'Cause I gotta have faith?

The most insidious thing about hate speech is that it often contains just enough superficial truth for the audience to buy into it. I recently received a forwarded e-mail that I found particularly worrisome because it uses numbers and facts and twists their relevance to make it sound conspiratorial. The numbers, I might add, are wrong and the facts (though not scientific, they are certainly commonsensical) are true of any cultural presence in a community.

The email starts as follows...

"Islam is not a religion, nor is it a cult. In its fullest form, it is a complete, total, 100% system of life. Islam has religious, legal, political, economic, social, and military components."

Mistake #1: Islam is a religion. However, it tends to become a wider social force for the more strictly faithful. And this is true of any fundamental religious sect. We have seen the ideological differences between Judaism and Islam spawn a centuries old conflict over land (which has become little more than indoctrinated racism). By the way, Hasidic Jews share the facial hair social moré with fundamentalist Islam. And what about the Christian Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition? Selective memory often excludes balanced, unbiased facts.

You have to understand that groups like the Taliban use the fundamentals of the faith to take advantage of the under-educated faithful. This is why we see the coalition forces trying to build schools and housing which will support greater education for the youth in both urban and rural communities. Suicide bombers are often the children of impoverished families from outlying areas who are told that if they commit to the jihad (or holy war) and carry a bomb in God's name (can they ever verify that this is what God really wants before committing to the act?) then they will go to heaven with dozens of virgins and their families will be financially secure for decades. What then happens is the family gets a little bit of money (which is quickly spent, in part because they are promised more that never comes) and someone who doesn't vote and can't read (or otherwise contribute to the advancement of the Taliban regime) is wiped from their future responsibility while also achieving their goals without loss of their own lives. And then the family asks the same of another child in hopes of additional support for the rest of the family. And what dutiful child would deny their family's well-being?

Now, if you take the origins of the Big 3 (Judaism, Christianity, & Islam) back to their roots they are the same religion born of the same roots in the same part of the world. The only difference is the first people to carry it to their communities. One guy believes that women should be covered from head to toe so he adds that personal belief to the shared philosophies and tells his friends who share that opinion. Over time it is indoctrinated into the religion and, thus, society. The tenets of Islam are born. Another guy thinks that the guy who told him about these philosophies assumes the message could only have been delivered by God - made flesh by some miracle. Christianity comes to pass. And the same is true of Judaism. Maybe the bush burned, and a man sitting in the overheated desert heard a voice. Mirage or miracle? A few fundamental differences grow over time into a variety of ideological differences based on human, and society's, evolution over the centuries. I am reading a book called A History of God that explains it in much greater detail. Suffice it to say, religion has been used by different leaders to sustain authority and power since humanity began to walk upright.

RELIGION is why we are seeing increasing warfare in the middle east and less obvious conflict (look at the Vatican's latest propaganda - we believe in aliens, we're sorry for letting priests molest kids, lower attendance in church is a sign of the antichrist, etc, etc, etc.). Those people too afraid to take responsibility for their actions in life externalize that responsibility. "I'm poor because I'm a sinner." "If I kill others, God will ensure my place in heaven." But it is also people using those who have no access to education as pawns in their political will to rule the world. The Vatican has, quite literally, billions of dollars in cash and artwork and yet each parish (community of church attendees) has to pay for the priest that the Vatican moves to a new community after they were caught diddling the altar boys.

It is all about power. They spend money on their own needs (promote the Church in places that have no access to international media - tribal Africa, rural Central and South America - and limited access to education) and ignore the needs of the faithful. One can believe in God without clinging to someone else's definition of what God may or may not want us to do in our lives. We are on this earth to do one thing - leave it better than we received it. That's it, that's all. Life is designed to evolve. Fundamental religion is contrary to that because it refuses to evolve with our understanding of the very being that is humanity. The tirade about Islam (briefly quoted above) is one person's paranoia that their religion (you see this by their quantification of Islam in comparison to other world religions) may be losing its place in the world. Islam won't take over the world, although it may be one of the last ones to leave it.

We're seeing it kicking and screaming as we speak.