yes, I thinks so for the most part.

Submitted by trans-parere (Canada), Apr 28, 2008 at 18:12

Dear Jared

Ah! But the enlightenment didn't come from the top down. It is not a construct of Catholicism but how Catholics and other Christians [and non Christians too] wanted to interact with in their society and a balancing of the other social constructs not only religion but the nobility, the law, the military, and politics. And the Church didn't surrender to this division of authority yet gave piece by piece. So too did the nobility, the politicians, the lawyers and the men of arms give way in well measured steps.

[unless you were talking of the Catholic Enlightenment alone and not the age of enlightenment]

What the "enlightenment" did was open up social participation and make it inclusive. It's been a long drawn out process and we are still really working on it. There were/are so many cultural prejudices to over come. look at the Democrat election in your country. My goodness? Such good people with an advanced, inclusive, multinational society at odds over race and gender. What I find funny about the Democrats being so badly polarised over race and gender is that part of their political spiel is that they are supposed to be the party that transcends such prejudices. I've read more than five articles this morning written by both white and black's blaming the other race for this debacle that anyone would be hard pressed to name enlightened. Though one good may come of this. The black community has shown itself just as racist as they have always accused the white community to be. Maybe now there will be some honest dialogue rather than finger pointing and political correct maneuvering. The whole racist thing is getting pretty tired but what can you do when we're still combating tribalism. The age of reason has been a tortoise and hare thing. Our expectations have exceeded our ability to "enlighten" the cultural load. :-)

As for Islam and any reformation. Well, there are plenty of Christians and Jews ill reformed but we deal with them in the court of law just like we ought to be doing with those Moslem's who use their religion to shoehorn their dogma and exclusionary religious law into society. The principle of freedom of religion is not [a] religion. It pertains to [all] religions equally. I think Islam's reformation will be dictated by those Moslem's living in free societies and how they choose to interact with a diversity of people, cultures and opinions. Islam in Saudi-Arabia or poor Iran, countries that are wholly dominated by Islam will probably not experience a reformation until they first experience a level of social freedom that allows for more than one opinion. More and more Moslem's are speaking out and unafraid to be critical about how Islam is expressed. I say give them the right to think and act in a free society and good Moslem's will be as accepting of others as they have been accepted by our multi-national, multi-religious community of freedom lovers.

Only the lazy and ignorant rest on the thinking of others. The rest of us plod along trying to improve our minds, our behavior and our spiritual connection to our God. There is no shortage of work eh!

Cheers

trans-parere

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