Egyptian Violence - Let's Call it What it Is: Religious War on Democracy

Dozens of Christian Churches have been burned down across Egypt over recent weeks, with more than 40 said to have come under attack amid widespread unrest in the country. 

Unrest came to a climax this week, when military personnel moved in to quash the Muslim Brotherhood protesters, who had occupied various regions, calling for attacks and violence against authorities and Christians. More than 500 were killed Wednesday.  

Let's be blunt about the source of the tragic killings going on in Egypt and Middle East. These and millions of other violent deaths, over the centuries in this tumultuous region are rooted in religious intolerance. Egypt's current turmoil is an exponentially magnified Kane and Able Bible conflict, gone viral.

Although the Egyptian violence is conceptualized as brisking on civil war, the reality is that Christian Churches are being ransacked and destroyed.  Why? It makes no sense.

Vatican City, Aug 15, 2013 / 04:53 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis joined proponents of religious liberty in voicing grief at the “painful news” of more than 600 deaths and numerous attacks on Christian churches in a recent wave of violence in Egypt.

Devastating images out of Cairo, following the recent military coup - because, in fact, that's what it was - look like an unthinkable nuclear holocaust.  Parts of Cairo are apparently in cinders:

I'm certainly no Egyptology expert or historian, but it seems to me, the turmoil in the Middle East has transcended my life experience and permeated my years as a human being.  It's nearly impossible for an ordinary person, someone not affiliated with the Middle East, to truly understand the nuances of centuries of conflicts.  Yet, the religious divide between Christians and Muslims are evident, throughout history.  If tolerance has existed, it's been because of strict totalitarian rules to forbid freedom of speech.  

Middle Eastern historic and religious conflicts have never been adequately resolved.  Other political and social factors, like poverty, appear to be inconsequential to the acrimony. This turmoil has simmered and erupted, like an active volcano, for many centuries, beginning in the Old Testament Biblical times.

Americans pretend we don't want to be involved in Middle Eastern violence, because we don't understand it as an ongoing religious war.  In my opinion, most Americans see the violence as being ethnic in origin.  Therefore, the false assumption is, we can't do anything about this mess.  

Yet, few Americans can define the names of the ethnic groups who are embroiled in these conflicts.  Most people in the US, I dare say, in the world, will likely say the ethnic conflicts are between "Christians" and "Muslims".  Of course, these two groups aren't necessarily ethnic groups, at all.  

Frankly, a DNA sample of Middle Eastern Christians and Muslims would likely prove these people are totally related to one another. They're the same ethnicity, but different religions; still, they're fighting a conflict with eons of history to fuel the anger, none of it, absolutely none of it, making any sense.

Except, it makes a lot of money sense when greedy people consider the money in oil rich deserts surrounding this region of the world.  

War weary Americans who, perhaps understandably, shrink from Middle East conflicts, in Egypt and Syria, etc., are facing the sad reality of seeing Christian churches destroyed, for no reason, in the incendiary conflicts.  Christians have not started these conflicts! Neither have the peaceful Muslims. Yet, Christian churches are being ransacked, while Mosques are makeshift morgues for hundreds killed in the recent Egyptian violence.

Almost miraculously, there are images of Muslims protecting some Coptic Egyptian Christian churches.  In fact, many Egyptians are also stating the obvious - regardless of Muslim or Christian, they're all Egyptians. They must take care of one another.

Coptic Christian Church in Sohag Egypt

It's impossible to predict if the growing Middle East religious and civil strife will ever be peacefully resolved. Sadly, if history is a predictor, this turmoil will tragically continue.  

I don't think anyone knows how to fix the Middle East religious strife, unless all the oil, hidden in the sands, suddenly disappears.

Thousands of years of turmoil can't be resolved anytime soon. 

Of course, some fundamentalist Christians, who adhere to a literal interpretations of the Bible, probably have just as good a vision of the outcome as politicians or international leaders.

So, the Middle East violence seems doomed to continue until some kind of democracy can prevail;  including democracy to protect religious tolerance; ....before... the Biblical alternative.... horrendously happens.

Someone must stop the Middle East violence soon, very soon. People continue being slaughtered.  None of it makes any sense.  

Democracy  must find a way of taking hold in the Middle East; but it will probably take a miracle, typical of Moses and the parting of the Red Sea, to make it happen.