Religious observance

Subject: Religious observance.

Yesterday my blog concerned itself with emaciated donkeys. Today our television screens ore full of emaciated little toddlers, children so young, so traumatised that the anguish on their little faces should concern us all. 

The one common denominator is that the 'region' is the same, "the Middle East". 

It's the same people who are engaged in this bloodletting which we see on our screens, families being obliterated. It's ironic that we claim these emaciated children are the lucky ones, are they lucky, their world blown apart, they have seen and experienced things which no one should ever experience.
And still the fighting goes on. 

Saudi Arabia (supplied by "our" munitions manufactures) dropping bombs and munitions into the towns of Yemen. Iran fighting on so many fronts with their proxies

, Hamas.  The terror of the Boko Haram in Nigeria. The Islamic State, ISIS with its inhumanity towards everyone not of the faithful and even then, a further contradiction, they specify the faithful as the Sunni kill their fellow Muslim, the Sharia with a venom that makes one shudder.   

As you watch the tearful relatives being reunited in the airports in the United States one has an empathy with them but where is the empathy between themselves at home. Where is their  rational, the empathy between neighbours. What is at the heart of this turmoil. 

It's claimed one is inciting "prejudice" to lay the blame for all this at the door of religion especially so if you lay it on a specific religion. One of course could also argue that it's "religious prejudice" which is the cause of all the mayhem.

To me it's amazing the power that exists in religious thought especially since the origins of the stories about the historical/f actuality of mankind's place in the religious story has been successfully challenged. With the mainstay of 'evolution' accepted, the stories become parables to describe a proposition which is fanciful to say the least. Perhaps for most people the alternative is too bleak and without any alternative people continue to pray for their own salvation. But the twist is that in the prayer for salvation a human hierarchy exists. Some religions proclaim superiority over others and the believers are encouraged to believe in their own superiority. 

Conflict becomes inevitable and because of the deep seated nature of belief systems, differences become irreconcilable.

Perhaps it's the power of the church or mosque which is irresistible. The collective sense that they can't all be wrong and we need this paternalism in our lives.

What ever is, "on the 'other' side" has intrigued mankind, quiet naturally, since we place so much weight on our actions on 'this' side. The romanticism of heaven and the purgatory of hell are descriptive of mankind's need to seek control. The captive audience is fed the story and succumbs to the pressure and then locked in and finds it impossible to properly reflect on the fanciful story they have committed their lives to. 

Religious hierarchy have an enormous influence over their flock and of course this is made more so the less sophisticated the flock is. Coming from societies where life and death are easily traded, the appeal of salvation is strong and the threat of damnation is real as their lives on this earth bare manifest.