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This website is being renovated throughout 2008. Pages and the content of pages will continue to change until the end of the year and there may be some inconsistencies and missing links. Please do not quote from or link to specific pages (apart from the home page) without contacting the webmaster first. Kill God, save lives Faith destroys more than it preserves By © Martin Foreman Word Count: 798 words Publication date: July 23, 2006 How many civilians have been killed in the name of religion in Iraq this year? How many more in Gaza and the Lebanon? In Afghanistan? India? Pakistan? How about Chechnya? Nigeria? Saudi Arabia? Thailand? Elsewhere? Here are some figures. Iraq: more than 100 a day in June, according to the United Nations. Almost all because, in their murderers’ eyes, they worshiped the right God in the wrong way. Gaza and the West Bank? 101 between July 1 and 19, according to the Palestine Red Crescent. Lebanon? 57 civilians and a Hizbullah fighter on July 19 alone, says the Beirut Daily Star. Israel? The Washington Post reported on July 18 that since the latest flare-up, twelve Israeli civilians had been killed by Hizbullah rockets; the comparative figure killed by Israelis in the Lebanon was 180. Afghanistan? Most recent deaths have been among combatants, either Taliban or coalition troops. ABC quotes a figure of 800 since mid-May. India? At least 160, mostly men, were killed by the Mumbai bombs, probably detonated by Kashmiris who want to separate the Muslim province from Hindu India. Tragic though that number is, it pales beside the hundreds of thousands who died in 1947. That year the former British colony split into independent India and Pakistan, leading to a bloodbath between Hindus and Muslims. And let us not forget that Christians in India are occasionally killed for their faith. In Pakistan in April 57 were killed and hundreds wounded in Karachi, victims of the centuries-long feud between Sunnis and Shi'ites. Chechnya? The conflict is abating, but the Chechen State Council calculates that 160,000 soldiers and civilians have lost their lives there in the last decade. Nigeria? In yet another incident in the long-running internal rivalry, at least 17 Christians were killed by Muslims and 30 churches were destroyed in Maiduguri and Bauchi in February. A few days later dozens of Muslims were killed by Christians in Onitsha. Saudi Arabia? Al Qaeda begin a campaign of violence there in 2003, with relatively few deaths so far. Thailand? Since January 2004 1,300 people have been killed in the south of the country, where Muslims seek independence from the predominantly Buddhist nation. And so on and so on and so on. We should recognize that while faith motivates suicide bombers and many others who kill, not everyone who pulls a trigger, fires a mortar or drops a bomb is motivated by God. Across the world, poverty, injustice, territorial defense and ethnic discrimination all prompt men and women to take up arms. Anger and revenge can also play a part. Many conflicts, from the world wars in the previous century to North Korea’s paranoia and mainland China’s desire to subjugate Taiwan, Tibet, Turkestan and other neighbors, are rooted in megalomania not belief. But at the heart of most of today’s wars, especially the Middle East and the misnamed War on Terrorism, lies a single phenomenon: religion. People kill to protect their faith. They kill to force others to accept it. They kill with a clear conscience because their imaginary God tells them it is acceptable, even desirable, that others die so the “true” faith can prosper. Non-violent Christians, Muslims, Jews and Hindus argue that their religion preaches non-violence. Those who kill in the name of their faith are betraying their God and their fellow-believers. The reality, however, is that God, in every name and incarnation, seldom spurns blood shed in his name. Christ told his followers to turn the other cheek. But his predecessor, the Old Testament God, regularly kills unbelievers and Jesus himself says he brings not peace but a sword (Matthew 10:34). Allah is unfailingly described as the Compassionate, but texts abound where he exhorts his followers to kill infidels (Sura 2:98, Sura 2:161 etc etc etc). Even Buddhism’s celebrated pacifism is not monolithic. That faith does not prevent the majority Sinhalese in Sri Lanka from fighting the Hindu Tamil minority who seek an independent homeland. That religion begets violence is unsurprising. Faith rejects reason and draws its strength from superstition and emotion. Vague and contradictory scriptures allow believers to justify violence and aggression. Holy texts give a license to kill. Too often religion destroys humanity. Too often it encourages bigots to ignore the suffering of those who do not share their illusion. Too often faith does not protect life; it destroys it. When religion disappears from the world peace will not come automatically. We will, however, no longer be distracted from the true causes of warfare – inequality, environmental degradation, crime, the lust for power. As long as the idea of God lives, people will die in his name. To give the people of the Middle East, South Asia, Chechnya and elsewhere a respite from the violence that plagues them, it is time for all deities to die.
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If God existed, he would... admire the beauty of a universe that he did not create recognize that eternity is meaningless deny both heaven and hell disown all men and women who speak in his name denounce the harm caused by religious "morality" help the human race to thrive without him If God existed, he would be an atheist. |