Religion, a mediaeval form of unreason, when combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to our freedoms. This religious totalitarianism has caused a deadly mutation in the heart of Islam and we see the tragic consequences in Paris today.
Interpretation
This quote critiques the dangers of combining outdated religious beliefs with modern technology, highlighting the threats to freedom and the consequences of extremism.
Salman Rushdie's quote draws attention to the perilous merging of medieval religious ideologies with contemporary weaponry, suggesting that such a combination poses a significant risk to individual freedoms. Rushdie emphasizes the detrimental transformation within Islam due to totalitarian beliefs, exemplified by the violent events witnessed in Paris, underscoring the urgent need to confront these issues in the context of modern society.
In practice
During a discussion on the impacts of religion on modern society, this quote could be used to emphasize the need for reform.
I've been fascinated by Machiavelli since I was very young. I've always felt that he had a bad rap from history, and that he was actually a person quite unlike what we now think of as Machiavellian. He was a republican. He disliked totalitarian government.
Killing people because you don't like their ideas - it's a bad thing.
faith without doubt is addiction
I am clearly vulnerable to these more passionate and volatile unstable relationships. I am trying to not be so vulnerable.
In India, as elsewhere in our darkening world, religion is the poison in the blood. Where religion intervenes, mere innocence is no excuse. Yet we go on skating around this issue, speaking of religion in the fashionable language of 'respect.' What is there to respect in any of this, or in any of the crimes now being committed almost daily around the world in religion's dreaded name?
Reality is a question of perspective; the further you get from the past, the more concrete and plausible it seems - but as you approach the present, it inevitably seems more and more incredible.
Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.
When law and duty are one, united by religion, you never become fully conscious, fully aware of yourself. You are always a little less than an individual.
Our culture difinitely takes an egocentric dominator view. The fear of the psychedelic experience is quite literally the fear of losing control. Dominator types today don't understand that it's not important to maintain control if you are not in control in the first place.
See how the World its Veterans rewards!_x000D_ _x000D_ A Youth of Frolics, an old Age of Cards;_x000D_ _x000D_ Fair to no purpose, artful to no end,_x000D_ _x000D_ Young without Lovers, old without a Friend;_x000D_ _x000D_ A Fop their Passion, but their Prize a Sot;_x000D_ _x000D_ Alive ridiculous, and dead forgot.
I dreamed: I am the fish whose flesh is eaten, and because I am fat, it is good.
Psychedelics are illegal not because a loving government is concerned that you may jump out of a third story window. Psychedelics are illegal because they dissolve opinion structures and culturally laid down models of behaviour and information processing. They open you up to the possibility that everything you know is wrong.
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