Power versus order

it seems to me we should have a global religion, but one amenable to endless local diversification. My first thought was to define religion as an organized and local attempt to build a sense of community and meaning through connection to s higher power, then I decided higher ORDER –i.e. The Tao–was better. Orders are latent, organic. We need to rid ourselves of the concept of Gid as king and master. God is the ocean within which we live. Within God is endless potential, but we choose what to pursue and focus on. We ARE radically free, but life does have rules; there are cause and effect relationships between action and result. This observations holds even if one is an atheist.

Prior to Christianity, and the unrelenting rejection of all other faiths which defines the Judaism from which it arose, religious war was, in my understanding, unheard of. The Romsns let everyone do what they wanted, and for those offering incense and sacrifices they felt kinship, regardless of the name of the God or Goddess on the other side of the phone line. This held even for the Jews, who until the destruction of their Temple were still slitting animals throats and casting them into fires.

This is what was so confusing about Christisnity–no sacrifices, and absolute intolerance. That spirit of course infused Islam, where the most dogmatic aspects of Christian intolerance were elevated to positive commandments.

But we need to remember that “religion”, per se, was not a reason for warfare for much of human history.