The power of the printed page has once again demonstrated its stranglehold on human affairs. Not just any printed page, mind you. One would think that destruction of a volume that results in multiple deaths would necessarily involve intrigue and duplicitous dealings surrounding a midnight exchange of a universally coveted and priceless artifact.
As it happened, the volume was an artifact, but of such recent vintage and just one of so many millions that in strictly monetary terms it was, in essence, valueless. I am speaking, of course, of the now-infamous copy of the Koran, pages of which were or were not flushed down a prison privy in an attempt to extract information from a prisoner at the U.S. penal institution in Guantanamo, Cuba.
This incident would make for an uproarious piece of comedic insanity in some venues. Unfortunately, it is more usefully employed as an illustration of the depressingly static infancy of humanity. Maybe it's just that we're collectively in our Terrible 2's: 2 million years old and we still can't think for ourselves.
How long is this going to continue, people? Catholics vs. Protestants, Muslims vs. Jews, Pandering Politicians vs. Freethinkers. It has been demonstrated (conclusively, from my point of view) that each and every one of us sharing Earth's oxygen are related. Our DNA bears the markers of common ancestry. Think about that.
Even if "there are no atheists in foxholes," neither are there any atheists donning exploding vests.
Religion is the opiate of the masses. This might be the closest old Karl ever came to understanding human foibles. Assuming, arguendo, this assertion is true, let us further assume that a voguish maxim from the annals of addiction treatment is also true: an addict's emotional growth ceases at the age when his/her habit is acquired.
Religion has been most of humankind's strongest crutches since the first inquiring minds began to wonder why we die and what the heck are those little lights that appear in the sky at night, anyway? We should be so lucky that a benign civilization descends from deep space and herds us past our collective addiction to religion. And they should be so lucky we don't slaughter them as infidels, either.
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