Word: paradox
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Islam proved to be a liberating vehicle, although an ironic one, to Western eyes. There are several layers of paradox in the relationship between religion and revolution. The word revolution first entered the English language as a political term around 1600, and implied restoration of the old order. Later revolutions, like the French and the Russian, were explicitly antireligious, anticlerical. And yet revolution is almost always cryptoreligious in its vocabularies, disciplines and even operating psychologies. Revolution needs martyrs, saints, zealots, and almost always involves a rigorously ascetic ideal. Revolution, like religion, means faith and commitment, righteousness, intolerance, overriding goals, doctrine...
These seemingly contradictory effects lead to a famous brain teaser called the Twin Paradox: If one twin goes off into space, which twin will be the older (if either is) when the brothers are reunited...
Einstein says there is a definitive answer and, therefore, no paradox. Be cause of other relativistic effects that stem from leaving and returning to earth, if one twin departs on a high-velocity space journey, he will be younger than the earth-bound brother when he returns...
...site for a papal visit, Mexico abounds with historical paradox. So ingrained is anticlericalism in this overwhelmingly Catholic land that President Lopez Portillo was under considerable pressure not to see the Pope at all, much less greet him upon his arrival. Under Mexican law, John Paul could have been fined for wearing clerical garb in public. Of course, that law is now winked at, as are constitutional provisions that prohibit the church from operating schools and priests from saying anything about political matters...
...used as an aphrodisiac, but Indian monks take it to repress physical desires. Caribbean laborers use it by day as an "energizer," but by night as a sedative. Marijuana is a paradox...