The Question Religions Must Ask...or better...

The question religions must ask, or better still, the question people must ask about their religion is: What kind of God am I worshipping?

I bring this up because, apparently, Zarqawi has claimed that "God ordered us to attack the infidels by all means ... even if armed infidels and unintended victims - women and children - are killed together." Let's throw that little gem in with the people killed because someone allegedly flushed a copy of the Koran down a toilet (which would be a bad move to do with any holy book, but the flushing of some holy books are far more likely to get you killed than the flushing of others). Now... Is "Allah" not worth worshipping because people abuse His Good Name so? Is there even a slim chance that Zarqawi has the foggiest notion what "God" wants him to do?

In Islam, as in all religions, you have to ask yourself (and I mean YOURSELF, not someone else!!!) if the God being worshipped is a God worth worshipping. Not because He's scary. Is a God that makes you afraid worth worshipping? Would a God that didn't ask for your love of your FREE WILL and instead coerced it out of you with fear be worth worshipping? Probably not.

I think that if people look into their hearts, and even into their heads, truly using their intellect as well as their spiritual intuition, they'd come to the conclusion that the only God worth worshipping is a loving God. It's either a love exchange, or it's nothing. Like any love relationship, right? Simple.

If that is the case, then anyone who is portraying God in an UN-loving way, making God (Allah) seem scary or vengeful or even petty, is obviously not talking about God, they are projecting their own weakness (which begets a struggle for power) onto God. THAT God is a not-God.

This applies as well to Christianity as it does to Islam. It applies to any religion or God-centered belief system. Each individual must ask "What is God like? What is God like if God is worthy of MY love, and how would I hope God would view me and give me God's love?" Then, when people start projecting their own weaknesses, and struggles to compensate for those weaknesses (such as a quest for dominion over the lives of others), onto God, you can discern whether or not you should be rejecting that leadership. Be true to the God you know in your heart and mind, or the one worth being dedicated to knowing in your heart and your mind, not to some other person's vision.

If we all asked these questions, and came to these understandings for ourselves, people who are sullying God's name by projecting their own weaknesses onto Him would suddenly find themselves without followers.