You guys should look at this.

[fshrink]

Note the amazing absence of religion and the quality of the statements.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1511&e=1&u=/afp/20050319/wl_afp/iraqwar2yearsbritain_050319223137

[YankeyMCC]

1. Unfortunately

I think much of the world, certainly much of the religious in the US, will dismiss those statements as shallow whining.

And before anyone gets excited I'm not saying I think they are "shallow" or "whining". I'm just saying that I fear that is how they will be taken because not only is there an absence of religion there's an absence of moral context in the statements.

There isn't a statement clearly saying "It's immoral to kill 100,000 people and here's why we believe that..." a religious group would talk about "prophets" and the "will of god" (whereas we could talk about the value of humans, the need to work together, quote secular philosophers, factual stories). I'm sure these people have a moral context behind what they are saying, and the one person gets close to expressing it in a way that I think would be effective when they say " "A war on poverty, a war on AIDS that would be worthwhile, we would give more taxes for that."

We need more of that but then that same person goes on to link what he said to the very cold and pragmatic issue of money. An important point but that isn't usually what gets a national and worldwide movement going.

And most of the rest was simply statements of anger and pointing out the flaws without offering a moral context.

Again I say I know these people almost certainly have a clear moral context in their own minds but I fear it isn't being communicated effectively. Religious groups have easy built in language for that sort of thing, it's much more difficult to communicate it from a non-theist standpoint.

[fshrink]

2. I meant that such average (I agree) statements

and demonstrations are still possible in Europe and impossible here. There's not even a single US political leader who would dare be that "average".