Believe it or not…

There is a lot of unrest going on currently in the world, in great part this unrest is fueled by Religion and its consequences in many cases are horrible beyond description. Before we judge anyone for the things he/she may believe in, let's take a look at what believing is, how legitimate is to believe and if it should necessarily have to clash with your rights as a human and your choice to disagree.

There are many religions in this world, from small cults that believe in aliens as our true guiding force to the fundamental orthodox of one of the major monotheist religions, from those that see their path solely dictated by religious texts and teachings to those that are agnostic, secular or even totally atheists.

One basic truth about all religions is that all of them rely on faith. Without faith all religions are but an empty shell and practically meaningless. This faith, for as strong and fervent it might be, it has one weakness, the fact that faith is an abstract concept based in illogical fundamentals that in many cases demand to actually accept supernatural tales as true historical facts.

There isn't any problem with these beliefs in general. Every person has the right to believe in whatever he feels that can bring him happiness and fulfill his spiritual needs, be it a supreme being or a natural phenomenon, everything goes, there are no limitations on what you can believe as principal.

The right to believe is a given fact as the right to totally disbelieve in the most profound way.

I met people that are totally atheist and for them, everything related to religion is not more than mambo-jumbo, the product of feeble minds trapped in an absurd delusion, they can be as radical and as hard line in their disbelief as orthodox are in their devotion.

Well, we have the right to believe (or not) so what is the problem?

Most religions are completely benign in their principles, many of them accept in some way or another the 10 commandments as a moral code which should be agreed upon all to sustain a society, every human can accept morally laws based resulting from these commandments since they make sense to us all, as human beings. There is no need (usually) to explain why stealing or murdering is wrong.

The real problem begins when a religion or their followers feel they have to prove the rest of the world they are definitely right because if they are not, it implies that they are wrong and if they are wrong, then all their world comes tumbling down, the essence of their existence is gone and they are but a bunch of misguided fools that believed in ridiculous fantasies.

Such religions and such a way of confronting reality turns often problematic as they feel compelled to force their set of religious doctrines and ways of living upon others and here begin the intimidation, discrimination and persecution, totally contradicting the principle of allowing each person to follow he's own path and conscience.

This way of thinking allowed some of the major crimes committed ever, tainting the pages of history in blood and ironically conducted "in the name of god". To make things even more absurd, since religions usually oppose to the idea of killing others in general, many religions allow scholars or high religious authorities to publish decrees allowing the faithful to kill or do any other act that contradict their sacred texts under very specific (and convenient) terms.

The latest actions of terror groups such as Isis or Boko Haram only illustrate the worst of the worst a religion can turn to when followers of a faith use it in a perverted form to take away the freedom of others and cause suffering and harm justified upon their unique set of beliefs. May this serve as all as an example of the results of putting your faith before your humanity.