This claim, that religion will save us from turmoil and fear, is being made from both ends of the spectrum of faith. The liberals in the various traditions keep insisting that religion teaches men and women to live not for themselves but for all of mankind. If only believers would agree to live by its law of love, the world would be transformed into the kingdom of heaven on earth. These outcries are wrong. Religion is as much the problem as it is the solution.
Religions continue to act, right now before our eyes, as the cheerleaders of hatred.
In the former Yugoslavia, Croats, Serbs, and Muslims have been slaughtering each other because the extremists in each of the camps reassure themselves that they are doing what the Catholic God or the Orthodox God or Allah of the Muslims wants them to do. In the Middle East, Muslim extremists are certain that by blowing themselves up and taking a busload of civilians with them to death, they are on the road straight to Paradise. A Jewish extremist could shoot Muslim worshipers in the back at prayer in Hebron, and another could assassinate Prime Minister Rabin, in good conscience, because they were helping God keep His ancient promise that the Holy Land would belong entirely to Jews. In India, Hindus and Muslims can kill each other, in good conscience, over the possession of a disputed shrine or over control of disputed territories, and all in the name of God. Some decades ago, the dominant opinion in the world was that religious fanaticism was waning.