Killing in the name of religion is still murder

Killing in the name of religion is still murder

It seems impossible to discuss immoral applications of faith without touching on the ongoing and frequent deaths around the world due to religious inspired suicide bombings and other mass-killings. This is a topic that requires no direct reports, no specific instances named. We all know of instances. They fill our evening news, our morning news, our midday news, our radio news, our internet news, our papers, our lives. Every day news reports disguise the religious nature of these atrocities by referring to them as "sectarian violence" or "Person(s) from TribeX attacked people from TribeY". This is sugar-coating of the worst kind. Murder is a despicable crime that demonstrates a profound immorality. To rob another person of their life, the only life we have evidence of us having, is a truly heinous act. It is logically impossible for someone to argue that murder based on faith is an acceptable or moral behaviour; "you don't agree with me therefore you must die" is not in even the most basically compelling argument to any moral human being. It's a sick justification for a hate-based crime. The most fundamental question we must ask ourselves moving forward as a race is – are we animals, or are we human beings? Is a human being just a specific instance of creatures within the animal kingdom, and therefore justified in killing each other simply based on some biological drive for being the alpha humans, or are we animals who have learned to think, feel, and discover an intrinsic moral purposes to our lives?