10,000 Years Of Conflict
It seems that prior to 50,000 years ago, the human brain had not developed sufficiently to allow folks to think about such things, but over the thousands of years that followed, there were likely questioning rumblings around some campfires. Then, as far back as 10,000 years ago, but definitely by 4,000 years ago (2,000 years before Christ), the roots of Hinduism began to emerge. Fast forward another thousand years or so, and the prophet Zarathustra came along in ancient Persia with his rendition of the truth, and that is when the trouble began.
The Crusades of 1,000 years ago in Europe probably top the list in terms of lives lost, but I wasn’t aware of any of this until the bombings between Catholics and Protestants in the 1970s, followed by the Hutu vs Tutsi thing, the purge in Bosnia of the 1990s, the ongoing India vs Pakasttan conflict, and who could ignore the timeless conflict surrounding what is now modern Israel.
I couldn’t help but notice that Islam was at the center of more than their share of these conflicts, so I read the Koran some years ago. Not surprisingly, I could not find a single constructive word or original idea. What I found instead was a litany of criticism of Judaism and Christianity. Worse yet, it demands that “infidels” must be put to death – an odd position for a religion whose various branches cannot even get along.
Millions, if not billions, of people find solace in their particular religions, but history has shown that when those religions become sufficiently organized to have an internal power structure, they end up rejecting those who have faith in some other belief system. While Islam is worse than most in that regard, others are not far behind in their dogma.
On balance, it could be that the comfort that organized religion has offered the world has been exceeded by the agony and death it has brought with it.