Word: religion
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...discomfort of superficial religious encounters. As a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons), I have also known this discomfort from the dispensing end, and have felt the pain of realizing that in my sincere but clumsy efforts to live and share my religion, I have offended someone. I thus emphasize with much of Mr. Thompson's defensiveness...
...Saudi businessman. "They were not real." A longtime British resident offers a similar perspective: "Patterns of life are traditional here, and the entire fabric still fits very well together. The system has been in place for 200 years, and people feel very comfortable with their government and their religion. What alternative has been offered?" Yet that may be too simple. While the Saudis clearly will not swallow all foreign ways whole, they are just as clearly a country in transition from feudal to modern times...
Still others, O'Brien among them, find bitter ironies, particularly when the ideals of religion are made to serve the expediencies of nationalism. In the Middle East, as in the author's own Ireland, mixing God and politics has been a formula for intractability. O'Brien carefully works his way to this point, noting that rhetoric does not always reflect reality. For example, the Jewish state derives its reason for being from ancient texts that have little relationship to liberal theories about the consent of the governed. Yet Israel is a vigorous democracy. By contrast, the 1968 Palestinian National Covenant...
These well dressed women, make-up heavily and skillfully applied, were Mormons, fulfilling their year-long missionary requirement. What religion are you, would you be interested in a Mormon meeting, what's your phone number, where do you live, can we stop by, here's a pamphlet. Once again a friendly introduction had accelerated into a heavenly sales pitch. Trapped in the moving subway, I could only grind my teeth into a smile as disingenuous as their's. After all the bubbly inquiries, I was just one more requirement to be met in their year of divine duty...
...religious person. Neither am I anti-religious. I am uncertain and concerned about a personal resolution that could change me. But organized, deceptive religion is alienating, even when it's a satellite-dish away. Face to face manipulation only builds walls of bias no Word can reach through...