NEWS: Tutu on Religion, War

I keep having to remind people that religion in and of itself is morally neutral. Religion is like a knife. When you use a knife for cutting up bread to prepare sandwiches, a knife is good. If you use the same knife to stick into somebody's guts, a knife is bad. Religion in and of itself is not good or bad_it is what it makes you do… Frequently, fundamentalists will say this person is the anointed of God if the particular person is supporting their own positions on for instance, homosexuality, or abortion. feel so deeply saddened [about it]. Do you really believe that the Jesus who was depicted in the Scriptures as being on the side of those who were vilified, those who were marginalized, that this Jesus would actually be supporting groups that clobber a group that is already persecuted? That's a Christ I would not worship. I'm glad that I believe very fervently that Jesus would not be on the side of gay bashers. To think that people say, as they used to say, that AIDS was God's punishment for homosexuality. Abominable. Abominable.

It's true of every faith, that there are those people who frequently are able to provide people with simplistic answers. Life is far more complicated than we would like it to be, but we actually don't like having to work through its ambiguities. We wish we could have straightforward answers. It's not just in terms of religion_you see it in things like ethnic cleansing. Part of the reason for ethnic cleansing is that one group says we don't like people who are different from us. We want people who think like us, people who look like us, and we want to eradicate any of the diversities. We find it far easier to be in the "against" mode than in the "for" mode.

You say, why do you detain people without trial in the fashion that you have done? And when they give the answer security, you say no, no, no, this can't be America. This is what we used to hear in South Africa. It's unbelievable that a country that many of us have looked to as the bastion of true freedom could now have eroded so many of the liberties we believed were upheld almost religiously. [But] feeling as devastated in many ways as I am, it is wonderful to find that there are [also] Americans who have felt very strongly [about administration policies]_the people who turned out for rallies against the war.

saintcrazybob said:
Desmond Tutu is my fucking hero. He is just such a beautiful beautiful man. I almost cried when he was on the Daily Show. He spoke at my sister's GWU graduation, mainly about his leadership of the South African Truth Coalition, and it was one of the most amazing things I've ever heard.

Unlike so many religious types, he doesn't have his head in the sand about how lousy and vicious people can be to each other, because he's seen the worst of it. And yet he still loves humanity, still has hopes for us, warts and all. He's truly inspirational. In a just world he would be Pope.