Religiously Irreligious
We live in strange times. Atheists have started to evangelize (not sure what their good news is). Isn’t it odd how people want other people to think and act like they do? How is it that we cannot peacefully go about our own belief systems? Are people so deeply insecure that they cannot stand for another person to be different?
Humans are “hard-wired” to be religious. We tend to create rituals, rules, and communities of like-minded people. How we dress, talk, walk, sing, and play can be grouped, taught, and even defended to the death. It is in our genes. People need an identity and a purpose. Somehow we manage to act it all out in groups.
Even stranger is how religions through the centuries have “evangelized” at the point of a sword or other weapon. Contrary to popular myth, the bloodiest wars are not religious; they are secular. Total allegiance is demanded by a state (another form of dress, belief, and language). All not following along are executed in greater proportions than all religious wars combined.
Yes, it is, and always has been, a world gone mad. People are slaughtered to promote “religions of peace” and to build secular utopias (that become prisons). Perhaps we can get down to the heart of the matter — which is the heart itself. Killing is the religion of a killer. Controlling is the religion of a controller. Peace is the religion of the peaceful. “By their fruits you will know them.” (Jesus of Nazareth)
The state has never been very good at being a church, nor has the church succeeded in being the state. The really odd thing is that people will seek to destroy each other over this “oil and water” reality. As one medieval writer said, “It is amazing how many people have been killed to try to put everyone under one belief umbrella.” More people are executed over theories than die from the actual facts of life.
The credo of our weird era is: “I swear to God I am an atheist.” Welcome to the wacky world of the religiously irreligious.
