I just cannot wrap my mind around it; and, the tears of rage will not cease. A few days ago, the Taliban invaded a school at Peshawan in northern Pakistan with both an arsenal and the approval of their ‘God’. When they had finished 142 people lie dead—130 of them children between the ages of 12 and 16. It was retribution for the Pakistani government’s recent actions against the extremist Muslim sect, as many of the students were the offspring of soldiers who, according to a Taliban source, were “following in the footsteps of their fathers and brothers”. … And still, its believers tout Islam as a religion of peace. As a professional historian of twenty years standing, I have performed countless hours of research and contemplation on humanity’s past. Of all the causes of human violence and bloodshed, none have come remotely close to the sheer volume those perpetrated by ardent believers in the name of their ‘God’. The casualty numbers wrought in the name of religious faith by wars, inquisitions, persecutions, heresy laws and much, much more are truly staggering. It begs a most significant question: Why does a belief in a ‘God’ of virtue and amity inspire so much animosity and viciousness in its most fervent adherents? From the age of six onwards, I was raised by Pentecostal Christian grandparents. For several years, I was forced to attend church services where, in his weekly sermon, the pastor consistently interspersed the ‘God’s love’ with eternal damnation. At such a young age it, quite frankly, scared the hell out of me. By the time I reached ten, I began questioning the premise of religion—which I found from the congregation was an intolerable practice. By the age of 12—after I had dropped the “F” bomb at my baptism—I began a serious search for some reliable basis of truth, aided by a family friend—a professor of world religions at UCLA. Following nearly four years of study and contemplation upon the full texts of the world’s foremost religions, I concluded them all to be nothing more than fairy tales for which I had little use. This most recent massacre perpetrated by fervent Muslims in Pakistan has only reinforced that conclusion; but, to be fair, throughout history the Christian faith has perpetrated more than its share of violence, pillage and outright murder in the name of their ‘savior’. And, yet, both religions claim earth would be a better place if all its governments were founded upon the precepts of their faith. It is history that makes me very leery of such a notion. In fact, I would go further. In a letter to his friend Thomas Jefferson, dated 19 April 1817, John Adams, a strong Christian believer, wrote: “This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it”. I could not agree more.
Posted on: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 12:42:09 +0000
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