Time to move on from religions

WHEN reading the newspaper or watching the news on TV, I simply cannot understand why it is that so many people continue to remain obsessed with religions, especially the Abrahamic faiths. These religions are supposed to be all about love, peace and tolerance. Instead you have the following:

You have Catholic priests sexually abusing children in virtually every country in the world. You have pastors trafficking in women and children, selling them as sex slaves. You have evangelists sponsoring their ostentatious lifestyles by preying on the gullible faithful. You have bigoted Christians, especially in the US, justifying their racist, mysoginistic and homophobic views by quoting texts from their bibles. You have Islamic lunatics blowing themselves and others to pieces in the name of their god. You have conflicts raging in Myanmar, Kashmir, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Yemen, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Nigeria, all of which are explicitly linked to religious sectarian factions.

These brutal conflicts have in turn caused millions to flee their homes, so desperate to escape the misery and suffering they are willing to risk their lives and those of their families to try to reach the relative safety of Europe.

One could go on and on.

So much for peace and tolerance. The time has come to disregard the hands-off, sacrosanct approach to religions that is practised. Religions need to be subjected to the same critical analysis as any other historical claim. We have surely wasted enough time and resources on these antiquated beliefs.

Enough people have died for the glory of God or in the name of Allah.

It really is time to move on.

GARY JAMES Llandudno