NORWAY TRAGEDY: Religion again at the core...

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I have not written about the massacre in Norway because I was stunned just like everybody else. It was very hard to even imagine a crazy kook like Anders Behring Breivik, methodically shooting and killing young people gathered on an island for a camp experience.

I had to wait till some sense of the tragedy could be made by the police there and now we know that when all is said and done, it is again a matter of RELIGION.

Leonard Pitts, Jr. a great columnist featured in the Detroit Free Press, tried to put some words about the tragedy into play. He talked about 9/11 as a Muslim inspired tragedy, the psychiatrist shooting soldiers in Texas inspired by his Muslim religion, Quran burning pastor in Florida uses Christianity for his antics, arson to stop construction of a mosque in Tennessee and now a Norwegian conservative Christian killing his own, probably Christian, countrymen because their political affiliation allowed Muslims into his Christian country.

Yup, religion at the core of the turmoil; my god is better than your god! Of course the religions are tied to cultures and that is where the clashes are coming from.

Germany and France have already stated that they want immigrants to become westernized or at least abide by western cultural rules or don’t come at all…but they keep coming for mainly “economic” reasons; read better life.

I guess the clashes are inevitable but do they have to be so extreme and inhuman?

In Dearborn, Michigan we have one of the largest ARAB populations in the country. Yes, many are Christians but others Muslim and we have no problems (except for the Quran burning asshole from Florida); Mosques are built next to synagogues and cathedrals and churches with no problems; we, as a people, as a family, want the same things for ourselves and our children, so we live all as Americans.

But there will be pockets in this country and obviously in the world, where things won’t come together smoothly but I feel in time, we will all realize that we belong to the human brotherhood and not to some religion that demands we remain separate and different from others with different religions.

My hope and goal is for religion to take a back seat in our lives and our shared humanity to be of primary concern but alas, that will not come to pass, at least not in my lifetime but maybe in my grandkid’s time…I hope.

Related articles

• Bill Maher On Norway Bombing: "Religion Is What Gives People License To Commit Crazy Acts" (thenewspundit.com)
• Religion and Violence (aphilosopher.wordpress.com)
• My Argument Against Organized Religion (inurbase.wordpress.com)
• Bill Maher To Panel On Norway Gunman: 'He's A Christian Terrorist' (mediaite.com)
• What are the Similarities between churches synagogues and mosques (wiki.answers.com)
• On the Norway Terrorist: The View from the Muslim Perspective (zwingliusredivivus.wordpress.com)
• Chrislam (pjh95811.wordpress.com)