In part 1, we looked at man through politics and science. Let us end that of science and continue with religion.

Science provides the knowledge constituting the information about, say, explosives. Terrorism misused the knowledge to the detriment of humanity. Clearly, in our generation "the inhumanity of man to man" rides at the back of irrationality than ignorance.

We are increasingly overcoming ignorance only to realize that there is a mountain of irrationality to climb as well. We will. It is said that two is a company, three is a crowd.

We all believe that the whole is always greater than the sum of its parts. But in terms of security, the alertness of the crowd is less than that of individual. For this reason, terrorists target crowds not only for maximum impart of casualties but also because the crowd is less security conscious.

Accordingly, the surveillance camera becomes a better witness to recording how the perpetrators carried out the operations than the emotionally traumatized surviving man recounting what went on later. But that is all; recording. We want to prevent, not record.

Religion and man

One of the fundamental teachings of religion is not only the existence of the God who searches and knows the content the human mind and heart with some kind of unimaginably advanced imaging-like machine, but also that men can never govern themselves.

The "inhumanity of man to man" can never be tamed without the involvement of the God no matter how politically and scientifically advanced man ever becomes, religion declares. Never mind that it was the same God who created man, to religion then, man is capable of evil than good.

The above seems true, at least seemingly so in our generation where we are locked up in irrationality as misuse of beliefs and information. In addition, the intricacy of factors driving the increasing widespread of terrorism is equally drumming home the conception that man is incapable of protecting himself from himself.

Consequently, rightfully or wrongfully, whilst many are laying terrorism at the doorsteps of religious extremism, terrorism is also pushing many to religion conceptually as it is evidently confirming that men can never govern themselves via any universal ideology. In sum, it is better humanity hangs his hopes in religion, in the God of religion than himself.

However, is that also right? It is a complex issue. Complexity is intricacy.

Let us examine the capability of knowing the intentions of men like imaging machine revealing the human skeletons as religion teaches about the believed God and situate this capacity in the context of terrorism. This would mean that, the God of religion who searches and knows the human mind and heart at all times knew that that man walking around innocently is going to detonate bombs to kill not only himself but also others and injuring as many as would be available.

This raises questions because foreknowledge is for use and proper use and not for possession only. Non-use of knowledge, foreknowledge as crucial as that to prevent moral evil is tantamount to its misuse.

You see, man is incapable of protecting men from terrorist attacks and other moral evils in the light of all these advanced technologies because there is no way to have foreknowledge of the intentions of the mind and heart of fellow men walking around. If we could, we would stop terrorism and any action constituting moral evil. The statistical analysis of information only helps in the foiling in some instances. That is how far men can go.

Just as any imaging machine reveals material substance trapped in the human skeleton for removal before it wrecks its destruction. Equally, the God with that foreknowledge should obliterate moral evil before it ever wrecks its destruction and disruptions of human lives.

That obliteration of those thoughts from the human mind never happens. Rather every now and then, they are conceived and executed. And religion itself, particularly those with holy books from the Mideast with the exclusionist underlying beliefs are contributing factors.

Therefore, terrorism, like other actions constituting moral evil does not only corroborate the incapacity of man to govern himself corollary of that fundamental teachings of religion. But more than ever it also questions the premise that there is God that searches the heart and mind of men and knew them for that matter.

To have foreknowledge of evil and the power to prevent it yet watch it happens proves incapability on the part of the being with the knowledge thereof than capability. It might even prove lack of the information than having it and not knowing what to do. The desire of man or some men to stop moral evil if they can is unparalleled among all else. Just that we cannot no matter how we try. But we hope to minimize it.

That is the traditional claim of God of religion knowing the mind of man as omniscient Being is increasingly becoming laughable and inexcusable in the name of God work in mysterious ways. It is more probable that if God exists, the Being is just as ignorant in the details as man is about what that man would do next.

In sum, the hope of humanity to minimize if not eliminate moral evil can never lie in the hands of religion, hence the God of religions. The truth is humanity will not even have the chance to discuss the subject of moral evil, not to even talk of natural evil if the Gods were capable of stopping it. They are incapable if they exist. We must face our own problems. We must face our own moral evils and failings. There is no magical means of fixing moral failure.

Conclusion

Terrorism has become the epitome of moral evil with irrationality at its disposal to exploit. This should make us realize that there is something fundamentally wrong with our dominant political, scientific and religious beliefs, outlooks and approach. They need overhauling. Let us choose human beings over beliefs and ideologies.

The politicians should address the causes of oppression and suppression and the making of some nations on the planet war and exploitable zones. Oppression can never go on forever. It naturally rebounds no matter how weak the oppressed.

Let us choose human beings over beliefs. Morality matters. We must distinguish morality from religious indoctrination. The former saves and serves humanity as the latter only serves and saves beliefs. To quote William Butler Yeats "education is not the filling of pail, but the lighting of fire".

To paraphrase him, moral education is not the filling of pail, but the lighting of good in man for humanity. Everyone is capable of doing evil and good. After all, both the good and evil are in actions of interactions. The moral good has only rationality at its disposal. Rationality needs education for propagation to reach as many as possible.

Our appearance on this planet on the evolutionary calendar is only in seconds of the billions of years that the planet had been hurtling round the sun. We must not abruptly end it out of misuse of information.

As painful and threatening as our moral failings and evils are, we also know there is not magical means to fixing it. In the absence of magical solution, only education, moral education would do. Hence, we need to rethink our fundamental beliefs and approaches to dealing with one another on this planet in this age of information increasingly becoming the age of explosions. We cannot overcome ignorance only to give in to irrationality.

Writer's e-mail: seshiehanku@gmail.com