"... vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord ..." 

Anger at people who, under the umbrella of religion will lie, deceive, betray and kill and then put on a religious hat to claim justification. Bob Dylan had the same idea when he wrote "With God on our side" and "Masters of War" on the Freewheelin' album.

For September 11th 2001 was really (and sadly) nothing new. The Roman Catholic Spanish Inquisition, "Bloody" Queen Mary's burning of "heretics", the US massacre and destruction of the "heathen" Red Indian tribes - history is full of this stuff. But where, in the relevant "holy" books of the big religions, is violence justified? ... nowhere that I've ever seen.

The New Testament portrayed Jesus as a man who was completely against nearly all of the Jewish Old Testament teachings at the time, viz:

• "Love your enemies, forgive them that hate you ... turn the other cheek" as opposed to the OT's "eye for an eye" doctrine
• "Do not defile my father's house" to the moneylenders (all devout "church" hierarchy) who he threw out of the temple
• "Where two or more people are gathered together in my name, that is a church" ... in contradiction of the need (then and now) for ridiculously expensive & elaborate temples.
• "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's", was in fact a clever evasion of a question designed to entrap him, but nevertheless contradicted the church's point of view at the time.
• "Let he who is without guilt cast the first stone" in contradiction of the view that all adulteresses (NB not adulterers) should be publicly stoned to death.
• "Father forgive them for they know not what they do" ... to the people who had just nailed him to a cross.

All through history the New Testament has been ignored and the Old Testament used by the Christian church to justify its actions. The "words of God" are nothing more than the interpretations of a bunch of people who claim to have been authorised by God. To more recent Church politics, don't try to find anything in the NT which forbids women priests - it just ain't there ..."ah well", they say "but Jesus had no women disciples". This is "lion-table" logic in its most absurd form:

• A lion has 4 legs.
•  This table has 4 legs - therefore it is a lion

I do recollect that one of the disciples (Matthew?) was an ex tax collector - today's equivalent of a reformed paedophile. I also recall the deathbed words of Henry VIII to his son Edward "... listen to your conscience - it is the voice of God". It's a pity that Henry didn't "reform" earlier and incorporate this doctrine into the newly born "Church of England" ... it might have prevented a lot of bloodshed in the following 500 years.

The Buddhist religion has a similar doctrine ... "it's not what you do or say - it's what's in your heart that counts".

The Koran in fact contains the words " Surely those who believe, and those who are Jews, and the Christians, and the Sabians, whoever believes in Allah and the Last day and does good, they shall have their reward from their Lord, and there is no fear for them, nor shall they grieve" ... a little different from the quotations of the present day Muslim hierarchy concerning "infidels".

Sensible moral words seem to have been around for a long time - it's a great pity that nobody has ever taken any notice of them. TJ - 2/11/03

And 5 years later nothing has changed - at all - just a stack more dead people killed by religious zealots - which is everybody's fault but theirs.
TJ 12/11/07