I’d like to take a moment to point out that “religion” is no more to blame for the atrocities of humans against one another than is “politics” or “cultural preference” or “boxers vs. briefs” or any other thing believed to be a binary or dichotomous choice.
There are any number of ongoing wars in culture and in the world that are attributed to all manner of causes; every, single one of which masks the simpler reality that it seems no human care/wishes to face: Humans are domineering, territorial, and chaotic beings; by neurochemisty, by physiology, by psychology, and by all forms of “higher reasoning” they employ.
It is comforting to lay blame for the horrific acts of human history on concepts that are, themselves, void of substance and existence whatever except for the meaning we vest into them and the manner in which we hone them as if “real” and use them as if “real” to justify our various acts of calumny and control. It remains that they are no more real than any other thought and that it is not thoughts that create deeds, humans do… they use the excuse of thought as if somehow, it means it was not their hands and bodies in action.
Until we all, as humans, either evolve or otherwise learn enough to choose more wisely in relation to coexisting with one another, this cannot and will not change.
All the above said, I think as well as believe that a significant part of such change is to both accept, acknowledge, and act in accord with the fact that what “was” exists now only in memory, what “is” remains the only thing that can be affected, changed, or shifted at all, and “what will be” depends entirely upon how compassionately and diligently we strive to pull our hands from the actions and choices of others and focus instead upon managing our own.
As a contradicted, oft hypocritical, and utterly alike human, I fail more often than succeed in any of the above; it remains that it is my noblest goal and one I find worthy of devotion and pursuit; a goal I find worthy of honor in any other within whom I see it, regardless the labels by which they call it.
“And that’s all I got to say ’bout that.” – Forrest Gump