G-d is on MY side

Submitted by jr (United States), Jun 28, 2005 at 08:31

The issue is not the categorization of past religious people and their interpretations of what G-d said to any particular group but the current stream of self-identified prophets,and interpreters of what G-d intended. The hatred, discrimination, closed mindedness, hostility and violence perpetrated by those who have deluded themselves in believing their way is THE way of any religion has done more to hurt society and humanity than any misinterpretation of any passage of any religious text could ever cause.

A rule of law that promotes humanity, decency and tolerance is decipherable from any religious text as are words that might be used to promote aggressive intolerance of others. Like everything else it is a choice--wrap yourself in a religious text for the purpose of hurting others and you've done an injustice to humanity and to any version of G-d.

Take it down to a personal level. When a mother in Texas murdered her children in part so that they would be with G-d, society considered her long history of documented mental illness as good evidence of continued mental illness. The decision of what to do with this mother boiled down to whether she needed to be "treated" for mental illness or "punished" as a criminal--the option of letting her off the hook as a "religious" person was never considered. We should be no less strict with other self proclaimed "religious" people whose "religion" for them entitles them to impose on others any treatment that a civilized society would not otherwise tolerate.

We need not argue that Allah is the same or different from other references to gods. We need only know that if you--meaning anyone--perpetrates illegal harms on other individuals based on your understanding of any god, in our world, as a matter of law, you are wrong and are not immune from human response to your conduct.

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