Doubt

How much damage has religious faith wrought on the world?

Besides being the height of irony, it’s also the saddest of commentaries—that bodies of belief with moral codes of conduct are also responsible for so much mayhem and ugliness and cruelty and endless vindictiveness, motivated by the central tenet of fearing a God who engenders dogmatism and orthodoxy, resulting in a bunch of us running around with our hair on fire and worried about displeasing a fickle deity who may or may not even exist.

Religious texts are commandeered for political purposes, shallowly embraced, conveniently and subjectively interpreted and utilized, and misunderstood. What would be different about the whole enterprise if scripture was freshly written today and a new story was told? There would likely still be gaps in witness and understanding, differences and varying contexts that lead to violence, because humans haven’t evolved all that much when it comes to self-preservation and the need to defend territory and opinions.

And maybe a new story couldn’t be told anyway, because enlightenment of a sort has come, and people wouldn’t fall for a story that conveniently fills any remaining gaps in understanding and knowledge, and sounds too good to be true.