A Difference Between Humans and Ants

In time for the Christams season, I'm reposting an article that appeared here earlier this year--because I realize that some visitors to this site don't go back to read much earlier articles, and because I truly believe we could use this brief discussion of faith.

A Difference Between Humans and Ants

“Is God Poison?” asks “Maclean’s,” a prominent Canadian magazine, on it’s April cover. I suspect that “clever” cover commanded the attention of believers, agnostics and atheists, alike — in other words, everyone that chanced to see it — while it prompted a bunch of sales!

It was a long article worth discussing. Today, however, I’m only going to talk about a statement in the article’s opening page, which quotes someone named Christopher Hitchens. His new book discusses "How Religion Poisons Everything.” Mr. Hitchens, while heartened by the world’s newfound interest in disputing God’s existence, tells us, “We atheists never thought religion would die out because it comes from fear of death….”

I agree, that’s one way to look at religion’s “origin and purpose.” But it certainly has never occurred to me, and I’ve been religious for ninety percent of my long life. If Mr. Hitchens seriously thinks that “fear of death” drove me to God, his reasoning is severely flawed from the “git-go.” I am one of the many people who go through life without giving death more than occasional thought, though I’ve had much to do with it in my family.

Of course, if Mr. Hitchens thinks that fear of death was what first prompted humans to conceive religious beliefs, that’s a plausible theory. But it is nothing more than an unproven, irrelevant theory, in company with numberless others.

As I see it, religion sets mankind apart from all living creatures on earth, as the only creatures on earth (as far as we know) who can seek to identify their Ultimate Creator and contemplate why they exist. In daily life, however, religion helps us live far more peacefully with ourselves and our fellowmen than we could live without it — even though, as nations and as individuals, our “peaceful” relations with others are endlessly and violently interrupted! And all those violent interruptions happen, while a huge portion of the world’s population embraces the Ten Commandments! Imagine how we’d behave if we’d never been told “Thou shall not murder” ? And why does “Mr. Hitchens & Co.“ think we needed to be told that? It certainly wasn’t because humans seldom killed each other!

For our ancestors to need to be Divinely commanded to abstain from killing their fellowmen tells us that murder was even more commonplace than it is today, throughout the world. Humans want to be rid of anyone who really “bothers” them. And it’s common for us to severely “bother” each other! Learning how to turn our hearts to each other, as the Prophet Malachi said we must do (Mal, 3:24/4:6) is now the urgently needed “uncommon” factor in human history.

Thousands of years ago, societies worshiped more than 2,000 gods who, according to the tales concocted about them, often warred with each other — a direct reflection of human life. Yet, Abraham’s God told us not to murder, unless we were executing a person who had intentionally killed someone, “…having hated him in time past” (Deut. 4:42). To be sure, “unbelievers” describe Abraham’s God, introduced in the Hebrew Scriptures, as a bloodthirsty deity, akin to most of the other “gods” people worshiped. But the Israelites, the first people to believe in Abraham’s God, were told to war with heathens only to claim the needed homeland God had promised them. In short, murdering their fellowmen for “personal reasons” was forbidden. And that was an UNCOMMON concept in human history, which Mr. Hitchens neglects to mention, while denouncing monotheism, in particular.

I, too, can conjecture about Hitchens as he does about me, a “believer.” So, perhaps Mr. Hitchens has suffered a fear of death since childhood and finds no solace in religion, which makes his unrelieved fear/dread/resentment of dying feed his argument against all the religious beliefs that have failed him. Or, he has convinced himself there is nothing to fear about death; our flesh decays and that’s the end of us, so he is trying to get multiple people to agree with him to convince himself he is “right.” Whatever his reasoning, he didn’t create our universe and he cannot destroy it, so he is “overpowered” by unknown forces beyond his control — and hating his helplessness. If true, that theory would simply prove that when we harbor “hatred,” we become destructive! But trying to destroy faith in God condemns Hitchens to fight a losing battle, which is a sad way to spend one’s life.

So, Christopher Hitchens, you appear to be a sad member of a species that is distinguished from all other creatures on earth by its ability to contemplate the Source of itself and all physical matter. You can “wait for science” to tell you how “the universe” happened, but the wait will exceed your lifetime. And that means you’ll go to your grave without ever “knowing faith” — a knowledge that appears to be exclusively “human.”

“Utter Destruction”: a “Do-it-Yourself” Project

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Through the Hebrew Scriptures, the “Lord of hosts” (Isa. 9:6) tells us that someday: “…I shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers; Lest I come and smite the land with utter destruction” (Mal. 3:24/4:6). The “fathers” of monotheism are the Hebrews; the “children” are the Christians and Muslims — along with all of “God’s children,” regardless of their beliefs.

The “fathers,” through the Hebrew Scriptures, were the first to speak of the promised Messiah, who will serve as the “…ruler in Israel…” and he shall be “…great unto the ends of the earth” (Mic. 5:3). Under the Messiah’s rule, the Israelites, who had become “a curse” among the nations, will then become “a name and a praise,” and there will be “...peace without end...The zeal of the Lord of hosts shall accomplish this” (Isa. 9:6/7).

In other words, Judaism identifies the Messiah by his deeds, which he will successfully execute through “the zeal of the Lord of hosts.” Obviously, when Jesus lived in Israel, he did not perform the prescribed deeds, since there is no “peace without end,” and the Jews are still cursed the world over. Therefore, regardless of the “children’s” beliefs, the “fathers” have stood firm in their denial of “the Messiah, Jesus,” as Muhammad identified Jesus (Women 4:171). In daily life, it has been that denial that has kept the Jews “a curse and a reproach” (Jer. 44:12)

For 2,000 years, “the children” have cursed and killed “the fathers” whenever they’ve felt “inspired” to cleanse their neighborhood, city, or nation of Jews. These days, however, all nations have become so accessible and modern weaponry so powerful, some Muslims have become convinced they can finally make “God’s religion reign supreme” (The Cow 2:193). To supplant Judaism and Christianity with the “ultimate truth” expressed through Islam, those Muslims believe they could righteously use the weapons of mass destruction that would annihilate “God’s enemies” (including “the great Satan,” as they speak of the United States).

It’s tempting for outsiders to think of those Muslims as only “a fringe group of fanatics,” over which the world will surely gain control before they do any “real damage.” But, in the populous Muslim community, the persons who believe it their sacred duty to “drive Israel into the sea” constitute a sizable “fringe group.” To be sure, all Muslim nations do not openly clamor for Israel’s demise. Still, the rest of the world has no reason to expect Muslims to war against Muslims, merely to prevent a biological or chemical attack against “the Zionists,” their most immediate and mutual enemy. That attack, alone, would launch a nuclear war.

If we truly seek to avoid that war, Jews, Christians, Muslims — and all of God’s children — urgently need to enlarge our understanding of the God revealed by all the Prophets, from Abraham through Muhammad. Only through our improved understanding can we begin to turn our hearts to each other — and distance ourselves from the “utter destruction” we now know how to create as a “do-it-yourself” project!

(Some of the above is excerpted from my book: “Of Promises and Previews.”)

A Difference Between Humans and Ants

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“Is God Poison?” asks “Maclean’s,” a prominent Canadian magazine, on it’s April cover. I suspect that “clever” cover commanded the attention of believers, agnostics and atheists, alike — in other words, everyone that chanced to see it — while prompting a bunch of sales!

It was a long article worth discussing. Today, however, I’m only going to talk about a statement in the article’s opening page, which quotes someone named Christopher Hitchens. His new book discusses “…How Religion Poisons Everything.” Mr. Hitchens, while heartened by the world’s newfound interest in disputing God’s existence, tells us, “We atheists never thought religion would die out because it comes from fear of death….”

I agree, that’s one way to look at religion’s “origin and purpose.” But it certainly has never occurred to me, and I’ve been religious for ninety percent of my long life. If Mr. Hitchens seriously thinks that “fear of death” drove me to God, his reasoning is severely flawed from the “git-go.” I am one of the many people who go through life without giving death more than occasional thought, though I’ve had much to do with it in my family.

Of course, if Mr. Hitchens thinks that fear of death was what first prompted humans to conceive religious beliefs, that’s a plausible theory. But it is nothing more than an unproven, irrelevant theory, in company with numberless others.

As I see it, religion sets mankind apart from all living creatures on earth, as the only beings on earth (as far as we know) who can seek to identify their Ultimate Creator and contemplate why they exist. In daily life, however, religion helps us live far more peacefully with ourselves and our fellowmen than we could live without it — even though, as nations and as individuals, our “peaceful” relations with others are endlessly and violently interrupted! And all those violent interruptions happen, while a huge portion of the world’s population embraces the Ten Commandments! Imagine how we’d behave if we’d never been told “Thou shall not murder” ? And why does “Mr. Hitchens & Co.“ think we needed to be told that? It certainly wasn’t because humans seldom killed each other.

For our ancestors to need to be Divinely ordered to abstain from killing their fellowmen tells us that murder was even more commonplace than it is today, throughout the world. Humans want to be rid of anyone who really “bothers” them. And it’s common for us to severely “bother” each other! Learning how to turn our hearts to each other, as the Prophet Malachi said we must do (Mal, 3:24/4:6) is now the urgently needed “uncommon” factor in human history.

Thousands of years ago, societies worshiped more than 2,000 gods who, according to the tales concocted about them, often warred with each other — a direct reflection of human life. Yet, Abraham’s God told us not to murder, unless we were executing a person who had intentionally killed someone, “…having hated him in time past” (Deut. 4:42). To be sure, “unbelievers” describe Abraham’s God, introduced in the Hebrew Scriptures, as a bloodthirsty deity, akin to most of the other “gods” people worshiped. But the Israelites, the first people to believe in Abraham’s God, were told to war with heathens, only to claim the needed homeland God promised them; murdering their fellowmen for “personal reasons” was forbidden. And that was an UNCOMMON concept in human history, which Mr. Hitchens neglects to mention, while denouncing monotheism, in particular.

I, too, can conjecture about Hitchens as he does about me, a “believer.” So, perhaps Mr. Hitchens has suffered a fear of death since childhood and finds no solace in religion, which makes his unrelieved fear/dread/resentment of dying feed his argument against all the religious beliefs that have failed him. Or, he has convinced himself there is nothing to fear about death; our flesh decays and that’s the end of us, so he is trying to get multiple people to agree with him to convince himself he is “right.” Whatever his reasoning, he didn’t create our universe and he cannot destroy it, so he is “overpowered” by unknown forces beyond his control — and hating his helplessness. If true, that theory would simply prove that when we harbor “hatred,” we become destructive! But trying to destroy faith in God condemns Hitchens to fight a losing battle, which is a sad way to spend one’s life.

So, Christopher Hitchens, you appear to be a sad member of a species that is distinguished from all other creatures on earth by its ability to contemplate the Source of itself and all physical matter. You can “wait for science” to tell you how “the universe” happened, but the wait will exceed your lifetime. And that means you’ll go to your grave without ever “knowing faith” — a knowledge that appears to be exclusively “human.”

Christians and Muslims: Two Peas in a Pod

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During one of Muhammad’s personal conversations, preserved by his Companions, he revealed his accurate perception of the future. Muhammad warned his people that they would follow the same degenerate path tread by Christians and Jews: “Ye will follow them that were before you span by span and cubit by cubit until if they went down the hole of a poisonous reptile ye would follow them down.” (“Muhammad, his life based on the earliest sources”, Martin Lings.)

In keeping with Muhammad’s prediction, Christians and Muslims share a history of poisonous pride and deadly arrogance. For example, they’ve each proclaimed themselves “the only true believers” on earth; they’ve repeatedly engaged in Religious Wars to destroy each other; they’ve persecuted “outsiders” who resist their Christian or Muslim “saviors”; and most certainly, they each anticipate their own exclusivity in Heaven! (The list could include far more historical parallels, and if you’d like to mention them, please do.)

Actually, the Hebrews, as the first monotheists, were the first to behave in ways that bore no resemblance to their Prophets’ teachings. For instance, more than a few Hebrew kings openly practiced idolatry, and many Israelites welcomed those kings. Under their reign, people were free to worship the gods of Syria, which were known to enjoy watching humans mate on hilltops! Such “heathen” practices eventually got the Jews expelled from their promised Holy Land. Ever since, the Jews have worshiped God, Alone, firmly believing, as Moses said, that He will forgive them and fulfill His promises to them. Among the unfulfilled promises is the seldom mentioned prophecy that someday the Jews will become “…a name and praise among all the peoples of the earth” (Zeph. 3:20), the same “peoples” who have arrogantly scorned the exiled Jews!


Shortly after the Jews’ exile, Christians began to argue about their own religious leaders and rules. But, when Christians strongly disagreed, they divided into sects that killed each other — as some were still doing in recent history, even as Muslim sects are still killing each other. Moreover, from early in their mutual history, Christians and Muslims engaged in crusades to conquer the Holy Land, which they each arrogantly proclaimed was theirs, alone!

In more recent history, uncountable Christians were supporters of the Nazi Holocaust, to eradicate Jews and other “inferior people” — a most “unChristian” endeavor, strongly supported by uncountable Muslims. And today, “militant Muslims” are determined to “drive the Jews into the sea,” or “wipe Israel off the map,” as the current ruler of Iran likes to describe his goal.

Through the Koran, Muhammad tells Muslims who are wise enough to listen: “...men have divided themselves into factions, each rejoicing in its own doctrines. Leave them in their error…” (The Believers 23:53–54), and wait for God to “…judge their disputes on the day of resurrection” (The Cow 2:113). Moreover, Muhammad reminds believers “…to endure with fortitude and to forgive is a duty incumbent on all” (Counsel 42:43).

Obviously, countless Muslims haven’t followed Muhammad’s teachings, any more than countless Christians have “turned the other cheek” to their “evil” enemies (Matt. 5:39). But, ironically, the Jews have constantly “turned the other cheek” to their persecutors and some have even expressed forgiveness of them, while they’ve silently refrained from arguing with Christians and Muslims and have never been known to kill their fellow Jews whose religious practices differ from their own. So, it can be said that the Jews practice Christianity and Islam, while Christians and Muslims appear to be two peas in a pod!

If Muslims Believed Muhammad,They Could Transform the World

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Through the Koran, Muhammad tells Muslims to "Say: We believe in God and what was revealed to Abraham and Ishmael, to Isaac and Jacob and the tribes, and what was given to Moses and Jesus and the prophets. We discriminate against none of them" (The Family of Imran 3:84).

Another time, Muhammad warns Muslims against drawing “…a line between God and His apostles, saying: 'We believe in some but deny others....’" (Women 4:150).

About 3,400 years ago, before the Hebrews had even entered the "Promised Land," Moses warned his people of a future day, when they would be "…driven out [of the Land] to the farthest parts under heaven…" (Deut. 30:4). But Moses also assured the Israelites that God "...will have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where the Lord your God has scattered you" (Deut. 30:3).

If, today, Muslims truly believed Muhammad, they would believe "what was given to Moses." And they would rejoice in the resurrection of Israel as Moses foretold. Instead, countless Muslims, "believe in some [prophets] but deny others," while they prepare to "wipe Israel off the map.”

In other words, if Muslims believed the Prophets who preceded Muhammad and drew no “line” between them, they would humbly admit to God and the world, "We have been wrong to fight against Israel." And an astonished world would behold Israel's deadly enemies evidencing incredible faith, unmatched by Jews and Christians throughout their bloody history!

If militant Muslims and their supporters renounced their ignorant rejection of Israel and transformed themselves into peaceful believers in Abraham’s God, astounded Jews and Christians would be hard-pressed to renounce their own ignorant dismissal of Muhammad as a “false prophet” and Islam as a “false religion.”

Then, Jews and Christians, following the Muslims’ unique example, could finally abandon their own erroneous manmade teachings about “the Messiah Jesus” (Women 4:171) and embrace Muhammad’s messages about him, which Jews and Christians have always scorned — the very messages that could create peace among all “believers.”

If Muslims believed Muhammad….

The Resurrection of Palestine

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The Columbia Encyclopedia tells us that the word, “Palestine,” comes from the word “Philistine.” When the Philistines moved to the land of Canaan, they settled along the Mediterranean coast, in the area we now call the “Gaza Strip.” The Philistines were an exceptionally united people. They built five major cities, including Gaza, and created a powerful federation. As testimony to their strength, the whole region became known as “Palestine.”

More than 3,000 years ago, a people known as “Hebrew Israelites” conquered Canaan/Palestine, and renamed the land “Israel.” As a tiny nation that worshiped One invisible God, the Hebrew society's values and customs differed from its neighbor nations that worshiped more than 2,000 visible gods. Still, for all its uniquness,Israel survived for over 1,000 years.

Through the Hebrews, the world received the Ten Commandments, which tell men to love God and to “...love your neighbor as yourself...” (Deut. 6:5; Lev. 19:18). If, tomorrow, every human being suddenly began to “love” his neighbors the world over — and, therefore, refrain from doing to anyone what he would not want done to himself —the world as we have made it would instantly change. Yet, it’s hard for us to even imagine that loving world, much less imagine it materializing tomorrow! Nevertheless, if you are among the persons who say, “People will never change” or “The world will always be the same,” you’re forgetting that we can now wreak the prophesied “utter destruction” (Mal. 3:24/4:6) on our world! You’re also totally dismissing the Messiah who, we’re promised, will reign over a world thoroughly cleansed of man’s hateful doings.

Before the Hebrews had even entered Canaan/Palestine, Moses spoke of a time when God would grow weary of their continual disobedience, and they would be “...driven out [of the land] to the farthest parts under heaven...” (Deut. 30:4). Then, they would become “…an oath and an astonishment and a curse and a reproach” (Jer. 44:12), a prophecy we’ve definitely seen fulfilled! But Moses also assured the Hebrews that eventually God “...will have compassion on you and gather you again from all the nations where the Lord your God has scattered you” (Deut. 30:3). After that, they will become “…a name and a praise among all the peoples of the earth” (Zeph. 3:20) — a prophecy we have yet to witness!

Atheists who, with arrogant certainty, dismiss the Prophets as liars or dupes can deeply offend believers. But people who call themselves “believers,” while arrogantly annulling God’s unwelcome messages about Israel's restoration, could be even more offensive to God. For, as Muhammad told us, “...who is more wicked than he who gives no heed to the revelations of his Lord when reminded of them?” (Adoration 32:22).

The Prophet, Isaiah, warned, “Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!” (Isa. 5:21). Muhammad explained, “They draw a line between God and His apostles, saying, ‘We believe in some but deny others.’” And Jesus cut to the quick of our problem in one sentence: “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!” (Luke 24:25).

The Hebrew Scriptures foretold ancient Israel’s eviction, and the same Scriptures promised that someday Israel would be resurrected. No where on earth does a single line of any religion’s Scripture foretell the resurrection of a nation called Palestine!