It has been three weeks since we watched America become the victim of unbridled hatred and misguided devotion. After reflecting on the tragic events, I need to express feelings that have festered in my soul for years. Children are blown to pieces in the name of God. A minister claims it is God’s will that his congregation should go forth to maim and kill innocent individuals who do not have the same beliefs as he does.
A televangelist tells a cancer-ridden, elderly woman she can be cured only if she sends a portion of her meager retirement income to his coffers. When she is not cured, he simply says it is because she is too great a sinner. She dies in agony, having lost both her bodily sustenance and her inner spirit to live.
A nation destroys its entire way of life and most of its population over counter-religious beliefs.
Do you see something wrong with this picture?
Does it seem a bit ironic that we as a human race have claimed to be a religious people for as long as history records? We have believed in gods and one true God, in Buddha, in Muhammad and the many spirits of nature. But now into the second millennium nothing has changed for the better. Religious animosity has all but destroyed countries in Eastern Europe, pitted cousins against each other in the Middle East and driven thousands of people from their homes.
You’re thinking that I am some kind of atheist who is going to provide you with a column where I refuse to believe in a higher being and demand we do away with all the drivel of religion. Sorry, you are not going to get that line of thinking.
I have very strong religious beliefs and am set in my ways that we do have a life after living for a short existence in these confining bodies. I believe it only gets better and we should not base our beliefs on what we see around us on this desolate rock called Earth.
With all the turmoil that has gone on for thousands of years in the name of religion, why have we not heard from the august leaders of our various religions the simple words of the original founders? I am pretty na
