planet of the apes

I don't why this reminds me of Vaughan Williams and, more to the point, of the 'hail to the bomb' scene in Beneath the Planet of the Apes. I hope that doesn't sound irreverent (it wasn't meant to)

But if music can express a lack of faith then it surely can also express something else: an inversion of faith? And the worship of violence (the bomb) beneath the planet was captured by that music: the devil is, after all, the 'ape of the divine'. Whence the need for true images (not the absence of images).

Well, as my readers know, I actually happen to live on the planet of the apes, and that makes me very sad (well, Celia and Roxana know that, anyway). Recently, the governor of the Punjab was shot dead because he thought the blasphemy laws were a 'black law'. And then many of the sonofabitch maulvis refused to allow his funeral prayers because of his opposition to the controversial law. How far the world -if it can be called a world-of the fundamentalists is from Ibn Arabi, who thought that the polytheists had a deeper insight into the divine than the believers; or from Hallaj who could say that Iblis was the 'true lover' of God.

Hmm. Since this post owes something to Bob I guess I should end with some quotes from Thomas Merton, but first, Charles Taylor (yes, I know, the Taylor ref. is a corny one).

"First, no one must be forced in the domain of religion, or basic belief. This is what is often defined as religious liberty, including of course, the freedom not to believe. Second, there must be equality between people of different faiths or basic beliefs; no religious outlook or (religious or areligious) Weltanschauung can enjoy a privileged status, let alone be adopted as the official view of the state. Third, all spiritual families must be heard, included in the ongoing process of determining what the society is about (its political identity) and how it is going to realize these goals (the exact regime of rights and privileges). This (stretching the point a little) is what corresponds to “fraternity.”