrate brands of religion that is both satisfying as faith and as an integral part of a democracy.

I guess, the greed of the few is making the many feel left behind, and sadly, the less educated are seeking their path to feeling valued in extremism

My husband spent time in Afghanistan in the 1970s and says even then it was a very alien culture with an extremely male dominated society. He was looked down upon as being foreign and says he never saw any women as then too they were kept inside. It is very frightening as girls have been educated but now it is being taken away from them and they will be forced into marriages post puberty.
The rich westernised men are moving out as happened years ago with the Shar of Iran

Unfortunately, horrors like that in Afghanistan have been going on throughout history. The difference is that we now know much more about what is happening due to modern technology. Even if the USA and UK went back and bombed/obliterated the Taliban, innocent civilians would get killed and a new generation of Taliban or equivalent would grow up to take revenge and the cycle would continue. It's awful.

Well said ‘Green Lady’. At the large hospitals for the learning disabled men would park up to do the same. Biden just brought an end to what Trump and Bush had turned a blind eye to, that Afghanistan had so much money and defence poured in and what it propped up was fueling more and more corruption. We Brits have fought wars in Afghanistan (have a look at the Forbury Monument Readin), Russia, USA/combined. I worry that after the Taliban have crushed their own populace that attacks on our soil will start again, there will be many more isolated Muslim girls etc like infamous Begum to swell their ranks.

I believe the main problem in Afghanistan is the ‘tribal’ influences. I can remember when I was a child there always being ‘trouble’ in Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. It is a situation that nobody will be able to solve, and it’s a tragedy that so many innocent lives have been, and will be, lost due to this evil regime.
As for the anti-vaccine campaign in the southern states, it just makes me so cross that they cannot, or will not, know that millions of lives have been lost to coronavirus and more will be too if they don’t admit that vaccines save lives,

(Not Danma's post, of course)

Well that was weird.

The Stoning of Soraya M. g.co/kgs/vZgcLA

If you have the stomach for it, then watch this film and learn the actual horror of a stoning.

I wanted to turn it off but somehow felt that wouldn’t acknowledge the atrocity

It’s heart wrenching

Whitewavemark2

Since 2000 there have been many human rights violations that do suggest we are at the very least standing still if not going backwards. I’ve been trawling the net and it makes for very sober reading.

1. Uganda - as many as 20000 children are trained as slave soldiers (boys) or sex slaves (girls)

2. Australia still has in law that underaged disabled girls can be sterilised without consent.

3. Afghanistan - amongst other atrocities such as stoning to death, whipping and violence against women, their human rights to move freely, education and socialise with the opposite sex is completely removed. Forced vaginal examinations take place if their “morality” is under question.

4.Uganda - life in prison for homosexual men.

5. Modern sex trafficking is an enormous problem throughout the world, further enabled by the gender inequality seen as acceptable in many countries and cultures.

6. Taliban in Afghanistan - have run vast concentration camps, enslave women, extermination of the Hazara minority. Will introduce Sharia law once again when they have completely retaken Afghanistan.

7. Chinese repression of over 1000000 Uyghurs. Forced “re-education” in camps.

The list goes on and on.

So yes I do think that the world is certainly not progressing and in many cases going backwards.

number 4 is not necessarily the human rights issue you portray it as....I could tell a few stories from my NHS work but I will focus on one.
In my student years. I did clinical placement at a daycare centre for adults with very serious learning disability. They were hard for their parents to care for, definitely lacking in capacity, not able to understand the concept of contraception or pregnancy and they liked sex. A lot of sex. Even worse, local men would kerb crawl outside the building and get the girls (mainly) to go off with them. the "better" men would at least drop them back at the centre. This was years before implants (which don't suit everybody) and the morning after pill. Terminations were common. You can imagine how difficult it was managing periods and PMS with young fit women who can be violent. For some of these men and women, sterilisation can massively improve their lives. No more periods to deal with. They can be allowed to be sexually active within their social groups which is some protection from predator men. In this one case, I don't think you (or anyone) should judge unless you have seen what I saw.

My husband has said many times that if the moon was the worlds God and the Sun the worlds devil there would not be all these madcap religions around the world wanting to kill each other because they believe in different gods. With Afghanistan it just goes to show the loss of lives and thousands of injured soldiers the U.K. and USA suffered never solved or achieved anything at all. As things stand now the refugees will all want to flee to safety and the Taliban run riot or the U.K. and USA go back and do the job right and wipe the Taliban out.

oh dear! man, ie. men and women, have evil amongst them
imo they use whatever they can to further their evil..

here , we seem to be criticising the USA of withdrawing, didn`t, we, the UK, also withdraw? just asking

I am in utter despair of the way of the world, the evil that appears to be taking hold..

what can we do?

Sadly they are stuck in the Dark ages and women will never ever be equal in their eyes. It’s heartbreaking but this has always been the case.

“the world is a comedy to those that think, and a tragedy to those that feel” ..... cannot recall who wrote this but it’s so true, and now more than ever. I personally feel that religion is just medieval and has no place in modern society, however, I do recognise that so many people gain comfort from it. Religion itself isn’t evil, it’s the evil that men do, in the name of religion, with their twisted variations that just leave me lost for words and full of despair if you allow yourself to dwell on it for too long.

We may be 'going backwards'. Speaking of Afghanistan, foreign powers have been there so long, I don't think top Afghanis have the faintest idea of the work, and cost of creating a government that functions in any way - it's all been done by other people - governments and NGO's. No idea what will happen but we need to 'speak softly and carry a big stick' - both personally and as a country.

I think civilisation has reached its peak for the time being and a combination of pandemic and climate change will preoccupy everyone at the expense of lifestyle and educational improvements, and may even leave us struggling for individual survival.

Sending foreign troops to Afghanistan has never been more than a sticking plaster, sadly. As these last few days have shown, unless the country is permanently under foreign armed control, it will revert. It is heartbreaking to say, but perhaps there is nothing the Western world can do.

When you look at that arrogant and self serving moron Trump and know that people actually chose him to be president do you wonder at the rest of their selfish and blinkered behaviour? Any reasonably intelligent person can look in the bible and use different tracts to support whatever they want to push forward. When Trump and co want to keep driving gas guzzling cars they go round saying what climate change? They care nothing for the rest of the world just want to do what they want to and if they dont like the truth and scientifically proved results just ignore them.

I am also not reading that Biden thought that peace would be maintained. I think it has always been recognised that Afghanistan would sink into perpetual civil war, bitumen I’m not sure that they thought that the Taliban would move so quickly.

I’ve just posted on the other thread about Bidens decision.

Bottom line is that America is putting America first and for internal as well as external reasons Biden made the decision to continue with the withdrawal.

I am like many filled with horror at what will now happen, but, at the same time, I am not sure if I was leader of a country like USA that I would not have made the same decision, given the stuff that was on the table when making to this decision.

Biden didn’t negotiate the withdrawal it is firmly at Trumps door

This is certainly true but Biden, as the Financial Times reports, he certainly accelerated it. And he's gone so far as stating that "he has no regrets" in withdrawing troops support from Afghanistan. Whilst I would agree 100% that Trump was a stupied and dangerous pillock, Biden had the opportunity to rectify this particular Trmpism but didn't. Such was his belief that Afghanistan was able to maintain peace without US forces prescence, he even denied that there was any risk or likelihood that the Taliban would overrun the country. He was wrong there, wasn't he?

25Avalon

I have just received an email from UNICEF asking me to contribute to help women and children in Afghanistan. Hope they send one to Joe Biden too!

Biden didn’t negotiate the withdrawal it is firmly at Trumps door

Who can tell, Luckygirl. We who put people before ideologies have a hard task ahead.

Thank you for your reply geekesse

What I can abstract from what Luckygirl mentions is that evildoers put ideologies before people.

I agree. Do we think that will ever change? Will ideology always win?