Iraq war could be end of small religious group

[struggle4progress]

Iraq war could be end of small religious group

By Chris Newmarker, Associated Press
Article Last Updated: 02/10/2007 07:15:38 AM PST

TRENTON, N.J. — Among the casualties of the Iraq war is a little-known religious faith called Mandaeanism that has survived roughly two millennia and whose adherents believe that John the Baptist was a great teacher.

While there were more than 60,000 Mandaeans in Iraq in the early 1990s, only about 5,000 to 7,000 remain. Many have fled amid targeted killings, rapes, forced conversions, and property confiscation by Islamic extremists, according to a report released last week by the New Jersey-based Mandaean Society of America.

Among the roughly 1,500 U.S. Mandaeans, there have been continual phone calls with endangered friends and relatives, collections of money, and unsuccessful lobbying efforts in Washington to get Mandaeans out of Iraq, as well as neighboring Jordan and Syria ...

Scholars who study the Mandaean religion and culture say its extinction would be a great loss, the end of an ancient religious movement. Dating to the Roman Empire, it survived primarily in what is today Iraq and Iran, a branch of the Gnostic movement that borrowed elements of Christianity ...

http://www.insidebayarea.com/timesstar/localnews/ci_5201120

[Az]

1. A great loss?

This makes me uneasy. Its almost as if their value comes from their merrit as a lab rat. Is there merrit to a belief system in and of itself? The grief being expressed here is not towards any particular individual or groups. Rather it is towards a particular belief system. It just strikes me as odd.

[Silent3]

2. I share your uneasiness

I'm certainly against the violence which is causing this religious group to break up in the first place, but once the damage has been done, all individuals involved who might go back to following this religion or who might join it anew (if the religion accepts converts) should be evaluating that choice purely on the merit of the religion. You should believe something only because you find it believable, not because doing some helps to create or maintain some sort of living cultural museum.

[struggle4progress]

3. "targeted killings, rapes, forced conversions, and property confiscation" make me uneasy