Word: religion
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...permit them to organize freely the life of their religious communities," the Pope said, reading his remarks in English and coughing occasionally at the end of a long day of encounters. He continued: "Religious liberty is a fundamental expression of human liberty and that the active presence of religion in society is a source of progress and enrichment for all. This assumes, of course, that religions do not seek to exercise direct political power, as that is not their province, and it also assumes that they utterly refuse to sanction recourse to violence as a legitimate expression of religion...
...long reflection on war and violence by saying that "true peace needs justice, to correct the economic imbalances and political disturbances which always give rise to tension and threaten every society." This "root-cause" exploration of conflict is much different than Regensburg's search at the heart of religion for the source of violence. It is also a very different tone than his meeting with German Muslims last year in Cologne, where he implored them to help weed out terrorists from their communities - without any mention of the difficulties facing those same immigrant communities...
Science and religion seemingly cannot coexist because religion is all about the past and science is all about the future. Scientists and theologians need to stop making the mistake of equating the concept of God with religious doctrines. Every scientific breakthrough reinforces my belief that God cannot be contained by the confines of religion or science...
...neglected and marginalized by successive Bangkok governments, a sense reinforced by clumsy attempts to assimilate their Malay-speaking Islamic culture. Many Muslim youths are first groomed for rebellion at tadika, or private weekend schools, where they are taught that the invading Siamese (as Thais were then known) stifled their religion and enslaved their people, a version of Pattani history still banned by the state. History seemed to repeat itself when Thaksin sent thousands of troops south to quell the rebellion, culminating with Tak Bai, which radicalized Ma-ae's generation more than any other incident. Initiations take place at night...
There's something striking about Ma-ae, but it takes a while to work out what it is. It's not his looks: he's a lanky teenager who, like most Thai youths, wears blue jeans and a T shirt. Nor is it his religion: he's Muslim, like almost everybody else in Thailand's three southernmost provinces. What's striking about him is this: in a part of the country where a separatist insurgency has claimed more than 1,800 lives since it flared anew three years ago, and where ordinary people are gagged by fear and secrecy...