The science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke suggested that killing in the name of God might be a fairly good definition of insanity.

Sounds reasonable. If God created the world, then we are all His creations. And the idea that God wants us to kill some of His creations in His name sounds more like madness than faith. Whether the killing is for justice, revenge, honor, or land.

Yet I think Clarke had it backward. Killing in the name of God is not a definition of insanity. Sadly, it is the definition of normal, of being human. This is not an argument against self-defense. It is an argument against laundering violence through holiness.

From its earliest chapters to this morning’s headlines, history makes the point. Wars are waged everywhere. Always, in the name of religion, morality, justice, and truth. Each side is certain it is fighting for survival, for values, for the sake of humanity.

Of course it is. God is on their side.

The stories change, but the machinery is the same. We believe in something divine, and use it to justify what we already set out to do. Marx called religion the opium of the people, but faith provides real comfort: it offers meaning amid suffering and moral clarity in a bewildering world. Whole civilizations were built........

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