What is the necessity to make heavenly excuses for earthly mayhem? An article was written recently exposing the role of British mosques in the creation of suicide terrorists, including our recent underwear bomber. The recent bombings in Pakistan have also sparked round-about controversy. What words from earthly mouths can convince intelligent people they are receiving supernatural communication? I contend everything that happens on earth is earth stuff. Regarding terrorism, we have earth people, using earth weapons, to kill earthlings, for earth reasons; just as operatives of governments are acting secularly, even if sanctioned and blessed by chaplains. Personally, if I was convinced I was in the presence of the true, only, and actual God, and he told me to kill innocent people, I would tell him to do it himself. His desires, matched with his capabilities, should make my participation superfluous. What advantage will he derive from having one human kill other humans? Is it insidious human insubordination to wonder if the murder of innocents is a requirement to enter into the precincts of heaven, what will be the levy once residing there? And more mundanely, is it permitted to observe that the humane ethical conventions supposedly emanating from a benign, loving, omniscient, omnipotent Being are consistently rendered secondary to the designs of politico-military architects here on earth?

It is a peculiar condition to acquiesce to ridiculous beliefs and actions simply because they assume the imprimatur of religion. The prerequisite to avert from misinterpretations, inaccurate translations, dubious history, severe inconsistencies, and the obligation to perform acts indistinguishable from evil, in the very transcripts permitted to diagram human life and conduct, together with departures from the realities of the natural world that non-witnesses are required to affirm without question, seems contrary to any benefit supposedly inherent in reason.

If there is an external observer and evaluator measuring the maturity and progress of mankind by way of a series of tests, one of the tests may be to see when and if man will negotiate the maze of religious fables, and finally claim his humanity.