by Andy Heintz

Created on: September 01, 2008

Anyone who adheres to a religious faith believes their faith is the only true faith. This diminishes the efforts made by people trying to promote the idea that we are all equal no matter what race, gender, religion or nationality we are. To me this means religion will always lead to some segregation between human beings. That being said religion has been used for positive purposes throughout history. The civil rights movement was led by a devoutly Christian man. Many people throughout the world would not give to charities if their religion had not advised them to do so. This is why it irritates me when people talk about how much better the world would be without religion. I feel they are missing the point.

Religion is not the only problem facing human beings today, even though I believe it does bare some responsibility for the divisiveness in the world. Religious intolerance has certainly led to plenty of bloodshed over the years. Believers and non-believers alike should at least agree that religion has the potential to be used as both a symbol of love and weapon of hate.

Most people's major beef with religion is that it can be used to promote fanaticism. This argument has some legitimacy. While some defenders of religion rightly claim that the majority of religions teach good morals, it is also true that most religions tend to promote absolutist thought which has been used by people to justify violence against those who don't share their religious beliefs.

While religion has the potential to turn human beings into militant fanatics, it isn't like religion is the only thing that has ever been used to incite violence between the masses. Extreme Political ideologies have been just as guilty when it comes to provoking violence against the innocent. Adherents of militant nationalism, fascism, communism and Nazism have participated in the world's worst atrocities. Mao, Mussolini, Stalin, Pol Plot and Milosevic were some of the worst mass murders of the 20th century and none of them were religious. This should have disproved the theory that religion is the root of all evil a long time ago.

The real truth is that senseless violence has occurred on so many occasions over the years because people have allowed themselves to be manipulated by men trying to make them slaves to one rigid, illogical identity as opposed to being free thinking human beings capable of positive qualities such as rational analysis, empathy, tolerance and mercy. Human beings need to get past the notion that being a particular race, gender, nationality, tribe or religion gives them the right to oppress others.

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