Views on religion (this one will cause responses!)

The development of human civilization has been one product of the intelligence and instinct that are part of being human. Religion is one part of that development that has been influenced by the greater consiousness called by many names by many religions throughout the centuries. Most of these religions, inspite of their common cries to the contrary, are based on the same concept of God. The basic concept is to promote love and kindness for each other and to live in ways that allow each of us to be what we can be and to be recognized as individuals that are all equal in the eyes of each other. This concept is needed to help all of us supress the animalistic and self-centered instinctive drives that brought us to the top of the inhabitants of this world. Without some religious pressure helping us get along we could never have became civilized. We would be like roving packs of wolves ruled by the most vicious in the pack. When the pressures of religion are weakened on a strongly individualistic member of our society we get the Hitlers and the Saddam Husseins who have no real love for any other person. These persons can warp the intentions of the religious pressure in their own society to support their own self-centered goals.

I have never raised kids (another story for another column) but I believe the instinctive me-centered animal that any uneducated child is must be balanced and controlled by the education and religion that society needs. All criminals and criminal actions are in some part the result of ineffective education and faulty religious pressure. That said, I have to qualify the statement by defining my concept of criminal. Criminal activity is an extension of the way a child of, say four, will hit another child and take away something the other child has. Breaking a societal law or rule is not necessarily a criminal act in my mind. The victimless crime is an oxymoron. If there is no victim, there cannot be a crime. "Crimes" based on religious rules are certainly crimes imposed on people by the religious criminals who want to have their own way. They are just advanced forms of the uneducated 3 or 4-year-old who has not been properly instructed.

We have all lost sight of the true root message of religion and instead have become focused on the messengers and the formatting of the message. Many millions of people have died over the centuries because someone was convinced they followed the wrong god. In fact, both victims and killers were focused on their messengers and formatting and had ignored the message of God (which was the same to all).

WyoKnott