Thus begins yet another sobering reflection on the baleful effects of religion on our times by Robert Becker in today's Smirking Chimp. What is is about religion? he asks at one point. Admittedly, as he admits, too, it is an ancient question: "How can religion induce so many to sacrifice their lives while killing others, all the while deluded everyone does God's will?"
I'm not going to pretend that I know the answer to the question. This I do know, and in this I agree with the writer of this piece: God is unknowable by the very fact that he is God. So anybody who claims they know the mind of God is by definition deluded. But in our fractured times--and what times have not been fractured?--it's so comforting to know that God is on our side. This is a fiction that people have been willing to believe for centuries because they are just as willing to put their faith in the religions that tell them so. And the oceans of blood that have been spilled because of this fiction is beyond belief.
Becker quotes Aldous Huxley in the essay: "At least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity, idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political idols."
Amen.
We begin this new year with the supposedly Christian U.S. waging hi-tech war against two low-tech Muslim nations. Oh, these wars are about resources, to be sure, but the religious aspect of these conflicts cannot be denied. It's my God vs. your God, and by God, we're not going to stop killing you and your babies until we've proven that our God is stronger than yours. It sounds so ridiculous this way, doesn't it? But isn't this what's actually going on? If you doubt it, just turn on your TV or even better, your radio, and listen to some of the fundamentalist preachers out there. And then recall how many millions of Americans subscribe to these beliefs. And then think about all the Christians in the U.S. who would not describe themselves as fundamentalists who would nevertheless endorse the notion that religious war is actually a sane notion.
In short, barring literal divine intervention, this ain't the year the human race is going to wise up about God. I'm thankful God is ineffable and transcendent or he would be really pissed off at our arrogant imbecility.
6 comments:
Thanks for the appreciation. If you noticed, I didn't clarify my belief in God, whom I see as I would chemical valences or electricity, metaphors that suggest He must be less of a humanoid and more of an energy field, a creative force. Thus, I find any arrogance about reading the mind of an energy field to be doubly deluded.
Yours in the trenches,
Robert Becker
I'm very glad you were able to read the appreciation. Nice to know people like you are in the trenches with me.
Tom
"...behind religion stands fear of the unknowable"
That could very well be. Or it might be more correct to say that behind a certain obsessional approach to religion stands fear of the unknowable.
I think that once we are pushed into the unknowable, where we see the things we always feared to see - things like our families starving or our loved ones being blasted in war - it is different. Religion's main function might be to provide the care for post-traumatic stress when we come back from the brink.
If there's no good care to point us in a good direction, we end up in Auschwitz - both as inmates and guards.
I think we are experiencing Brinksmanship now. For a long time, we did not even believe there was a brink for the mightiest country in the history of the world to be tottering on.
Now we see threshholds and razors' edges everywhere. And our religions spend their time saying God loves us, we are exceptional, and there is no brink, so there is no preparation for what happens once we slip...
(sorry. went on too long.)
You're right: I could have stated this truth, which we both agree upon, more precisely.
Of course, I agree that religion may perform the useful function of providing balm for the fevered brain in the wake of nightmares or real horrors. Alas, it's main function in the real world is the function most often ignored: to imbue the humanity of man with tools to recognize what true humanity means.
Like so many other things we hear, religion tells us what we want to hear. When it doesn't do this, we ignore it.
Husband was just saying he is prepared to take a lot of walks in early February, when we are surrounded by the right wingers of the family.
I hope the weather is not too inclement . . . I'll go with him.
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