Fighting between religions

Here we go, another problem of the world that's been going on probably since Babylon, along with languages, racial issues (lets not forget the Jews and Arabs), and other issues that various people have;

Religion is probably the biggest excuse for warfare and other forms of conflict. Even in the 21 century A.D. people still fight over which religion has it right about God or other matters of faith.

Sometimes the most nasty conflicts aren't between completely different pantheons or believers of different deities, but denominations or variations of the same religion. This is the case in Norther Ireland where you have Roman Catholics and Anglicans killing each other, though granted this is more a case of the Irish want to join the rest of the Emerald Isle but the Loyalists want to remain part of the UK.

That brings me to the numerous wars between Catholics and Protestants since the Reformation. Back in the wars of religion in France, especially the Bartholomew's Day Massacre. During the three or four day massacre, Catholics not only shot at the reformed (also known as Huguenots) like uniformed soldiers do in a field (soldier to soldier), but they chopped up over 20,000 men before throwing them out of windows.

Luckily, for the most part, we no longer kill each other over the sacraments, the Bible etc., we just have heated debates. These debates sometimes come to yelling or anger between friends or brothers, but rarely gets more physical than a fist fight.

The Middle East is both a matter of race as well as religion. Jews and Arabs have been at each others throats since the time of Isaac and Ishmael, they just weren't both in the same cities or countries for over a thousand year. Then the Allies permitted the Holocaust survivors to return to Palestine (by doing so, telling the Arabs who've been there 1000 yrs to "make room cause we're back home now).

Another hot button concerning religious fighting is seen in countries where atheism is enforced and religion is suppressed. Countries like China are still giving the Tibetans a hard time and incarcerating Buddhist monks in recent protests during this summer (2007).

I don't know if there ever will be a day that there'll only be one religion, nor am I sure if I would like such a day to come. What I do pray for is that the leaders and practitioners of each of the major religions "practice what they preach".

All of the major religions (Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Shintoism, Wicca etc.) of the world preach PEACE! They each have their own way of saying this wish for peace; Christians have the Golden Rule "treat others the way you want to be treated", Wicca has the Rede "An ye harm none, do what ye will" and so forth.

Christ's commandment "to love one another" is, unfortunately, a lot easier said than done. Sadly it's not always simple or black and white. How to show love to someone while he or she is doing something harmful or something that we perceive as evil.