Organised religion, or, a series of squabbles.

On this day when, in the UK, we remember the fallen in ways that are generally couched in our officially established religion, it was interesting to see what was happening in Jerusalem.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7718587.stm

Apparently, some Armenian Christians wouldn't let some Greek Christians do what they wanted, which seems to have been to put one of their number (presumably dead) in a box. This resulted in a very un-Christian fistfight (in fact, the Greek priest interviewed by the BBC pronounced 'feast' as 'fist' - as in "the Armenians have today their fist" - how right he was).

For someone who embraced Unitarianism (or Unitarian Universalism, as this particular flavour is often described) years ago, this is further vindication of my decision. The fact that two groups whose theology is virtually indistinguishable can come to blows over whose turn it is to have their celebration shows what I had already realised - dogmatic, organised religion is not about God, or about spirituality. It is about power, control and strength in numbers. And thus it leads to violence over things which really don't matter in human terms. See the crusades; see Al qaeda for examples of what I mean. These people don't (didn't) actually differ significantly from their supposed enemies. They just have different dogma. And to me, dogma is a poison - whether it is Muslim, Christian, Hindu, or anything else: if it tells you you are superior to other human beings just for saying you believe something that they don't, it is a poison.

I should make clear, I don't oppose religion in itself. I think spirituality is a good thing, when practised by an individual for their own fulfilment and enlightenment. But exclusive, combative, dogmatic religion is exactly the opposite of what humanity needs. Jesus' message of tolerance was spot on. Unfortunately, many of his followers seem to have missed the point.