Submitted by John House, Dec 11, 2007 20:07

I shudder to think of a world without Chanukah, Eid al-Adha or Christmas. A collective, personal and free sense of divine influence is as common as love, hope and life itself. In my own experience, it is the essence of our aspiration for good.

However, in too many countries and contexts, we see rash accusation and mindless violence inspired by attempt to impose a religious orthodoxy of one sort or another on "infidels." Are the persecutions of people for belief in a heliocentric universe, the circulation of blood through the heart and blood vessels, and origin of species by selective adaptation so distant that our brothers and sisters who are Muslim cannot apply them to their own culture?

Al Qaeda is not a faith. It is belief without fact, and ultimately without faith.

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