MIND BLOWING

Hi as a british soldier I wish to offend no one however, I too have strong feelings on organised religion.
I spend 12 months out of every 36 somewhere in the world sorting out the mess that religion leaves in its wake.

All religious groups will jump on that and say
"its not us" and that I must be real bad for pointing it out. but if you had no religion the world would be a much safer place... I have seen things no one should ever see and heard the sounds that go with the pictures... and 90% of the time its cristians versus some other religion...
The crusades never stopped they just got less publicity.
Therefor as you may have guessed I have no religion.
however I am not a hipocrit ... I love my job.

sorry about the spelling ..its a product of english schooling

Further to my last entry:
having read the rest of your blog I am really supprised to say that I am agreeing with you..

I wish that if your form of worship prospers that you may enjoy many years of peace..

although I have no religion .If I did then god would be under every rock and behind every door and in every smile..

peace be with you and yours

Hi Thanks for the time to read my blog and for your feed back. I often hear from people what you say about Religon causing all the trouble in the world and we would be better off with out it. When one watches TV or when one is dealing with visable conflict, it is easy to be convinced about the negativity of religon.
Having experianced in a limited way other cultures where religon appears to cause problems and having a degree in politics and history I do not think the statement holds true.

1) In a practical sense if there was no religons in the world the biggest blood baths of that century would still have occured because they were mainly perpetuated by Governments / Systems / nations who were strongly opposed to religon and had rejected religous reasoning for science. I of course am referring to the Nazi's and Communisim. Between them they killed more people and caused more pain then all the religons combined through history. So following this rule of thumb, non religous people are more guilty then religous people (I am being silly here).

2) Usually where there appears to be a war over religon it is a mascarade for deeper tensions over cultural issues / tribal and historical issues. I give an example of Northern Ireland. Everyone says it is between the Catholics and the Protestants. But if one delves deeper the problem is that hundreds of years ago a large migration of Scottish people moved into Northern Ireland forceably moving off the original inhabitants. They kept there scottish culture including their faith and the problems began. But really it is a clash of Cultures (Scottish vs Irish) then religon which most of the combattants could not give a rip about.
Another classic example of cultural wars is Rwanda. Two tribes both tried to wipe each other killing millions of people. But it was not a clash of religon as both tribes (I think) were Christian! It was all about historical tribal hatred.
Even September 11 and Iraq are not about religon in reality but a mess of geographical / tribal and cultural issues which are to involved to talk about here.
For me as a believer in Christ, I believe all men including myself are sinners. All mankind has an inherently evil side which is why we compulsivly do wrong even when we know what is right. I believe the Bible says that there will be no peace untill Jesus Christ comes again. It is irrelevant whether one is religous or non religous, there will still be war. I can never hope in man's ways only God's.