I agree!  Democracy cannot work unless people are fed and educated.  An empty belly will talk louder than any reason....

No, this isn't totally off topic - for your writer spoke of the illiterate and ignorant (they are NOT 'stupid'!) who can be conned by people who claim to lead them. 

The skill of 'critical thinking' is something which schools do not tend to teach below perhaps the high school level, the last few years before unviersity studies.  In a nation where most do not have 12 years of formal education, they do not learn how to evaluate information.

And of course any literal 'infallible' type view of Scripture (whichever Scripture it is!) only makes matters worse, for it poses 'Science' as an enemy of 'Religion' and 'Spirit'. 

I also tend ot agree that we will wind up as some kind of a worldwide federation - but I don't think pushing that before its time will work : ((  And I for sure don't think the current UN is anywhere near being a model for it!

It is very late here (New England), so I'm going to make this my last post.  You can always PM me if you want to talk about off-topic stuff : ))

This is a follow up there is no doubt that Christians are being persecuted in Egypt, and the international community must react before it's too late, and diplomacy is no longer an option, I have promised her anonymity and share her messages,

Dear Tom
I've read this article today about a declaration from the Mufti in Saudi Arabia (the Mufti is like the Pope whom every muslim follow) and he said it was necessary to destroy all churches from the Arabian peninsula.... or all the Arabic speaking countries. This has never been out in the news here in Egypt and will never be declared out loud here in Egypt. What is happening is that the muslims here are targetting those who are poor and weak in faith first... killing them or abducting them in secret.

The other thing that has recently happened that is pretty interesting is as follows:
We have a law in Egypt that forbids any man with non-Egyptian parents (whether mother or father) to be elected for presidency. One of the Islamic radicals (and he is a very strong managed and has managed to increase the number of his followers from the muslims), Salah Hazem Abu Ismail, managed somehow to be on top of the list of the elected for Presidency. He is much worse from the Muslim Brotherhood.... He actually wants to eliminate the churches and the Christians altogether. Valid documents from the States came out that proved that this guy's mother was American. He denied it and actually went to the American embassy to try and get rid of the originals of these documents... but he failed. Despite all that, he somehow was able to get out of it, won the 'trial' to invalidate these documents and he did... in 1 WEEK!!! Can you believe it? Now, there is no doubt that he would be president. 

Tom, I'm going to take issue with ONE detail which your correspondant reports.  I have also seen the imam's call for destroying the churches in KSA.  Now I am neither a Muslim nor a Christian.  But it is my understanding from the Muslims I know, that their religion does not have any office which approaches the authority of the Papacy in any Catholic Christian faith. 

I do not mean to suggest your Egyptian lady is anything other than honestly mistaken on that!   And I do not fault her for such an innocent error.  She is quite terrified and everything seems terrible, I can understand that feeling.

I believe that the Imam is wrong and urging great evil - but I do not blame the religion of Islam for that man's evil.  Nor for the evil of any who follow such 'directions' as he would give. 

People have indeed used EVERY faith to justify good and to run to do evil:  it is in the individuals themselves.  We have seen from the Danish people that they did not fail to confront the evil of Nazi genocide.  And I will continue to pray that enough of the Egyptian Muslim people will refuse to allow injustice to tehir fellow citizens who happen to be Christian.

BUT, as another American once said "Praise the LORD - but pass the ammunition!" 

We also should be preparing to shelter and comfort as many Egyptian Christians as our individual communities can figure out how to help.

True dat.

Unfortunately, there isn't a word to denote people of the US only....  I'd use 'Yankees', but that might prove distressing to some of our less northerly fellow citizens, LOL!

www.aina.org/news/20120417135935.htm

AMSTERDAM -- A Lower House majority is demanding that Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal call his Egyptian counterpart to order on the kidnapping of Coptic girls in Egypt (AINA 1-25-2012).

The demand is an initiative of small Christian party ChristenUnie's MP Joel Voordewind. He was alarmed by reports by public broadcaster EO saying that 1,500 Coptic girls have been kidnapped in the past 10 months. They are often forced to convert to Islam and undergo female circumcision.

According to Voordewind, the growing influence of Salafism in Egypt is being accompanied by serious human rights violations. "The girls are genitally mutilated and forced into marriage without the Egyptian government doing anything against it. This is unacceptable."

Voordewind is supported by the conservatives (VVD), Party for Freedom (PVV), Christian democrats (CDA), Socialist Party (SP), leftwing Greens (GroenLinks) and the smallest Christian party SGP. They want Rosenthal to address his Egyptian counterpart about the lax attitude of the authorities, as a result of which the perpetrators can freely go their way and are not brought to trial. Voordewind also wants the Netherlands and the EU to provide legal support to the parents affected.

As we can see from this news article, the Egyptian woman who wrote that letter to Tom is expressing a real concern about actual events happening around her.

I think that as people of conscience, we need to take a stand against this terrible oppression of women, of Christians, of Arabs - of human beings just like ourselves!!!