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A World of Difference Within hours of the events o

游客2024-08-18  13
问题                           A World of Difference
    Within hours of the events of September 11, headline writers, experts and politicians agreed on one thing; the world has changed forever. But has it? One month after the attacks, some eminent figures offered their answers.
    David Owen
    Former foreign secretary and leader of the SDP
    I think there has probably been permanent change in America. The US has always been able to feel safe within its own boundaries, but now its vulnerability is being exposed. With that may come some changes in attitude: they may be more ready to be involved, more ready to listen. People are more aware that outsiders have a distorted view of their democracy and they’ll make more effort to explain their position. You can genuinely use the word "God-fearing”about America, and I think the element that’s often been unattractive in its own religious fundamentalism will now think more globally and more sensitively.
    Joan Didion
    Writer
    My sense is that the world didn’t change so much as America entered it. It’s obviously always been out there, but for a lot of Americans the attacks brought a new sense of the wider world being very close.
    I don’t see how things could help but change, but we don’t really know enough at this stage to be able to speculate in what way. I can’t even contemplate it. In an ideal world every event has the potential to be a force for good, but it’s simply too early to say in this case. I’ m just watching and waiting.
    I don’t know whether this is an unprecedented event, but I certainly don’t think it’s got anything to do with Pearl Harbor, as has been mentioned many times. This is a totally different happening. The only similarity is that they were both surprises.
    There has been a great sadness in New York for all these weeks, and people are now beginning to pick up with their normal defences towards each other. That wasn’t true for a while.
    Sir Michael Howard
    Historian
    The world did not suddenly change on September 11. We simply woke up to the realization that a significant number of people regard our secular and materialist civilization as decadent and evil, and are prepared to go to any lengths to destroy it. Such people have existed for a long time; not only in the Muslim world—American fundamentalism and European fascism have also bred them— and not only among the wretched of the earth. What is new is their capacity to cause really significant damage. They will never entirely go away, but I suspect that once we have hunted down the present lot of conspirators, the world will return to business as usual; that is, unless we allow ourselves to be drawn into a race war that will divide our own societies as well as destabilizing the entire world. Our main duty is to ensure that it does not.
    Richard Dawkins
    Evolutionary biologist
    Many of us saw religion as harmless nonsense. Beliefs might lack all supporting evidence but, we thought, if people needed a crutch for consolation, where’s the harm? September 11 changed all that. Revealed faith is not harmless nonsense, it can be lethally dangerous nonsense.
    Dangerous because it gives people unshakable confidence in their own righteousness. Dangerous because it gives them false courage to kill themselves, which automatically removes normal barriers to killing others. Dangerous because it teaches enmity to others labeled only by a difference of inherited tradition. And dangerous because we have all bought into a weird respect, which uniquely protects religion from normal criticism. Let’s now stop being so damned respectful!
Questions: [br] Which of the following statements is NOT true according to the passage?
选项 A、Many Americans compared the September 11 to another Pearl Harbor.
B、Many Americans think that religion is dangerous.
C、The Americans had been feeling safe before September 11.
D、Michael Howard suggests that Americans not settle the incident by means of war.
答案 B
解析 第八段第一句指出Many of us saw religion as harmless nonsense，意为“很多人觉得宗教是无危害的胡言乱语”。由此可知，选项B是错误的。
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