Judgment on Genocide

History teaches that man’s inhumanity to man knows no bounds. Intolerance of others, their appearance, their customs, their faiths, is indoctrinated by elders – children must be taught to hate. Hatred has led to genocide of millions of helpless people on a world-wide scope – by leaders both religious and anti-religious, by dictatorial governments, in both the distant and recent past. And in our generation, acts of vile and unspeakable cruelty have become commonplace: suicide bombings of children in school buses; blowings-up of celebrants at a wedding; beheadings of a newsman or of a divorcing wife; “honor killings” of sisters for wearing western-style clothing or speaking to a man..

The history of humankind is a litany of mass killings, not for food as in the animal kingdom, but for territorial acquisition, to increase power and domination of others. Wars were fought and peoples murdered to spread a ruler’s religion or to conquer, enslave and dominate. History has been written in blood by rulers and religions – the one, ambitiously seeking to control; the other, intolerant of a different faith or belief or color. From dark-age rampaging pogroms, to Islamic Jihads, to the Crusades, to conquest of the New World, to the Inquisition, to Stalin, to Hitler and genocidal Holocaust.

Mankinds early and complete dependency upon nature for his survival, led to deification of all frightful forces in his life, the creation and worship of mysterious powers as gods: of thunder, lightning, sun and rain, and earthquakes. Eventually came the concept of a single supreme-being, monotheism – God of the Hebrews, and subsequently Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, etc. A great side benefit was a moral code, the ten commandments, with ethical concepts for living and behavior – including tolerance for “different” strangers in your midst – “Love thy neighbor as thyself”.

However, as civilization progressed and populations grew, although the struggle for life’s necessities had diminished, competitions arose – for essentials, then desirables, water and fruitful land became items of contention. Populations and communities expanded, and people-pressure soon caused friction points. “Differences” became more important than “similarities”: tolerated as annoyances at first, such as differing appearance or background – but strong emotional contentiousness developed for major distinctions, such as contending religious beliefs. Coerced conversion, banishment or death became not uncommon – as with the Spanish Inquisition. Undoubtedly, hundreds of thousands of helpless human beings have been killed by the excesses of religion in recorded history.

Clearly then, man’s warlike nature was apparently not curbed by devotion to even a moral divinity. Dismayed at the carnage, rational philosophy began to reason – certainly no true divine, thus moral power, could tolerate, much less demand, such unwarranted cruelty to fellow humans, thus such divinities must be false – thus arose a countering, secular, even anti-religious philosophy: rule-by-rationality. Throughout the gory litany of history, peace-seeking philosophers, war-weary, had dreamed of a Utopian world without conflict, of individuals living quiet lives without violence or desperation, safe from attacks upon personal freedoms, wishing only to enjoy their families and accomplishments in peace – and to die in bed at a reasonable age.

Mankind began searching out a workable approach to peaceful governance – coexistence among peoples of differing faiths, beliefs and philosophies – without rancor or bloodshed. By a logical “either-or” argument, if “God” and “Religion” seemed to be more cause than solution, perhaps a durable and peaceful co-existence could be achieved between nations and peoples if “faith” in a supreme creator would be discarded and replaced with trust in human-kind, motivated by “tolerance and reason”.

Human nature, however, absent the moral and ethical compass of religious restraint, soon tended to gravitate to authority without limitation – and therefore, with no restraint against ultimates in extremism (and inevitably justified) – without impediments to increasing acquisitions and the reach of authority, the ultimate in human misconduct – mass murder – became accepted, and rationalized without twinges of conscience. With no supreme authority and morality, only fallible man becomes the judge for right and wrong – and wrong is readily justifiable. With “political correctness” holding sway, as it is currently, religion itself can become targeted.

Extremism of religious ideology and bigotry cannot be denied. Millions of lives have been taken by hatred as frenzied zealots of (any) one religion held power over others – oft-times, forcing conversion or the sword. Human intolerance of faiths other than their own, especially during outbreaks of mob psychology – particularly when exhorting a divine “commandment” to kill – are spurred on by the inflammatory and present-day instantaneous distribution of world news. Such bloodshed is even more commonplace today than in the past.

And so, while religious fury, uncontrolled, has murdered many millions, history shows that the absence of, or antipathy to religion, has been even worse. Despotic rulers have caused the killing of over 100 million people – by Communism and Nazi-ism within this past century: China, Soviet Union, North Korea, Cambodia, Africa, Afghanistan, and Nazi Europe.

Today, of the world religions,almost all seem to have grown beyond desires to kill or compel conversions of other faiths, only extremists seem to still justify the sacrifice of not only their own lives, but also those of their own children, so as to deny others their desired worship of choice.

Even greater extremism is evident today, the virulence being obvious in the selected venue for violence – where civilians, especially children gather – bloodied body-parts of innocents shown in lurid photos and described in the newspapers – blown-up in buses, restaurants, marketplaces, houses of worship. So what is the carnage scorecard?

History has shown that when the supreme decision authority for life and death has been controlled by human ethical standards of morality and justification, the pursuit of ever-greater powers and conquests seem irresistible. Rationalizations and unfeeling assessments of benefits and advantages seem to easily overcome restraint – leading to carnage and ferocity – greatly exceeding even inflamed religious bigotry. Instead of the envisaged tolerance and fraternity, the end result of political experiments in “enlightened” human authority has been both unanticipated and uninhibited, the untethering of the worst instincts of human beings.

And yet, one has only to see youngsters at play, so see how friendly humankind can be. Why must we teach our children to hate?

Aaron Kolom qualifies as a “rocket scientist” with over 50 years aerospace engineering: Stress Analyst to Chief of Structural Sciences on numerous military aircraft, to Corp. Director Structures and Materials, Asst. Chief Engineer Space Shuttle Program through first three flights (awarded NASA Public Service Medal), Rockwell International Corp.; Program Manager Concorde SST, VP Engineering TRE Corp.; Aerospace Consultant.

Aaron L. Kolom – from Brainwashed* and Miracles**

* The Perceived Mind-Set of the Secular Elite re Darwin Evolutionism!

** To Believe in Them – Have Faith – In Science and Logic!

Visit website at [http://www.brainwashedandmiracles.com] to learn a bit about Science vs the Bible, from conflict to confirmation.