Piper said:
...
Let's keep in mind that in our superior western culture, we still condone an organised ideology, lets call it Christianity ...
That's right we
condone or
tolerate Christianity along with sundry forms of Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Sikhism and so on and so forth. We even give
traditional preference to Christianity (where it is the religious affiliation of the majority) in things like public holidays. But: we (most of us) do not
establish one church or faith or another and we do not aim to impose one faith on others. We do not, in law, make the public worship of
”false gods” a crime.
There is an
ideology with deep Judeo-Christian roots:
secular democracy. But, it does not depend on a Judeo-Christian
culture to flourish; it requires only a degree of
advanced civilization which rests of a firm base of respect for the rule of law and for the equality of all, governors and governed alike, under the law. Secular democracy works quite well in non-Judeo-Christian cultures but it will not work, cannot work in those societies holding cultural values that reject equality and the rule of law.
Secular democracy (and especially the rule of law) appears to be the
sine qua non for long term peace and prosperity. (I know, China is, currently, booming and it pays scant heed to either democracy or law but let’s see if China can sustain the boom. If it does I will wager that it turns itself into some sort of law abiding,
government with the consent of the governed sort of political construct – not, perhaps, anything like a Western liberal-democracy but, all the same: law abiding and (somehow) democratic.) Established democracies tend to be prosperous well educated; prosperous, educated nations find ways to negotiate their ways around difficulties. Poor and poorly educated nations find war an attractive option – having nothing much to lose, I suppose.
Ken, no need to insult someone's intelligence with the "get out the map" routine. Did you even read the article in the link? Northern Ireland may still be part of the UK, but my only point to you was to emphasize that that even someone from a culture you'd least expect to do well in society like Northern Ireland is making her mark by becoming an MLA there. 
