God Bless America.

God is Great.

These are the mantras from opposing sides in a war of words, a clash of ideologies suddenly turned bloody.

Tonight at Six: The forces of Good against the forces of Evil.

Why not? It's great for ratings. It's the kind of comic book view of the universe that is easily marketed to the impatient consumers of the image and the sound bite.

And, it is nothing new. Many of us remember the "Evil Empire" of the Reagan years, the war against the "Godless Communism" of the Cold War. What about "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord?" and so on, righteous slaughtering in the name of Jehovah, Jesus, Muhammad, the People or the State: all gods of one sort or another.

But there is good religion and bad religion, even as there is easy patriotism and hard patriotism.

Good religion values life. It expects much of humanity, and forgives much. It takes the long view. It stresses compassion, love, justice. Although it may involve symbols, it never confuses the manipulation of symbols with the lives of individuals.

Much the same can be said of patriotism. It's easy to wave or pledge allegiance to the flag, to sing "God Bless America." It's not so easy to pledge allegiance to the Constitution, to pluralism in the face of conformity, to the rule of reason in the face of horror and loss.

The Gods of War are cruel gods. They must be forever consuming someone, or they lose their power. The spectacle is truly awesome to those not in the storm of fire and metal and sudden death. The gruesome rite of holy war so easily becomes a rallying cry, a war story, another symbol to incite even more death.

The bloodstained survivors don't remember symbols. They remember their dead. They remember the inhuman fury from above.

When people are faced with the incomprehensible, language often fails them. At such times, mantras are some comfort. I have no problem with this.

A humanist, however, without scripture or prayer wheel or rosary, can only take refuge in hope: that the peacemakers will be heard, that the spiraling madness will expend itself and that sanity will finally return.

--Richard Garrard