We are all infidels. Infidel, after all, comes from the Latin and means "unfaithful."? In the grand scheme of things, we are all unfaithful, whether to our beliefs, our families, ourselves, or our diets. But most pertinent to the grand scheme is the infidel who does not believe what I believe. This is the dangerous infidel who threatens my views, my moral compass, and my power. By not believing what I do, the infidel represents the possibility, however remote, that I could be wrong. By not obeying those I do, the infidel may live a life I cannot and is a constant reminder of what I, too, might be able to have if only I could ignore those troublesome commandments. The fictitious Lazarus Long wrote "one man's religion is another man's belly laugh,"? but laughing may come with a death sentence.

To find infidels, we must become extremely particular about what is and is not the True Path. Jews, Christians, and Muslims all supposedly worship the same God, as revealed through a common prophet named Abraham, and each has become the infidel to the others. First the Jews establish a foundation with Old Testament laws. Then Jesus comes along and pretty much presents a significantly revised religion, revised again by Mohammed six centuries later. The history of Western Civilization is predominantly the story of the torture, murder, and general abuse of each religion against the others in their passion to ensure that only their interpretation of a kind, loving, fatherly God may exist. When a clearly distinct religious group wasn't enough of a threat, the membership split into factions" ?the various Protestant sects that hived from Catholicism, for example" ?and continued to war within the "family."? Can there be any more destructive, oxymoronic, and evil creed than "love my god, my way, or die"'

Perhaps every branch of religion has spawned divergent twigs that become irritants or threats to the founding group. What would Abraham think about Paul? What would Paul or Constantine think about Mohammed, Martin Luther, and Pat Robertson? Would they invoke Jesus's command "Kill them! Kill them all!"' The problem there, of course, is that Jesus never said anything remotely like that; the words come from Darth Sidious in Revenge of the Sith. On the subject of enemies, Jesus said love them as you love yourself. So did Mohammed, and the Buddha, and Gandhi, and just about any other true spiritual leader that ever lived. God himself was pretty clear in the Old Testament when he ordered "thou shalt not kill"? and maintained that vengeance was his. Alone.

But as anyone who has actually read the Old Testament knows, God ordered the wholesale massacre of several peoples by his "chosen ones."? Even if we accept that the events were historically true, the important distinction between then and now is that God explicitly gave orders to humans about specific actions to be taken in his name. Accepting the notion of a loving god doing that requires far more faith than I have, and makes me wonder if God is still supposedly giving orders like that today. Did God provide guidance for people to fly airplanes into the Pentagon and World Trade Center? Did God order someone to mail anthrax to journalists? Did God order the bombing of resorts in Bali, a train in Madrid, or trains and a bus in London? Is God the undisclosed source urging President Bush into believing a mutual pact existed between bin Laden and Hussein despite the total lack of evidence (and the fact that Saddam and bin Laden probably hate each other as much as any two people can)? Does God really want to assassinate the Venezuelan president?

The world has become too accessible and crowded to keep tolerating intolerance. If 9/11 and the war in Iraq and Afghanistan have demonstrated anything, it is that warfare is no longer a chess match between armies. Combatants are no longer necessarily in uniform, united under a single banner, nor represented by a single authority. The Geneva Convention, often ignored by combatants while the signature ink was still wet, is now almost meaningless, and the "rules"? of war are more nebulous now than perhaps at any time in recorded history. The Executive branch of the U.S. government is even trying to legalize torture.

Atheists and agnostics have long known that they do not need the fear of God or the threat of Hell to lead kind, generous, highly ethical non-violent lives. Perhaps the devoutly religious should go back to their roots and see if they can find the heart of religious belief. That heart teaches compassion, love, and empathy. The quest to fuel hatred is like putting all one's attention on a hangnail: it is an annoying thing, but whether attended or not it will not hurt the body. Couldn't we channel all that violent religious fervor" ?at the strong insistence of religious leaders" ?into seeking and nurturing the highest potentials of life instead of proliferating the dregs? Is it not better to care for the heart than dwell on a hangnail?

Here's a proposition for all the religious people of the world. For the next 200 years, let's all band together and do only good works. Let's follow the most noble directives of the various faiths and help the poor, sick, disenfranchised. Let's work towards a common good and provide everyone on the planet with safe drinking water, adequate nutrition, and access to good health care. Let us act as stewards of the earth and its resources instead of exploiters. Put all hatred and vengeance aside for two centuries and see how we do. What can it hurt? War and violence predate history, so we have about 10,000 years of history to demonstrate that it doesn't work. Give unity, cooperation, and mutual assistance a chance for a mere 200 years and see if that isn't better.

If not, we can always resume killing each other...