Religious Brethren?
Islam is fractured between major sects, the Shiites and the Sunnis, all part of the same religion, but each disputing the authenticity of the other. Much, one might suppose, like Christianity, where we have the majority factions of Roman Catholic and Protestants. Not to say that both of these religions don't also have other sectors each of which dispute the authenticity of their sublime allegiance to god. Suffice to say that each of these major streams hold the others in a contempt of superiority.For a secular population which eschews belief in a supreme being, it is difficult to comprehend why these religions which claim their views of divinity are the true ones, whose primacy others, interlopers, have attempted to usurp, cannot find peace with one another. They all worship a deity which commands of them that they be honest, compassionate and god-fearing, to treat their fellow beings as fellows in being, not to hold them in contempt.
We have a situation currently, most notably in Iraq, where dissension between Shiites and Sunnis creates deadly combat, where Mosques belonging to one or the other of the sects will be bombed by the other, its adherents targeted and murdered in the streets of towns, cities and villages where they reside. Is this a religion of tender compassion for one's fellows, or is it one of murderous passions unleashed? Do the adherents of this type of religious practise do justice to their one true faith, or are they not failures both as human beings and as pious followers of Islam?
Northern Ireland is yet another example of fairly recent historical clashes between religious sects, each claiming to believe in god, and dedicated to doing his will. Yet the clashes between intolerant Protestants and Roman Catholics resounded around the world in their ferocity and deadly intent, leaving thousands of people dead in the wake of their religious irascibility and irrationality.
Well, truth to tell, it isn't exclusively religious intolerance and the smouldering and deadly belligerence of righteous believers who cause havoc and mayhem throughout the world. In the past to the present a political territorial imperative has done its share of destruction. Bring the situation a trifle closer to the scene on a passing street and we can see Nazi-admiring youth in a murderous rampage against the helpless homeless. It's human nature at its worst.
But surely religion should have a part to play in teaching tolerance among their followers, rather than thundering from their various pulpits that those who hold values other than those which they recognize as having merit should be slaughtered without mercy. I am certainly among those many who feel that religion, which could certainly have been used as a vehicle for the greater good of mankind has failed as a potentially noble human construction for the betterment of mankind.
posted by Pieface @ Sunday, February 12, 2006
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