We live in strange and shocking times. I keep seeing 'takes' on the recent atrocities where the writers look for someone or something to blame. The writers think it's variously misguided fanatics, political systems, individuals, groups, or ourselves.
Everyone seems to have missed the point. It is religion, and religion alone, which is responsible for these terrible acts. The terrorists acted on religious authority, having taken certain passages from their scriptures literally. Even the more 'moderate' expressions of that faith are prejudiced and brutal. The trouble is that it holds all the strings of government in those parts of the world where it prevails. People are indoctrinated from the cradle. Non-believers are killed. It is so firmly entrenched that it is unlikely that it can ever be dislodged. Please, world, please stop making excuses and apologies for this evil creed. In case anyone has forgotten, religion behaved in exactly the same way in our culture too, in the days when it was the government. We are very lucky that we were able to loosen its grip some centuries ago. For that reason alone it is no longer in a position to do the things to people it once felt it had a right to do. The picture above shows heretics being burned in Smithfield, London.
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