Religion and Politics

Please God, protect me from your True Believers

   Religion and politics don't mix, say some, but far too often people combine them regularly, attempting to foist one set of beliefs -- political or religious -- on others.
   Some spread their political beliefs with a fervor common to religious fanatics. Others try to impose their religious beliefs onto and throughout a political system, demonizing any and all non-believers and using the allegation of heresy to justify punishment of opponents.
   However, the word heretic derives from a Greek term meaning someone who disagrees. Religion has too often been used as a cover to justify or rationalize persecution of those who do not share the "correct" beliefs. To those in power, disagreement equals heresy and is therefore an evil which must be purged.
   This attitude even extends to those within the same larger set of beliefs Some claim those who disagree "don't worship the right way," which to them means their way, so the unorthodox worshipers are deemed heretics. (Orthodox derives from the Latin ortho-, meaning "right, straight, correct" and -dox meaning way. Similarly, an orthodontist is someone who straightens teeth.)
   Consider this concept: Judaism, Christianity and Islam are all variations on a Middle Eastern desert religion. It has been said that Christianity is Judaism fulfilled, and Islam a movement to reform or return the desert religion to a more pure form.
   Is that heresy? Perhaps, but only in the sense that it disagrees with what some insist is the "correct" form.
   Or as Thomas Paine put it, "No one will deny or dispute the power of the Almighty" to communicate a revelation to one person and not to any other. But "it is a revelation to that person only." When that person tells it to others, "it ceases to be a revelation" to all the others. "It is a revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other, and consequently they are not obliged to believe it."
   However, there remains a choice. The others may choose to believe, but for the first to demand and persecute others and force them to accept a "true belief" is dangerous and a heresy against the morality of free will.