Rejoining family

Last year I ended my involvement with a family email list that my father had created several years ago. The reason was the immense religiosity of the contributors and the devotion the people have to the invisible sky daddy. Each morning, after reading several emails, I would be shaking my head at the ignorance of people I was distantly related to. It was heart breaking and unbelievable. I had to quit for my own piece of mind.

There is one member who shines with free thought and I've continued to get his emails. Recently he's been writing about the Iraq war and forwarding some of the responses back to me. They have been incredible. One relative referred to Revelations and the coming of Jesus, another just said it was in God's hands. After a few of these emails I felt compelled to contribute. The text below is what I plan to send after a little more reflection on my part.

Enjoy:

I'm still getting John's emails, since the two of us have struck a friendship built on commonality. I'm intrigued by his devotion to humanizing the Iraqi War and putting a young face on each casualty. I want so much to contribute to this discussion as I have much to share.

Within the framework of this family I imagine John is getting lots of emails from those who feel this war has God's signature all over it. I can't disagree more. This war, this war that is killing the young men and women of our country, is a product of President Bush's imagination. The evidence is overwhelming that the story of WMD's was fabricated to ensure the American public would accept sending our military into harm's way. Bush's ignorance about the Arabic people, their customs and religion, has destroyed any positive political compromises we might have made in the future. The area is destabilized and a quick solution is almost certainly unattainable, at the cost of many more thousands of young American lives. Bush's father didn't invade Iraq when he had the chance because he knew it was a bad idea. His son didn't listen to his real father, but a voice inside his head, which was just as uninformed as he was.

This is a religious war for sure. It's religious on Bush's side because he freely admits he gets direction from a higher power. I'm sure he means God. He certainly didn't listen to his advisers who were more informed. It's too bad he didn't find out more about Islam before he attacked Iraq. This is a religious, civil war. The Shites, Sunnis and Kurds have different ways of viewing their holy book and each of them is right, so they kill each other over words. Imagine the Baptists and Methodists killing each other over the interpretation of Christianity's holy book. It's the same thing. Stupid.

Within a holy war it's impossible for there to be a winner. The reason is because each side firmly believes they are right and cannot be converted. In fact, to be converted is a death sentence. Become an apostate and you die, become a Christian and you die. Simple. How can we fight in a war such as this? I don't know. I hope part of the solution is to get our young people out of harm's way and handle this problem differently. Trying to solve a problem unsuccessfully the same way over and over is insanity. Our president has proven his insanity in dealing with the Middle East.

I have read that one problem with Islam is that they have yet to go thru an enlightenment age. For example the Enlightenment against Christianity got us out of the Dark Ages, resulted in a secular government here in the United States, and started a surge within the sciences. Many educated Muslims are aware of this problem and are trying to encourage education and tolerance within Islam. It's a long difficult road, but I feel worth the effort.

Feel free to comment.