A Penitent Blogger on "Murdering for God"

There are those that would lay the blood of millions at the feet of the religious. They claim that the worship of God has it's final fruit in the murder of the innocent.

Penitens begs to differ:

The hour is coming
when everyone who kills you
will think he is offering worship to God.

These words from today's Gospel (John 15:26-16:4a) are chilling in this post-September 11th world.

We remember too well the audio recording of hijackers shouting the praise of God as they purposefully flew a jetliner full of passengers into the ground.

Some have seized upon September 11th and other horrific instances of terrorism as a way to impugn all those who take religion seriously.

As baseless and tired a canard as this is, enemies of religion hysterically keep repeating it. One character in a newly released movie puts it this way: "As long as there has been one true God, there has been killing in his name."

This trite intellectual laziness overlooks the tens of millions killed by atheists in the twentieth century alone, not to mention the countless massacres perpetrated by polytheists and by irreligious tyrants throughout the history of the world.

People kill people and they will misuse anything they can to do it: even religion.

I have told you this
so that you may not fall away....

I have told you this
so that when their hour comes
you may remember that I told you.

Our Lord's words in today's Gospel are a reminder for us to be prepared for opposition.

The ones that murder in God's name murder God in the person of their victim. The ones that equate religious believers with murderers shred reality in favor of a sad illusion, in which only their precious ideal offers salvation.

Both violate Truth and Love. Neither exemplify the communion with the savior that truly liberates us.

Let's remind those that would advocate either atrocity of this simple truth. Let's see how many jaws we can leave wide open!