Knowledge is Power

camouflaged Torahs, Bibles and glorious Qur'an
the books that take you to heaven and let you meet the Lord there
have become misinterpreted, reasons for warfare
we read 'em with blind eyes I guarantee you there's more there-
Lupe Fiasco- America Terrorist

Hmmm?

Now I’m no theological genius but from what I understand of various religions stealing and killing are wrong and you should seek to be kind to your fellow man for the benefit of all is basically something that stretches across the majority if not all. Those of us who may pray may direct these prayers to different beings but be it Buddha, Allah, Jesus or Yahweh we are all calling on that which we believe to be the giver of life and all blessings and the most powerful being in our universe. Similarly the Bible and the Qur'an list the same 10 commandments and the Torah list them too but in many subdivided forms. All the basic teaches are the same and lead us to honour and respect the one God we worship and honour and respect our fellow beings by being honest(not bearing false witness), not stealing, not killing and respect(not coveting or committing adultery).

With all these similarities it amazes me the amount of religious bigotry that exist the world over. The amount of people who exhibit negative views towards the other because they don’t believe what they believe is astounding. A lot of it is due to ignorance and laziness in the sense of seeking out an understanding of the other person. Some of it is also due to small minded ignorance as was the case with one situation I heard about where “Christian” performers made derogatory comments towards another religion holding of cows as sacred beings. The performers stated that they ate the other person’s idols for lunch so how powerful can their god be? This shows a gross level of stupidity and lack of respect for your fellow man, which is something I don’t see as being Christian behaviour.

I’m a believer in God and Jesus and despite failing would say I’m a Christian of sorts but if I stop and think I may wonder with so much in science going on how can I believe in stories from a book about a 1 Being just saying all the complexities of my universe into being; but yet I do. I was not there to say if Joseph Smith Jr was gifted with visions or a visit from beings and directed to golden scrolls that only he has ever seen but yet an entire religion is based on this. Some believe that if they die for their beliefs in fighting the non-believers that they will be blessed with a bounty of virgins. Others believe that only 144,000 of us will make it to Heaven in the hour of reckoning. All these are in fact if you sit objectively and look at them all beliefs that no hardcore evidence can be brought forth to support and can be seen as “silly” by a person of other beliefs, but by which billions of us live our lives daily.

Would it not be disappointing if after all this that we found out that when you die that nothing more happens than you becoming fertilizer and worm food? Suppose your religion was the one that is incorrect would you prefer to go to a version of hell because you called the Supreme Being nonsense, even if you spent your entire life being a model human being? Would it not be better to live our lives as closely to the rulings of the God we follow and be good to each other so that should we be judged on our passing we be judged as good humans regardless of who or what we follow. I would hate to believe that a person who from birth was educated to follow 1 religion and lived as an exemplary being would be cast to hell because he never knew he was calling The Power That Be by the wrong name since that was all they were exposed to.

Here is a scripture from Christianity promoting respect and nonjudgmental behavior. This is a similar piece from the Quran. So why with all these similarities do we still fight each other? The ability to show respect for views not our own would make the world so much more peaceful.