Losing my religion

Editor’s note: This post contains an idea. Ideas can be dangerous. Do not try this idea.

The power of ideas is often scary.

Take for instance, the recent controversy and outrage over the possible desecration of a book.

I took sociology in high school, and came away from the class with a fear of crowds. After studying how individuals seemingly lose 40 points off their IQ the moment they become part of a mob, I decided to avoid crowds whenever possible. The images I saw of black men lynched by white mobs in the South decades ago scared the hell out of me.

This is leading somewhere. I had an idea two days ago.

What if some brave soul went on Ebay and posted the following two auctions:

Auction 1: For sale: Picture of men flushing pages from the Quran down the toilet.
Auction 2: For sale: Picture of men flushing pages from the Bible down the toilet.

I think a number of things would happen. First, Ebay would cancel both auctions, but not soon enough to avoid a feeding frenzy of press interest. Muslims would riot and be killed. Their clerics would call for a holy war. Christians, on the other hand, would grumble. A few self-professed believers would likely initiate death threats against the person who set up such an auction. On the whole though, for the Christians, the majority of irrational activity would be vocal, and would not involve rioting and killing.

I could be wrong in my speculation. And personally, I wouldn’t rip up either book and flush it, burn it, or otherwise disrespect the messages. I’m not a fan of such methods.

Still, it’s an interesting scenario to think about. We are all somewhat programmed by our economic status, education levels and cultural mores. Our family units train us from birth and tell us how to react to various input. I wish we could all evolve at the same rate and that people didn’t kill one another over ideas about God. Isn’t life short enough already?

I was taught growing up that God gave us all free will. I wonder if it makes Him sad when so many of his creations spit in his eye by exercising their free will to enslave, murder, torture, rape and generally disrespect their fellow human beings. I wonder if it bothers Him that people seem to get their kicks murdering one another over asinine differences of opinion.

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