Our Gods Are Killing Us

Religious violence is happening all over the world. We need new gods to inspire us with a simple ethos: Do not do to others what is hateful to you.

Our gods are killing us.

We see it in different religions all over the world:

President Donald Trump posts an image of himself as Jesus, and evangelical pastor Brooks Potteiger, the spiritual advisor to U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, claims Jesus decides who lives or dies in war.

“If our Lord is sovereign, even over the sparrows’ fallings, you can be assured he is sovereign over everything else that falls in this world, including Tomahawk and Minuteman missiles,” he said during a sermon at the Pentagon in May 2025. “Jesus has the final say over all of it.”

Jewish extremists label their enemies Amalek (irrational enemy, absolute evil) and invoke Israel’s god to justify genocide against every Palestinian “man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey” (1 Samuel 15:3).

Muslim extremists shout Allahu Akbar (“God is great”) as they slaughter innocent Jews at Nova Music Festival in Israel, at Bondi Beach in Australia, and in cities across the United States and around the world.

Hindu mobs, with their government’s blessing, demolish centuries-old mosques to make room for temples dedicated to the Hindu god Ram.

Our gods are killing us.

We need new ones.

We need gods without tribes, flags, institutions, real estate holdings, bank accounts, or armies. We need gods who don’t play favorites, and whose power and prestige aren’t measured by body counts or prison populations.

We need gods who regard all life as sacred and whose ethic is simple and sound: Do not do to another what is hateful to you.

Where do we find these new gods? The same place we found the old gods—within ourselves.

Awakening to Authentic Spirituality

As long as we are violent, our gods are violent.

As long as we accept a zero-sum world of winners and losers, our gods bless a zero-sum world of chosen and unchosen, saved and damned, believer and infidel, high caste and outcast, rich and poor, the oppressor and the oppressed. As long as we imagine a “them” to fear, our gods target an “other” to kill.

If we want new gods, we need new hearts and minds (Ezekiel 36:26) that see Reality as it is. We can take our cue from Paul the Apostle, who wrote, “For now we see only a reflection, as in a mirror, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known” (1 Corinthians 13:12).

The world that most of us see reflects only what we are programmed to see, and as a result, we “know only in part”—the part that aligns with our prejudices.

It is possible, however, to shatter the mirror and see Reality “face to face”—or more accurately, “face to Face,” as we come to understand all beings as expressions of the Divine Reality “in him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). In this Reality, diversity is not hardened into division.

Divine Reality has no name, though we call it by many names: Brahman, Y-H-V-H, Tao, Nature, Dharmakaya, Mother, and others. It has no tribe, team, clergy, flag, or favorites; it is the source and substance of all existence, as the ocean is the source and substance of all waves.

Divine Reality doesn’t call us to take sides, but invites us to see that there are no sides: “When you realize the two as One, and see the inner in the outer and the outer in the inner, and the upper in the lower, and when you realize male and female in the greater Unity so that male is no longer male and female no longer female … then you dwell in the realm of the Divine” (Gospel of Thomas, 22).

When we dwell in the Divine and see face to Face, we will know fully and be fully known. This is the awakening of authentic spirituality, and the revolution that liberates us from the old gods.

All in God, God in all

How can this liberation be achieved? There are several ways, but let me offer one: the Sanskrit phrase Neti Neti (“Not this, not that”). Whenever you encounter an old god and a zero-sum “us against them” worldview, say to yourself, “Neti, Neti. This isn’t true. This isn’t the Divine Reality beyond the mirror, but only another distortion reflected in the mirror.”

Then walk away. Don’t participate in it. Don’t accommodate it. Don’t finance it. Don’t teach it to your children. Don’t worship it, no matter how old it is or how nostalgic you feel toward it. Just know the truth.

In time, you will see through the reflections of the old gods and recognize the Face of the true God in the faces of all beings. Then you will know fully, even as you will be fully known: all in God, God in all. Anything less than this, and the killing will continue.

About the Author

Rabbi Rami Shapiro is the award-winning author of more than 36 books, as well as an essayist, poet, and teacher. His advice column in the print edition of Spirituality & Health, “Roadside Assistance for the Spiritual…

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