Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), Charles Mills
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000268B
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00:05 Welcome back to the Liberty Insider.
00:07 Before the break with guest Charles Mills 00:09 we were sort of riffing on about everything 00:12 starting with really the linchpin idea 00:15 of this program is that you and I worked together 00:17 on a regular radio program. 00:19 Yes. Yes. 00:20 Used to be one hour long 00:21 and those were the good old days where we talked-- 00:23 It was live. Forever it was live. 00:25 Yeah. We had call-ins and so on. 00:27 Then I think it went to half-an-hour for a while, 00:29 now it's a 15 minute program which is invigorating 00:33 because it goes at the speed of light. 00:34 Have to be very focused on a 15 minute program. 00:36 But you know, we've had a long, 00:38 long history of talking together 00:41 and covered many, many topics 00:43 and so we ended up before the break 00:46 sort of setting a scene for the world. 00:48 Why is it in such turmoil? 00:49 Why is religion becoming such a contentious issue? 00:53 Yeah. 00:54 And-- am I on the right track? 00:56 You are. We are on the right track? 00:57 We are talking about some of these social and economic 01:00 and historic divisions from the great powers and so on. 01:05 All of these things have contributed 01:06 I think to a current crazy miss. 01:09 I don't know if you heard it or read it but 01:12 there was a comic came out of the White House the other day 01:15 and trying to be cool and calm with things 01:17 that according to the Congress 01:18 the White House is not managing correctly. 01:20 And somebody there said, well, you know, 01:23 we've always got our eye on events 01:26 and there's usually a couple of hotspots 01:28 or things lighting up on the board. 01:31 But they said at the moment the whole board's lighting up. 01:33 Yes. Yes. 01:35 And I think that's so 01:36 but it was interesting that they have that feeling. 01:40 We've established that it is this 01:43 tremendous stress that the world is under, 01:47 if people understood what religious liberty really is, 01:52 this stress would serve to bring people together 01:56 not tear them apart. 01:58 Yeah. It's just the opposite. 02:00 So we have to know that 02:01 if stress is tearing the world apart, 02:03 there is a misunderstanding what religious liberty is. 02:05 And another thing is happening that I noticed 02:09 and we talked about this in the radio program as well. 02:12 People are using religious liberty as a scapegoat. 02:15 They are using it as a means for war. 02:17 Well, because you don't agree with me-- 02:19 Wanting their liberty. 02:20 It is their liberty because you-- 02:21 because I want my liberty 02:23 and you want to take my liberty away, 02:24 I'm gonna attack you 02:25 and I'm gonna go to war with you, 02:27 I'm gonna kill you because you are a threat to me 02:31 so I'm gonna get you first. 02:32 That's what happening in the Middle East. 02:33 Well, I agree with you 02:34 but let's really put you to the stretch. 02:37 Why, how in this context or what explains 02:40 why the Islamic state of Iraq and Syria 02:47 is so set on destroying the Yazidis. 02:51 Well, you have to help me on that one. 02:52 You know the history, so this man is a history man. 02:55 He knows history so you tell me. 02:58 Well, on the face of it I don't think its quite so obvious 03:01 because the Yazidis are very insular community, 03:04 an ancient religious group in Iraq 03:07 and I think they are also through into Iran, 03:11 they're Zoroastrians, you know, 03:13 an ancient religion that predates Christianity 03:18 and I think in its origins predates Judaism. 03:23 But they are not very active. 03:25 So on the face of it they don't present a threat to Islam 03:30 but what's happened and I think this is that 03:33 what we need to understand about Islam in this case 03:35 but even Christianity in other cases, 03:37 it's been stirred to intolerance, 03:42 it's been stirred to hatred 03:43 and it just reflexly doesn't want to abide 03:47 any other religion, any other faith other than its own. 03:50 But there's not an inherit conflict 03:52 between the Yazidis and Islam that I can say. 03:56 That's something we've talked about as well. 03:58 You could have two religions, 04:00 two established ancient religions 04:04 whose platform is peace fighting each other. 04:08 Who come at each other with knives and guns and bombs 04:12 and one of the establishing foundation doctrines 04:15 of their religion is peace and tolerance 04:18 and love for their neighbor. 04:19 How is that possible? 04:21 And that opens the door also to another reason 04:24 why we have religious intolerance 04:26 and lost religious freedom around the world. 04:29 People aren't living the religion they believe. 04:33 They are living something else. What are they living? 04:34 Well, you've been a good pupil of mine because what I-- 04:37 Absolutely. 04:38 What I come back to all the time on this 04:41 in fact, for shock I've said it in religious liberty meetings, 04:45 I've said there's way too much religion in the world, 04:48 way too much and I believe that 04:50 from point of just a historian looking at events 04:53 and you can easily make a claim 04:55 as did the late Christopher Hitchens 04:58 that religion is the cause of the lot of problems 04:59 if not all of them. 05:00 He was a little incline to say all of them. 05:03 But religion is at the root 05:05 but isn't good religion it's bad religion, 05:09 and good religion is made good by faith, 05:11 personal spirituality. 05:13 And I believe and this is what you're fishing for. 05:16 There's too few people that are living their faith 05:19 in a personal, spiritual way. 05:23 And yes, I do believe that some religions doctrinally 05:26 are little more incline to lash out 05:29 and punish others that think differently. 05:32 But even those ones are made more benign 05:35 if the individual is more concerned 05:37 with personal spirituality and involved with their faith 05:40 rather than using it as a weapon against someone else. 05:42 Yes, yes, absolutely. 05:44 Didn't you tell me the story once of the Prophet Muhammad 05:47 and dealing with people who are not of the faith. 05:50 There was something that happened in Egypt or some place 05:53 you told me a story about how some people helped him-- 05:57 Well, I know the story, I don't remember telling you. 05:59 Yes, and thus the people helped him and he says, 06:01 well, we need to be friendly to these people from now on 06:04 and they're doing anything but that 06:06 in the Middle East right now. Yeah. 06:08 Well, the Islam is very complex and I don't want to-- 06:13 we don't get callers on this program 06:15 but we might get fire bombings. 06:17 Not really. Silly. 06:19 But you know we don't want to 06:20 when we talk about religious liberty 06:22 gratuitously attack another faith. 06:26 But that faith is not acting like it is supposed to be. 06:29 It is better than its acting. 06:31 In many places in the world at the moment 06:34 Islam needs to be rebut in my view. 06:37 It's not acting well 06:40 in the interest of humanity in general 06:44 and it's not really acting always 06:46 in the interest of its own state at times, 06:50 but what it is doing and this is what I'm fishing for 06:53 when you look at the history of Islam, 06:56 Muhammad personally, 06:58 he had a great battle to even survive 07:01 and the whole concept began 07:03 with the flight from Mecca, wasn't it? 07:08 Yeah. 07:09 But you know, he was between Mecca and Medina 07:11 and at one time he was fleeing for his life, 07:13 another time he comes back to conquer them 07:16 and like it or not the warfare 07:21 that accompanied those early days 07:23 is implanted in the thinking of how Islam will expand. 07:28 It's written into the Quran and as I say that I know 07:32 that it was given by the Angel Gabriel to Muhammad, 07:36 it's a bit dangerous to suggest that 07:38 it was his views that were written large there 07:42 but whatever within the Quran there are many statements 07:45 about the value of Jihad 07:48 and advancing it by the sword and so on 07:50 and the history extenuates that. 07:53 So it's not very hard in a country like Iraq 07:56 where there are severe ethnic, historical and military issues. 08:03 When you have all of that and then the religion 08:06 sort of encourages people to do it they get a license. 08:10 It goes wrong very quickly. 08:12 Christianity has got a bad history too in the Middle Ages 08:15 and the crusades and the inquisition. 08:19 You know, we can't really excuse that 08:21 but I think you can more easily in Christianity say that 08:24 it was an aberration from its founding principles. 08:27 With Judaism it's a little bit more difficult 08:31 'cause there's some things in the Old Testament very-- 08:33 Yes if we look at the Old Testament-- 08:35 Very similar to the Quran. If we-- yeah exactly. 08:38 If we use the Old Testament as our guide 08:41 of how to deal with people who do not believe the way we are, 08:44 look at what we turn into. Right. 08:47 Without Christ what do we have? 08:49 That's right and so whether its-- 08:51 Well, Christ for a Christian. We got to be careful. 08:54 I'm a Seventh-day Adventist Christian, 08:56 I believe that Christ as He said, I'm the way. 08:59 No other name given among men where by you'll be saved. 09:02 But when you are talking about religious liberty 09:04 and the dynamic that protects it, 09:06 I think it's not good enough to say as I jokingly say, 09:10 religion is the problem. 09:11 We need spiritual religion where people need to be 09:15 seriously spiritually involved with their faith, 09:18 then we need the allowance of other human beings 09:22 to find their way to God through their system 09:25 and we need to denature 09:26 this violent tendency in all religions. 09:29 And part of it is to accept it. It's embedded in Islam. 09:33 It's embedded to a lesser degree I think, 09:35 but that arguable it's embedded in the Old Testament, Judaism. 09:39 It's historically explainable 09:42 but it's there if you want to pluck it out. 09:44 Hard to get in Christianity but easy for Christians 09:48 who think in violent ways and convenience to get into it. 09:53 But one way or another, we need to work for all faiths 09:58 to work together not to accept the other as truth. 10:01 I'm never going to accept the Quran 10:03 or the Book of Mormon as God's word. 10:06 No, I accept the Bible. 10:08 But I still should guarantee there's other people 10:11 the right to believe that and this has been said 10:13 be ready to die to defend their right to think differently. 10:17 That is so important to each one of us 10:19 that we come to a realization that religious liberty 10:25 is our freedom to love God, to do what we feel is right 10:32 and then we share that type of feeling, 10:35 that type of realization with the world. 10:38 Until we do that we will not have religious liberty. 10:41 Until we do that none of us will ever be free. 10:46 I remember hearing a song on the radio 10:49 with the words turn your radio on. 10:53 There is television today as any 3ABN viewer knows 10:57 but it's been a privilege of mine 10:59 to work on radio as well for a long time 11:01 and with Charles Mills the guest 11:04 and at first we were talking for an hour. 11:06 When you talk for an hour on a topic 11:07 you better know what you are talking about. 11:09 By the end of the time you know the topic pretty well. 11:13 There's a lot to share and talk can do it 11:16 as the truck drivers and many people driving to work 11:20 all across the country now they need to hear things 11:24 and to have a social interaction. 11:26 Radio does it. 11:27 It reminds me a little bit of God's spirit 11:29 reaching out to our minds. 11:31 I've noticed many public speakers 11:33 as they are talking 11:34 appeared to be also having an inside conversation. 11:38 Radio has done that and I believe that we use-- 11:42 need to use all the mediums radio, television, print. 11:47 I also was an editor of books as well as Liberty Magazine. 11:52 We need to use all of these devices 11:55 to communicate moral truths 11:58 and in this case religious liberty 12:01 'cause at the end of the day the gospel of liberty 12:05 as Paul put it is preeminent. 12:08 For Liberty Insider, this is Lincoln Steed. |
Revised 2015-01-08