Unholy zealotry
Re: "Muslim crowd shaves LGBTQ man's head after he mocks the Koran", (Online, May 11). Religion reliably brings out the best and the opposite in humans.
This, of course, in no way excuses denying people the right to hold whatever religious beliefs they want, or none.
They must also have protected the right to freely follow the dictates of their religion, provided that they not thereby interfere with the equal rights of others, including the right to laugh at laughable things.
Pertinent facts are that each and every one of the thousands of gods and goddesses has a couple of things in common: Zeus, Jesus, Ares, Allah, Sekhmet, Satan, Shiva, and all the rest that humans have, from time to time, religiously believed in. These shared truths are:
1) They are all logically possible. The gods and goddesses can't be disproved.
2) Their existence today is supported by the identical set of verifiable evidence, of readily repeatable observation.
On that equally strong basis, I don't believe in the tooth fairy, either.
As the report in the Post also unhappily confirms, otherwise decent people convinced that they have an unquestionable truth too often delight in actively harming fellow humans when fired up by righteous anger, even if in this case their lust for righteous violence may have been sated by brutishly shaving their victim's head. Such bullying is truly religious and morally disgusting.
