RELIGION IS DIVISIVE
Religion is divisive
IN the wake of the atrocity in Omagh, I am fed up once again to hear the outpourings of "turn to God", "pray more', "repent of your sins" , coming from just about every quarter.
Even the cross-community gathering organised for the following Tuesday was a religious service.
When are those who profess to be learned men, the reverends, the priests, the bishops, politicians, going to wake up to the fact that it is religion that divides us and can never unite us?
Because of religion our children can't go to the same schools, which immediately puts them into one sect or the other before they have even had a chance to learn to say "Ulster" or "United Ireland". Then it teaches them from a book that, for example, uses sentiments like, "But thus shall ye deal with them. Ye shalt destroy their altars and break down their images and cut down their groves and burn their graven images with fire." (Deuteronomy ch.7 v.5).
These children grow up with ingrained beliefs about who's "one of us" and who isn't. Then when some of these children grow, find they can't shake off their hatred which has been taught and supported by church and community and find that they can plant a large bomb amongst a crowd of shoppers, everyone throws up their hands and says it's the work of Satan.
Why can't we take religion out of the equation? Why can't we teach our children from the cradle that it is wrong to blow up other people or do any damage to them, even if it's only by word of mouth, because they have a different opinion? Why can't we teach them to respect the diversity which is part of the rich tapestry of life?
The simple, ordinary, wonderful, fallible, humanness of us all is what unites us - not the dogma of religion.
REALIST, Finaghy.
IN the wake of the atrocity in Omagh, I am fed up once again to hear the outpourings of "turn to God", "pray more', "repent of your sins" , coming from just about every quarter.
Even the cross-community gathering organised for the following Tuesday was a religious service.
When are those who profess to be learned men, the reverends, the priests, the bishops, politicians, going to wake up to the fact that it is religion that divides us and can never unite us?
Because of religion our children can't go to the same schools, which immediately puts them into one sect or the other before they have even had a chance to learn to say "Ulster" or "United Ireland". Then it teaches them from a book that, for example, uses sentiments like, "But thus shall ye deal with them. Ye shalt destroy their altars and break down their images and cut down their groves and burn their graven images with fire." (Deuteronomy ch.7 v.5).
These children grow up with ingrained beliefs about who's "one of us" and who isn't. Then when some of these children grow, find they can't shake off their hatred which has been taught and supported by church and community and find that they can plant a large bomb amongst a crowd of shoppers, everyone throws up their hands and says it's the work of Satan.
Why can't we take religion out of the equation? Why can't we teach our children from the cradle that it is wrong to blow up other people or do any damage to them, even if it's only by word of mouth, because they have a different opinion? Why can't we teach them to respect the diversity which is part of the rich tapestry of life?
The simple, ordinary, wonderful, fallible, humanness of us all is what unites us - not the dogma of religion.
REALIST, Finaghy.
Further Information
Publisher: BELFAST TELEGRAPH
Ref: BT/0279
Published Date: 26-Aug-98
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