Compassion versus Hatred
As soon as humans became humans, and as soon as there were expressions of art or literature, even in its most primitive forms, there were expressions of belief in deities, and reverence for those deities. There was, in other words, religion, as soon as we became identified as a separate species. Religious faith and religious reverence are a part of how our minds work. There are so many things we do not understand, and have no other good way of ordering our lives other than believing those events are under the hand of some force much greater than us. Whatever we do not understand, and whatever we have no power to control or contain, we are wont to believe are the work of whatever force began and controls our world. Our religions formed as we have tried to make sense of our lives and our circumstances. Mystical floating experiences, overwhelming love, dazzling beauty, soul-sucking loss, crushing defeat and stark evil are to us inexplicable. They are far beyond us to comprehend. The only way we can understand these life-changing events is to place them beyond us, as the expression of deities of great power. Religion allows us to place our lives in order, in the sense that we take care of those things we understand, and leave to our God those things that are beyond our control. Religion is our expression of faith that there is something good to be accomplished by our lives and some purpose for our existence.
Religions of all form and description have, in these manners, provided great solace and direction for humans in our lives. We have used them as signposts and guides in our lives. Since religions exist as part of our general plan for life, they have been associated with and amalgamated to those other guides in our societies, those being our systems of ethics and morals. All of the major religions have sterling moral lessons as part of their belief system. We are admonished to have empathy and compassion for other humans and other life. We are sternly reminded that we must live in great reverence for the forces that began and that control our universe. We are given stories, parables and historical lessons, reminding us over and over to how to live our lives most fully, and how to be the most productive with the time that we are allotted on this Earth. Most people on the face of this Earth probably believe that without these religions to serve as our directions in life, most human societies would be in a terrible mess. Perhaps that is so.
The opposite is also true, however. Those who defend the value of religions will immediately cite their creeds of mercy, compassion and justice. They certainly have those moral values, and are to be admired for them. Unfortunately, the major religions affecting world events at this time are those coming from the descendants of Abraham, namely Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Each of these religions has, in addition to their compassion and morals, a darkly evil side of intolerance for all humans of any other faith. That intolerance, as primarily expressed by true believers in those religions, becomes manifest as invasions, bombs, murders, rapes, beheadings, torture, massacres, cruelty to women, child abuse, and fields of bloodshed. Jewish pride, Christian arrogance, and Islamic exclusivity are leading us to kill each other with wanton abandonment and plunder the precious resources of our planet home. Each of these religions has marvelous morals at one pole, and at the other pole, intensely evil hatred of all other humans who do not share their beliefs. They are highly bipolar, and have shown variable expression of those poles throughout their history.
Muhammad, the founder of Islam, was the epitome of this bipolarity. As a child, he grew up as a dispossessed, displaced desert orphan. Those lessons of want and need were seared into his brain. He did not want anyone else to suffer those same deprivations. He demanded, as one of the five pillars of his religion, that all who wished to go to Heaven must treat the orphan, the child, the poor, the widow and the slave with compassion. Islamic true believers are commanded to give of whatever means they have to those who have less. Unfortunately, Muhammad was also a violent, militant egocentric, who demanded total allegiance to him and his beliefs, and who taught that all humans who did not believe in Islam should be killed. Each of those poles has been highly expressed in Islam.
Muhammad showed his violent side first. The wealthy traders of Mecca found this upstart and his new religion disruptive of their society. When this foolish man who believed that the dead would come back to life did not respond to threats, harassment and bribes, the plot to kill him formed. Muhammad escaped in the dead of night in 622, emigrating to Medina, where he was welcomed as a great prophet. He was soon leading Medinan raids on Meccan caravans, killing the men, capturing the women and children as slaves, and confiscating that property. When Mecca sent an army of 800 to Medina in 624 to get rid of this renegade, they were defeated in a bloody battle at Badr by the craftier Muhammad and his followers. Mecca sent a larger army of 3000 men in 625, which defeated the army of Muhammad at Uhud, inflicting considerable carnage on men, crops, fields and property. This mercenary army made the mistake of not killing or incarcerating Muhammad. Had they done so, Islam would have died at that point in time. Instead, Muhammad was able to convince his devoted followers that this meant they had to be more savage, and believe more fervently that their God was on their side. The caravan raids continued. Mecca, now realizing its mistake, sent an army of 10,000 to Medina in 627, to finish the job they should have finished previously. That also would have meant the end of Muhammad and Islam, but for a freak of nature. A violent storm erupted the day of the battle, The Meccans could not control their horses, and were unwilling to battle through a storm to fight protected defenders. They withdrew, leaving Muhammad victorious. His prophethood was now proven to all Arabs. The Jews in the market place of Medina paid dearly. They were killed and their women and children appropriated as concubines and slaves for the pleasure of Arab men. Islam had begun in violence and bloodshed.
Fortunately, Muhammad showed his peaceful side after that victory. He took command in Mecca, threw the pagan idols out of the Kabah, and gave amnesty rather than death to all who professed allegiance to Islam. All of the Arab peninsula became united under one religion and one cause. Science, education, tolerance and social programs of great value flourished throughout the Arabian kingdom for the next several centuries, not becoming undone until the crusades of the eleventh century. Then the violent side of Christianity, Islam and Judaism erupted again, and has not stopped since. The whole world is now suffering because of the violent intolerance of these faiths. Their bipolarity is currently deeply destructive of human society.