To kill an infidel is the path to heaven!

Image: http://www.mark-shea.com/

In these day and age religion has become something that is something like a run away train. While most people can't seem to understand a connection with violence to certain belief systems the correlation that exists is pretty outstanding. While the Muslims protest over cartoons, Christians in the United States have become to behave in a similar manner. Many people may have seen the meme that went around showing an american Christian holding the bible and rifle and along side it a picture of a Muslim woman doing the same. How if religions are meant to drive goodness and morality could such an image such as this come in in this fashion?

If you're a religious person and you don't bother any one than that's a good thing and you deserve a very special reward. How ever the cases of extremism we have been seeing recently could come from a fact that has largely gone ignored. That is the turning of religion into a weapon.

Before the war on terror we got ourselves stuck in a different kind of mess; the Cold War. This brilliant move on the part of the superpowers not only lead to a dollar being put onto everything in existence but it also created a brand new industry. Today there is nothing that can compare to the amount of profits made from this line of work.

When the Soviets decided to expand into smaller countries who by no means can compare to the might of an industrialized nation a new weapon was used to counter this progress. The holy warrior which at one point was a cultural norm faded out with the progression of classes in society. It was brought back and twisted into a machine of destruction.

Resources and geopolitics play a huge role in this new found evil, however a quick look into the histories of the nations that have turned into the breeding ground for these views it's not hard to trace the roots back to the great blunder of the 20th century.

With this issue growing more and more by the day it's kind of hard to gauge what the landscape is going to look. Religious and political movements the world over are becoming more and more extreme. The peaceful religion of Buddhism as many may think it is, has lead to great suffering in places like Burma and Sri Lanka. Many people would argue that being religious doesn't lead violent or anti-social behaviour. I personally see the evidence pointing towards a system that no matter the face that it wears more than likely gives an excuse for totalitarian regimes to take hold.

One argument that gets put out is that spirituality differs from religion. That a person who has a core belief in the metaphysical that differs from the major religions they are on some more high ground. This however makes little sense. The vast majority of new age belief systems in which you find in the category take and borrow from the already established religions in the world. While for many this may at face value seem different than the main stream the truth is it succumbs to the same pitfalls of the more popular superstitious systems. The same flaws that exist with major religions exist as well with the spirituality crowd, and very well go become as bad as the major religious crowd  on the aspects of rejecting logic and it's militancy to those on the outside of its circle.