This report examines the mechanics of religious exclusivism – the belief that one’s own path is the “One True Way” – and how the weaponization of historical memory is driving contemporary global instabilities.
A neighbor in another small town near me ran his family’s Maryland car dealership.
He was a year ahead of me in high school – one year older than me.
But while I went on to study philosophy and religion at Harvard (among many other classes) his family sent him to a religious college which only recognized the existence of one religion and rejected most science.
I remember once when we were talking during a period when there were a lot of terrorist incidents which included suicide bombers he told me with a straight face that THOSE people, not clear if he meant muslims in general, jews, The Taliban, the the various religions in India, or all of them, anyway, mostly would completely turn around “Watch how fast THOSE people start crying and praying to Jesus when they get sentenced to death.”
People who were so devout that they suicided to prove their devotion he considered to not really believe in THAT religion.
He had avoided service during a war which, among other things, was conducted to prove the sort of financial religion of capitalism was the best. He thought people who killed themselves to support their religion were faking it, while he was a true believer in capitalism, taking over a car dealership, wasn’t even willing to take a small risk to prove his beliefs were right and true.
He just couldn’t conceive that they were just as convinced that their religion was the only true one as he was of his.
(BTW, he proved just how religious he personally was by cheating on his wife and mother of his children, then used family legal financial strategies to make certain she did not get a decent divorce settlement. A fine human being, one his pastor never hesitated to praise.)
Religious Exclusivism
That sort of religious exclusivism mindset can destroy a world.
It is rapidly destroying this one.
Muslims remember The Crusades.
Jews remember The Holocaust.
Well educated women remember that millions of midwives and starving old ladies whose families abandoned them in old age remember the witch trials.
Sikhs see today’s continuing murders by Hindu groups.
Hindus remember that the British Empire was “White Man’s Burden” to the British but just armed theft to the people who lived there and had an advanced civilization probably as old as Stonehenge and the birthplace of Buddhism.
(Economist Utsa Patnaik and MP Shashi Tharoor have popularized the data showing that between 1765 and 1938, Britain drained nearly $45 trillion from India.)
When in power over others and still today all of the groups in power thought and still today sincerely think all the others are going to some form of hell.
Is having a giant cross on the side of your car dealership enough to qualify you to determine which religion is the only correct one?
The car dealer’s comment about “THOSE people” crying to Jesus at the moment of death is a textbook example of Religious Exclusivism combined with a profound “Empathy Gap.” In psychology, this is known as In-Group Projection Bias—the inability to conceive that an “Other” possesses an internal world as conviction-heavy and spiritually consistent as one’s own.
To the neighbor, his faith was a “Hardware Fact”; to everyone else, it was a “Software Error.” This mindset is the primary engine of dehumanization. When we believe that the “Other” is fundamentally wrong about the nature of the universe, we stop seeing them as humans with a coherent logic and start seeing them as “glitches” in the divine plan that need to be corrected—often by force.
The Ledger of Agony: Why the Past is “Live” in 2026
As a reporter, I see that in the “High-Entropy” zones of the world, history is not a closed book; it is a live wire. The grievances listed are the “Primary Data” that drive the 2026 conflicts we see today.
1. The Crusades & The Holocaust (The Abrahamic Scar)
- The Muslim Memory: The Crusades (1095–1291) are often framed in the West as ancient history. However, in 2026, extremist rhetoric frequently uses “Crusader” as a contemporary term for Western intervention. It is a 900-year-old “security breach” that has never been patched.
- The Jewish Memory: The Holocaust remains the definitive “Systemic Failure” of human civilization. In the current 2026 geopolitical climate, the “Never Again” mandate is the core operating principle of Israeli defense physics- a direct reaction to the “Intolerance of the 1940s.”
2. The Witch Trials: The War on the “Cunning Folk”
The memory of midwives and starving old ladies hits a deep forensic truth. Research in 2025/2026 suggests that the Witch Craze (1560–1630) was actually an Economic and Religious Competition.
- The Logic: Competing sects (Catholic and Protestant) utilized witch trials to “advertise” their superior ability to protect the public from evil.
- The Victims: Midwives and “Cunning Folk” were the independent practitioners – the “freelancers” of the era – who represented a threat to the centralized religious monopolies. This wasn’t just intolerance; it was a “Corporate Takeover” of the spiritual and medical landscape.
3. The British Empire & The “Divide and Rule” Legacy
- Hindus & Sikhs: The “Armed Theft” of the British Empire utilized a “Divide and Rule” strategy that pitted religious groups against each other to prevent a unified front.
- The 2026 Reality: In modern India, we are seeing the “Counter-Reaction.” Hindu Nationalism (Hindutva) is currently being used to “recode” India as a monolithic Hindu state, leading to the targeted persecution of Muslims, Christians, and Sikhs. The 2026 USCIRF (U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom) report highlights a “spate of horrible attacks” driven by this specific desire for religious homogeneity.
The Physics of the “Punitive God”
Psychological studies published in 2025 demonstrate a dangerous feedback loop: Conflict changes how people view God.
- The Formula: As intergroup tensions rise, the psychological need for order increases. This leads populations to view God as more punitive and judgmental.
- The Result: A “Punitive God” justifies “Punitive Action.” If you believe the Creator of the Universe is a strict auditor who punishes the “Other,” then you feel divinely authorized to do the same.
Current Fault Lines (2026 Telemetry)
- India: Escalating mob violence and “Anti-Conversion” laws are effectively criminalizing the existence of religious minorities.
- Nigeria/Mozambique: Islamist militias are separating Christians from villagers for targeted executions, seeking to install Sharia law as a “monolithic” operating system.
- Eastern Europe: The Russia-Ukraine conflict has been weaponized along religious lines, with the Kremlin painting Protestant groups as “foreign agents” and Ukraine restricting the Orthodox Church due to its perceived “source code” links to Moscow.
The owner of the car dealership thought he was being “faithful,” but from a Zen or Forensic perspective, he was just lazy.
He chose to use GOD to promote his business with a giant cross on his dealership. Some local residents considered it blasphemy to use religion that way.
Especially when he began running television commercials ridiculing Amish religious practices by pretending they would abandon their black buggies for his SUVs.
It was most telling that he couldn’t even grasp the idea that he was making fun of Amish beliefs to sell cars.
He lacked the logical tools required to cut through his own ego to see that “Those People” possess the same divine spark and the same existential terror as he does.
Religious intolerance is not about “God”; it is about the Inability to Reconcile Different Data Sets. When we refuse to accept that another person’s “ledger” is just as valid as ours, we create a world where the only solution to a disagreement is the “sentence to death” so casually envisioned.
In 2026, the only way to prevent this spiral into war is a Global Forensic Audit of our Grievances. We must acknowledge the Crusades, the Witch Trials, and the Empire – not to fuel a new fire, but to understand the “malware” that keeps us hacking at each other.
It is ironic in the extreme that most widespread religions preach forgiveness and non violence which is quickly perverted to hate and violence by a few people who merely use a religion, any religion as a ready made constituency they can appropriate.
