Religious War, Episode Number-- Well, Some Thousand

As practically everyone must be aware, the pastor of a small, fringe church in Gainesville, Florida, Terry Jones, has inflamed (I use the word advisedly) world-wide controversy with his plan to burn 200 copies of the Quran on September 11, which is, of course, the anniversary of the famous "9/11" attacks. The 9/11 attacks are viewed (and I would not say wrongly) as attacks by Islam against not only the U.S. but the Christian West or Christianity.

This is the latest battle in an Islam-West (or Islam-Christianity) conflict that goes back not simply nine years to September 11, 2001, but 800 or 900 years, to the Crusades.

To refresh your memory of the history you learned: the Holy Land, so-called, was in the hands of Muslims, who had been conquering more and more of the Byzantine Empire of which it was part; and the Pope preached the Crusade—in fact there were four Crusades—to inspire (or incite) Christian knights to "recapture" the Holy Land for Christianity.

And—just to set the record straight, because I believe I heard someone getting it backwards—the Muslims then considered—and probably still consider—any and all non-Muslims to be "infidels."

So we've had 900 years of conflict, of hatred, of intolerance. In modern times we've also had Christians and Muslims battling each other in Lebanon and in the former Yugoslavia. These were all at least in part religious wars.

And if you want to look more broadly still, it's not only Christians and Muslims who have been at each others' throats. There have been wars between Catholics and Protestants--in Northern Ireland in modern times and elsewhere in earlier times.

And I am sure that the conflicts stemming from religion are as old as the invention of religion itself in human history.

I almost tend to think that there is something inherent in religion that is to blame. Every religion claims to be the "true" one, and fosters in its followers a certain smugness in the fact that they are the followers of the true faith.

And since we are right, we are justified in smiting all those who follow another religion, because theirs are false gods. In Old Testament times and in Classical Antiquity, a war between two peoples was a conflict between their respective gods, and the outcome indicated whose god was stronger or was the "true" god.

Yes, I blame religion for the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people, over the centuries, and for much human suffering. Religion has done some good, I'd admit; but its inherent tendency to demarcate humanity into "we" and "they," which I've commented on before, has to devolve itself into conflict, and often conflict of the most brutal and protracted kind.

Here is a link to a good article:
http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/analysis-pastor-terry-jones-plan-to-burn-quran-latest-in-long-line-of-religious-fire-starters/19623998

If there is a God, I have a suggestion for Him: On September 11, let there be a very hard rain, a deluge, in Gainesville, Florida, and drown out Pastor Jones' bonfire of hate.

Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein