I am sure that the vast majority of right-thinking non-religious and religious people around the world are very saddened at what has happened and is still happening in Israel, Gaza and the greater Middle East and the appalling and totally unnecessary loss of life there.
But let’s look at the cause of all this misery – and before I start I am going to warn you that what I write is going to offend ultra-religious people – and for that I offer not one apology.
Why? Because it is religion that has caused more misery, conflict, injury and death than anything else, anywhere in the world, not just now, but for centuries past.
Firstly, anyone who thinks that all Jews are right and all Muslims are wrong is crazy, or conversely, anyone who thinks that all Muslims are right and all Jews are wrong is equally crazy. There have been wrongs on both sides, not just for the current conflict, but for decades, generations, and for many, many centuries and the cause…religion.
Sadly, there are millions around the world who, from birth, are indoctrinated. And there is nowhere in the world where this is true more than in the Middle East.
That indoctrination confirms, in their mind, that everything they believe in is right and everyone else is wrong.
Hatred is infectious, and if people living around you and in your own family, hates those people down the street, or in another town or country, then you will be infected by that hatred, especially if you are young, impressionable and easily led.
I have no doubt that there are still, despite all, many Jews and Muslims who live peacefully alongside each-other, in Israel and in the West Bank and elsewhere, but when there is religious conflict bubbling away just under the surface, something as horrific as torture and slaughter is bound to ignite the hatred and conflict yet again.
If people really want to work towards a more peaceful, more harmonious and loving world, they must focus on what is causing the problems – and be totally honest when they look for an answer.
There is no place for one religious group to believe they have a total right to live anywhere, just because of a religion, and there is no place for another religious group who want to drive another into oblivion.
There is no place for a group of people who think it right to seize others’ land and build their own homes there, using force and killing to do so, or another to invade villages, behead or, while they are alive, cut off the limbs of their victims in some barbaric torture.
This is the sort of barbarism which happened 2,000+ years ago, but haven’t we moved on a bit since then and become just a bit more civilised? Sadly, it seems not.
So, what is the answer? How do we make the earth a safer place to live? When I was at school I was interested in religion and got a GCE in religious knowledge. My parents took me to church and Sunday school, but, as a journalist, I was taught to question everything and write what is right. Today it is called fact checking.
So, as I grew older I started fact checking religion, but I was still prepared to give it the benefit of doubt.
That is until, one day I read that 30% of Americans don’t believe in evolution. I wrote that on my Facebook page, saying I could not understand why so many Americans were in denial.
The pastor at church had a right go at me, saying he didn’t believe in evolution either and then I questioned him about how all the fossils dating millions of years came to be there. He claimed all fossils are man made and have been made to discredit religion. What make it worse was that he was joined by other church “elders” who also said they did not believe in evolution and one then remarked “what shall we do with him ? Crucify him?”
Well, Needless to say, I did not go into that (or any other church), again – but the religious extremist in that church is still spouting his nonsense.
Of course, a belief in evolution blows a gaping hole in the Bible, which claims God made the universe in six days, whereas science – backed up by the multitude of fossils – says it took 15 billion years. And once you start looking closely at Bible stories, they too are questionable, to say the least.
Here are a few more facts to dwell over. There are 4,400 different religions in the world, all thinking they are right and every other is wrong. Has a god with a booming voice said which is right and which is wrong? No.
And has a god with a booming voice stopped the conflict in the Middle East? No. Yet we are led to believe God was intervening everywhere 2,000+ years ago.
And imagine you are God. Would you create a world where every living thing has to prey and eat other living things to survive? Insects eat other insects, animals eat other animals, humans eat animals and also plants which are living things. Couldn’t a god do better than that?
People are believing in religions written thousands of years ago when people had to convert water to alcohol to prevent drinking contaminated water and also experimented in plant and root drugs to alleviate pain. It’s no wonder these people saw angels and heard voices in their heads, etc.
Until we end a blind belief that everything handed down through the centuries is right, humanity will not become civilised. But there is a better future and I would end this by quoting a lines from that classic Beatles song…Imagine.
Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us, only sky
Imagine all the people
Livin’ for today
Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too
Imagine all the people
Livin’ life in peace
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one
Gosh – reading those lyrics brought tears to my eyes. It’s a song which should be sung in every religious place, everywhere and all people should take a long, hard look at those words and think long and hard.
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Last week my wife had breast surgery, and had to go to a private hospital to get it.
She was first examined in a hospital in Spain, where the doctor confirmed surgery was necessary, but could give no indication when that could be carried out.
So, as we were about to journey to the UK for summer, we decided to see our local UK doctor and go to the local hospital, where doctors again confirmed what Spain had said, after she had scans and tests under the NHS. They said the surgery was needed soon, before it became more infected, but the indication was that it could be two years before the procedure was carried out, because of the huge and ever-increasing waiting list.
There was no way that we could wait that long – the chances are things would be far, far worse by then. So there was no alternative but to go private – the NHS suggested the private hospital.
So, we had our first introduction to private health hospitals. Instead of waiting three weeks for a doctor’s appointment and weeks more just to have scans in an NHS hospital, Mrs M was given top notch care, before the op, during the op and post op – she says she was treated like royalty, introduced to the surgeon and the anaesthetist. She as even given shampoo, special socks and special clothing to take away with her.
On the day of the operation she was led by her dedicated nurse to her own room with full facilities, and I was offered coffee and biscuits and a staff member showed us the menu for lunch for both of us.
Every few minutes the dedicated nurse was there to check how she was, providing slippers and dressing gown. Nothing was too much trouble.
Compare all that to what you would get under the NHS today. The cost to our bank balance? 9,000 pounds.
I am no Socialist and certainly no Tory, but have always considered private hospital to be totally morally wrong.
My wife and I have paid National Insurance contributions all our lives. So why on earth, when we most need the services of the NHS are we failed?
Governments, past and present, should be thoroughly ashamed at the way they have let the NHS degenerate into an apology of a service.
Please don’t think I am not in praise of what the NHS is still trying to do, but there is no doubt that it is understaffed, under resourced and overwhelmed by demands on it.
More and more people are being forced to pay for private medical insurance – on top of the National Insurance contributions.
The whole situation is ridiculous. The NHS could be again the envy of the world.
How? By bringing all private hospitals, doctors and care homes under NHS control and ensure that every patient was treated equally and it would do away with the need for millions of people to have to buy hospital medical insurance.
So, if every super-rich person knew that if they were ill they would have to wait in an ambulance for a bed to become available in A&E, the situation would be sorted within hours.
If the rich couldn’t use their money to queue jump I have no doubt they would pour money into the system to ensure the NHS was perfect.
If a government really wants to do something to help people on low incomes they would raise the threshold when you start paying tax and raise the tax levels on the rich, and eradicate each and every tax loophole so that public services have the money they so desperately need.
