Tuesday 11 September 2001

Remember this day

I used to like skyscrapers, even though I've never been in one. The higher the high-rise, the better. I even admit to buying and playing the corresponding Sim game, one of the worst flops in their history. It's kinda sad that that epoch now is over. But I think we can safely assume so today. If you can raze the World Trade Center in New York City, there is no place on Earth there is safe to stuff tens of thousands of people into one house. No place at all. Any country rich enough to have a mile high tower is also powerful enough to have enemies who want to bring it down.

***

It was the mix of religion and envy that crucified Jesus, and that lit the fires of the Holocaust. I would be surprised beyond words if it's not the same deadly toxin that made former human beings steer planes into three large office buildings in the USA today.

No doubt millions of people have said today: "I can't understand what can make anyone do that." I can. But I don't like it.

The whole thing smells of religion gone bad. Anti-capitalists don't do suicide bombing and such. They are rich, pampered cowards who seek some excitement in teasing the establishment, like bored children picking a fight with their parents. No, only religion has the power to make people ignore love and death.

When Christianity was about as old as Islam is today, it sent literally thousands of people on crusades - holy wars - to kill and die. Like lemmings with weapons. Even children. "God wills it! God wills it!" "Whoever falls for the sake of God shall be granted entrance into Paradise." The more things change ...

***

We don't need any more ethnic or religious wars in this world. We need a spiritual war, a crusade of the hearts. In each human life, a war against fanaticism, a war against religious hate. The very concept of religious hate is as meaningless as cold heat or black light. The one who hates his brother, has never known God. And perhaps just as bad, he has never known his fellow man. Quite possibly the worst is that he has never known himself. What good is it to win the whole world and lose your soul?

First, man is sundered from the fellowship with Oneness and with all of creation. Then, he is bereft even of himself. I can't help but believe that the most pitiful victims of today's terrorism were not the ones who leaped burning to their death far below, or even the horrified passengers who saw their plane racing toward the cityscape. The most wretched were the cold and empty souls that had been remade into zombies of destruction.

Whenever someone tells you to obey without thinking, remember this day.