Religion is connected to much of the world’s violence. That’s understandable; religion has been the most important aspect of humanity for 95 per cent of our history.
PICTURE: Nina Strehl/Unsplash
But there’s one thing that has been connected to 100 per cent of the world’s violence – humans.
Violence is a human problem not a religious problem.
Religion is often used to exacerbate the problem – used by the elite to make the masses fight – but even when we have based a society on unbelief, we have not fared any better than a believing society.
For me, Jesus is the antidote to these problems, because at the heart of Jesus’ ethic was loving our neighbour/even our enemies, as central to loving God.
If you don’t love your neighbour, if you don’t love your enemy, you are not loving God. That is the end of religious violence.
Paul Clark’s musings can be heard on radio across Australia and at atthetop.org.au.
