This is how to do it. Get a degree. Go into politics. Get elected. Be
seen with very senior religious figures. Then, and only then, start
setting up a moral platform that incorporates a number of religious and
social aspects.
Picture this. You walk into someone’s home, perhaps someone who looks slightly different in a troubling way, possibly with the wrong colour hair or maybe someone who painted his or her house shocking pink. Instead of sitting down for coffee, a chat and idly passing the time of day, you pull a gun and start shooting.
Now let’s take the scenario one step further. The police haul you off, chuck you in a cell with a six foot wide bodybuilder called Norah and a guy arrested for causing a disturbance in a sheep pen. You await your trial huddled up in a corner of a cell feeling unjustly persecuted. When your moment in the dock arrives you look the judge firmly in the eye and plead, “Not guilty, your honour. God told me to do it.”
What happens under these circumstances? Common knowledge dictates that there will be a battery of psychological tests to find out if you are serious, or whatever passes for serious in your mind, followed by a nice soft cell painted calming green and a handful of pills that make you feel groovy with a small glass of water three times a day. And no, not even the fact that the house was painted pink will get you out off the hook.
This is how to do it. Get a degree. Go into politics. Get elected. Be seen with very senior religious figures. Then, and only then, start setting up a moral platform that incorporates a number of religious and social aspects.
Once you are sure that your platform is solid, enact legislation to criminalize everything that irritates you. When questioned, use the press to tell everyone that you are doing it in the name of whatever belief you and everyone who is cowed by you holds dear. If people don’t pay enough attention, start a war. Depending on your budget, your options seem to be full scale invasion or savage internecine strife. Have fun, so long as you fervently believe it is God’s will.
If you live in the Third World, you may have hassles with an international tribunal, so complicate matters with the cooperation of a number of countries or true believers from a number of countries. If you are a major global superpower, don’t sweat it. Killing is a consequence of power with which your conscience wrestles nightly, and nobody will mess with you because they know you win the wrestling matches on a regular basis.
Belief systems have led to a double vision on morality. Your average Jihadist or fundamentalist Christian would shudder at the idea of taking a life. The very idea of taking something as precious as a life goes against the most fundamental tenets of every major religion on earth. On the other hand, when it comes to large groupings, listen for the sound of shattering glass as the idea of the sanctity of human life goes out the window.
It is not OK to kill a single human being. It is fine to kill as long as you kill someone from another group and your own group backs you up. There is no logic to the thing, just a grey fog in which nobody turns on the headlights to find their way out. Even religious leaders discard the distinction.
The problem lies in the numbers. A group of enemies becomes a faceless mass of indistinguishable entities. On the other hand, if that group is split up into individuals and each individual is considered, the lives that are taken consist of single people with families and friends who love them and rely upon them. In a group they are legitimate prey. Individually, you wouldn’t even think of it.
I take a hard line on matters like this. As far as I am concerned thou shall not kill has only one exception, and that is if someone is trying to kill you. In fact, I set out not to harm people or get into situations that lead to harm.
This is not a plea for peace. I am not naïve. It is a suggestion that perhaps people should think a little bit about the people to whom they listen. Do the work of whatever God you believe in. If the person suggests anything that resembles violence, turn your back and walk away. The world will be a better place for that one simple act.
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