Since the beginning of modern history, the records show that more people have died through adhering to their religious beliefs than from any other cause including dictators and land grabs.
Quite apart from the thousands who were burned by the Christians because of their faith–not just the Tudor Catholics–we are currently seeing again the same religious fundamentalism causing the same death and destruction wherever it occurs.
In the late middle ages the Christian church got over it and the burnings and murders almost stopped.
The argument now between Sunni and Shiite is just a continuation of the religious crime–crimen religiosa–just the latest demonstration, of the tired old thinking that has darkened the story of the human race for many centuries. There is no doubt in our (Frosts’) mind that if the Ayatollahs, the Imams, the Mullahs were as smart as the medieval bishops were, they could stop a great deal (if not all) of this crimen religiosa in, say, 48 hours–simply by uttering a new vision from Allah, something to the effect: “He says stop fighting.” You’re listening, we hope, gentlemen; we’re listening too, but we hear no such utterance.
They might also, say, take from another religion or philosophy that which is good and acceptable to themselves, while ignoring the rest. The early Hindus did exactly this. Only in modern times are the followers of various Hindu deities attacking one another.
It is clear that a philosophy of tolerance and acceptance of the good in another path, and of ignoring that which you don’t agree with, would greatly help the small group of self-styled Wiccans who are so unsure of their own path that they attack everyone else–everyone who has a successful path.
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And now while we’re at it, a PS: We want to thank you wonderful commentators who have taken the trouble to write us via snail-mail with your thoughts. We would mute the blog, but that would stop everyone; so we’re happy that people care enough to write to us and shortcut the clown who is filling the Comments space with trash. Let’s all join in asking the Guides that the creature doing this dumb stuff will never reproduce another like itself.
Blessed Be G & Y