July 11, 2005
Religious fundamentalists have always worried me. They are people who feel they know the mind of God, and feel they are doing God a favor when they kill, maim, or, (just as badly,) destroy the character of “God’s enemies”. (We may fight wars with bullets or words! I find words may be equally, if not more devastating than bullets. That is why speaking falsely breaks one of the Ten Commandments, and we are warned we must give an account of every idle word on the Day of Judgment.)
No religious group is immune from its own form of zealots, including Christianity, and including Protestants. The history of the Christian church has its own stories of shame, including the Roman’s church’s sacking of the Eastern church’s headquarters in Constantinople while on their way to rescue Jerusalem during the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, and the centuries-long killings of Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland.
Last week in London, another group, most likely in the name of religious zealotry, raised (correction, lowered) the bar by killing more than fifty innocent human beings in the normal pursuit of their daily lives. From this, I suppose we are intended to believe God, (or Allah, or the Divine) is well pleased.
A British commentator illustrated a sad irony when he said the Brits were better able to deal with these attacks than most because of their experiences with the Irish Republican Army (IRA). But he added, “At least the IRA would give us 30 minutes notice before blowing up a public theater.”
Anita poke words of wisdom when she said, “Don’t these terrorists know that all they are doing is bringing the Irish Catholics and Protestants together?” If anything good may possibly come from this tragedy, it is that we finally recognize who is the true enemy. And by that I do not mean the enemy is Islam, because I must believe true Muslims are as horrified as we are at such vile acts. The enemy is hate; hatred cloaked in religion.
My father had a saying; “That’s as ugly as home-made sin.” I often wondered what he meant by that. After last Thursday’s attacks, I think I recognize it a bit better.
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