This one has been building up for a while, especially with the craziness that is going on in this country right now.

All three of the great monotheistic faiths scare the willies out of me on a regular basis.  All three share the same strengths and the same weaknesses; they are just a little too much alike.  The biggest problems stem from a developed elitism.  No one wants to share the keys to the kingdom of heaven, and everyone wants to think that God is on their side.  To me, it seems Christianity suffers the most from this exclusive faith pandemic.  This is at least mildly ironic coming from a religion who's chief message is death to self, and that, in its beginnings, constantly made strong identity with parallels that abounded in the surrounding religions and identity with common philosophical concepts.  John identifies Christ as Heraclitus' 'Logos' for God's sake.  This has always seemed to me to be a good starting point for a dialogue on practising some sort of greater universalistic, inclusive attitude within Christianity.

Hates sells; there is a very strong demand for it these days.  Whether it is a Christian demonizing Islam, or vice-versa, there is a vast market.  These are after all the two largest religions in the world, and they have a bloody history.  The irony is of course that its tricky for either side to sell hate without deception, or without being a complete hypocrite.  But the charlatan salesmen who brand themselves experts and peddle hate don't seem to be bothered by this; nor apparently are the many buyers.  Supply and demand, not reason, feeds this economy.  This is what really sickens me about the ways these religions interact.  Self-examination is treason; everything gets polarized into a my God is bigger than your God playground-style scenario.  Gods always seem to need humans to identify their 'real' enemy, and Gods seem to need humans to inflict their wrath on that enemy.  Even when us humans have apparently been told by God in human form to stop our hypocrisy and start loving all of mankind.  Or especially so; its Christians who I hear beating the war drums.  Tough love I guess.  Or perhaps they're destructive hypocrites with planks in their eyes. 

I'm surrounded by the Christian side of this bigotry.  The violence in people's hearts and the dishonesty in their beliefs simply makes a person lose all faith in humanity.  Your typical conservative Christian (oxymoron alert) has no time to do anything but scratch the surface of their own religion let alone the religion of others.  They are either too scared or too lazy.  And so they let self-proclaimed 'experts' tell them what's going on.  Unfortunately these people tend to be the peddlers of hate mentioned earlier.  People like what they say; they eat that shit up.  I suppose its not hard to understand why.  It gives them a sense of purpose, a special gnosis (they know what's truly going on), and it makes them feel good about themselves.  Of course its all at the expense of others, who must continue to be demonized and mistreated, or the bubble would pop.  It may be explained as a means to puff up an individual or a group's feeling of self-importance (and fear is a great motivator), but it all runs completely counter to the teachings of Christ in the Bible.  Its pretty straight-forward hypocrisy, and hypocrites just make terrible beacons of light to the world.

But the truly frightening thing is the armageddon appetite you find you'll find on both sides.  Groups of people who desparately want the world as we know it to come to an end frighten those of us who don't.  Call me crazy, but I don't believe in any sort of a rapture, let alone one brought on by a nuclear holocaust.  People can believe what they want, but it still frightens me to think that men with politcal power might actually be among those who believe in such nonsense.  I'd bet the American president does, and Canadians...our own prime minister, being a conservative Christian, likely does as well.