I only use the term "holy war" because it is one that you will readily recognize, thanks to the media coverage of the Middle East (which is anything BUT a holy war). A slightly more accurate description of holy war would be the crusades, or the fighting in modern Ireland, or along the gaza strip. Even these conflicts are motivated by issues which are unrelated to religion. Without getting too deep into the reasons for wars, or the finer points of each dispute, the simple fact I want to get across is that every religious text calls for peace. Trust me. I have read them*. So, in fact, every war is motivated by money, or land (which is really more money). The soldiers in these wars may be convinced that they fight for holy reasons, and in some cases they may even be justified in fighting, though God/Allah, Jesus, Buddha, and all the other deities agree that killing people is bad. War is in fact UNholy by definition.
Oky doky. Now that we have the oxymoron out of the way, I can explain the problems with zealots and zombies. Perhaps, some definitions are in order.
Zealot: A person who is fanatical and uncompromising in their pursuit of religious, political, or other ideals.
Zombie: A soulless corpse revived by witchcraft.
Soul: A person's moral or emotional nature or sense of identity.
Witchcraft: The practice of magic, esp. black magic. **
Black magic: Magic involving the supposed invocation of evil spirits for evil purposes.
So, zealotry seems fairly self explanatory. If you cannot accept rational truths outside the scope of your particular doctrine, if you press your beliefs upon others, if when you speak about your beliefs, you become overly excited, foam at the mouth, turn red in the face, and forget to blink, you are most likely a zealot. (My next sentence contains profanity, so if you are under the admission age for an "R" rated movie, you should cover your ears). If you are a zealot, SHUT THE FUCK UP! ... That is all I have to say about that. I hope that rational people see what I am trying to accomplish here. I mean, come on, be rational.
Zombies are a little more complicated, but still an accurate description for a large population of religious communities. People commit to religions to escape the personal responsibility of having to decide what is the right thing to do every day. They follow blindly. Their decision-making matrices have been replaced with a narrow-scoped, poorly interpreted, out-dated manual, often spoon-fed to them by a community of zealots who are being manipulated by captains with ulterior motives (assuming the zealots themselves don't have ulterior motives). Does this not accurately fit the previously stated definitions for zombies, souls, witchcraft and black magic?
The problem lies herein. There is more than one religion. This fact, thankfully, illuminates the fallacy of organized religion to those with open eyes, but gives reason for friction and conflict to to the blind. The sheeple (sheep-like people) are herded to and fro, and told where to graze, what to buy and who to love and hate. The zombies, composing the bottom echelon of the pyramid of evil, are the most populous. They go to Church, Temple, Mosque, or other institutions and get their brains programmed. They go to work and function like good little worker bees. They buy what the TV tells them to. They read what their pastor recomends. For the most part they are benign. Then one day they are in a situation outside of their dumbed down scope of proverbial knowledge. This is when shit happens. This is when they become malignant. This is when they metastasize. When they are "activated" by zealotry, they become the tools of mayhem, vessels of death and destruction, the harbingers of the very apocalypse they fear.
I do not know the cure for zealotry, but I am not ready to abandon the hope that the zombie sheeple may still be revived with an injection of reason and intelligence. What scares me the most is that I occasionally see zealots preaching to the masses around campus or in front of Planned Parenthood. I really, REALLY, really don't like the thought of all the people they may or may not be recruiting. People who will follow blindly, right up to the point where they hurt me for being a non-conformist.
Maybe it is just my cranky mood at the time I am writing this... but right now it seems to me that life sucks and then you die, and then you are born again, you get stabbed by a zealot, die again, so on and so forth. The most you can hope to accomplish between deaths is to gain another little piece of enlightenment until you eventually escape the cycle.
Gaining enlightenment can be accomplished while going to church. I don't want to imply that I hate all religions. What I fear and loathe are the regligious institutions, and the people who are only too eager to be brainwashed. Keep your wits. Keep your soul. Keep making decisions for yourself everday as to what you beleive is truly right and good in the world. Please.
Footnotes:
* When I say that I have read the religious texts, I mean that I have read many, to include the Bible, the Torah, the Q'uran, the Bahgvad Gita, the teachings of Buddha, and many documents about Taoism.
** This was the dictionary definition of witchcraft, which should not be confused in any way with the nature worshipping religion of Wicca, which I beleive is a very beautiful and fundamental wholesome faith.
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