Religion In The News

It has been an interesting year for religion in the news. We are less than five months through 2010 and religion has already shown itself quite well.

The sexual and human rights abuses of children, and well-coordinated cover-up of these abuses, by Christian clergy has probably been the biggest religion-in-the-news story.

Factions within the Tea Party and the Republican Party (cough-Sarah-Palin-cough) trying to kill the US Constitution by replacing its liberty-based ideals with theocracy is, of course, disgusting and a threat to freedom and human rights on a global scale.

There was that story about the church group kidnapping children in Haiti after the earthquake.

Today, I read a story about a Sunday school teacher, who kidnapped, raped and killed an eight-year-old girl (as a side note: we don't often see stories about women being charged with these sorts of offenses).

As disturbing as the above are, one really sick one has been on my mind today. Suicide bombers in the Islamic world have developed a new tactic in their fighting for God (as if using animals, children, and people with developmental disabilities wasn't bad enough). The new twist is to set off one blast, then another when rescue workers are on the scene. First kill the innocent, then target those willing to risk their own well-being to help others. Very nice.

Any single one of these things is evil and repulsive, and just cause for pissing on the "morality requires religion" fallacy. Add them up, along with the many I did not mention above and the many that never make it into the news (such as the personal story I related recently) and it becomes obvious why many of those concerned for human rights can hardly wait for the end of the dominance of irrational belief systems.

While the elimination of irrational belief systems would not eliminate evil in the world, it would remove the motivation and excuse of acting in the name of some disgusting, bloodthirsty god.