I've been involved in a conversation on a message board regarding this whole Taliban thing. The subject turned to the possibility of a war to end all wars over Israel, what many consider to be the holy land, and it's brought me to one simple conclusion.
Religious zealots really freak me out.
Any religious following that holds it's beliefs to be the only true beliefs and consequently berates and belittles the beliefs of others does not deserve to go on...and that includes the Christian majority in this country.
God is intangible. It is something that, by it's very nature, requires faith because it is something that can neither be seen or known. So is someone else's faith any less valid than your own simply because they choose to put it into something that contradicts you?
In the end, so many of the wars fought in this planet's history have come down to religious differences. It's laughable that so many people feel the need to fight over something that no one can even be 100% certain exists. People are persecuted, tortured, and murdered for the sake of another person's god.
I can't wait to see who actually makes it past the pearly gates since so many people spend their lives thinking their religion is the only one that will get them into heaven (or Summerland as we Wiccans call it).
Personally I tend to believe that none of these religious radical fucks are ever going to see the glory that they're all so certain awaits them. I mean, isn't "thou shall not kill" one of the ten commandments?
Did any of these people ever consider the possibility that maybe they're ALL wrong? Hell, maybe I'M wrong. I won't know whether I am or not until I face my maker/makers...and by then it'll be a bit too late for me to recant.
I think that maybe all of these beleif systems are flawed. Even if my beliefs were completely original to me they would be flawed because I can never be 100% certain I'm right. No one can. These beliefs are there to comfort us against the one thing we all fear. The end. Death. Darkness. The big nothing.
Without my faith in how we got here and where we're going and what our purpose is I would have to face that darkness...look it in the preverbial eye. And I don't mind telling you the idea of that scares the shit out of me.
Of course, it's all a natural process...the circle of life...birth, growth, death...
That doesn't make me any less scared of the end. I think people fear it because it's the unknown. Regardless of our religion or the strength of our faith, it's still the one place we can't explore and, afterwards, return to our friends with cool stories to tell. The truth is that I love life. And that love of life makes me dread the end of it. I think that's a perfectly natural way to feel.
People who don't fear it worry me. Those are the ones who usually end up on suicide missions with a bomb strapped to their chest.
In Christianity, they have the devil and Hell...the Ultimate Darkness. I think that's why that particular religion doesn't appeal to me. I don't want to live my life with an underlying fear of that.
Jeez...I even tend to sleep with a nightlight on. It's a phobia of mine.
It's comforting not to believe in the devil. It's comforting to see light in everything...an opposite to combat the darkness that is also present in all things.
But that might not be what comforts others...
I'm sick of holier than thou people, be they Christians, Mormons, Muslims, or whatever, telling the rest of us that we are wrong...as if we have no right to look for comfort wherever we can find it, just because our comfort doesn't come from the same place theirs does.
The "my god is better than your god" argument has been a source of contention for thousands of years and I don't think it's going to end anytime soon. But maybe we can spread some understanding amongst this small group of human beings. We all want the same things. We just have different ways of obtaining them. And we can all love each other despite those differences.
If these religious fanatics all want to be so closeminded, then let them all kill each other off. And before someone jumps on me for that statement, let me say that I do not in any way agree with this religion induced slaughter. I just want all of the bickering to end, one damn way or another.
