The latest outrage in Sri Lanka, like so many others, is the expression of the lowest form of human emotion – hate – and is the direct result of fanatical blind faith in religious or political creeds or ethnic and nationalist expressions.

On a much more smaller scale, but not of lesser significance, is the recent cold-blooded murder of an African migrant in our Birżebbuġa area.

Homo Sapiens’s mind distinguishes him from animals but his mind can, unfortunately, be ‘hacked’ by an idea leading to blind faith in that idea. The hacking idea might be transmitted to the mind from an external source. This might be a simple inaccuracy or, even worse, an outright lie. One may label the transmitted hacking idea propaganda or populism. We have so many examples of the resulting polarisations, murders, genocides and wars. We do not need to point any fingers.

In their wisdom, those who practise one of three great religious factions of Homo Sapiens - Jews, Christians and Muslims - believe blindly they, and definitely not the other two (infidels), are the true representatives of, and the direct communication medium with, the One supernatural mind that is supposed to have created all the universe and that is claimed to keep tabs on every human thought and action.

Interestingly, China’s Confucian rule of life - “don’t do unto others what you don’t want done unto you” (which Christians tend to regard as their own dictum) - not only predates but also elegantly summarises the Jewish Ten Commandments (later adopted by the Christians).