Religion's Human Face

The Divine Spirit is worshipped by humankind as representing the most noble aspirations of the human race.  God sets out a series of codes, expectations for human beings to aspire to, to be worthy of God's praise and tender love.  People must attempt to be worthy of God's notice.  God has stern and strict and at the same time enduring care for his flock. 

We must, above all, restrain ourselves from acting on our baser instincts.

We must, above all, do honour to God by acting unto others as we would have them do toward us.  All else, as the saying goes, is commentary.

Everything flows naturally from the insistence that we treat one another with respect, honour and dignity.  In so doing, God is being treated with respect, honour and dignity.  Since humankind is said to have been fashioned in God's image.  God has imagined that creatures fashioned by God's hands must reflect God's values.

And the amazing thing is that the more pious people become, the more consumed they are with the worship of God, the less tolerant they become toward others.  Demanding that others share their particular sect or they cannot see them as other than heretic.  And as such unworthy of God's notice, and therefore ripe for punishment.

And it is not God to whom the punishment is left, but the God-avenging believers, the devout, who delegate themselves, on God's behalf, are outraged at what they construe is defiance of God's will and wishes.  And so, to do honour to the God they worship, the pious who dedicate themselves utterly to the service of the Almighty set out to humble and humiliate, to destroy, and to kill those who lack ardour in their worship.

The temples of worship erected to house the spirit of God are not true sanctuaries and therefore are not sacrosanct and it is not sacrilegious to defile them if they are the temples of the blasphemers, the heretics.  The religious fanatics feel perfectly justified in desecrating holy places of others simply because those places are not holy at all in their estimation.

Sikh gurdwaras are invaded by Christian right-wing fanatics and people murdered.  Sunni Muslims bomb Shia Muslim shrines and mosques.  And the Shia Muslims return the compliment, doing likewise to the Sunni places of sacred worship.  Anglican and Greek Orthodox churches are firebombed by Muslims. 

Catholic cathedrals are invaded and priests and worshippers slaughtered by Muslims enraged at their presence on ground consecrated to Islam.

Jewish temples are bombed by Muslim terrorists.  A berserk Orthodox Jew invades a mosque and sprays bullets on the worshippers.  Catholics in the Balkans embarked on campaigns of desecration of mosques.  The al-Askari mosque in Iraq was bombed by al-Qaeda.

Tribute to God without end.