The problem of organized religion

John Dombek, Santa Clara, Utah

Friday, July 18, 2014 | 2 a.m.

That deadly mess in the Middle East threatening the entire world with bedlam is the fault of organized religion. That should not come as a surprise.

Organized religions have caused pain, bloodshed, mayhem and death since they were conceived by humans.

It is not just the Muslim sects presently beheading and mutilating each other for religious beliefs. It is organized religion everywhere that separates and divides people from one another in less physical, more subtle ways: All organized religions separate people by theory, by belief, by ritual, by custom, by myth, by choice of God, you name it. It is not possible for an individual to be a member of one organized religion and not be separate from all other organized religions.

To be Catholic is to be intellectually and spiritually separate from Evangelical Protestant, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist and hundreds of other organized religions.

Organized religions are nothing but fear-based concoctions of divergent beliefs for which you are willing to die, and none of which is based on fact.