11 Comments

This was very good. Thanks for writing it!

Expand full comment

Well said, sir. At the core of all this insane carnage is the belief that "my religion is the best and only legitimate religion."

The people fighting in the Middle East are cousins. They evolved from the same ancestors. The guilty parties are the religious leaders who claim their right to dominate and slaughter others in the name of their god. God does not exist. If I am wrong, then it is a vicious thing. No other explanation makes sense to me.

Expand full comment

Thank you for writing this! Thank you for the timeline!

Expand full comment

Thank you.

Expand full comment

This is truly the most informed, eloquent essay I've read during the past 3 days.

Expand full comment

Penfist, thank you for your thoughts on this tragedy. Fundamentalism is indeed evil. Once a dogma has been established, based on an interpretation of the holy texts of a particular religion, it becomes necessary to protect the purity of all that follows. For fundamentalists that means at all costs.

And yes, money is involved. Power and authority. Our god is better than yours, even if we have to kill you to protect "his'" almightyness....

(How dare we assign a gender to a Divine Being of any religion)?

Expand full comment

You have expressed what I have been thinking but am not skilled enough to write. Thank you, Pen.

Expand full comment

Pen - you so aptly outline the countless times a widened perspective is exchanged for narrowly proscribed dictums. Toward the end you hit the nail on the head - " My heart is heavy, and I have no answers today. I do not have a solution to ridding the world of murderous zealots without becoming a murderous zealot myself. That is something I find myself unwilling to do.

. . . I see humanity failing to evolve. I weep. I weep for the victims of this and all the pointless violence around the world."

Expand full comment