The West is perverse.... "We" went to war against Saddam in Iraq because he was a "secular" moderately religious Sunni despot, somewhat far more "liberal" than his counterpart despotic Sunni kings in Saudi Arabia whom we love...

The majority of people in Iraq are Shia who made rare demands of democratic rumble as they knew Saddam would hit them on the head. This was not our beef though... We did not like the guy and "we" loved his oil until the Ruskies and the Yourpeans took it from the Yamericans... ... Saddam had snubbed us for too long... but had he? Sure, he wanted to take over the bits that the Poms had excised in the 1920s out of his country for cheaper oil in Kuwait... The swine. Hey? Did he not used weapons of mass destruction against "his" own people — weapons that we had supplied for him to fight against Iran in the 1980s?... Where a million soldiers lost their lives on BOTH sides? With no conclusive result...?

So we took him out, destroyed Iraq's fragile acceptance of each-others and now, all the Christians, and the few Jews who used to live there as well, have had to pack their bags and guess what? The country is now "friendly" with Iran... which "we" still don't like very much... Success galore... An own goal... The Sunnis there though are still blowing up a few shia temples from time to time and there are retaliations of course, with victimisation of innocents... Mind you, our dedication to help this country has no limit since the biggest US embassy in the world, by far, is in Iraq with more than 20,000 personnel to make sure the flow of oil is not compromised by whatever causes... The referee is getting his dues...

Now, watch this... Syria is ruled secularly by a despot Shia whom we've declared "friendly" with Iran... Thus is part of that "axis of evil", of course... Mind you, Christians can live there, in Syria, in peace... until now... The Arab Spring has decided to take "Assad the despot" out. Rebels armed with extremist religious beliefs and weapons that we supply, and also helped by Al Qaeda — our arch enemy — whom we're also helping to defeat Assad... Perverse?... Of course the result will be another own goal, leaving Syria in the hands of Sunni Muslim extremists... All in the name of democracy of course... 

But the end game here is that we don't like Iran because it's a whatever atomic religious democracy (we preferred the Shah, didn't we? The French actually made a pact with Iran then, to supply nuclear technology for moneys from Iran to help France develop its own nuclear energy), but we love kissing the butts of the Saudi Kings who have fostered fierce religious beliefs (that's where Al Qaeda comes from) even in our midst... Ask the poms and the Wahhabism influence on their home-grown Muslims... All of them are under MI5 constant watch... Sure the whole thing helps lower unemployment in the security business, but it's a bit too iffy for me... I feel another own goal coming up...

And Muslims throughout Europe are starting to blow their religious trumpets against secularism... (see picture above). They have the numbers... Of course, secularism has made a pact, with religious entities, at least a century ago, that religiousness is okay as long as it's not seen (too much)... That's a compromise in enlightenment for you... 

The idea of god and politics don't mix. Capiche? Religion is to be held within the soul* or spirit* of individuals or quietly in rooms such as churches — which the state had to taketh-over since the parishioners did not have the cash to maintain them — and the state needed the old churches as a boon for the tourism industry... Thus apart from Easter and Christmas, now dedicated to the rabbit and Santa Claus, religion, at the separation of church and state, was made to be discreet... A bit like smoking these days... In dedicated smoking rooms... But the Muslim religion demands a public demonstration of faith and a strong proselytisation that interferes with the traffic and the concept of secularity... 

Hey, look, Europe (and America) discreetly followed on the footstep of Hitler and got rid of the "Jewish problem" by sending them to Palestine, letting them believe in their "promised" land... In return, this created some crap there unfortunately. Thus this Muslim problem, plus the crumbling of old colonial empires and the shortage of slaves in European factories allowed for the influx of Muslims in most of Europe. What the Muslims in the 800s could not achieve is being achieved slowly by the fast increasing influx...

I am anti-religion... I am not against the idea of god, though personally I am a rabid atheist. Religion is too organised and too influential on groups of people — and this influence starts unfortunately by the brainwashing of kids to a point of no-return, including the submission of women (in most religions women are deemed second rate)...  

Though some religions are not as fiercely engaged like others, the ultimate social secular ideal is that the management of individual behaviour should be left to the state holding the carrot and the stick. But some religions like the Muslim religion now want the state to adopt more and more of their own "traditional" carrots and sticks... And these demands are becoming increasingly loud in European countries — those countries which got rid of the religious factor in their politics... This of course is only going to lead to greater conflicts, despite deliberate state applied acceptance of religious freedom... And the perversity here is the more we accept religious freedom, the more it stuffs up our ability to be free from religious influences. And the clever religious nuts know this and they press our buttons, including stretching our acceptance beyond the acceptable.
For example I find ludicrous that the United Nations supports the freedom of religion — even those who oppress women or coerce women from a very young age in being in subservient position. Not on.

I am afraid we have not even seen the beginning of this trauma. In some religious extremists' mind, acceptance is seen as weak and this perception is growing. The West is weak. No matter how much we rot the Sunni Kings in Saudi Arabia with cash, they still have their hands firmly on the religious controls. Inflexibility is the key to deaths by stoning and honour killings...  We're in for more — not less... 

Meanwhile the surface of the earth is warming and tempers will flare... We often talk of tipping points... But these are only mathematical hypotheticals... What there is — in nature and in all evolution including all of humanity's behaviour — is tipping periods in which not all factors change in the same direction but the resultant flux is compromised in a strong trend. Say these are lengths of time in which things develop differently towards a relative outcome... and the only outcome is... Rare, singular outcomes are rare... even in chaos theory... But because of religious fanaticism we see only one absolute and cannot gauge the multiplicity that relativism can afford us...
For me, the idea of god is not a problem, though I don't subscribe to it... Organised godliness is the major problem. Religions were set up by cunning warriors and con-artists who had to invent reasons (excuses) for their conquests and misbehaviour glorified as god-given... It developed into the normalisation of decrees and laws — most them uselessly punitive. Thus their porkies were engraved in books that unfortunately still rule today in too many people's mind...
From Abel and Cain, from god chasing Adam and Eve from Eden, to Mohammed and Christ, the stories in these sacred bullshit books are full of REVENGE... Revenge rules... 

By the way, If one confesses of a porkie, in the catholic dogma — according to the confessor and the size of the porkie, the penalty will be half or more of a Hail Mary... But catholics like Abbott can tell porkies to their heart content if they are in the political arena without fear of reprisal from god... It is the duty of catholic politicians, like Abbott, to lie beyond belief. 

Religion is not the only problem. The World economic system needs to be rewritten to stop the destruction of the surface of the planet. "Economics" is an art form, not a science, and like religion, is practised by followers of the various prophets of the accounting interpretation craft... The economists are like priests wearing ties with charts and predictions that never work, unless they self-fulfil by accident in a 50/50 proportion, but these economists still look at the entrails of the beast with gravitas, forgetting that the beast is linked to nature.

We humans, especially in the West, have had so much excess in our lives, that excess has become our norm and more excess is becoming the average. The earth is suffering from humanity's excesses. and signs are already telling us of change to come, but we don't want to see. we're full of our own importance and most of this importance has been given to us by the idea of god... itself promoted by psycopathic con artists...
May the schwartz be with you... 
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In line with the Religion and Ethics (ABC) Blog, here are Gus academic references:
Gus Leonisky is the nom-de-plume of a serious soup-kitchen philosopher who promotes himself as an artist... 
Unlike Snow-White-Abbott and more like Darth-Vader-Julia, he has made many mistakes in his life — enough of them to have him stoned/hanged then pushed into the depth of hell for eternity... Gus's many occupations — from cartooning against governments and war (at age 5) — also included research in the nuclear industry, the decays of isotopes of uranium and other stuff that glowed in the dark. As well, Gus was involved in some innovative work in Africa, though he did not know it at he time... His cartoons are boringly didactic and he likes them this way... Esoteric is not his style though he can indulge in it. Gus is the master of the fake.

His philosophy, including his view of religion, has been forged a long time ago by the rejection of organigraphically constructed structures, including the boy scout movement, that created a hierarchy of sociopath, that brainwashed unbelievable beliefs into the youth and often removed the instinct of curiosity in humans (don't touch) — especially, when these beliefs thwarted the scientific curiosity, unless the result of such could be used to blow up something in the name of religious fervour... Strangely, Gus has a far deeper knowledge of religion than many religious people, for having read —and analysed — many philosophical discourse on the subject as well as reading the original books full of fantasies that promote religious porkies. 

Leonisky spend some time wadding in that bullshit industry — called advertising (see Gruen Transfer) — grabbing the knowledge of mind-bending into an art form. Of course Gus is a fan of that successful advertiser, Mr Gundlach, who, in the 1920s, though advertising was excellent bullshit — a tool to make people buy things they did not want (based on religious reinforcement with variations on the theme)... Soon after landing in Aussieland, Leonisky became a ship's captain and got also involved in environmental issues that helped the publications of scientific books on the health of the earth (and also of this country) in regard to extinction of species. Gus also opposed the demolition of perfectly good historical building to make way for shopping malls... or bigger banks.

Contrary to religions, Gus has strong ethics, including "healthy cynicism"... Most religions have moralisationing adorned with excuses of different "value". Some religions have silly dictums totally contrary to nature. Gus's philosophy is based on atheistic existentialism in which the reality of nature is prominent — the understanding of which is defined by stylistic interpretations and gardening. 
*Gus does not believe in soul nor spirit.