Kill in the name of God

I just sort of happened upon this forum accidentally, but I was rather intrigued by the paragraphs at the top of the forum. I agree with the last paragraph for the most part, but as I was reading up to that point, I began to get a little disturbed. I feel that the author, as well as many people have developed a negative stereotype against religion. I feel many people look too harshly upon it without investing enough time or fairness in their judgments.

Let me argue my case. My mom made me go to church every Sunday up until I was about 14; and after that I went to a private Jesuit school, where I was surrounded by religion every single day. Am I preaching the superiority of my religion, harassing Muslims, or damning people to hell in the name of God? No. Then why is it that some religious people do the things I just listed whereas some don’t? If religion was solely responsible for making people harass and judge and harm others with differing views, then I should be doing that. But religion is not the culprit; what caused some of the darkest times in our history to occur is ignorance.

Look at every horrible occurrence that we attribute to religion- the crusades, torturing and executing nonbelievers, Jihads, eviscerating entire towns in the name of the one true Lord; these types of things occur because ignorant people blindly follow religious leaders. As long as there are ignorant people, hideous crimes against humanity will still exist. Uninformed people will follow a leader, any leader, whether that leader be a man of science or religion or politics or just a master of manipulation. Because whatever unifies the people will always be exploited, which is why hating on religion is just another way to unify the people under a banner that will allow ignorance to blossom. Religion is a vehicle that has been involved in many, many terrible things, but any vehicle needs power to move it, and ignorance has always powered it through those times. Religion would have done very little damage throughout its history were its violent actions not fueled by ignorance.

And through all these religious horror stories, there are times when religion has, as one might say, earned its keep. There was a girl I once knew. And s*** just piled up on her. She was overworked, her infant son was sick, she was paying for college, and last I saw her, she had lost one of her jobs and really had no idea how she was going to pay her rent. Yet, she was still smiling, she was almost always smiling when I saw her. And I asked her how she could still smile at such a hard time, and she just responded that God had a plan, and she knew that as long as she kept working, He would make things happen for her. I hated her in that moment; I scorned her and looked down on her for her blind faith. In my mind I screamed that she was stupid, that she was blind, that she was a sheep, that she should wake up and stop being such a shallow minded follower. But then I realized that religion was her rock, her reason for going on, for getting out of bed in the morning. And I ask myself, if I had gone through all that she had, could I have faced it unscathed, could I have retained the slightest feelings of happiness? And I don’t think I could have, in fact I know I couldn't have. Religion isn’t always bad, sometimes it most definitely it can be. But it can also be a light that shines bright in the darkest parts of some people’s lives. It's not for all of us, but for some people, they really need it.


-Julian