Summary of BBC article
Response to BBC article
Regarding the conflict between Palestine and Israel that just happened a week ago, from my perspective, it is about the religions and races by Palestinians who had been forced to live in Gaza, where most are Moslems and Jews or Hebrews who live in the majority of the country and follow Judaism. All of these parties are trying to claim the Holy Land.
Why does it matter? “Jeruzalem”, The Kingdom of Heaven and the land of religions. The only one in the world if I could say. Jeruzalem is not only the city of the Christians where Jesus lived and many people believe, with some scientific evidence, to keep the body of Jesus, but also the Jews also claim it is a land that was given them by their god and it is called The Promised Land. More than that, Moslems also believes that Jerusalem is the third most important city of their religion after Mecca and Madina in Saudi Arabia. This city has a very long history and is very unique unlike other cities in the world. For this reason, the land is always wanted and occupied by all of those three religions.
My point of view is that the war and conflict would happen again and continue like the history of the Crusades war in the part 1000 years ago that two major religions, which is when Christianity and Islam were fighting and it was the longest war in mankind’s history. I personally believe faith and believing are the most powerful motivations that could drive people to sacrifice their life for their god or fight for their belief whether it is right or wrong. For instance, there were many terrorist events in the US that they claimed the mission was do it for god (Allah). Anyways, all of these I just say it as a person from outside who might have many factors that could cause conflict and war. However, I hope and I wish that peace will be with all of Palestine and Israel soon.
When I read Pingpong's phrase "Kingdom of Heaven," I was reminded of the movie by that name starring Orlando Bloom, Jeremy Irons, Liam Neeson and others. It describes very well the vicious warring over what humans belief to be sacred and religious. I think that Kingdom of Heaven was released about ten years ago, but although I remember the content of what I've read or watched fairly well, I'm not so good on how long ago, unless it was last week or last month. I keep thinking that THe Matrix is relatively recent, but it actually came out last century, and that wasn't yesterday.
ReplyDeleteI especially like the point Pingpong makes that religion motivates poeple to "fight for their belief whether it is right or wrong." And that, I think is great problem with all religion. In fact, it seems to me very much like the sort of repressive communism in China and North Korea, and the sort of religiously fanatical nationalism that some politicians stir up. All of these things are like religions that insist they are perfectly right, that they have all the answer, and that their truth must not be questioned. That whole attitude seems to me not only anti-scientific and anti-democratic, but morally corrupt.
Good institutions, organizations, people and societies do not need to use the law or social pressure to silence critical thinking about any aspect of their culture.
Note that the first sentence of each paragraph uses attributive language to cite Pingpong as the source of ideas I report so that I can respond to them.
DeleteIn the first sentence of the first paragraph of my response, the source idea is a "quotation" only, but in the statement of the author's (Pingpong's) ideas uses a mix of "quotation" and paraphrase to integrate it into my paragraph.
I decided not to also give the publication date and time for my source because it is clearly the blog post, whose publication information is immediately above: there is no danger that readers will be confused about what the source is.
The conflict between Israel and Palestine has been lasted for centuries since the annoucement of Balfour Declaration to public in 1917. From my perspective, religion is not the only factor that causes this mayhem, but also enthic and nationalism. Although there are free Palestine movements around the world, I think that it is unlikely for other countries to intervene in this situation due to Covid-19 and balance of power in this region. However, I believe that the movement may slowly change the public opinion on this conflict and put pressure on government, especially in foreign policy.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Pream's point that religion is not the only cause of the ongoing "conflict between Israel and Palestine" (2021, May 30, 19:07), or indeed of other conflicts with religious elements, such as in India and even Myanmar, where some Buddhist monks have previously come out with viciously nationalistic attacks on the members of other ethnic groups who also follow other religions than Buddhism, which they claim to be the national religion of Myanmar.
DeleteI also wonder whether religion is not often a tool of nationalism. In their calls to support a sacred, mythic nation, religious identity seems to be used by politicians as one tool to stir up people's emotions, even in the US, where members of some groups are defined as not being white Christians and therefore a threat to the traditional social structures. Perhaps religious leaders should do more to reject the claims of politicians who make religion a part of nationalism or national identity.
Note that the first sentence of my reply uses attributive language to report that Pream is the author of the idea in that clause, and only that clause. It combines both "quotation" and paraphrase to state the idea that I want to follow up in my comment. That idea from my source is also mixed in with my own ideas: I'm not writing a summary of Pream's comment; I'm just responding to one of her ideas.
DeleteFinally, because a year is not enough to specify the source, Pream's comment, it's necessary to include the time in hours and minutes; it would be OK here to simply give the date and time (May 30, 19:07), leaving out the year, since that is already known and can reasonably be assumed to be the same as the year of of publication of the blog post.