First, let me start by saying the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan were, in my opinion, violations of international law and a tragedy that could have and should have been avoided. The fact that they were not has resulted in millions of deaths and destroyed lives in the region and across the globe in blowback attacks and reprisals....HOWEVER:
1) the follies of Bush, Balir, et. al. are merely continuations of CENTURIES OF IDIOCY
2) the central debate here is deeper than simply "evil doers" or "losers" or "Muslims" or Christians"
3) there is NO MILITARY SOLUTION TO THIS PROBLEM
Now, those things said, the larger issue is NOT Islam versus "the West" or Judaism versus Islam or Christianity at all. The larger issue is the continued insistence of BILLIONS that they and they alone hold revealed "truth" and a personal instruction from the almighty that sanctifies their viewpoint and vilifies all others. In general, the very concept of religion is the problem. The concept of worshiping something greater than ourselves is not enough for the fundamentalist believers of these cults...no, they demand fealty and submission of ALL to their chosen views or else.
If you are a fundamentalist Jew, that means the lands in the middle east are yours to do with as you choose by divine providence and covenant with Yahweh...
If you are a fundamentalist Christian, that means that all people must be made to believe in the lord Jesus Christ because of the great commission of the gospels...consent or desire to believe as they do is not requested nor required, but mandated by 'scripture'...
If you are a fundamentalist Muslin, that means all nations are to be brought under Sharia Law and to worship Allah under pains of death, without exception...
These "faiths" do not teach acceptance of the other or peace or tolerance or anything close to an ecumenical approach to live and let live. They teach diametrically opposed world views and they infect EVERYTHING they contact.
The problem is NOT Islam or "radical Islamic terrorists", the problem is what it has ALWAYS been - power and the unwillingness of people to share that power or use it for beneficial ends instead of personal or tribal ones. When we continue to allow this unwarranted promotion of one conception of "god" being more fundamentally acceptable than others...whether that means Christianity in the West or Islam in the Middle East or Judaism in Israel....and that all others are infidels or unbelievers or heretics, then we sow the seeds of our own destruction.
How does a Muslim child learn to hate? It is not in human nature to strap explosives to our bodies and self-immolate or explode to kill innocents in the vicinity. It is not a survival instinct that would be favored by natural selection or evolution to raise bombers. It is not a politically viable philosophy to enjoin the minds of people with an eye towards a better life on Earth. It is only possible to teach and inspire this kind of behavior through a complicated and nefarious web of inter-related and intertwined control mechanisms.
Those who ascribe to any religion at all are mental slaves, owned and used by masters they know not, but who are controlling their very lives nonetheless. They are instructed on who is worthy of love and who is deserving of death and it does not matter if this is a Muslim, a Christian or a Jew...they are ALL the same in their certainty that they and they alone hold the one true revealed faith and all others are deluded, misguided heathens. It is central to the appeal of the religions and is fundamental to their utility as control mechanisms for the powerful over the powerless.
If you are a member of any religion that professes itself to be the true path, the way, the word, the lord's chosen people or any other such tripe, then you are guilty of being complicit in these terrorist attacks and the targeting and murder of innocents by proxy. Their blood and brain tissue and intestines and organs are on YOU. Their deaths and crippling injuries and shattered lives are on YOU. Their suffering and anguish and the eventual reprisals in their name are on YOU. J'accuse! It is the very existence and continued propagation of organized religions that proliferate, tolerate and abide this carnage. It is on YOU believers, YOU! Your hateful, spiteful, inhuman separation of people into "worthy believer" and "unworthy infidel" camps is the root cause of the violent cycle that can never be broken until its cause is eradicated.
Humanity is at war with itself and has been for thousands of years. Our base moral center is one of hording and collecting more than we need out of greed and insecurity. We survived the grind of evolution by forming small tribes to benefit themselves and increase the odds of surviving on the Savannah once we climbed out of the trees and stood erect and peered to the horizon. Those tribal monkeys are STILL at the center of our brains and that exclusionary behavior is right there with it. Religion was invented to tie together groups larger than a tribe but smaller than the whole. It was propagated by rulers from Egyptian Pharaohs to Greek and Persian warlords to Roman Emperors to Medieval Kings and Queens to Popes and Bishops and Imans and Elders. Religion divides at its core. It does NOT unite.
Unless and until the world recognizes that our current society is based on control of the many by the privileged few and the means to this end are Capitalism, Religion and where necessary brutal totalitarianism we will continue to see the Manchester carnage repeated ad nausea until the attacks escalate from suicide vests to biological attacks to chemical attacks to nuclear devices. The attacks cannot be stopped by anything less than a total police state and even then, those willing to give their life in exchange for killing others will always find a way to do so. If you see the news and hear the stories and your heart breaks a little for the anguish of the afflicted, take a moment to stop and consider your own professed beliefs and their impact on the wider world. Are you truly inclusive or merely a well disguised segregation machine at heart?
Honest reflection on the root cause of these attacks is completely absent the coverage and gnashing of teeth and beating of breast that we get from our "leaders" - both political and religious. You cannot have a world where one conception of the make-believe is granted higher status than others and still expect to have peace. The only way forward is a more secularized world and no safe sanctuary or quarter given to those who will continue to insist that their invisible sky-daddy and inane rituals are in any way better than someone else's equally inane and invisible tenets.
Thousands of years this fight has brewed and boiled. The answer is not MORE religion, it is LESS, much, much less.
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