Something to Think About

Last night 60 Minutes reported on the health crisis in Yemen. According to their report one child is dying every ten minutes. That truly makes me sick.

In short, they reported the problem is rooted in the conflict between Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Or, essentially between the Sunni and Shia muslims..

While watching the 60 Minutes' story I began to wonder how many people over the milleniums have been killed in the name of God. Not being a fan of organized religion, my initial thought was probably more people have been killed in the name of God than any thing else. A rude awakening, my thought was wrong.That statement is provably false and historically inaccurate.

How many people have died because of religion is an impossible question to answer. I am not being fatuous or dodging the question it's literally impossible.

If religion were used as the tool of choice to get people to do the killing, then it were done in religions name. It doesn't matter that the actual reason was politics or money - the killing was carried out because of religion.

If you want to discuss incidents other than war, we cannot count the Holocaust as "religious" violence, since Hitler hated Christians and other non-Aryan races as well.

The Holocaust  was genocide, not religious violence. But even if you count it, the total is between 16 and 31 million deaths due to religion in recorded history.

Most wars have been about resources (give me your stuff), power (bow down to me, not some god), or political or border disputes. Only about 7% of all wars in history have been waged for religious causes, accounting for only about 2% of all history's war deaths.

In fact, anti-religion has caused more deaths than religion.Communist dictators enforcing their religion-free societies have accounted for more deaths than all the religious violence in all history. Mao and Stalin alone account for over 100 million deaths.

Now .... what does this history lesson have to do with a child dying every 10 minutes? That answer is both simple and complex.

If we were to put a group of toddlers (from 1 to 3 years-old) from all races and ethnic groups in a room together they would play together without regard to the differences. If we were to put a group of 3 and 4 year-olds in a room, each who spoke a different language they would still be able to communicate in some fashion. Prejudice and hatred is a learned behavior!

Walk into an operating room just after the initial incision is made on a chest or abdomen. The patient is covered in surgical drapes. There is a screen covering his or her's head. If you stood at the foot of the operating table you could see the blood and various anatomical features. None of which would give you a clue who the patient might be. Nothing says "I am white, or black, or brown, or Christian or Jew or Muslim or Buddhist." They are simply human beings. Their blood is red, their organs are the same.

We are all human beings ... when will we ever learn to simply get along and help one another?

This Thursday is Thanksgiving. Would it not be appropriate to demonstrate our thanks by helping someone else ... not with a hand-out but rather with a hand up.