The artificial distinction between true believers and false ones who are branded as apostates or infidels hinges on a particular set of beliefs and their lack, and the subsequent (literal or figurative) witch-hunts are the result of taking lesson from external sources such as Edgar J Hoover’s FBI reign. Because spiritually great people recognized differences, yet chose to respond with compassion rather than violence. For example, “Whoever has ears, let them hear,” was Christ’s style of action. (Mathew 11:15) “Thus wisdom, most profound of all secrets, has been declared to you by Me; pondering over it fully, do as you like,” was Krishna’s style of action. (Gita 18:63)
This is because they very well KNEW true worship or spirituality is all about realizing God as the Spirit-Father (John 4:22-24; Gita 9:17; 14:4) and hence no one can be excluded from universal fraternity. All fissiparous tendencies and group or clan philosophies which tend to create shackles of narrow-mindedness are connected with fanaticism, not with true worship or spirituality. Hence an apostate is so named when he refuses to support religious excesses, not true worship!
All species have natural affinity. No one can “do anything against the truth, but only for the truth.” (2 Corinthians 13:8) Even atheists and evolutionists ultimately support the truth that we are all related to each other. School text books teach that about 14 billion years ago there was a “Big Bang” when an infinitesimally small and infinitely dense and hot point exploded, and this brought everything into existence. They also teach Darwinian evolution that says every form of life that exists can trace its lineage back to one ancestral living organism 3.5 billion years ago. And religions teach fatherhood of God. It’s like people talking about money in its varied forms, yet in essence they are all talking about the freedom that money is able to provide for them. Similarly, all explanations about origin of universe and life highlight one unmistakable truth: we are all related to each other.
“A cat always falls on its four legs.”
[This I thought of posting as a write-up, rather than as a comment on smiddy’s article—“You are an apostate whether you are an ex-JW or just a member of a Christian church” a day ago. I think, once in a while, I should post]