If only the “once upon a time” of religious belief led to more “happily ever after”. If only the fairy stories of faith led to harmony instead of hatred. But for millennia the promises of love and harmony have been broken.
It is a simple fact, on constant display in Australia, that the great political fights take place within a party, not between parties. Factionalism is the force driving the endless coups that doom and damn prime ministers. Ditto in the politics of God. Many of the most savage and destructive wars have been fought within religions, not between them.
The Crusades and the countless killed during the partition of India? Mass slaughters to be sure, between Christian and Muslim, Hindu and Muslim. But then remember how Christians have condemned and killed each other, the loathing between Catholic and Protestant – that latter word embodying the hatred of Rome stretching over hundreds of years. The Vatican is still at war with itself, the current Pope with the curia. Successive popes fight the policies of their predecessors, just as each US president tries to destroy the legacy of the previous tenant of the Oval Office. Similarly, Muslims are at war with each other – so much Islamic terrorism is directed at fellow Muslims.
Read the article by Phillip Adams in The Australian.