Good, Evil, And Religion

There's been so much rhetoric lately on domestic terrorism, given the recent events in Paris and now San Bernadino, CA.  It seems there's no middle ground for people who think the answer is arming ourselves with more automatic weapons, or banning said weapons, or perhaps banning immigration altogether.

This week, it was taken to the extreme by the non-to-be-taken-seriously Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who suggested banning new Muslims from entering America.  It's an unconstitutional, certifiably insane idea, but he actually gets cheers from other extreme Republicans for saying it.

I plan to blog about the presidential candidates sometime before the Iowa caucuses.  In the meantime, to all who think like Donald Trump, I say in the famous words of Joseph Welsh to Senator Joseph McCarthy, who destroyed lives in the 1950s with false accusations of communism:  "Have you no sense of decency?"

The underlying current behind all of this rhetoric is religion.  We like to think religion reminds us to love our fellow man, but aren't there as many examples of religion making us hate?

I'm not just talking about radical Islam, either.  I know plenty of Christians who have no problem discriminating against gays (yes, that counts as hate), for no other reason than their religion tells them to do so.  Religion and religious differences have promulgated hate for centuries, from the Crusades to the Revolutionary War to the World Wars.

The other day, I came across a quote from more than a decade ago, attributed to Steven Weinberg.  He's an American theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate in Physics for his contributions on the unification of the weak force and electromagnetic interaction between elementary particles.  (Whaaaaat?)  Let's just assume he's a very smart dude.  Oh, he's also an atheist.  His quote pretty much sums up how this deal works:

“With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things.  But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.”

Vive la Facebook

A few days ago, a coordinated terrorist attack in Paris, France murdered over 100 innocent people and wounded hundreds more.  It’s saddening and infuriating, as all terrorist actions are.

What I want to write about, however, is something that happened in the aftermath that I also find saddening and infuriating, in a much different way.  It’s the response of Facebook users to this tragedy, and to other man-made catastrophes similar to it.

Within hours of the attack, before we even knew of the true scope of it, Facebook had created a way for users to show their support for France by putting overlaying the French flag to their profile picture.  Untold numbers of users have utilized this new feature.  Now, this seems benign enough, why would that be saddening or infuriating?

Because the vast majority of those users are only trying to make themselves look/feel better.

I’m not saying these Facebook users don’t care about the victims, or the victims’ families.  I believe they do.  But let’s get real, 'supporting' them or France by adding a transparent French flag on social media for your friends to see is not making the slightest difference.  At best, it’s a self-serving coping mechanism, not to mention a PR win for Facebook.  At worst, it’s a faux-show of concern over terror victims, and terrorism in general.

We’ve seen how social media can be powerful tool to elicit social change in the world – in some instances, not for the better.  However, no good change whatsoever is going to result from a short-lived symbolic gesture like this.  It doesn't DO anything, that's the saddening part.

Here's the infuriating part:  Most of these same Facebook users couldn’t point out France on a map, nor name their own elected federal representatives, to whom they’ve actually granted power that might effect change.

No, it’s only a matter of time, probably just days, before these same folks forget about France or terrorism and go back to forwarding stupid animal videos, or posting far right-or-left wing political and religious propaganda.  Of course, these things are also without real meaning.

If people want to do something using social media that might actually make a difference to reduce terrorism, or to support the ideals of liberty and a free society like France, they needn't waste time updating a Facebook profile picture.  Instead, use the time on social media (or elsewhere) to learn more about the geo-political, scientific, and especially religious issues at the root of domestic and international conflicts and terrorism.  Or learn the names of elected officials.  You can even learn where France is.

Support and resolution requires understanding.  It does not require an updated Facebook image.  If this is too much work for Facebook users, well, just keep posting those hilarious animal videos!