Is God dead?

[Grannygoli]

The genocide in Rawanda happened in 1994; my Catholic high school English teacher asked our class whether this could ever happen in the country we lived in, Canada.  I remember that everyone said no because, “we are not barbarians, we just don't go around with clubs and kill our neighbors.”  I thought it could and I still do.  It is not because I think I need to stand firm but because there is such identificaiton with our religions, race, ethnicity, and nationalities, that if the ones in charge of the dissemination of information want to, they are able to twist things to their own benefit and they are. 

The reason I said yes is that I had seen people in my birth country go out and kill in the name of religion.  I had seen war where one day a soldier would come to the street where we played and promise us toys from the place where he was going (promise land, heaven) and the next day he was dead in battle.  I had seen that the religious leader would call 500 soldiers to volunteer themselves to be sacrificed by walking over a mine field and 5000 show up in the name of their god and their nationality.  I had seen people utter the name of god and then commit atrocities.  This happens everywhere.  Here I speak to military people who are in support of war and then pray for their children and their husbands to go to war and save them from some evil people out there somewhere who want to take away their freedom.

I hear on the conservative talk radio shows the same type of rhetoric that I heard in Iran's talk shows when there was a war and from the movie Hotel Rawanda where you see that the Tutsi ethnic group who attacked the other group was listening to a radio show that egged them on every day and fueled their fire of hatred and fear of the other group.

I call this using god's name in vain.  It is when we identify with our religion so much that we forget that we are human, we are mothers, fathers, people just like everyone else and everyone else is child, mother and father like us. 

Even if you believe that babies are born with a religious identity, ultimately when religions talk about using god's name in vain that is what they mean; they mean that god's name should not be used to encourage hate, oppressions, killing, suppression of speech, etc.  When Muslims say that they should not draw the picture of Mohammad, it means that we must not idolitize him.  We must not take a statue and worship it because then the statue will come before the ideas.  People use their religious identities, their connection to god, to kill others. 

When they say that we must not make music with it, they mean that we must not forget the meaning.  However, to kill someone for singing the words of god is using the name of god in the worst way possible.  When I hear people who use god's name to justify the killing of children in other countries and when I see people in Sudan fighting, the Christians and Muslims, I think that they are all using god's name in vain.  The meaning, the heart of god, is forgotten.  Love disappears and god is dead to them.

I hear Dick Cheney's daughter talking on FOX and mentioning that 'this and that issue for her dad is between him and his god.'  When I hear that, I think, “F*&%$ his GOD!”  Why?  Because he used his power to construct a lie so that him and his government could go to war, to ruin millions of lives and kill millions.  Is that god?  Can one say that they believe in god when they use God's name in this way?  Were the children who died in Iraq less important then the children in the U.S.A. to him because they were called Muslim and the ones here are called Christians? I know it is not god, to me it is the devil (the embodiment of the dark side, evil, greed, hatred, FEAR, pride, all these things) that has taken over them.  When I hear of people in Sudan call themselves Muslims and go massacre Christians and when I see Christians in Sudan put guns in the hands of their children and turn them to kill Muslims, I think, “F*&%^ their GODs!.”  What does it mean to say you are a Christian, Muslim, or Jew and then go kill people?  Nothing!  They have killed god and are murderers.

When I see a post here on Cafemom and it is about “Muslims” flogging a women in Sudan or Muslims stoning a woman in Iran, I think, “F*&%$ their God!”  They have no god.  These people are committing the worst sin of all by using god's name in vain and the journalists and film critics or actors or whoever thinks that this is a problem of religion and it is their religion that tells them to commit these atrocities, they are forgetting that these people who kill, their god is dead, they are simply murderers.  These journalists and the others who say it is because they are Muslims are offending the real Muslims, the ones who would never use the name of god to kill another.  They say they believe in god but god does not bring hatred of the other (whether it is woman, another nationality, another religion, or another race).  God brings love to people and these people who kill or encourage to kill in the name of god, are blasphemous and are using god's name to fuel the fears and hatred of others.

I challenge you to tune into corporate media and listen to talk show radio (the fat guy), to Fox news, to even MSNBC and other corporate media, listen carefully this time, see how they use your religious identity to steer you,  to fuel anger through the encouragement of hatred of the other.  Then tune into independent media democracynow.org a very concise 1 hr program that in on their website every day and compare it with the corporate media.  

The journalists who write these things should say that, “this and that person committed this act and they do it in the name of Islam or the name of Christianity or whatever religion they call themselves but that their god is dead to them because they are using god's name to kill.  God has died inside of those who commit murder no matter what they call themselves.”

What do you think?

[diospira]

Aug. 15, 2009 at 12:00 AM

God is great, God is good.

He guards your neighborhood,

Though it's commonly understood,

Not quite the way you would. 

(Jackson Browne)

You are right . I think that for people who invoke  God's name in order to commit violence against others, their god is a false construct of man and  is indeed dead, or is perhaps the embodiment of dark forces. Those  in power who have committed holocaust after holocaust through the ages  while  claiming to have God on their side have done so out of a desire to manipulate and control the masses, who they hope will swallow it all whole, as long as it's washed down with a good dose of opium, er, I mean religion.

God is in essence love. If it isn't love, it isn't God.

[texanmommy]

Aug. 31, 2009 at 9:47 AM

You are pretty awesome yourself ya know? I agree, God is the embodiment of love, or rather he is supposed to be.  So many people and governments are guilty of misdirection and use of religion to gain their ends. it really is sad that our world functions this way. It wont be this way forever though. And I try to think of this, and I do not participate in many of the things in my own culture due to this bizarre use of God's love. 

[artC1s]

Nov. 19, 2009 at 10:21 AM

I think you are a powerful writer, and have cited many relevant points. It is not God who is dead in these awful people, but rather He is replaced by evil. We all must be careful because of the rants of false prophets and those who speak for their own agenda and say it is in His name.