Desmond Tutu and the Religion Tool - Jake Brewer at Huffington Post

Desmond Tutu and the Religion Tool
by Jake Brewer
Huffington Post

"Religion is like a knife, remarked Archbishop Desmond Tutu at a recent gathering of world leaders in Indonesia. It was an especially attention-grabbing analogy when spoken by a Nobel Peace Laureate with a prefix like "Archbishop." I had expected the man behind such a title to proclaim only the positive virtues of organized faith. To my surprise, however, as Bishop Tutu spoke, he noted that perhaps nothing has been more responsible for the majority of history's wars, death, destruction, and general misunderstanding than fervent attachment to exclusive religious ideology. I didn't disagree. He continued, ...so many acts of great hatred and evil are performed in the name of religions, and then concluded ...but religion is like a knife because though a knife can be used to stab a man in the stomach, a knife can also be used to cut bread and feed the hungry...


In this comparison, Bishop Tutu accomplishes something brilliant and highly intriguing for those of us who have often regarded "religion" as an eight letter word (worse in conversation even than some four-letter offenders). Whether believer or non, Tutu's analogy creates a lens of inclusion and possibility; transforming a presiding perception of religion from rigid and competitive ideology into that of a potentially powerful tool.

From the wheel to the microprocessor, tools are inherently neither good nor bad. Rather, the positive or negative application of a tool depends upon the hands in which it is used.

Enacted in the wrong hands, we've been enraged by religion. It has served as the basis for such atrocities as racial segregation and most notably in today's media: war and suicide bombings. In contrast, though, religion has also served in recent history as the launching point for the civil rights movement, the Independence of India, and the end of apartheid in South Africa. So what if, as Desmond Tutu has done, we were to focus our energy on the possibilities latent in this latter aspect of religion?

.... Skip"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jake-brewer/desmond-tutu-and-the-reli_b_21961.html

is an amazing person.