Neste texto de Nathan Ritchen que, de certa forma, pode ser lido como uma continuação do texto que o Joel postou ontem, tenta provar, com simples palavras, que a liberdade religiosa é a única solução para uma diplomacia mais racional e razoável. Mas, na prática, não é isso o que está acontecendo:

Here is an empirical fact we must all face: the world is far more religious than secular, and to a vast global majority, religion is a realistic way of living in the world [Statistical extrapolations suggest that only 15% of the world’s population is “non-religious” while Christians, Muslims, and Hindus compose 66% of the world’s population. See Johnson and Barrett, 2001.] The United States is itself an overwhelmingly religious nation, as sociologist Peter Berger confirmed with the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey published by the Pew Forum in 2008. Consequently, any new realism must take religion seriously. The U.S. foreign policy bureaucracy, however, does not take religion as seriously as it might; Civil and Foreign Service professionals still exist who regard religion as epiphenomenal, emotive, a source only of conflict, and in the least, irrational. The disconnection between the views of U.S. foreign policymakers and their Arab Muslim counterparts on religious life is an enormous problem.