Word: seculars
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...free speech by religious intolerance. A paper that thrives on controversy and insult, Charlie Hebdo argues the drawings were published both to support the Danish editors who drew the ire of Muslims around the world, and to make the point that a fully equal and integrated Islam in secular European societies can't expect to enjoy a deference not accorded to Christianity or Judaism. "The Pope is satirized, the Church is satirized, Christians are satirized and so are Jews - all in a well-established tradition of commentary and humor," declared Reporters Without Borders general secretary Robert M?nard outside...
...While rallying to a politically convenient cause, Sarkozy and his fellow pols might stop and consider a couple of other ironies in this case. First among them is that this collision of religious and secular values is being sorted out in a court of the French Republic - whose own quasi-theological ideology insists matters of faith stay far removed from public life. To that end, the Republic encourages religions to organize themselves into "official" organizations with which the state can interact - the co-plaintiff Union of Islamic Organizations of France being the largest member of France's "official" Islamic structure...
...gave Abraham title to the land of Israel sometime in the Bronze Age. The Book of Genesis declares, ''The Lord made a covenant with Abraham, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates.'' The more secular deed, in modern times, was the Balfour Declaration, issued in 1917 by Britain. ''His Majesty's Government,'' it said, ''view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object.'' Jews tend to quote...
...college in the Connecticut colony which would eventually settle at New Haven. The last clerical president, the Reverend Thomas Hill, Class of 1847, who resigned in 1868 to accept a better-paying job as minister of the First Parish Church in Portland, Maine, was eventually succeeded by the secular and scientific Charles William Eliot, Class of 1853, who served for forty years...
...democracy agenda that dominated U.S. foreign policy after 9/11. Two factors have contributed to that change. The first is the reality that free elections in places like Lebanon and the Palestinian territories have handed power to fundamentalist groups like Hizballah and Hamas that have little interest in pluralistic, secular governance. Whatever the ultimate benefits of implanting democracy in the Middle East, in the short run it's more likely to damage U.S. interests than serve them...