Editor, Times-Union: One headline this morning read “Gadhafi Son Resurfaces, Vows to Fight.”
You may have once thought of any and all religions as being good while the absence of any religion was considered bad. Once you may have considered the word “love” and “religion” as practically synonymous.
On May 20, 1940, when I left home for years of college and theological seminary, I would probably have said, “No religious person hates anyone else in the whole world.” That would have been my honest opinion, based on limited experience.
The only religion I knew anything about was our Christian faith, and those people loved and cared about their fellow humans (family members, yes, and even strangers).
Wow. Try introducing a young fellow with that simple background to “History of World Religions” in a theological seminary, with only four years of college to prepare for it. Yes, I learned a lot in those three years, and am still learning. But personal experience is the “Ni plus ultrum” of argumentation as they used to tell us in debating class.
So the question is, can there be “bad” religions as well as “good” ones in our world today? Our saintly old theology professor would say, “You can bet your life there is.” Nothing in our world can bless more people than love and a good religion. And nothing is a worse curse and scourge on our world’s people as an religion with hate.
