The events last night in Egypt and Libya have sadly thrust religion as politics into the forefront of the worlds news cycle. once again, we are forced to deal with the aftermath of actions by extremist believers of the God of Abraham. And once again, good people are dead. It's not the first time and it certainly won't be the last that an extremist of one of the three main faiths based on Old Testament teachings have used their unwavering faith that their religion is the one true one to attack perceived supporters of one of the other three sects. Yes, this incident started from American Christian troll preacher Terry Jones who uses his faith as an excuse to verbally assault our senses regularly. He has burned Korans, hung President Obama in Effigy and this time was a force in releasing a film that attacks Muhammad and the Muslim faith. It was this final act that set off the protests in Libya and Egypt and led to the attacks that killed at least 3 people. While the attack has now been linked to Al Qaeda and the protests used as a diversion to enact revenge over the killing of a high ranking member of that extremist organization, the end is the same. Religious extremist on extremist hate has led to deaths. How many more times will we be forced to deal with these actions until we finally outgrow our need to prove whose God is the one true peaceful loving One for all of us to follow? How many more people have to die in the name of Christ/Muhammad/Yaweh/etc. before enough is enough.
Of course last night's events are nothing new. Religious on religious violence is a daily occurrence in our world. In America hate crimes against Muslims are on the rise and have been since 9/11 as politicians, attempting to appeal to extreme right wing Christians, spew rhetoric intended to incite and inflame. And of course the original act that set it all in motion was perpetrated by people at least claiming to be extremist Muslims.
In reality the fight between various religious sects and the violence it leads to goes back from the very founding of these religions. The Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the settling of America by people seeking freedom from religious persecution all were triggered by religious intolerance with Christianity leading the way for most of its history. The current situation with Iran possibly trying to build a nuclear bomb to attack Israel and the potential war that engenders again has religious roots. This last example has the potential to truly lead to a (nuclear?) World War III as the countries in question saber rattle at each other and the US is caught being forced to defend an ally while begging that same ally to show patience and let the international community work toward resolution. Yet the game of brinkmanship continues.
In the end the primary issue comes down the the mix of religion and politics. When extremist believers grab power and enact their agenda, people die, lots of people die. This is one of the main reasons to stop the current iteration of the GOP from taking control in the elections to come, to fight back as hard as we can. To stop people like Terry Jones, Pat Robertson, Michelle Bachmann and all the rest of their ilk from taking this country to a dark place of eternal war with religious overtones. The American Taliban must be stopped as surely as Al Qaeda must be. As a non-believer I long for the day when people will stop killing in the name of their God, but until that time, we have to do what we can to prevent the current world climate from causing a new religious bloodletting that has the potential to dwarf all previous ones by an order of magnitude.
As that noted philosopher, Jimi Hendrix, once said, “When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace." Unfortunately too many people are using their belief that they have the true answer to God's love to seize power. Those of us caught in the daily crossfire can only hope someday we will find a way to put this all behind us.