The root of all evil.

After perusing many internet pages concerning the evils of religion, I've come away feeling slightly nonplussed. I've seen individuals argue that fear is the cause; or money, or hatred. Money, obviously, is the modern manifestation of a centuries-old system of trade and barter. Whilst money has no intrinsic worth, we use it in exchange for goods and services. Money does not motivate people; the obtaining of material things does.

I agree that hatred is the manifestation of true human ugliness, but what concerns me is fear. Fear has always been with us as a species. But fear has been jumped upon by religion over the past few millennia and thus changed into something bastardly. Human curiousness of old was soured some 1,500 years BC when the first monotheistic religion - Judaism - was formed. This religion makes ultimate and supposedly knowable claims about the universe, its origins, and its creator. And so the curiousness of the early animists gradually metamorphosed into pagan religions, and then monotheistic religions. To me, fear is the origin of religion; religion, the product of fear - as Christopher Hitchens and others have echoed: "Fear of the dark; fear of death; fear of the unknown."

Whilst religion has done some great things - notably the arts -, it has had some dire effects. From female and male circumcision, to religious persecution and the retarding of science and contemporary morality, religion is a constant reminder of the still-present, part-regressive nature of the human mind. Admittedly, Christianity has done some good things. These things only make sense within the confines of Christian cultures, though. To a Muslim, Christian ethics and beliefs are second to Islam, and visa versa.

People call God by different things, but no one should forget the true meaning of God: an invisible, omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent (or malevolent - if you're an atheist like me), bearded man who lives in paradise in the clouds and can read your mind telepathically. Some people say love is God, or music, or parenthood. Such thinking is distortionate and misleading - if not dangerous and delusional.

Religious morals are antiquated, bronze-age throwbacks telling of a time when stonings were common, it was okay to bear slaves, and children could be beaten or killed for expressing dissent of - or infidelity to - an observed deity. (Also, daughters could be sold on to male individuals for trade - provided they married said individuals and stayed faithful, of course. That's prostitution, folks - and all this from a loving God.)

I believe that the terror of religion greatly outweighs its goodness, and, whilst all occidental cultures have their roots in Christianity, religious thinking makes certain things exceptionable - from war, to persecution, to the retardation of morality and scientific progress. Religion is the root of all evil; its stock should be destroyed, and from a single sapling a new organism should grow: a world in which personal belief is not banished, but in which it cannot interfere with government or debate. Belief should colour an individual's life - if an individual so wishes to be blinded by such and such a set of beliefs - but it should not colour the destinies of all humans; religion should be secularised from the state.

However, as long as there is religion, all human destinty will be blandished. As long as there are people claiming to know and interpret 'knowable' features of religious metaphysics, there will be retardation of progress. As long as certain individuals claim to know ultimate truths, the truth will never be uncovered. It's lurking somewhere within our minds, behind walls we choose to keep erect through fear and denial. The truth is inside us all....