Welcome back to
"Liberty Insider."
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After a short break
with our mental juices
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are rejuvenated and we
want to rejoin the discussion
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that started with
talking about ISIL
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in the Middle East
and what's going on there?
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Well, you know, we got a
lot of violence going on there,
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it kind of makes me
wonder about these many people
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are accusing
religion of making the world
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a worse place to live.
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Christopher
Hitchens being one that wrote
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the best selling
book about that and--
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That is called
"God is Not Great."
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Yeah.
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Which was, you know,
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pretty much in the face of
people who believe otherwise
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and they are gonna
be pointing at this
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and saying look,
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people who care
about God make the world
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a dangerous place.
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It's much better
if you kind of just--
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Boy, I listen to a lot of
Christopher Hitchens debates
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and they were
always stimulating.
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I don't remember
seeing him bested by anybody.
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There were two cases where
I don't think he won per say
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but it was probably
a draw with Tony Blair
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and Al Sharpton, crazy or not.
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And what both of them invoked
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and they would debate this point
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on whether
Christianity is of any value.
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They were talking about Islam
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where they got the better of him
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is they didn't
join on his level.
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They kept it on the
level of what Christianity
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and what faith
had done for them.
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And I believe myself that's
the power of Christian witness
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and as I read
"Acts of the Apostles"
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that's why Christianity
moved ahead so quickly.
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It was the undeniable story.
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You know, Jesus Christ
has risen from the dead
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and He has changed my life.
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I was once this
and I have done--
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I mean, that's power, right.
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But you start to give
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a theological argument or worse,
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you know, pull out your sword
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and say believe
it or else trouble.
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And both Tony Blair
and Al Sharpton kept it
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on a spiritual
level and so it was--
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I was proud of how
they represented their faith
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but generally
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Christopher Hitchens just would,
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you know, be pulling
it one arrow after another
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of argument against
his historical Christianity
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and all the harms that its given
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where I think he was unfair
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and he wouldn't
give any ground on this,
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you know, secular dictatorships
and things like communism
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and I have done their fair
share of mischief in the world
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and he was always
glossing over that.
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But that side which
is the real weakness
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there is no
question that in history
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religion has been responsible
directly or for empowering
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or agitating towards
some horrendous things.
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But that's to be expected
when Christianity is dealing
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with the most visceral
elements of human existence
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and appealing to the divine
and then when you have people
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get a little off kilter on that
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and there is some
opposition to that faith
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it isn't just an opposition
from another human being,
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its someone here that is
not connected with the divine
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like you so they
are the other Satan--
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you know evil force.
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So it kicks in an
extra element of violence
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and religious war
just doesn't stop.
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Most wars, you know,
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they want this hill or
them want this resource
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and when they get it its over.
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But religious war it
doesn't stop generally
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until you've destroyed
the existential threat.
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So you are saying like
because we are appealing
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to a higher authority
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that makes the
stakes higher and more--
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It does-- And it comforts.
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At most people are not
saying its always justified
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because as Abraham Lincoln says,
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you know, who can guarantee
they are really on God side
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but the true religion is to
always make that assumption.
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And you know, you
and I can sit here
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and we read the New
Testament and we see Jesus
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as a Revelation of God and
we order our lives on that.
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We are not
troubled by anything else
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but its worth remembering that,
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you know, the Muslim
things the same on Muhammad
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and his instructions by--
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well, via
Muhammad but from Gabriel.
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You know, they've got
the straight line to heaven
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and other faiths or Sikhs
tend to think the same way.
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So but the answer is
not to remove religion
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because I think its to
integral with human thinking.
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There's been some
scientific studies lately
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that I think tend to be
more philosophical scientific
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but they can argue that
the very way our brain works
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is sort to set
up to believe in God
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or which is first
that we believe in God
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because He is so
evident or our brain is--
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needs a God
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but its part and
parcel of our human existence
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to operate on that level.
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And so you know,
showed of some sort
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of communist dictatorship
or George Orwell's lockdown
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where you can't even
think we have to reconcile
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with it not remove it.
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Well, do we have no
response to this accusation
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that the fact that
we believe is making us
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more dangerous
people against God's people?
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No, well, we have a response
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but I think it's a weak argument
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because its just a
plain fact of history that,
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you know, that the Pope of Rome
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unsighted the
Christian kings of Europe to go
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and attack the holy land.
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It's just--
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Well, now I notice in
these arguments about religion
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causes more violence but
there seem to be for always
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to the same two
or three incidents.
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You have the crusades,
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they always
bring up the crusades,
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they always bring
up Belfast in Ireland.
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Oh, there is plenty of
over the on the smallest stage.
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But you know, right
now in India and Pakistan
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they are just distressingly
common incidents where,
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you know, this Christian,
Muslim, or Hindu village,
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you know, just across the road
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or the little
hill from each other,
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they each regard the
other as sort of the other.
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Don't like their religion
and as people are practicing--
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you know, they
are all but monkeys
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and then some
little incident happens
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and bam suddenly the crowd
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from this
village goes over there
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and just kills 100 people.
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It happens all the time.
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And its just because of religion
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or there's
tribalism in the half world
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and the cruelest thing going on.
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I don't know if
you be listening to me
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over just think alike.
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Yeah, there's an
element of tribalism
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and this is what I, what
I, what I think is happening.
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In the post communist
era or the post World War II,
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pre World War III well,
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we live in I think communism,
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capitalism,
nationalism, imperialism
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I think I repeated that.
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Did you get all the
ism's in there, Lincoln?
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These sort of
things have worked them
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so as out they don't
have high creditable.
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And I think the world is
more and more being restructured
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and the battle
lines drawn on what is,
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at first the tribal identity
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and sometimes
that's pure ethnicity.
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But it can carry with that
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and sometimes
enlarge you get more than
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just the
bloodlines of the tribes
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is its religious identity
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and that's what I see it
work and its very visceral
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and very dangerous.
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So it almost has nothing
to do with whether the people,
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the individuals
themselves are religious.
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If they have any kind of
relationship to their God
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its more of their
identity just like,
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you know, I'm a
Dallas Mavericks fan.
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And you are coming it
what I thought about long
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and harden the way I express it
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even at religious
liberty conferences
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and I did it for effectiveness
but I'm more and more
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believe my own idea or you know,
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I like to express it this way.
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The way I put it there is way
too much religion in the world,
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way too much religion
but not enough spirituality.
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Religious dogma and
identity and aspirations
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and structure and, you know,
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organize in the
sense of hierarchies
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and all the rest
can be very problematic.
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Easily leads mankind
into conflicts and bigotry
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and so on but its
lessened to a fantastic extent
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and more closely fulfills--
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in our case what
Jesus said in the gospels
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when they had endurance
to that faith internalize it
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and have those
higher spiritual values
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that except in rare
cases all religion calls people
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to like self sacrifice,
concern to your fellowman.
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If religion is
categorized by that its fine
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but religion
that has all structure
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and all identity stares
people like sheep the slaughter
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to conflict
fighting and alienations
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and so on and we are in
that world at the moment.
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So almost like
if you have like a--
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The genie is out of the
bottle, sorry to interrupt
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but we backed to
the religious rivalries
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that really more
characterize the middle ages.
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If you take God out of the
religion in this discussion
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then its basically just politics
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and its not really different
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from say they are false--
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It is fake politics
yes, because yes, absolutely.
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The communism or anything else
would be on the same category.
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You and I think very much a like
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because there is an easy
way to look at communism,
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it was the religion of man.
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Communism
actually aped structurally
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most of the great religions.
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And a pretty dangerous religion.
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And might same look like.
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As we look back in
history like the great,
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great genocides and holocaust
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happened in Russia
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under Stalin and Mao
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so I think it's a poor
comparison to the conflicts
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of Christianity
to get involved in--
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Now, hold on, I'm
not Christopher Hitchens.
00:10:03.20\00:10:06.07
I think
Christopher Hitchens overstated
00:10:06.10\00:10:07.70
this is what I'm saying
00:10:07.74\00:10:09.10
and he was a
little too protective
00:10:09.14\00:10:11.94
of the secularist abuses
00:10:11.97\00:10:15.64
but what he said on religion
is true as far as it goes
00:10:15.68\00:10:19.05
but he was never giving it
the benefit on spirituality,
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on true faith.
00:10:22.78\00:10:26.02
Yeah and I think we need to look
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at our personal experience
and what Christians have done
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and they will see
that Christianity has done
00:10:30.53\00:10:34.50
a lot for individuals,
done a lot for nations
00:10:34.53\00:10:36.93
and made the world a
better place in a lot of ways.
00:10:36.97\00:10:43.07
There is a poem by
William Butler Yeats
00:10:43.10\00:10:45.24
called the Second Coming
and in it he decries the fact
00:10:45.27\00:10:48.71
as he puts it that the worst,
00:10:48.74\00:10:52.91
a full of passionate intensity
00:10:52.95\00:10:55.15
while the best
lack all conviction.
00:10:55.18\00:10:58.39
As I look at what's
happening in the Middle East
00:10:58.42\00:11:01.62
in general and with
ISIS in particular it seems
00:11:01.66\00:11:05.16
like passionate
intensity is the worst
00:11:05.19\00:11:08.03
of what we are getting.
00:11:08.06\00:11:10.20
It's worth remembering
that this religious aberration
00:11:10.23\00:11:14.07
is a more than religion.
00:11:14.10\00:11:16.34
There are GIA
political changes that date back
00:11:16.37\00:11:19.54
at the very least of World War I
00:11:19.57\00:11:21.78
and the dislocation of
whole peoples by false borders.
00:11:21.81\00:11:26.01
But as I look at this
I think the real threat
00:11:26.05\00:11:29.22
and the real
challenge is at home,
00:11:29.25\00:11:32.19
the young men and
women who have been attracted
00:11:32.22\00:11:34.62
by this overseas adventure.
00:11:34.66\00:11:38.39
Why are they attracted
and what is to come next?
00:11:38.43\00:11:43.47
This is the challenge
00:11:43.50\00:11:45.30
and with God's
help and a commitment--
00:11:45.33\00:11:47.04
We're gonna do it again.
00:11:47.07\00:11:48.57
Yeah, well, look
screen went blank
00:11:48.60\00:11:49.94
so I just spoke because I was--
00:11:49.97\00:11:51.57
I thank you, you were
looking at the monitor and--
00:11:51.61\00:11:54.38
I'm. I'm sorry, yeah.
00:11:54.41\00:11:56.18
Yeah. Okay.
00:11:56.21\00:11:59.61
No, problem just watch
the monitor out and see--
00:11:59.65\00:12:02.35
Is that why I did it.
That's what you have been.
00:12:02.38\00:12:05.55
We can tell you, your
eyes were shifted over there.
00:12:05.59\00:12:10.13
I think its been too
long since I've come in,
00:12:10.16\00:12:12.73
I forgotten the retake
00:12:12.76\00:12:14.10
and you changed a few
things a little here so--
00:12:14.13\00:12:15.93
That's okay, yeah.
00:12:15.96\00:12:17.30
So just look
right into here, okay.
00:12:17.33\00:12:18.67
Yeah, I should know that.
00:12:18.70\00:12:20.27
Eight, seven, six,
five, four, three, two.
00:12:20.30\00:12:27.64
There is a poem by
William Butler Yeats
00:12:27.68\00:12:29.84
called the Second Coming
and in it he decries the fact
00:12:29.88\00:12:33.45
as he puts it that the worst,
a full of passionate intensity
00:12:33.48\00:12:37.72
while the best
lack all conviction.
00:12:37.75\00:12:41.86
I think we are seeing a
little bit of this at work
00:12:41.89\00:12:44.59
in what's
happening in the Middle East
00:12:44.63\00:12:47.16
and in particular with ISIL,
00:12:47.20\00:12:50.50
young people from
all over the world
00:12:50.53\00:12:53.03
disaffected for
any number of reasons,
00:12:53.07\00:12:55.10
not just because of
their religious differences
00:12:55.14\00:12:57.77
but being attracted
to this grand adventure
00:12:57.81\00:12:59.94
in the desert with
passionate intensity.
00:12:59.97\00:13:04.15
I think somehow in our cultures,
00:13:04.18\00:13:07.12
in our western societies
we need to encourage the best,
00:13:07.15\00:13:12.19
the best of religion.
00:13:12.22\00:13:13.96
Religious view
points that uplift the soul.
00:13:13.99\00:13:17.16
That fulfill the
hunger that individuals
00:13:17.19\00:13:20.46
clearly have for what
only God can give something
00:13:20.50\00:13:24.23
that can never be
satisfied by violence and sword.
00:13:24.27\00:13:28.64
And these
adventures of man to be sure
00:13:28.67\00:13:31.57
these young people are attracted
00:13:31.61\00:13:32.94
to GIA political change.
00:13:32.97\00:13:34.81
The world is full of that.
00:13:34.84\00:13:36.51
What it really needs to
be full of is spirituality,
00:13:36.54\00:13:40.82
tolerance, understanding,
00:13:40.85\00:13:42.95
religious freedom, kindness.
00:13:42.98\00:13:46.92
For Liberty Insider,
this is Lincoln Steed.
00:13:46.96\00:13:49.72