Incongruous

So, I'm reading a recent Newsweek article about being atheist in America, and man, the bias displayed by the author is quite evident. This story has been blogged alot this past week, so I'm not going to cover what other atheists have already pointed out.

My concern, is the opening paragraph. Namely the first two sentences:

"Americans answered the atrocities of September 11, overwhelmingly, with faith. Attacked in the name of God, they turned to God for comfort; in the week after the attacks, nearly 70 percent said they were praying more than usual."

Looking at those words, I find it hard to believe we haven't killed off each and every person on Earth by now. Let's look at one line in particular:

"Attacked in the name of God, they turned to God for comfort"

One word comes to mind, incongruous. I'm sure most everyone knows that the Jewish, Christian and Muslim religions "share" their god, at least historically.(It can be argued that the Christians share one god and claim a second and third for themselves as well, but lets not dwell on that for now.)

Looking at the state of the world today, we can trace back most of our current problems to these three religions:

The Jewish god said, "I give you this land"

The Christian god said, "Spread the word"

The Muslim god said, "Kill the godless"

Where would we be today without these religions? Does any of their good outweigh their bad? How many lives lost? How much knowledge have we failed to gain, because we were too busy being afraid of a invisible sky being, and too busy killing each other for one god or another?

There are many terrible things going on all over the planet not involving religion: disease, drought, hurricanes, earthquakes... these things are natural. At one time, religion was used to explain these things. Now we know better.

I don't see a future for this planet as long as religion holds sway over the masses. Believing in fairy tales, myths and monsters is for children. Can we try using logic, reason and critical thinking skills to deal with our future?