Libs take dig at religion, again.

The online article from The Nation, Rights of Passage, starts out with a social analysis of President Bush's foreign policy I can agree with:

Bush's "freedom agenda," set against his Administration's disgraceful record, has convinced much of the world that the promotion of universal rights is little more than a Trojan horse for Western imperialism, and made it easier for governments from Russia to Iran to crack down on opposition groups accused of importing foreign values into their countries.

I had always liked The Nation because it had some good insights, and was "progressive" without being partisan, either for a party or against a religion. This article started well but then started making some of the same old mistakes where liberals stereotypically pit themselves against religion:

As Carter noted, scattered across the globe are large numbers of Muslims, Christians, Jews and Hindus who reject fundamentalist dogmas and share a basic commitment to the alleviation of suffering.

The author here makes the charge that your religious dogmas are inherently in the way of a commitment to the alleviation of suffering. What if one of your fundamentalist dogmas is the alleviation of suffering? What does it say those who are "true believers" in the literal truth of their religion, but who are not on the wrong side of history as far as alleviation of suffering-- are they unwelcome in this movement? By setting up this false dichotomy, the author shoots the movement in the foot.