  Today started out great. I was getting a great deal done around the house and finishing up errands. I had also started on entering all the family genealogy information my maternal grandparents and mother had recorded by hand over the last 50 years into a nifty new software program.
The TV hadn't been on all day. About 1:30 this afternoon I was sitting on the sofa relaxing when my 17 year old daughter came home and promptly announced 'they killed that guy over in Saudi Arabia. ' The wind was sucked out of my sails and I fell over on the sofa (later realizing I was in a somewhat fetal position). Of course I knew who she was talking about. I remember his son on TV pleading for his father's life.
He was a regular guy with a wife, family, friends and a good job with Lockheed Martin working on Apache helicopters. Supporting his family. We started a discussion about the insanity in the world. Never underestimate the power of a small number of stupid people. You would think after a terrorist has beaten his head against the proverbial brick wall 6,000 times by trying to get his way by threatening to kill an 'infidel' at some point the blood on his forehead would give him a clue that hey maybe this doesn't work. Maybe I should rethink my strategy. Perhaps even my goals. But I suppose after 6,000 times his brains must have scrambled beyond any hope of thinking with any rational.
I have always tried to find the silver lining in a bad situation and have learned over the years it sometimes takes years to find it. In those times, I at least try to understand the series of events leading up it. To try to wrap my brain around it as best as I can. Although I cannot speak to the details leading up to this particular murder, I have tried as I am sure millions of others have since 9/11/01 to understand what drives a group of people to believe in any cause so intensely as to see murder a justifiable means to an end.
As my frustration and anger gave way to this need to discuss my rational and irrational thoughts about this recent craziness in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, a number of interesting ideas/connections/parallels popped up. Throughout recorded history (and probably before) all major religions have gone through similar phases of growth. Please keep in mind I am not addressing the question of whether or not there is a supreme being and all that goes with such an enormous question. I am speaking of organized religion. Religion organized by fallible human beings. Human beings some of which do not have the best interests of the masses at heart. Some of which use religion to control as many people as possible out of a desire for power perhaps.
The ancient beliefs of the Pharoahs, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam today have all had or are at various stages of using fear, intimidation, and false promises by a small percentage of those in powerful and persuasive positions to control the masses. Those that typically fall under the spell of the persuasive but sometimes misguided are often the hopeless and undereducated.
We all need a purpose in life. A feeling of belonging. Just as the gangs in our American cities, the groups of terrorists cells around the world are filled with people needing to feel they belong. Needing to feel their life has a purpose. I am in no way condoning what has happened today, I just have a need to understand it no matter how crazy it is. In more 'advanced' countries often politics and bipartisanship has been used as organized religion once was to divide and conquer, to control the masses.
Perhaps to frustrate the masses to the point of not caring anymore, not voting, not forming an individual opinion, just going with the flow of what our civic leaders, the media or our pastor says because life has gotten too complicated, too exhausting to think about it. It's been ages since I have watched Dateline, but I did tonight. I found it fascinating the connection between the three topics discussed. The first was the news of yet another insane murder in the middle east, then the controversy over Michael Moore's new documentary 'Fahrenheit 911' due out in some theaters soon, and finally an interview with Ron Reagan, the late President Reagan's son. All in their own way spoke to the ideas my daughter and I discussed earlier today. How religion and politics affect both the hopeless and the hopeful.
How both can be used by the powers that be in any individuals life to control and manipulate how we think as individuals, as a society, as a species. Be careful what you think for it can become what you are. 
