Various religious groups prepare for the coming Apocalypse. Oh shit!

I don't want to panic anybody but the only thing many of these religious zealots can agree on is that the endtimes are just around the corner, and they are helping it along!

With that goal in mind, mega-church pastors recently met in Inglewood to polish strategies for using global communications and aircraft to transport missionaries to fulfill the Great Commission: to make every person on Earth aware of Jesus' message. Doing so, they believe, will bring about the end, perhaps within two decades.

In Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has a far different vision. As mayor of Tehran in 2004, he spent millions on improvements to make the city more welcoming for the return of a Muslim messiah known as the Mahdi, according to a recent report by the American Foreign Policy Center, a nonpartisan think tank.

To the majority of Shiites, the Mahdi was the last of the prophet Muhammad's true heirs, his 12 righteous descendants chosen by God to lead the faithful.

Ahmadinejad hopes to welcome the Mahdi to Tehran within two years.

Conversely, some Jewish groups in Jerusalem hope to clear the path for their own messiah by rebuilding a temple on a site now occupied by one of Islam's holiest shrines.

Artisans have re-created priestly robes of white linen, gem-studded breastplates, silver trumpets and solid-gold menorahs to be used in the Holy Temple along with two 6 ½-ton marble cornerstones for the building's foundation.

Then there is Clyde Lott, a Mississippi revivalist preacher and cattle rancher. He is trying to raise a unique herd of red heifers to satisfy an obscure injunction in the Book of Numbers: the sacrifice of a blemish-free red heifer for purification rituals needed to pave the way for the messiah.

You know would be happy to dismiss these guys as superstitious morons except for the fact that some of them might be in a position to make their belief a reality.

Our very own "Evangelical-in-Chief" has made many choices to hurry this along. If our leaders remain intellectually crippled by their various superstitions they might very well drag their countries to the brink of a conflict that will destroy all or most of this planet's progress.

There could be more genocide, more environmental damage, more wars waged, and more religious fervor. None of this is going to help us work through our difficulties together. We are being separateded by religious faith and cultural differences at a time when technology gives us the potential to understand each other better then at any other time in the past.

Our sense of global community is being undermined by the most hateful and mistrustful of us in the name of their various God's, and that should not be tolerated by a species who has made such incredible intellectual and ethical progress.

We should know better! We have seen this before! History is full of examples where leaders used their influence to push their people into destructive plots that appear to be in the best interests of their country but turn out to be poisonous to the world.

We have to use our intelligence and not rely on our sense of faith. That cripples us when it comes to understanding the motivations of other nations. If we just label them as "evil" or "minions of Satan" we close the door to listening to their fears and difficulties and just treat them like they are less then human.

If we are to continue to evolve we must not allow ourselves to be trapped by the culturally isolating rational that religions promote. These religions thrive on making a group of people feel chosen and therefore superior to a another group of people. We are encouraged to "save" these people or destroy them. That type of thinking guarantees our continued warfare for centuries to come.

It is time to embrace peace and understanding in the place of dominance and superiority.