*The following topic is posted in like a dozen installments. Each contributing cause to the topic is followed by a series of thought provoking quotations from a wide assortment of individuals, some Americans but many non-Americans too. Some alive but most dead. Like many aged souls, I cannot be sure my dissatisfaction with the priorities and behavior of my government is objective, or just the natural tendency of age to resent how the next generation handles about anything. But for me personally, never have I been so unhappy with my own country---to the point I am almost ashamed to be American these days. At the same time---again personally---never have I personally had it so good, sequestered away in a self constructed 'Garden of Eden', at least for now. Like in the bigger picture, Mother Nature bats last, and I too, will sooner rather than later, take that great leap in the dark, a meaningless footnote in the history of some Deistical evolutionary process.
WHY THE UNITED STATES, LIKE EVERY HISTORICAL EMPIRE, HAS REACHED THE EDGE OF THE PROVERBIAL CLIFF:
11. RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE
Religion is obtuse a subject to analyze as any. Both philosophy and religion are attempts to understand the meaning of human life and human living. Philosophy is based on logic and reasoning while religion is basically a matter of faith. One cannot use science, reason, or logic to prove the tenets of one religion over another. Every religion kind of assumes those with the greatest faith in the tenets of their religion will get to some kind of heaven after death. What happens to others of a different religion is kind of left murky. The core of most religions is the Golden rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you". In theory, the presence of so many religions with such a core would make this world a wonderful place for everyone to live. Yet Buddhists and Quakers are about the only worshipers who take the Golden Rule seriously. After that, the reality is a religious world of intolerance, intransigency, pageantry, elaborate rituals, greed, indifference, and violence. In America, Christianity is anything but Christ-like. One would have to be illiterate or menticidal to read the Bible and picture Christ endorsing the Vietnam or Iraq wars, the amassment of wealth in the hands of a few, kids without health insurance, the War on Drugs as a criminal rather than a medical battle, the tax laws which favor the rich, a legal system which favors the affluent or majority tribes, the exploitation of slave labor anywhere on the globe, indifference to overpopulation, or the depletion of the world's natural resources. How anyone can prevent the distortion of pure religious concepts by human priests, of this or that sort, is beyond my grasp. Without exception those humans who have projected themselves as some sort of God's emissary to their flock of worshippers have been historically proven to be illusionary. Yet faith always prevails. Those with the most faith end up being the most blind. Change becomes a virtual impossibility---to change would call into question everything else believed---for if some beliefs are wrong who is to feel safe against other beliefs being wrong? To me, religion without reason behind it, however fragile and temporal the reasoning, is a disaster waiting to happen. Every Christmas Eve, for as long as I can remember, the headline in the paper is always------always----"Pope Prays For Peace". Has there ever, in the history of mankind, been a more useless plan for Peace? The Pope may get the headlines, but the message is the same across the globe----titular religious leaders of varied ilk, all praying for peace. Be all that as it may, the greatest leaders for peace, justice, and freedom in the world's history have essentially been mostly deeply religious persons with little or no ties to organized religious sects, possessing the greatest determination to keep church and state totally separated. Organized religion and intolerance have gone hand in hand as the norm, not the exception. And from the intolerance comes arrogance, distrust, dislike, and then the persecution and killing starts---like night follows day. We are close enough now to the edge that any more religious crusading is really scary.
Throughout my own life, my perception of religion has undergone endless change. The Universe, including our own planet, with some sort of God created evolutionary process--- exists---that much can be reasoned out just as can the existence of an anonymous donor who gives us a gift---reason dictates that the donor must exist. It appears humans have an innate sense of moral values in that so much of basic moral principles, like stealing and cheating, concern for others, etc. are common to all cultures across our globe. Most everyone, minus psychopaths, understand basic right and wrong. The core goal of civilized moral government seems to be a collective effort to promulgate moral values to the maximum. We know right or wrong, for the most part anyway, but whether we do the right rather than the wrong is the problem. The good that religious beliefs can do for an individual is obvious and undeniable. Yet the core religious values inherent in human nature, once formed into religious sects---these dogmas and rituals of sects adopted via inheritance and acts of faith, become social dynamite. There simply is no objective reasoning which leads one to sign on as a Baptist, or a Jew, or a Catholic, or a Hindu, or a Buddhist, or a Muslim, etc. The presence of inherited faith based religious gangs across the world creates endless intolerance, distrust, conflict, and often subsequent wars. Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Churchill, and endless other leaders were very religious in terms of their moral values, but were identifiable with no particular religious sect. In part, perhaps because of that independence, they were able to bring people together. Religious gang leaders never bring people together, they instead pretend their own peculiar rituals, traditions, and opinions on endless social and political matters are derived from some sort of God assisted human written scripture, or from human designated inter-mediators to God Himself. History has long proven that to be bunk, and those delusional enough to believe they are emissaries of God have been guilty at times, of every crime known to man. Yet the farce goes on, and as it does the world is becoming an increasingly dangerous place for more and more people. The idea that God is pal-ing around with the most faithful of certain religious sects, protecting them from danger, ill luck, etc. is just untenable from any rational observation of history.
The period of history in which religious leaders and Kings had the most control is now referred to as the Dark Ages. The French Enlightenment, which followed this period of time, was essentially a period in which printing presses were able to provide ordinary citizens with the principles and discoveries of science. Once ordinary people were exposed to rational reasoning about the world in which they lived, then superstition and the tyranny of the lettered classes over the untutored, lost ground and, in fact, became overthrown. This really ushered in the concept titled separation of church and state. The pomposity of self-appointed authority came under substantial ridicule and the hold of priests and kings over citizens was considerably weakened. From this point on human populations began to be separated into two basic groups: those who saw faith based religious tenets as the salvation of mankind, and those who viewed some sort of naturalism as the last word---a world in which nature is scientifically examined to provide the truth of matters, not faith based human derived religious dogma. As the body of scientific knowledge increases, to remain stationary is to become stagnant, and the future under no obligation to mimic the past. To faith based worshippers this is heresy--a sign of decadence and disrespect to the laws of God.
To view the above as two groups---the God fearing and the Godless---is way over simplification. Polls consistently show most people believe in God. If believing or not believing in God is not what separates these two groups, what is it that separates them?
To the extent any of the above is true, the problem really is to find a way to dissemble all the human tacked on debris to basic moral concepts and build religious values on the core moral values inherent in human nature. All the rest is diverse societal nonsense. People can dance to the tune any way they want as long as they stay on pitch to these basic inherent moral values.
My observation is that there is little logic in pitting the question as one of God's laws or the Laws of Nature. Rather, the more logical approach would seem to consider the Laws of Nature to be God's Laws. The more irrational approach would seem to lay claim to faith based religious dogmas as God's laws. At one point in history religious dogma stated the world was flat. As scientific knowledge increased it became obvious the world was not flat. To me, it is ok to have faith based beliefs----religious or otherwise----under two conditions: one does not insist such faith based beliefs be made the law of the land, and one is willing to drop these beliefs as increased scientific knowledge proves a faith based belief wrong. It is one thing to say God is never wrong and quite another thing to claim YOU are never wrong.
It is not uncommon for a lot of people to believe God created man in His own image. If one believes that, evolution is bunk. While there is no scientific or logical evidence that God created man in His own image, there is ever increasing scientific evidence for an evolutionary process that has been in operation for billions of years. Given the evidence for such an evolutionary process, and given that almost everyone believes God exists, then logic would seem to dictate that God is the author of this evolutionary process---a rather amazing process at that. Of course this God created process does not lend itself to the notion of humans as some kind of 'special' creation with favored status---like God's faithful human servants get to go through life with God's arm around their shoulders answering their prayers and providing them special protections from HIS Law's of nature. Man is distinguished from other animals most clearly by an advanced ability to reason, as sure as birds are distinguished by the ability to fly, and fish to swim. Reason is the only tool for human understanding of anything---any field, any reality. Even ethics and morality, or if you prefer the term religion, are subject to reason as the basis for validity. With time ethics or religious beliefs change, as they should, with increased understanding of ourselves and others. Faith based religious beliefs that supported slavery, limited rights for women, opposition to birth control, and a whole host of ignorant faith based beliefs eventually lose their hold on believers. Even today faith based notions about gays, about abortion, about control over the dying process, etc. are slowly being changed. And as always, there are those who sincerely feel these changes to be some sort of assault on the Laws of God---as preached by the church religious leaders of their inherited religion.
The most insidiously dangerous faith based belief, one that could conceivably doom the future for the human species, is the belief that a few functioning human cells constitutes a human being and cannot be terminated or it will be an affront against God himself. Even birth control, family planning, and rigid control over population growth are all considered by most to be an affront to the 'will' of God. For any human claims about understanding the 'will' of God, these claims seem the ultimate in arrogance. The best humans can ever do is use our evolutionary gift of reason to protect our future. To claim a few functioning human cells to be a human being is a conceptual absurdity. With this absurdity under our belt we then claim abortion is murder, that assisted suicide during a difficult dying process is murder, that putting to sleep a human 'vegetable' is murder, that birth control is murder, etc. It then follows that bringing to term a child who cannot, for whatever, reasons, be properly cared for---is the 'will of God'. From this I guess it would follow that the 'will of God' is for as many LIVING HUMAN sperms and eggs be fertilized as possible, that all these 'potential' human beings be assisted to materialize into conceived and birthed children----some sort of 'whole lot of fucking going on'. Of course with modern scientific advancement there is no need for a 'whole lot of fucking going on', we could kind organize donated sperm and eggs into some kind of assembly line production. All of this might be good for a ludicrous chuckle except the total absence of a any systematic planned parenthood across the globe is generating a whole lot of human misery across our globe because the ability of our earth to support such large populations has become exceeded. Oh well, God wills it. Look down---now you see it----the edge of the cliff right at our feet.
Associated Quotations:
"In the same way let us judge the religious organizations which we see all around us. Do not let us deny the good and the happiness which they have accomplished, but do not let us fail to see clearly that their idea of human perfection is narrow and inadequate; and that the Dissidence of Dissent and the Protestantism of the Protestant religion will never bring humanity to its goal."
(Matthew Arnold)
"I came to the conclusion long ago...that all religions were true, and also all had some error in them." (Gandhi)
"Prayer: to ask that the laws of evolution in the Universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner, confessedly unworthy." (Ambrose Pierce)
"And we all have known
Good critics, who have stamped out poet's hopes
Good Statesmen, who pulled ruin on the state
Good patriots, who for a theory, risked a cause
Good kings, who disembowelled for a tax
Good popes, who brought all good to jeopardy
Good Christians, who sat is easy chairs
And damned the general world for standing up
Now may the good God pardon all good men!." (Elizibeth Browning)
"The question before the human race is whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles." (John Adams)
"The moralist preaches reason, because he believes it necessary to man; the philosopher writes, because he believes truth must sooner or later prevail over falsehood; theologians and tyrants necessarily hate truth and despise reason because they believe them prejudicial to their interests." (Paul Henri Thiry)
"All religions united with government are more or less inimical to liberty. All separated from government are compatible with liberty." Henry Clay
"Man is a religious animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion---several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn't straight." (Mark Twain)
" If we submit everything to reason, our religion will have nothing in it mysterious or supernatural. If we violate the principles of reason, our religion will be absurd and ridiculous. (Blaise Pascal)
"He who begins by loving Christianity better than the truth, will proceed by loving his own sect or Church better than Christianity, and end by loving himself better than all (others).." Samuel Coleridge
"The mob that would die for a belief seldom hesitates to inflict death upon any opposing heretical group." (Ellen Glasgow)
"It comes to pass that nothing is so firmly believed as that which we know least; nor are there any persons so sure of themselves as those who tell us fables, such as alchemists, prognosticators, seers, chiromanticists, quacks, id genus omne. To which I would join, if I dared, a host of persons, interpreters and verifiers-in-ordinary of the designs of God." Michel Montaigne)
"What kind of truth is this which is true on one side of a mountain and false on the other? (Michel Montaigne)
"There is nothing men more readily give themselves to than pushing their own beliefs. When ordinary means fail, they add commandment, violence, fire and sword." (Michel Montaigne)
"Give the Church a place in the Constitution, let her touch once more the sword of power, and the priceless fruit of all the ages will turn to ashes." (Robert Ingersoll)
"The hope of science is the perfection of the human race. The hope of theology is the salvation of a few, and the damnation of almost everybody." (Robert Ingersoll)
"Christendom has done away with Christianity, without it being aware of it. Therefore, if anything is to be done about it, the attempt must be made to reintroduce Christianity." Soren Kierkegaard)
"The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation." (Jeremy Bentham)
"Let us worship God again in simplicity, instead of making a fool of him in splendid edifices." (Soren Kierkegaard)
"Minorities need the majority to free them from their fears. The majority needs minorities to free them from their guilt." (Paraphrased from Martin Luther King)
"The majority of people believe in incredible things which are absolutely false. The majority of people daily act in a manner prejudicial to their general well-being." (Ashley Montagu)
" People fashion their God after their own understanding. They make their God first and worship him afterwards." (Oscar Wilde)
"How many things which served us yesterday as articles of faith, are fables for us today." (Michael Montaigne)
"You have got our country, but are not satisfied; you want to force your religion upon us....Brother, you say there is but one way to worship and serve the Great Spirit. If there is but one religion, why do you white people differ so much about it?" (Redjacket)
"There is no creed so false but faith can make it true". (Henry David Thoreau)
"The death sentence is a necessary and efficacious means for the Church to attain its ends when rebels against it disturb the ecclesiastical unity, especially obstinate heretics who cannot be restrained by any other penalty from continuing to disturb ecclesiastical order......to despise legitimate authority, no matter in whom it is invested, is unlawful, it is rebellion against God's will......women, again, are not suited for certain occupations; a woman is by nature fitted for home-work, and it is that which is best adopted at once to preserve her modesty and promote the good bringing up of children and well being of the family. (Pope Leo XIII)
"Men have broad and large chests, and small narrow hips, and more understanding than women, who have but small and narrow breasts, and broad hips, to the end they should remain at home, sit still, keep house, and bear and bring up children.....Either God must be unjust, or you, Jews, wicked and ungodly. You have been, about fifteen hundred years, a race rejected of God..... what shall Christians do now with this depraved and damned people of the Jews? I will give my faithful advice. First, that one should set fire to their synagogues...then that one should also break down and destroy their houses.....since we punish thieves with the halter, murders with the sword, and heretics with fire, why do we not turn on all those evil teachers of perdition, those popes, cardinals, and bishops, and the entire swarm of the Roman Sodom with arms in hand, and wash our hands in their blood........because the sword is a very great benefit and necessary to the whole world, to preserve peace, to punish sin, and to prevent evil.........whoever wants to be a Christian should tear the eyes out of his Reason.......Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has; it never comes to the ad of spiritual things, but---more frequently than not---struggles against the divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God." (Martin Luther)
"All great religions in order to escape absurdity, have to admit a dilution of agnosticism. It is only the savage, whether of the African bush or the American gospel tent, who pretends to know the will and intent of God exactly and completely." (Henry Mencken)
"Conscience is God's presence in man" (Emanuel Swedenborg)
" No miracle has ever taken place under conditions which science can accept. Experience shows, without exception, that miracles occur only in times and in countries in which miracles are believed in, and in the presence of persons who are disposed to believe in them." (Ernest Renan)
"When the State intervenes to insure the indoctrination of some doctrine, it does so because there is no conclusive evidence in favor of that doctrine." (Bertrand Russell)
"That they (the dogmas of religion) do little harm is not true. Opposition to birth control makes it impossible to solve the population problem and therefore postpones indefinitely all chance of world peace." (Bertand Russell)
"Always fight for progress and reform, never tolerate injustice and corruption, always fight demagogues of all parties, never belong to any party, always oppose privileged classes and public plunderers, never lack sympathy with the poor, always remain devoted to the public welfare, never be satisfied with merely printing news, always be drastically independent, never be afraid to attack wrong, whether by predatory plutocracy or predatory poverty." (Joseph Pulitzer)
"If Jesus Christ were to come today, people would not even crucify him. They would ask him to dinner, and hear what he had to say, and make fun of him." (Thomas Carlyle)
"Character is the basis of happiness and happiness the sanction of character." (Sankara Acharya)
"To cling to the principles of the Judeo-Christian ethic----honesty, integrity, compassion, love, ideas of hope, charity, humility---is an integral part of any person's life no matter what his position in life may be....My prayer is that my life be meaningful in the enhancement of His Kindgom on earth, enhancement of the lives of my fellow human beings; that I may help translate the natural love that exists in this world and do simple justice through government." ( Jimmy Carter).
"The great law of culture is, Let each become all that he was created capable of being: expand, if possible, to his full growth, resisting all impediments, casting off all foreign, especially all noxious adhesions, and show himself at length in his own shape and stature, be these what they may" (Thomas Carlyle)
"Living is not the good, but living well. The wise man therefore lives as long as he should, not as long as he can. He will think of life in terms of quality, not quantity." (Lucius Annaeus Seneca)
"It is a cruel crime thoughtlessly to bring more children into existence than can be properly taken care of." (Rabindranath Tabore)
"Creeds must become intellectually honest. At present there is not a single credible established religion in the world. That is perhaps the most stupendous fact in the whole world-situation." (Bernard Shaw)
"The Popes, like Jesus, are conceived by their mothers through the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost. All Popes are a certain species of man-gods, for the purpose of being able to conduct the functions of mediator between God and mankind. All powers in Heaven, as well as on earth, are given to them." (Pope Stephen V)
"Of all religions, Christianity is without doubt the one that should inspire tolerance most, although, up to now, the Christians have been the most intolerant of all men." (Voltaire)
"Still, instead of trusting what their own minds tell them, men have as a rule a weakness for trusting others who pretend to supernatural sources of knowledge." (Arthur Schopenhauer)
"Say nothing of my religion. It is known to God and myself alone. Its evidence before the world is to be sought in my life; if it has been honest and dutiful to society the religion which has regulated it cannot be a bad one." (Thomas Jefferson)
"This is what you should do: love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men....re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss what insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem." (Walt Whitman)
"I sit and look out upon all the sorrows of the world,
And upon all oppression and shame.....
I see the workings of battle, pestilence, tyranny, I see martyrs and prisoners....
I observe the sights and depredations cast by arrogant persons upon laborers, the poor, and upon others who are different,
All these---all the meanness and agony with out end
I sit looking out upon,
See, hear, and am silent" (Walt Whitman)
"They (the Clergy) believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly; for I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." (Thomas Jefferson)
"...it cannot be lawful for the press, under the pretext that it is free, to make daily and systematic attempts on the religious and moral health of mankind." (Pope John XXII)
"Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.......He that never compares his notions with those of others, readily acquiesces in his first thoughts, and very seldom discovers the objections which may be raised against his opinions; he, therefore, often thinks himself in possession of truth, when he is only fondling an error long since exploded." (Samuel Johnson)
"In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot (the Bushs' of the world)........they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer engine for their purpose. (Thomas Jefferson)
"I never came across anyone in whom the moral sense was dominant who was not heartless, cruel, vindictive, log-stupid, and entirely lacking the the smallest sense of humanity. Moral people, as they are termed, are simply beasts. I would sooner have fifty unnatural vices than one unnatural virtue." (Oscar Wilde)
"Christian, n. One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor. One who follows the teaching of Christ so far as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin." (Ambrose Bierce)
"Write on my gravestone, 'Infidel. Traitor"---infidel to every church that compromises with the strong; traitor to every government that oppresses the people." (Wendell Philips)
"I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The Still, sad music of humanity." (William Wordsworth)
" There is not any thing, which has contributed so much to delude mankind in religious; matters, as mistaken apprehensions concerning supernatural inspiration or revelation; not considering, that all true religion originates from reason, and can not otherwise be understood, but by the exercise and improvement of it." (Ethan Allen)
"In order to see Christianity, one must forget almost all the Christians......the efficacy of religion lies precisely in what is not rational, philosophic, nor eternal; its efficacy lies in the unforeseen, the miraculous, the extraordinary. Thus religion attracts more devotion according as it demands more faith---that is to say, as it becomes more incredible to the profane mind." (Henri Frederic Amiel)
"It is forbidden to decry other sects; the true believer gives honor to whatever in them is worthy of honor." (Asoka) Buddhist Emperor of India
"Men will wrangle for religion, write for it, fight for it, die for it; anything but---live for it." (Charles Colton)
"Religion has lost itself in cults, dogmas, and myths. Consequently the office of religion as a sense of community and one's place in it has been lost." (John Dewey)
"There is only one step from (religious) fanaticism to barbarism." (Denis Diderot)
"Religion is the idol of the mob; it adores everything it does not understand." (Frederick the Great)
"As a general rule the classes that are low in economic efficiency, or in intelligence, or both, are peculiarly devout---as for instance, the negro population of the South, much of the lower-class foreign population, much of the rural population, especially in those sections which are backward in education, in the stage of development of their industry, or in respect to their industrial contact with the rest of the community." (Thorstein Veblen)
"Just as no one can be forced into belief, so no one can be forced into unbelief." Sigmund Freud)
"A man is truly ethical only when he obeys the compulsion to help all life which he is able to assist, and shrinks from injuring anything that lives." (Albert Schweitzer)
"Faith means intense, usually confident, belief that is not based on evidence sufficient to command assent from every reasonable person." (Walter Kaufmann)
"Even those who do not regret the disappearance of religious illusions from the civilized world of today will admit that so long s they were in force they offered those who were bound by them the most powerful protection against the danger of neurosis." (Sigmund Freud)
"Nothing in the whole world, or even outside of the world, can possibly be regarded as good without limitation, except a good will. No doubt it is a good and desirable thing to have intelligence, sagacity, judgment, and other intellectual gifts, by whatever name they may be called; it is also good and desirable in many respects to possess by nature such qualities as courage, resolution, and perseverance; but all these gifts of nature may be in the highest degree pernicious and hurtful if the will which directs them, or what is called the 'character' is not itself good." (Immanuel Kant)
"Fear of death was the first thing on earth to make the gods." (Lucretius)
