There are undoubtedly religions that still are completely pacifist and preach tolerance and understanding and have not been hijacked by the unscrupulous to further their more secular ambitions.

But the majority of the world subscribes to faiths that offer the opportunity to demonise ‘the other’, to exclude them, to convert or kill them. 

Many adherents to those belief systems are peaceful and devout. It seems to be a part of human nature that some want to exercise power over others and to spread their influence further and further afield.

The fertile ground offered by populations willing to accept the existence of an all-powerful being when that existence is incapable of being proven or demonstrated in any way that the said being has made accessible to us is ravenously seized upon by those who wish to raise armies or votes.

The evidence is overwhelming. 

For centuries religions have gained footholds and threatened to envelop the world. The British Empire was at least partly created by missionaries as well as traders. Prophets with profits.

We have reached a point now when to the west we have Trump’s America where he has given the disenchanted and disenfranchised the hope of an improvement in their lives.

He listened very carefully to what they say and what they believed and said it right back to them. Those who have nothing listened to his welcome demagogy and voted for him; those who have far too much are rewarded. Quite a trick. To the East is promised a holy war. 

We appear to have more than we are entitled to of the good things the earth has to offer and the anger and deprivation has been harnessed by the haters under the guise of a righteous conflict and fear and oppression create an endless supply of willing martyrs, who cannot think through the logic of all those virgins being available in that promised afterlife. 

Religions that started out preaching love, tolerance and compassion have been corrupted until the remaining proponents of virtue no longer have the voice to rein things back. They are also afraid.

‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing’ remains as true today as it was in the late 18th century. It is essential that the many good believers speak up to reclaim their polluted religions.

Why would any god want their creation to implode?