joanna
Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> Michael Dawson MDawson at pdx.edu, Tue Sep 21 09:58:36 PDT 2004:
>
>>> When Muslims say "In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most
>>> Merciful" in letters and the like, my brain automatically translates
>>> it into "Greetings and Salutations!"
>>> --
>>> Yoshie
>>
>>
>> ...confirming your botness. It's as offensive for purported allies
>> to talk about God in public policy spheres as it is when enemies do
>> it. Have some logic and standards, if you are able.
>
>
> It's up to you if you want to be a purist-atheist and refuse to sign a
> petition about defending academic freedom just because the petition is
> sent out by the Muslim Student Association and has a Muslim greetings
> and salutations at the beginning. It's a free country, as they say.
> The US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, the coalition that
> forwarded the petition to me and other subscribers, is a non-religious
> organization, however, so if the secular US Campaign can promote the
> petition, so can all other broad-minded secular organizations and
> individuals.
>
> As for myself, many people I work with in local organizing are
> religious leftists -- Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, etc. including my
> partner (his father is a retired Presbyterian pastor) and his family.
> If you want to work on the left in the United States, you have to be
> at least tolerant about an occasional invocation of God or two. To
> take just one example, at the "The-World-Says-No-to-the-Bush-Agenda"
> anti-RNC march, Dr, Bob Edgar, General Secretary of the National
> Council of Churches <http://www.ncccusa.org/news/2000GA/edgar.html>,
> offered a prayer before the march's kickoff.