I’ve been reading a lot about the Reformation and the beginnings of the European Enlightenment. The fear or different ideas, whether scientific or religious, drove so much violence and death. I’ve been making similar comment to students that Polkinghorne does: essentially, science has as its purpose to understand and investigate the “how” of life. It can say nothing about the “why”. Religion really doesn’t pretend to be able to answer the “how” of things (like how the universe came into being), but it has answers to the “why”.

Until we realize that God knows infinitely more than any of us can imagine and we let our arrogance affect the way we treat others, we will be living inconsistently with His “why” for us.

No, not GWB or even Dick Cheney. Rodrigo Borgia aka Pope Alexander VI. Will Durant here is referring to the Catholic church, then and now a Christian church. The question is, unless a nation is going to behave like a Christian nation, should it continue to say that it is? Or should we stop deceiving ourselves and recognize that a nation can never have a higher allegiance than itself? Rulers will use any means to attain their ends. For most, religion and war are both means only, with the ends being power and money.

But most citizens, when a leader says “religion” or “war”, stop thinking for themselves and fall right in line with what is being asked of them…