So, a Christian Nationalist regime with their Jesus on their side, allied with a Jewish Nationalist regime with their HaShemon their side, have gone after an Islamic Nationalist regime with their Allah on their side, while each Nationalist regime believes they have morality on their side. And religious wars continue to bring humanity to the brink! 

“But now we got weapons
Of the chemical dust.
If fire them we’re forced to,
Then fire them we must.
One push of the button
And a shot the world wide,
And you never ask questions
When God’s on your side.”

– Bob Dylan, “With God on Our Side”

Related

Trump’s war with Iran is about flexing masculinity. Any other reason he touts is a lie.

I gave a lecture on the topic of homophobia at Pace University in New York City some years ago. I talked about my own experiences as the target of harassment and abuse growing up gay and gender non-normative, and I referred to my book, Homophobia: How We All Pay the Price.

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In the book, I make the case that everyone, regardless of their actual sexual identity, is hurt by homophobia and, therefore, it is in everyone’s self-interest to work to reduce and ultimately eliminate this very real and insidious form of oppression.

Following my presentation, two students came up to me — one woman and one man — to continue the discussion. The young woman began by telling me, “I’m really sad to hear about the abuse that you and others have received because you are gay or lesbian. I am here to tell you that I have a way to prevent that from ever happening to you again.”

“I believe that Jesus Christ can help you,” she said with a cheery expression across her face. “If you ask Jesus and pray hard, Jesus will save you from your homosexual feelings and help you to achieve the life that is meant for you, in his service, as a happy and healthy heterosexual. This will save you from the abuse you have suffered.”

My response: “So, let me see if I understand you: If I accept Jesus in my life and ask him to help me become heterosexual, then I won’t suffer from homophobia any longer? So, to be supported in society, I have to change who I am and conform to the dominant standards of society? For people like yourself to truly support me, I have to become like you?”

“While I understand that you are offering me, in your mind, a gift,” I continued, “do you not see how this is in itself a form of homophobia, a form of oppression? Do you not see how this perpetuates oppression?”

She responded with surprise and claimed that what she was saying was not oppressive. She reiterated that she knew the “truth,” and that if I accepted that truth, I would be granted salvation and happiness. If I rejected that truth, I would continue to suffer earthly and, eventually, eternal torment.

We continued our dialogue for more than one hour, and we ended cordially. All the while, the young man had been closely looking on and listening to the young woman’s and my discussion.

Then the young man spoke to me. He asked, “Professor Blumenfeld, you stated that you are a writer, that you had published a number of articles and books. Is this correct?”

“Yes,” I responded.

“Okay, then,” he continued. “You know that in the writing process, the first draft is never really complete or isn’t very good.”

“Yes, that’s often the case,” I agreed.

“Okay, then after you have had some time for reflection and you write your second draft,” he continued, “this is an improvement over the first draft, but still, it can be improved. So, after further reflection and writing, your third version is great. Now you can send it to your publisher.”

I said to him, “Possibly, but please don’t tell me that this is a metaphor for religious texts.”

“Yes, indeed,” he uttered. “The first draft is the Hebrew Bible — not so good. The second draft is the Christian scriptures — somewhat better, but it still has far to go. But the best version, the third, is the Quran. The real truth. The ultimate truth. The only truth.”

In response to this young man, I said, “As we speak, we are standing a few short blocks from the former World Trade Center towers. Utterances and understandings like yours and like the young woman I just spoke with, and by people of any faith, that there is one and only one ultimate religious truth results in people taking it upon themselves, for example, to crash airplanes into buildings. Utterances like yours of people of any faith give people justification to kill in the name of their interpretation of ‘God.’”

“Why,” I argued, “cannot the young woman I just spoke with realize that her understanding of God, while valid and reliable for her, may simply not be valid and reliable for me or for you, too?”

“And why,” I implored, “can’t you realize that your understanding may be great for you, but not necessarily for me and for the Christian woman? How many deaths have to occur before we realize that there are many ways toward the truth, not one way for everyone when it comes to religion and spirituality?”

That was then. Though it occurred a number of years ago, this discussion comes back to my memory giving me an insight I previously had not known: That “truth” is what the dominant group declares to be “true.”

And so, throughout history, Jews and Muslims have killed each other, Christians and Muslims have killed each other, Christians and Jews have killed each other, Hindus and Muslims have killed each other, Catholics and Protestants have killed each other, Sunni Muslims and Shiite Muslims have killed each other, many faith communities have killed Atheists and Agnostics, and on and on and on.

He’s a Catholic, a Hindu, an Atheist, a Jain
A Buddhist, and a Baptist, and a Jew
And he knows he shouldn’t kill, and he knows he always will
Kill you for me, my friend, and me for you
He’s the universal soldier, and he really is to blame
His orders come from far away, no more

They come from him, and you, and me and, brothers, can’t you see?
 This is not the way we put an end to war.

– Buffy Saint-Marie, “Universal Soldier”

More ultimate questions need to be raised as the world spins around, as individuals and nations since the start of recorded history have attempted to explain the mysteries of life.

As spiritual and religious consciousness first developed and carried down through the ages, as people have come to believe their way stood as the right way, the only way, with all others as simple pretenders, which could never achieve THE truth, the certainty, the correct and right connection with the deity or deities, and as individuals and entire nations raped, pillaged, enslaved, and exterminated any “others” believing differently.

How many wars are we going to justify in the name of “God,” our “God” versus their so-called “false gods”?

Someone said to me once that throughout the ages more people have been killed in the name of religion than all the people who have ever died of all diseases combined.

I don’t know whether this is actually the case, but I do think it highlights a vital point, which is that we continually kill others and are killed by others over concepts that can never be proven.

In reality, all religious doctrine stems from uncertainty and conjecture, from multiple Gods, hybrid Gods and humans, to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, to the burning bush, to the covenant and the parting of the Red Sea, to the immaculate conception and resurrection, to Muhammad’s rising to heaven from the rock, to the Golden Tablets, all beginning with the human creation of Divinities. 

In psychology, there is the notion that insanity is doing something over and over again while expecting different results. The insanity of the world continues because human beings do not know their history, do not understand that we are doing something over and over again while expecting different results, namely that we are expecting peace to break out permanently after we slaughter our neighbors who believe differently than us.

Individuals and entire nations continue to believe that their reality fits all, and that it is proper and right to force their beliefs onto others.

Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us, only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today.

– John Lennon, “Imagine”

And now, how many people have to die in the latest Middle East war? How many more people will be incinerated by bombs falling from the sky? How many more graves will we have to dig? How many more homes and businesses will be destroyed? How many more people will be homeless and have to suffer from hunger and thirst as everyone believes that God is on their side?  

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