Politically incorrect thoughts R us.

According to Tom Lehrer's song, 'the whole world is festering with unhappy souls'.

I am not a professing Christian, not an adherent to Islam, not to Hinduism, Buddhism, nor any other religious 'ism'. I am, however, interested in and concerned by the historic and current mass-movement reactions to events, real or imagined, in the name of one religion or another. I am also interested and concerned by the actions of demagogues who whip up frenzied mobs in the name of religion.

In the good old days of Genghis Khan, it was considered not unmerciful to offer 'death or the Koran' to conquered peoples. As a way of converting the hearts and minds of the masses, this was a considerable success. The conquering Conquistadores covertly made similar offers of conversion to Christianity to those they conquered. Nebuchadnezzar didn't bother, he merely carted off some of the Israelites to slavery. Communist revolutionists pretended not to be driven by such fervour but their requirements for slavish subservience to self-appointed oligarchs bore most of the trappings of religion, with the mystical 'state' taking the place of the deity as something above question.

The recent attempts at genocide in Ruanda seem not to have as its root cause the religious beliefs of the murdering hordes. However, it seems to me that the overwhelming majority of today's oppressors use religion as an excuse for violent action. Those that protest they are not doing so make overt references to 'terrorists' instead. But nobody I know pretends the genocide being perpetrated in Sudan is anything other than under the auspices of the 'Islamic' government of Sudan.

One thing common to all the attempts by the promoters of violence to gain control of others seems to be the wish to establish hegemony over others with different professed religious beliefs. To do this, the fomenters need to discover, or invent, recognisable differences. Hence, in the past, the wars between differing sects of what had started out as one religion, such as those between Catholics and Protestants, both of which vehemently insist upon themselves being sole practitioners of the 'one true' religion; and those between Sunni and Shia sects of Islam.

Now we see mass hysteria being whipped up by Muslims against recent remarks by the Pope without the tedium of considering what he actually did say. In order to demonstrate how non-violent Islam is, they killed a nun and burned Christian churches.

That I do not have a mandate from any god to speak as his earthly representative does not inhibit me from condemning all those who claim to have such a mandate while they do not themselves constantly, utterly and unequivocally condemn those looking to them for leadership for the bloodthirsty actions their own preaching foments.