unbelievable

“Ahmad came, and all of a sudden, we had an angel! This intellectual idea that we were believing in regardless of him, all of a sudden we are like, here is the Arab democrat. See, they exist. Not all Arabs have horns. You know! God sent us this real democrat. And he meant it! He wasn’t lying about his belief in democracy. Here’s proof: Arabs can be democrats.” - Meyrav Wurmser, The Man Who Pushed America to War by Aram Roston

Religious thinker is an oxymoron. Religious thought condemns, slows and sometimes halts progress. Speaking in specifics is worthless. Catholic doctrine has killed millions and left millions more to suffer. Muslim cultures treat women like dogs. Each religion has dozens of faults and only one significant goal: make others believe as you do. Thousands of cultures have been exterminated.

Over the centuries, organized religion has shown an unparalleled ineptitude in the ways of its collective flock. Beliefs that conflict with their central beliefs are ignored and persecuted, but often accepted after finally becoming more popular and eventually irrefutable. The process is arduous and makes any progress stuttered.

The earth is flat, the earth is the center of the universe and all other bodies revolve around it, those of a different skin color are inferior, women contribute nothing to birthing a child but a vessel for its growth and man was born from mud and rib are just a few theories once held by people and were slowly adopted by organized religions. The last is still hotly debated among the ignorant and held to completely by those still dumber than those.

Religion provides a refuge for like-minded thinkers and circular reasoning. The very belief in the intangible leads to irrational rationalization and unrealistic conclusions. The beliefs are strong enough that ignoring contrary evidence is done with nonchalance, a shrug.

The very basis of organized religion is indoctrination. This conflicts, at the very core, with human nature. The tendency to question, the natural curiosity, is hammered down to a mushy pulp by zealots and strong believers. If they were to question themselves, to really listen to what they are saying, many would realize the similarities they have with those they conflict.

In itself, religion is necessary and good. There are many reasons religion was born and many more for why it should remain. There is good within the rank and file of the Catholic, Islamic, Jewish, etc. faiths. Unfortunately, it is clouded by the louder voices of the most extreme believers.

If this were all, there would be nothing to worry about. Purely out of necessity, religion has always been on the fringe of state affairs. It has never been able to interfere at a high level. That’s changing. There are many influential players in the highest ranks of our current establishment that see themselves as the newest players in religious war.

The separation of church and state is ingrained into the fabric of our nation’s birth. It’s losing ground and being overthrown by those that want to use our wealth and power to further the extremist cause. Think tanks and foreign policy advisers and wo/men in great positions of influence are made up of or associating with religious extremists to an alarming degree.

With the thousands of years of evidence pointing to an inflexible establishment being decades behind progress, it’s only a matter of time before our long-held ambitions of progress and enlightened thinking are fundamentally shaken. Foreign policy cannot be created and implemented with ideological ulterior motives.

To think a group of men and women that hold true to Religious doctrine and are steadfast in their beliefs can be flexible and diplomatic enough in the modern age is... well, unbelievable.