In the Name of God
.
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Not long
ago I happened to be in the small village of Acrur,
painted in a beautiful Eritrean valley about fifty miles south
from
the capital, the town of Asmara.
There is an old church in the village, built by the Italians about seventy years ago and it is architecturally very attractive so that I decided to see the inside and, believer or misbeliever, it is indeed a nice church. Unfortunately there are some cracks in the vaults and in the main cupola, brought about by nearby blasts of Ethiopian bombs during the Eritrean war of liberation.
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He, God, is richly robed, of a white complexion and obviously a very finely kept white beard.
This brings to my mind the inevitable thought: every single rational being has his personal idea of God and for this idea, which is all but the God he is faithful to and more often than not very irrational, he arms himself and fights his own species, kith and kin with the utmost cruelty.
History through millenniums is relentlessly made of rolling heads, crucified people, burned witches and the slaughter of millions and millions of human beings just for this, just to give preeminence to the personal idea and to establish the personal God on the world's throne.
This happens because the People of The Talmud are the Elected of God, the Christians have the only true Messiah, the Muslims have the final revelation and so on throughout the globe. And no one of them has the same God.
The Christians have sunk into deep paganism. The Jews, awaiting for a new Messiah, abide by the laws of a cruel God so much so as all the people who abides by the Old Testament. The Muslims have a lofty idea of God but they have sunk into so deep division that their views have suffered unparalleled schism and corruption. The Buddhists have their symbolic pantheons, a vast repository of spiritual gems and so do the Hindus whose Bhagavad Gita is one of the most enlightening religious writings which ever reached us. The Chinese have that incomparable vision of "The Tao the can be told of is not the Absolute Tao; The Names that can be given Are not Absolute Names.". And this is just dimly reflecting those great established religious systems of the world.
Now, these ideas of a Supreme Being are forced into our minds by the traditional background to which we belong. The moment we are able to reason for ourselves we obviously give preeminence in one way or another to this idea, this personal God.
Because, far from whatever we may conceive, in truth God is nothing but the personal idea we have of God and so we have a globe with over six billion ideas fighting each other for assertion, if necessary in the most bloody and savage way.
That is just one human way of celebrating the Glory of the Creator and at the same time it is what brought us historically, pushing our boats on rivers of blood, to our actual stand: supreme ignorance !
The Popes of the Christian Church and the Divines of the Islamic World have given more blood to the earth's soil than any one else. Devastating and cruel as the Mongols proved to be, at least they did not do their slaughters in the name of God.
Now, in the year 2002 at its close, we are going to see a spectacular revival of this religious antagonism. In the wake of the acts of terrorism of September 11 and in imminence of a probable war with Iraq we see that people his heating up discrediting this or that religion.
Mr. Bush, after the September 11 holocaust openly, referring to the Muslim World, used the word "crusade". Other head of states made the most ignorant statements which can be conceived referring to the Islamic World Community followed by a host of still more ignorant Christian Clerics. The Islamic World in turn is ready for a Jihad, a Holy war, as sanctioned in their Book. Because their Book, the Holy Kuran, is their law and they have to abide by it.
But behind all this there is no God but personal ambition, search of power, wealth and dominion and God obviously has nothing to do with this all. Powerful hands are pulling the wires of the marionettes bound to be blasted to pieces, burnt by napalm, not unlikely made radioactive and the people, ignorant and blind follows them, the carrot in front of the cart bringing them over the precipice to their doom.
We, the inhabitants of a planet with a technologically advanced society which could free humanity of most of its ills, are entering the year 2003 in a world of suffering, famine, pestilence and wars. And with the clear aim to make it worst for good.
And God, whomsoever our God may be, has nothing to do with it. We brought it about with the words "in the Name of God" and the crossed-shield and the Saracen's scimitar, swords, daggers, maces, lances, bows and arrows, fire arms and nuclear bombs.
Personally, I have good reasons to appreciate the American Nation and admire the American people. Personally, I have good reasons to admire the great Islamic Tradition and the contribute which Islam gave to our world. But I am stupid enough not to understand why all this happens. Or, simply, I cannot conceive it. But surely, God has nothing to do with this all.
Far removed I am from any existing religious system in the world - like all of you I have my personal God - but I cannot but appreciate the words, the heart of a religious system which says that "it is better to be killed than to kill".
When the people holding the reins of power in this planet will understand this the personal gods will vanish and a common bridge will bring the peoples of the world to real peace and progress.
delloro@gemel.com.er