Is Armageddon here?

For a proper perspective on the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the intolerable violence and terrorism that keeps erupting all around us, we need to understand that many Muslims, perhaps because of some legitimately defensible reasons, regard the West as an unrelenting and predatory foe. Not surprisingly, some extremists among them have become unalterably persuaded that the West has been engaged in a remorseless "Crusade" against Islam for many centuries. And now, rightly or wrongly, they feel justified in mounting a Jihad against us.

As things stand, it is impossible to be anything but fatalistically pessimistic about how this will end. But what makes it worse, is our growing apprehension that God has abandoned us. Perhaps, as He once told Job, running the Cosmos is so mind and time consuming it leaves Him little room for any concerns about humanity, a species He probably regrets having created, anyway. Look how He afflicts us with floods, plagues, quakes, tsunamis and now even Aids.

But to keep this devastating conflict from becoming Armageddon itself, every opposing side must hasten to send sagacious and determined representatives to a common negotiating table. The first item on that table's agenda must be the removal of all those obstructive walls of religious dogma which keep people imprisoned in venomous certitude. We are in unremitting mortal peril and time is about to expire. If we procrastinate, we are all doomed; East, West, North and South alike !!!!