I has taken centuries of suffering to get over the bloody Crusades (meaning cross bearers) and its torturous Inquisition. During this time great scholars such as Aristotle and Galileo suffered by their discovery that the Earth was oval instead of flat as the church thought it was. Another prominent man, Martin Luther was considered an infidel. He protested Catholicism and founded Protestantism. Poor Michael Servetus, a scholar and physician who studied the pulmonary system, was burned alive at the stake because he disagreed with the church. John Calvin who founded Calvinism and the Presbyterian Church was the culprit behind this atrocity.
Throughout this course of history (Catholic and Protestant) the church has also also persecuted women, as Islamic women are still being oppressed.
Fortunately Islam is now going through what the Crusaders viciously committed for centuries. But now there is a turning point in the Middle East. The Muslim Arab Spring that started in 2010 during the Tunisia Revolution has turned into waves of reform spreading throughout the Arab League. Young Muslims are seeing the light as they are recognizing women's rights. Fortunately educated voices of humanitarians have also cried out for church reform, and now even Pope Francis does not think same gender marriages are sins.
The youngest of the "Big Three Related Religions"–Islam founded between 610-622 CE, is still going through a persecution stage. But there is a light beaming at the end of long, dark tunnel. The people are crying out for democracy, free speech, employment and human rights. Unfortunately their protests, as often happens, has ended up in bloody civil wars, aggregated even more by the blunder of the 2003 Iraq invasion, attack and occupation of Iraq.
What is more, the good goals have burst into civil disobedience that has erupted into riots of slaughter and carnage. Only the people themselves can solve their own civil wars. Yankees and Confederates in the American Civil War fought it out alone and finally the war ended.
Whether a nation fights on its own or with help of others, these religious wars ends up with millions of casualties among soldiers and civilians alike. Human inherent rights if ignored always climax in deadly wars.
Helene Smith (Mame),
World Enlightened News (W.E.N.)
