The celebrated dictum of Karl Marx — “Religion is the opiate of the masses” — is as relevant as ever, from Bronze Age Palestine to the twenty-first-century knowledge societies we inherit. The positive correlations between genocides and the development of religions have had profound implications in the way societies are demarcated on the lines of “our God” and “their gods,” and often receiving religious and scriptural sanctions to exterminate “non-believing infidels”. The Crusaders did receive a plenary indulgence, too, through a papal bull to fight and kill Muslims, pagans and heretics. In an interview with the American channel CBS in 2001, Hamas activist Muhammed Abu Wardeh, who recruited terrorists for suicide bombings in Israel, was quoted as saying;
I described to him how God would compensate the martyr for sacrificing his life for his land. If you become a martyr, God will give you 70 virgins, 70 wives and everlasting happiness.
“Jihad” (Holy War) on “Kafirs” (Infidels), Christian Crusades against Muslims, initiated and directed by Latin Church in mediaeval ages, Inquisitions and Witch Trials against heretics, the extermination of six million Jews by Adolf Hitler’s anti-Semitic SS regime, sectarian wars between IRA and Ulster Unionists, Rwandan and Armenian genocides, ethnic cleansing in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Gujarat massacre and countless suicide-bombings are all attempts to divide, label and cluster human beings and desecrate human life and dignity. Whose God was pleased? And on whose side was He/She?
Joshua 6:21 could be a particularly difficult Old Testament passage for Christians who inhabit pacifist, liberal democracies of the west, founded on inviolable ideals of justice and compassion. Under the command of God, Joshua embarks on a murderous spree, butchering every man and woman, all children, oxen, sheep and donkeys. It baffles in-built human ethical codes and moral compass; how could a benevolent, kind and compassionate God, who had given an injunction — “Thou Shalt Not Kill” — on Mount Sinai to Moses, order a blood-curdling genocide on a vanquished tribe in Jericho, in less than 40 years?
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