Religious Fanaticism

For some time I've been of the opinion that organized religion is humanity's invention to help ensure civil order. After all, the threat of the afterlife is certainly a strong deterrent when it comes to committing acts against society.

To give some background, I was raised a Catholic and for thirteen years of my life (K-12) I went to a Catholic school. I used to be that kid that would go to mass every single morning. But these days, although I do consider myself a spiritual person I admit I'm not very religious. There's a reason for it, and perhaps I'll discuss it in another entry but for now now let's just say that I have my differences with the Catholic church.

Still, even with such a religious background one thing that has always baffled me, and sometimes annoyed me is religious fanaticism. I'm not talking about being observant of your faith here. If you have your faith and you stick to it, I respect that. I'm talking about instances where religion seems to override what I like to label the 'collective' common sense. Now, granted, common sense is actually a subjective term. Different cultures have different things they consider common sense.

But, lets cut to the chase here. At the core the issue I'm concerned about is tolerance. I like to believe that we were given free will for a reason. That if god had wanted me to follow just one path, that would have been the option given. But... it was not. The argument is usually that God wants you to choose the right path. Well, who is to say what the right path is?

No, I believe that reasoning is what separates us from animals. Call it what you will, soul, reasoning mind, in the end it amounts to the same. We're able to decide which way to go. I like to believe that there is a final destination, but, unlike many groups I think there are many different paths leading there.

The idea of killing in the name of God, the idea of rejecting others because they have different beliefs those are concepts that bother me to no end. When I hear about incidents of this nature it makes me want to scream, to call at those involved to tell them to listen. To listen. So many times we fail to do that. We find ourselves so involved in our own thoughts, in our own beliefs that we fail to consider those around you, those that in the end we share this planet with.

If people were more willing to do a bit more of listening than telling each other what they are to think, I think the world would be just a bit of a better place.