Alan Zendell, November 2, 2023

As a child, I put myself through years of religious training at a strict orthodox synagogue. It was my choice, one that horrified my parents, but it was something I had to do. My maternal grandmother, who’d fled the Cossacks in Eastern Europe and emigrated to the United States before World War 1 was a wonderful, honest woman who seemed truly devoted to her faith, but the other adults who had a hand in raising me always seemed to be faking it. Long before I could spell “hypocrite,” I was well aware of its meaning.

Of all my studies, one passage in the Old Testament made the greatest impression on me. Genesis 22 tells the story of God testing Abraham by commanding him to sacrifice his son, Isaac (cutting his throat as if he were a goat) to proof his faith. Only after Abraham raises his knife to do the awful deed, an angel intercedes and offers a ram instead.

I insisted that our rabbi and teacher explain how the story of Abraham and Isaac was a moral lesson. I’ve had that conversation with several rabbis since then, and none offered a reasonable answer. As an adult, today, it sounds like an ISIS terrorist forcing a false confession out of a hostage with a knife at his throat. Reading about Sodom and Gomorrah, and Noah and the Great Flood made it worse. The same God who terrorized Abraham murdered millions of people simply because they disobeyed him.

I concluded that the Old Testament God who I was told loved me was a psychopath, and nothing I experienced since then has changed my mind. Why is this relevant, now? Consider that all modern primates – humans, apes, orangutans, monkeys – had a common progenitor. They have a lot in common, including nearly 99% of their DNA, but it’s amazing how such different beings evolved from the same source. The Abraham of the Old Testament can be thought as the progenitor of three major religions that are followed by countries that contain more than half the world’s population.

Both Christianity and Islam grew out of Abrahamic teachings, one of which was that some day a Messiah would come. To Christians, the Messiah was Jesus, who in a twisted way re-tells the story of Abraham as God Himself sacrifices his own son to prove his love of mankind, in the process, transforming from a single entity to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Six hundred years later, the same God who whispered in Abraham’s ear whispered in Mohammed’s, telling him that while Jesus was truly the Messiah, the Christian trinary God was blasphemy. Thus, was born Islam, a religion that seems to preach peace and love, but is interpreted by many as a call to Jihad, to cleanse the world of defilers.

As a child, I was taught that humans were created in God’s image. I was told that meant we must ascribe to a creed based on generosity and faith, when in fact, we seem to have mostly inherited His psychopathy. Christianity and Islam, or Judaism and Islam have been in a state of religious war for 1,500 years, and Jews have been persecuted by both for even longer.

Religion is the tilapia of human belief systems. Have you ever tried to eat tilapia when it wasn’t dressed up to be something else? It has no character of its own. Everyone prepares it the way that suits them, and many people reject it completely no matter how it’s presented. But unlike an unpalatable fish, organized religion is a powerful force that has been used to control and suppress people ever since terrified, ancient savages invented it. Its roots are based in fear, mysticism, and a belief in magic, much of it dark. If you belong to a small powerful elite, and you want to preserve your wealth and power, there’s no better way than weaponizing religion and using it to control the ignorant masses.

The result is the Crusades, the wars between Catholics and Protestants, the seventy-five year war that has existed between Israel and its neighbors. Even World War 2, which was a war of conquest, imperialism, and revenge, used religious hatred, mostly against Jews, to create unity among the Fascists.

The same thing is happening in the Middle East. The people driving the religious fervor of radical Islam are too venal and smart to care whether we worship Yah-weh or Allah. It’s all a paper tiger, but one with potential to destroy civilization. What if one of those crazies get their hands on a nuclear weapon? You don’t hear it mentioned much, but Israel is a nuclear power. Set one off in an Israeli city, and Israel will retaliate against Iran and all of its clients. Do you think that Hamas, which is using a city of more than a million as human shields, wouldn’t use them as nuclear hostages?

When the current war between Israel and the terrorists sponsored by Iran finally ends, and decent people try to figure out how to prevent the next one, they should take a hard look at the real symbolism of Jerusalem. As the seat of all three major religions, it should be a unifying force, not an excuse to lob rockets at each other. Whichever side they’re on, everyone who lives in the region is a victim of out-of-control religious despots, and I reluctantly include Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu as a wannabe member of that group. How about we just get rid of all of them and behave like adults?