Rodent Regatta

In response to my post ”What people of faith saw on 9/11?” Enda asks:
”I know you are a religious man, could I ask, does 9-11 changed, somehow, your religious believe? God is there, I know it, you know it, but why we, as human race, makes religion as a reason to hate others?”
Well, Enda, you ask two questions really. First, did 9/11 change my religious beliefs? That is the easy one. No. My faith was not shaken by what happened on 9/11/01. My faith is placed in God, not in the actions of men. I believe what occurred was the act of evil men. God has given us free will to chose good or evil. Sometimes they are small goods and small evils, or sometimes they are large. I believe on 9/11 we saw both huge good and evil. But this is the way it often is, in response to large evil we see large good. This is not offsetting. In other-words, the large good doesn’t make up for the large evil, but it does make it more bearable. As a human, the evil of 9/11 was horrifying and the heroism gave me hope. But ultimately, I know that my hope lies in God and life eternal with Him.
Question two is much harder. I’m no theologian, just a simple lover of God, but I’ll take a stab at this. Why do humans use religion as a reason to hate others? I believe that ultimately this is because religions are man-made. Religion is really a perversion of the longing and desire for meaning which is placed within us by God. This longing for meaning is placed in us so that we will seek God. God made us in order that we have relationship with Him. That is our one, ultimate purpose. Religion takes that longing and translates it into a list of rules that we need to perform to please God. Now lists of rules can be helpful, to the point that they lead us to live holy and righteous lives that draw us closer to God. But sooner or later we become legalistic. We use the rules to justify our way of life. I’m better than you, because…. People use religious differences as an excuse to justify their hatred of others.
So, in 1959 many American’s were concerned about electing a Catholic President (John F. Kennedy), because they thought he might impose his set of rules on them. It is easy for American’s to forget, but anti-Catholicism was rampant and virulent. In pre-WWII Germany the Nazi’s hated the Jews at least partially for their success. The weren’t pribumis (natives), so why should they be so successful? Shouldn’t pure blood Germans be the most successful people in Germany? Sound familiar, Enda? Not to different than the feelings many Indonesians have towards non-native Indonesians (usually of Chinese blood). Then it is so easy to strike out at someones religion in the name of your own. Political, social, cultural, economical and many trivial issues get cloaked in the blood of religion. As if that makes it all justifiable. Were the crusades about religion, no. Are the disputes in Ireland, the former Yugoslavia, Palestine, Poso, Maluku or anywhere else really about religion? I don’t believe so. They are about greed, hatred, revenge and power.
So, 9/11 was a horrifying, but not particularly deadly example of this. I say not particularly deadly because historically much larger numbers have been killed for ”religious” reasons. (In Maluku alone the deaths are somewhere near 9,000). What made 9/11 particually horrifying is that it happened in an instant and all of us watched live on TV. Was it really about religion? No. It was about hatred and revenge and power. America has done many things that have brought rise to these feelings among Muslim people. America will have to deal with that. 9/11 was done in the name of Allah. Muslims around the world will have to deal with that.
Religion is about men. Faith is about God and our relationship with Him. In the aftermath of 9/11 I do not cling to religion. I cling to faith in God and His love for me. I cling to my weak and feeble attempts to develop a meaningful relationship with Him and His acceptance of them through His salvation. [So many islands, so little time]