The Story of Religion - CommonDreams.org

A former member of Congress and I were talking a few years ago. We were wondering how advocates of so-called national missile defense systems manage to win appropriations each year. He said, “We opponents win on the facts of the matter. We win on policy analysis. We win on policy recommendation. But then we lose floor votes in the House and the Senate. Why?” Then he answered his own question: because advocates of the national missile defense system have the best story. People - and law makers — go with the story rather than with the facts and the analysis.

This “best story” is a narrative about threats and fear. The narrative tells people about their world and their place in it. The national-defense story - like the war-on-terror story — is a narrative of cosmological proportion. The definition of the problem runs like this: good people and bad people inhabit the world, we are the good people, and the bad people are trying to kill us. The resolution to this problem is: if we want to survive, we will have to stop the bad people from attacking us by killing them first. The story defines the problem, and the problem definition leads to the “solution.”

Narratives give meaning to people’s everyday lives. Whether in politics or in houses of worship, narratives function as scripture and nurture what is essentially a religious worldview. The narrative orients individuals and groups to power, both temporal and eternal.

Today, we face another narrative about us and them. This time the categories are not communist versus anti-communist. Our world today presents the appearance of a new East-West conflict along a religious axis: a renewed conflict between Christians and Muslims. But this narrative, like the Cold War story, ignores that conflicts actually emerge from competition for resources, such as land, water, and oil. An overarching civil religion in the United States connects these two narratives and challenges us all to come up with a compelling alternative.

Under the Umbrella

The people of the United States are thought to be religious. On a recent trip to Iran, one of the Ayatollahs said to me, “Iran and the United States shouldn’t be fighting. We should be partners. Both our peoples are religious.”

Yet, many in our society would claim to “have no religion” and to “not believe in God.” “I’m not religious,” they say - a simple self-description that is simply accepted. Many others will claim to be religious. “I’m a Jew.” “I’m a Christian.” “I’m a Muslim.” “I’m Buddhist.” “I’m a Sikh.” “I practice a traditional Native American religion.” And so on. Again, we hear a simple self-description that is simply accepted.

We have no reason to doubt these self-descriptions of “not religious” and “religious.” On the other hand, these descriptions may prevent us from seeing that, across the spectrum of “not religious” and “religious” people, all members of our society participate in a common religious practice that subordinates all other practices of faith in our society.

While we are practicing Jews, Christians, Muslims, Agnostics, Atheist, and so on, we also practice a shared religious life - one that we don’t recognize as such. In a sense, we gather together under an “umbrella religion.”

What is this umbrella religion and how does one become a member of it? First I need to address a few other points: the subordination of religion in America, everyone is religious, 21st- century human sacrifice, a Martian view of Earthlings, and the paradox of a secular society.

Subordination of Religion

In 21st-century thinking here in the United States, the idea of “the religious” has been diminished to the description of a variety of liturgical or meditation practices. We say “she’s religious” or “he’s a devout (insert name of faith here),” meaning that they regularly go to church, synagogue, temple, mosque, meeting house, or some other place of worship and engage in some common practice for an hour or so with others of like mind.

Religion has literally been put in its place inside the larger society, contained within the boundaries of a “house of worship” and maintained within the boundaries of “styles of worship.” We are thus safe to go to religion “when we need it” and able to get away from it when it is not convenient to us. For most of us, freedom of religion has become a consumer activity in which we choose which “brand” of religious experience we want. Many of us “shop around” for the religion that will give us what we’re looking for, and, in a market-place society, that’s not considered bad.

Perhaps paradoxically, secular society is a society that nurtures religion by making religion a matter of individual choice, rather than heritage. In a secular society, individuals may have real freedom of religion. The commonly accepted idea that freedom of religion also means that we may make a choice to be free from any particular religion or religious doctrine is a liberating insight, and one that we should hold dear. Religious people should not fear secular society but, rather, celebrate it as what makes safe their free exercise of religion. Non-religious people should celebrate secular society for safeguarding their freedom not to be religious.

Everyone is Religious

The 20th-century theologian Paul Tillich asserted that virtually everyone is religious, because the religious experience in its essence involveshaving an ultimate concern and orienting oneself to it. This ultimate concern - whether money, family, nation, professional achievement, or something else - has the power to answer our hunger for meaning and our most profound needs.

Another theologian Harvey Cox has made the case that, notwithstanding all the memberships in different religions and denominations, most of us are religious because we participate in an American civil religion that we practice every day, whether we are aware of it or not. This civil religion is our democracy. Even the most irreligious — or especially the irreligious — among us engage in faith-based conduct. They just have faith in something other than those who identify themselves as religious. If you orient yourself to a source of power and commit to an ultimate concern, then you are religious. Being religious then has little or nothing to do with accepting scriptural doctrines or believing in a traditional god or gods.

Being religious comes with being human. We human beings subordinate our selves to different sources of power, and we find meaning and purpose for our lives in relationship to a power source. The variety of religious experiences ranges from belief in a divine source of power and meaning to a rejection of any such notion.

Now in the 21st century (or whatever century your religious or non-religious calendar puts us in today), we might consider whether, despite the great variety of religious experiences in the United States, we all participate in the worship of an ultimate concern and orient ourselves to a source of power that promises to deliver on that ultimate concern.

Human Sacrifice

We’re fascinated and repelled by stories of the bad old days when pagans sacrificed specially selected human beings (most often very young women) to make the gods happy, so that they’d leave the humans safe, secure, and wealthy. They even lay representations of their wealth - grains, garments, jewelry - on altars as gifts in exchange for the favor of their gods.

We thank Progress for delivering us a civilization that has liberated us from such superstitious violence. Human sacrifice has been put well behind us. Then, smugly comfy in our advanced stage of civilization, we lay on our altar $42 of every $100 of our federal taxes to satisfy our gods of war. Why? We do it so that we can be safe, secure, and prosperous.

As a society, apparently, we really believe that killing people — the right people and enough of them - will answer our ultimate concern for safety, security, and prosperity. The Iraq war, the “war on terror,” and the pending war on Iran all come with the promise to make you safe, to secure the world, and to assure American prosperity. Our leaders tell us that the sacrifices are necessary.

How far we have come since those pagan days of human sacrifice!

In those pre-historical and early days of history, villages killed a chosen few, and the gods were satisfied. Later, the gods became satisfied with just dumb animals, and most human beings were spared. As a rule, even in wars the fighting tended to be symbolic with the wounding of only a few, maybe a death or two. Exceptions to this rule did, of course, occur with much bloodshed, but, even then, the dead were all or mostly combatants who went to the battlefield.

Today, 80-90% of the dead in wars and other violent conflicts are civilian non-combatants. Our militaries, which once ostensibly sought to protect civilians, now target them in the pursuit of “force protection.” Our gods of safety, security, and prosperity will not settle for the sacrifice of a selected few human beings. Offerings now are on a mass scale, thousands, tens of thousands, and even hundreds of thousands — and sometimes in only a year’s time.

The proverbial visitor from Mars would easily connect the human sacrifices of yore with the mass slaughter of today. The Martian observes human beings in different regions of the Earth gathering young males, running them through some kind of exercises and courses, and then shipping them away. Then the Martian watches as these groups of men from different regions of the planet meet in certain fields. Inexplicably, many and sometimes all the young men in one or in both groups fall down or simply disappear in puffs of smoke and dust. In moments, it becomes clear that they have died. This goes on for a year, two years, four, or maybe five years, and, then, it stops as quickly as it began. To our Martian, this conduct is not rational but, rather, belief-based. Opposing sides of humans appear to believe that, if they sacrifice enough human life, then their cosmos will be put right again.

Today this faith-based belief moves our country to spend half of the world’s total military expenditures. Our country sacrifices precious blood and treasure for the promise that military power will answer our society’s ultimate concern for safety, security, and prosperity. That superior military power will answer our “prayers” is not a scientific or provable proposition; it is a faith-based belief. No matter how many times the promise has failed, no matter the cost in treasure or in lives, nothing shakes us from that belief. We were even prepared to literally blow up the planet during the so-called Cold War. This shared religious belief in the military as the source of safety, security, and prosperity informs the annual spending choices of Congress.

The Cold War Narrative

Most people in the United States think - believe - that the United States won the Cold War and defeated the Soviet Union militarily. With that story line - narrative - our people make an understandable assumption: if hard power won the Cold War, then hard power can deliver us from an ever more threatening world, a world in which terrorism, peak oil, and global warming loom over us. Therefore, if we give the military our ultimate commitment, it will save us. This is, at base, a religious narrative, a story that we tell ourselves, but it doesn’t get us toward the truth.

Another narrative is just as plausible if not more so. One might imagine that the United States did not win the Cold War. On the contrary, the Soviet Union lost it because it relied on hard power, a command economy, and a secret, top down political structure. The Soviet system collapsed of its own flaws. The United States simply was left standing.

One might construct another narrative about the United States coming out of the Cold War a winner because it did not rely so much on hard power as it did on soft power. To the degree that the United States survived the Cold War, it did so not due to its military muscle but rather to its reliance on respect for human dignity, for labor rights, for human rights, for the rule of law, for institutions of international cooperation, and for individual freedoms. To the degree that the United States relied on hard power and disregard for human dignity - which it did a lot - it weakened its own position. Witness, for example, the utter failure of U.S. policy in Iran or Vietnam.

But the generally shared narrative that explains the world to most U.S. citizens today focuses on the efficacy and the promise of hard power, of military muscle. Our people are enslaved to this story and its demands. In this post-911 era, we see our house of democracy falling down due to a general disregard for the value of civil order, of rule of law, of diplomacy, of literacy, and of scientific truth. We see the ascendancy of military order, of command structures, of secrecy, of a disregard for truth, individual dignity, and freedom.

We have journeyed into a captivity of our own making, one in which the chains of fear encumber our better selves.

Many point a finger at George Bush and his administration, saying that they are responsible for this decline in America’s house of democracy. Plenty of truth resides in that claim, but George Bush and his administration - wily as they may be - do not have the capability of subordinating America all by themselves. They needed others to either cooperate or to accede to their program of action: full spectrum domination and preventive war. Why and how did they get that cooperation? By and large, liberals, centrists, and conservatives all took shelter under the umbrella religion of military muscle, an unshakable belief in the power of the barrel of a gun over the power of civil society.

The good news is that virtually all religions decry the worship of false gods. Sometimes a very big problem, like this one of militarism pervading in our society, can be solved with seemingly small measures. Simply naming the problem, exposing the narrative, and offering another way can liberate the captives from an illusion. A coalition of conscience may yet educate our people that war is not the answer and that peace may be achieved through peaceful means. Though a fearful society may rely on the barrel of a gun, a fearless civil society has the power to create and to build.

Humans as Holy Places

Congressman John Lewis and I shared a supper meal recently when Friends Committee on National Legislation presented him with a peacemakers award. I asked him about our society’s current captivity to military power in these fearful times and what he saw as an alternative. He went back to his days in the civil rights movement, to the time when our country still practiced petty apartheid. As I heard him, he offered another narrative about our cosmos. He spoke about us not as good people who face bad people but rather as brothers and sisters learning to live together. We brothers and sisters are all children of God. He said that this view of our human community liberated him from hate and revenge and allowed him to forgive even those who beat him senseless for reasons of racism on the bridge in Selma, Alabama in 1965. We all need to live together on this spaceship Earth or we will all die, he said.

For eons we human beings have fought over holy places. But if we hear John Lewis’s narrative and take it to heart, we would have to shift our idea of what is a holy place. We might consider the meaning of each of us being a child of God. That might mean that every human being is a holy place. Therefore, when we kill other human beings in the name of God or for “good” and “just” reasons, we destroy what we claim to protect, the human community. But when we take the risk of answering to others as brothers and sisters, we gather an ever larger human family into a sustainable and civil world order — as did the heroes of our civil rights movement here in the United States.

The American civil rights movement leaders might have tried using power from the barrel of a gun, but they chose instead to exercise the power of love and to use the force of truth. In doing so, they transformed, rather than destroyed, our society. Their courageous experiment in religion and politics offers a new narrative that has global implications, if only we can summon the courage to see it.

Joe Volk is the executive secretary of the Friends Committee on National Legislation and a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus.

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25 Comments so far

hashfunction November 14th, 2007 12:57 pm

Interesting perspective! Thanks Joe!

LeeAnnG November 14th, 2007 1:23 pm

When people say “I’m not religious,” there is an implication of “I’m not part of any organized religion concerning an overt belief in a deity.” However, the dictionary defines religion broadly as “a social institution that includes a set of common beliefs and practices generally held by a group of people.”

Mythology (I include all forms of religion here) is a way of connecting people to some kind of higher power. That higher power may be a god or it may simply be an ideal. Mythology at its best can elevate humans to amazing heights of beauty, art, and achievement. At its worst, it enables people to perform horrific acts in the name of the divine, whether that divine is God, Jesus, Democracy, or the American Way of Life. It’s not surprising that so many Christians - who seem to have a greater than average need to connect to something larger than themselves, also tend to worship America as another great liberator. It’s no surprise that the phrase “the only entities to sacrifice themselves for mankind are Jesus Christ and the American soldier” has been making the rounds through fundamentalist email and rightwing talk radio. It’s an absurd, almost meaningless statement, but it generates a lot of repeating from the mindless crowd.

I personally don’t adhere to the idea that American military might will save the world from the dark side, nor do I believe that whatever we do in the name of democracy is fine because the ends justify the means. I know a lot of other people who feel the same way I do - that imposing one’s values on other people or other countries is counterproductive and destructive. It doesn’t matter if it’s a religion that emphasizes an omnipotent, omniscient creator or if it’s a secular religion that is centered in bringing “freedom” to the world.

What I do believe is that we are all in this together, that we are all part of a much larger universe, and that the forces of love, community, sharing, and caring are much more likely to make the world a better place than the use of force or intimidation.

karlof1 November 14th, 2007 2:12 pm

The “American military” IS “the dark side” is a reality based narrative I use to try and liberate folks from the “Victory Culture” story they’ve been enculturated/socialized into accepting. This article helps to put a dent into the prevailing mythos waterboarding US citizens. But as George Lucas showed in his Star Wars saga, the US mythos is very potent; millions saw the “Matrix,” yet it appears few were swayed by an alternative story despite its more realistic message. When asked individually about climate change, many profess concern, but that concern hasn’t translated into the sea-change in behavior respondent’s acknowledge as needed from a primary personal interest POV. You can see why info-news is the key MSM tool as it can be made to conform with the National Mythos.

Chuck Cliff November 14th, 2007 4:18 pm

There can be little to add to a well-written essay.

However, I will say this: in our daily lives we define what it means to be a human being and thereby define something of our common humanity.

It is only through our common humanity that what we often all too easily call “God” is manifested in the world.

ClassAct November 14th, 2007 4:34 pm

Would not the US have remained a British colony without the War for Independence? Would plantation owners have abandoned their property in slaves without the Civil War? Moderates dreading the first war proposed a compromise that would have made the US a country on the eastern seaboard with membership in the British commonwealth. Moderates dreading the second war would have likely left slavery spreading throughout the west (and perhaps further south). Wars can be important in shaping history for the better, provided that they address real principles transcending the notions of “belief” and cynical realpolitik or imperial “geopolitics.” The struggle for civil rights did not require a war. It merely required the victims to organize sufficiently to claim the rights already available to them by federal law in the wake of the Civil War – rights which the neo-Confederates under the Mugwumps and southern Democrats had undermined with state laws.
As far as being a child of “God” goes, does not a belief in “God” imply that there is divine support for one’s own opinions? If the self perceived a contradiction, would not the individual change opinions to correspond to those of the divine Martian? The Buddha held that a “God” would be subject to the same delusions of self and perceptions as any mortal – a view independently supported by Immanuel Kant. Can we live together under moderation when the law itself fails to recognize the victimization of some?
Veritas longa, vita brevis.

dougrambo November 14th, 2007 6:00 pm

If I were to sum up this article in one phrase. I would find the old phrase from the Vietnam era to suffice.
Make Love not war!!

ezeflyer November 14th, 2007 6:46 pm

Great article.

Religion does not consider our deeper ecological struggle for survival as a species in a finite world where we are just one more animal that overpopulates and pollutes its habitat, over-exploits and destroys its resources, concentrates remaining resources in a tiny few of its members using jingoism and religion itself as tools to subjugate their own kind in an attempt to pass on and favor genes that have not stood the fitness tests of strength, courage and personal attraction. A case of the unadapted making every other member of the species adapt to them in an unnatural world of their own making.

KaneJeeves November 14th, 2007 7:13 pm

…and what would you think of a father who favored one child, sometimes to the harm of his other children? Or what would you think of a father who grouped his children into a favored “us” group against “them”?

Good fathers love all their children equally and infinitely. And yet Christians of all stripes can’t seem to make the analogy between this and their God the Father. Maybe it’s because once they admit their god doesn’t do this, it’s a small step to seeing he wouldn’t support the religion they’ve invested so heavily in emotionally. And the same for the arbitrary division of nation. They’d be forced to stop hating. And that’s tough, since it instills such a feeling of self-importance and superiority.

jld_overseas November 14th, 2007 8:00 pm

ClassAct: “Would not the US have remained a British colony without the War for Independence?” Who is to say? That India is no longer a British colony due to the non-violent rebellion led by Gandhi suggests that it could have been possible.

“Would plantation owners have abandoned their property in slaves without the Civil War?” Again, who is to say? That South Africa was able to break free of the bonds of apartheid due to the non-violent rebellion led by Nelson Mandela and others suggests that it could have been possible.

Violence - in thoughts, in words, in actions - only generates more violence. Maybe not immediately but at some point the violence will always manifest.

Only kindness, peace, gentleness, compassion are strong enough to end violence.

White Rose November 14th, 2007 10:25 pm

“Would not the US have remained a British colony without the War for Independence? ”
-classact

Maybe not, Canada didn’t have to go to war. Maybe they jumped the gun, quite possibly the whole continent would be one country today, instead of the mess we have today. Power corrupts, who has power?

John Freeman November 14th, 2007 10:51 pm

To me, Religion is whatever set of beliefs a person accepts that ‘repackages’ the spirituality each of us is born with. That repackaging costs us pretty much everything, including truth.

redjeff November 14th, 2007 11:26 pm

I agree with this article’s premise, that religion is a cloak to give moral immunity to one’s political beliefs and social customs.
Our values spring from what we learn as we live. Most people stop learning after a time and simply cry out for protection from an ever-changing world.
What we have to do is not become disengaged from the greater reality, not retreat into an alternate reality that is no bigger than family, friends, and workplace. The learning process must continue, as does time itself, and the learning must lead us to understand and accept the greater reality.

canuckchuck November 15th, 2007 12:32 am

NEWSFLASH!!! The USA IS the “bad guys”!!!

Who as illegally taken over a couple of resourse rich countries, installed ppet regimesm and murdered a million civilains? the supposed “terrorists”??? Not on their best day…

AND THE NAZIS ALL THOUGHT THAT GOD WAS WITH THEM TOO…THEY EVEN HAD IT WRIT LARGE ON THEIR BELTBUCKLES, AND WRAPPED THEMSELVES IN THEIR HIDEOUS FLAG, AND WE TRUE “PATRIOTS”!!

WAKE UP

jmacneil November 15th, 2007 12:48 am

What a stupid article. Advice to the author: learn something about history and philosophy before proselytizing a comparative flight of fancy designed to appeal to, and appease, those of a timid nature.

“..South Africa was able to break free of the bonds of apartheid due to the non-violent rebellion led by Nelson Mandela…”

Clearly, there are many in this world who have but a mediocre and distorted understanding of history due, no doubt, to all of the corporate government nations owning the publishing houses and schools and their publishing and teaching the kind of drivel that serves their propaganda. The racist apartheid regime of South Africa was not defeated nonviolently and it was not significantly affected by boycotts and sanctions because it’s benefactor countries didn’t pay any attention to such. The racist South African regime was defeated militarily in Angola. Cuba had their army in Angola from 1975 until 1989, fighting on several fronts against the U.S. backed mercenaries in the north and west and against the South Africans coming in from the south.

If Cuba hadn’t defeated South Africa then apartheid would still be there because it was backed by it’s partners the U.S., Britain, Denmark, Australia and the usual gang of sycophants.

Advocate November 15th, 2007 5:13 am

ClassAct (5) wrote:
“Would not the US have remained a British colony without the War for Independence? Would plantation owners have abandoned their property in slaves without the Civil War?”

COMMENT:
Except for what became the United States, British colonies obtained their independence one by one without resorting to war. I most certainly do not regard the United States morally superior to Canada in any way, nor in any way that allows the average citizen of the United States to have better lives than Canadians. What the Revolutionary War accomplished was to create a nation that began with establishing a precedent for the ruling elite - the plutocracy - getting what they wanted through violence: violence against such as the indigenous First Nation peoples and Mexico, and decade after decade throughout its history at the cost of thousands of US citizen’s lives and the lives of millions of other peoples around the world.

As for the US Civil War, even Lincoln admitted that war had nothing to do with ending slavery and everything to do with preserving the Union. It was about preserving the Union but more to the point preserving the power of the wealthy ruling elite in the North.

ClassAct (5) wrote:
“. Moderates dreading the second war would have likely left slavery spreading throughout the west (and perhaps further south).”

COMMENT:
Likely? More like unlikely. Mechanization was, in the mid-nineteenth century, already making slavery less profitable: slaves had to be fed, housed, and provided medical care 365 days a year, slaves were no longer imported, and many were running away to the North. Wage-slaves, supposedly “free,” like today’s migrant workers, required none of these expenses, and many wage-slaves only had to be paid during certain seasons of the year when there was enough work for them to do. Furthermore, by the time of the US Civil War, most other countries had already banned slavery.

ClassAct (5) wrote:
“The struggle for civil rights did not require a war. It merely required the victims to organize sufficiently to claim the rights already available to them by federal law in the wake of the Civil War – rights which the neo-Confederates under the Mugwumps and southern Democrats had undermined with state laws.”

COMMENT:
ClassAct first argues that war was necessary to achieve change, but then, using an example, claims war was unnecessary to achieve change. Contradictory?

ClassAct (5) wrote:
” Wars can be important in shaping history for the better.”

COMMENT:
The American Revolution against Great Britain was the birthing of the most destructive, violent, economically-enslaving, totalitarian government supporting and dictatorship-supporting, empire the world has ever known. An empire that has, and may yet use, the power to destroy much or all life on the planet. Is that better than the other former British Colonies that didn’t have a war? I don’t think so, and if you could ask the millions of people who have been killed by the empire, I doubt they would think so either.

As for the US Civil War, I believe that if both the North and the
Confederate South had become and remained separate countries, the people in both the north and the south would be better off. Certainly many Southerners still think so today. In any event, the world would be better off, and at this time I think the majority of Iraqi citizens would agree.

jimbob November 15th, 2007 5:57 am

We all worship one god: Oil. It’s embedded in every single aspect of our lives. To remove it would be suicide.

jmacneil November 15th, 2007 7:39 am

I made a geographical mistake in my previous post where I seem to have used “west” when I meant to say “east” as a direction from which armed forces were trying to enter and take over Angola.

Siouxrose November 15th, 2007 9:34 am

EZEFLYER: Interesting posting.

JOHN FREEMAN: Being a mortal, endowed with a limited sensory repertoire, our understanding of Truth grows along with consciousness. I don’t think truth is a finite location, although I do believe that our universe is founded upon inviolate Truths, cosmic laws.

This whole article speaks of the unconscious belief that sacrificing some will save others. The author seeks to show some advance between sacrificing virgins to old gods, and yet mocks the larger sacrifice of entire urban populations (collateral) in air wars. No mention was made that the CHURCH sacrificed those same virgins who were burned as witches for maintaining spiritual practices that were closer to nature, not conforming to the authoritarian protocols of the church. MANY were killed as heretics.

The article also uses the reference of Mars, which is metaphorical in that according to myth, Mars IS the premise of war, anger, ego, destruction and armaments. MANY times in this forum I have made the point that the US identification with militarism, its disgusting waste of its fortune on weapons, supporting 700 bases all over the world, etc is a TRIBUTE to Mars, and is the antithesis of the teachings of Jesus (prince of peace, spiritual proponent of forgiveness and turning the other cheek) and then the rank hypocrisy that the supporters of war call themselves Christian. It is a total inversion of Truth, a depiction of an anti-Christ mentality in a nation (perhaps world) where every decent thing has been turned into its opposite. The cries against the women bridge players for making a SIMPLE statement, itself reflecting the PRINCIPLE of free speech in a democracy, proves one example of this “fair is foul and foul is fair” Orwellian nexus our government and national psyche has come to emulate.

In sum, the CIRCLE has no sides. Our planet circles, our solar system circles, our lives are composed of cycles, women menstruate to the cycle of the moon. The circle and the architects of past philosophical constructs about the nature of human life came to recognize 12 archetypal expressions within that Divine circle. Of them, Mars being ONE. When the other 11 are given due and equal representation–thus following Heaven’s model of democracy–we would not see a world so driven to the ravage and rage of Mars rules. I write books to lift minds to this understanding since the old teachings inevitably pit one against another. The emphasis on polarity sees conservative versus liberal, Christian versus Muslim, and so many other apparently irreconcilable divisions. ONLY in transcending these bases for polarity can we build a new ethos that is itself unifying.

Many of my books are directed at children (granted, they are being formatted to be consumers from near birth these days) as they stand the best chance of making the phoenix rise out of the collapse that a focus on bankrupt values (like militarism–motor driven madness = a facet of global warming and climate destabilization) is courting.

willybill November 15th, 2007 10:49 am

jmacneil…12:48 AM….Huh? Huh? Can you show me one place in this article that mentions South Africa? I believe you are referring to another commentors statement.

jmacneil November 15th, 2007 11:08 am

Referring to 10:49’s comment:

Of course the comment in regard to the racist regime then prevalent in South Africa was a response to a comment of a poster who previously commented in this thread, which is why I enclosed the comment responded to in quotations previous to the actual rebuttal. While I have the urge to respond to articles immediately upon reading them and reaching my own conclusions about their relevancy, I never post until I read all of the other posts by contributors because I wish to know if there is anything else I should address or if the point I would make has already been covered by another progressive.

hybridoma2001 November 15th, 2007 2:22 pm

These are some difficult posts to respond to. While reading the article, I kept waiting for the name of William James to appear, mostly because the author uses the phrase “spiritual experience” a few times.

I would urge anyone with the time and interest to read William James’ books, The Variety of Religious Experiences and The Will to Believe. As a final bit of reading, I would also recommend James’ essay The Moral Equivalent of War.

James was what he called a “radical empiricist.” In short, it means a person who looks for real and tangible results in this world and in our lives when considering religion to anything else. If it had no meaning in our day to day lives, then it was not worth adapting such a system of belief.

I would also recommend Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason to understand his take on religion, or, his views of how a free will, immortality and believe in a God can be justified. Kant also wrote several essays on war and how it might possibly be replaced by other human activities.

Yes indeed, we are all brothers and sisters, and if we were truly capable of really seeing life in that light, we would be living in a much better world. Thomas Jefferson made a comment about Jesus, and Jefferson said that if Jesus were to be living amongst us today, he wouldn’t recognize nor understand the world we have today.

I can only finish by saying that these issues are so darned difficult to debate. As James wrote, we all have a different will to believe.

Nietzsche November 15th, 2007 5:54 pm

Renee Girard has explored this subject in more depth. His theories on mimetic desire, rivalry, and violence are fascinating and compelling. The power of the scapegoat mechanism (ie, human sacrifice) to restore temporary peace to a community has been in continuous use since the beginning of civilization.

JBPM November 16th, 2007 5:39 pm

As a Martian anthropologist, working incognito since my “birth” in 1972, I’ve long noticed the strange ability, possessed in great quantities by Americans but also found in most Earthling populations, to sacrifice thousands of human beings every year in war without seeing it as sacrifice. Except that they do see it as sacrifice. “We thank him for his sacrifice…” “Some sacrificed all…” I think the reason for this ability is the strange Earthling penchant for using words without actually paying any attention to what those words mean.

nspire November 18th, 2007 2:00 pm

What is the context of

“power of love and to use the force of truth” ?

All too often the appearance of scarcity and justification for immoral acts sits solidly upon the mistaken beliefs of many (contents), to wit:

BE
DO
HAVE

Mostly we believe that if we DO the right thing, we’ll HAVE security, or if we have enough oil we’ll BE happy - wrong! What is it that precedes action and accumulation?

It is ALL about BE’ing, and spirituality, which is vastly less obvious than “religions” nominally instruct. All religions are about the ONE, within the all too often hidden sanctuaries of those protected from life’s viscitudes.

Remember who we are, human BEINGs? We do hear much of HUMAN DO’ings like war, and human HAVE’ings like possessions, but when do give ourselves time to simply BE?

I revere ALL life, strive for balance between my actions and principles, connect with others as my mirror forging insight. We mis-believe in the power of LOVE & TRUTH when confronted with mere DO’ing and HAVE’ing.

I believe that ‘turning the other cheek’ is about unconditional LOVE and REVERENCE for LIVE itself.

Thank you Siouxrose: “CIRCLE has no sides”

Consider that the Hindu concept of the ‘wheel of life’ === that we are spiritual beings living in a physical existence === plastered centripetally along the wheel’s edge, while all the while the peace of eternity is equal distance from ALL of us ___ at the motionless center and axis of BEING ___.

We live most of our lives, as pendulums swinging from one part of the wheel to another, moving the fastest as we pass the peaceful center (least likely to notice it). No wonder there is such frustration, striving, and suffering! Remember as well, that eternity is just w/o any time, not endlessness. We have each moment NOW, but are nearly always slaves to connecting with the wheel’s past or future.

Let us BE

O N E

Although laudable in notions of symmetry and making appearances, without true transcendent BEING, our usual shallow lives are but re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic - we must go deeper!

Namaste

elsaidst November 20th, 2007 10:57 am

Prayer:
god if you exist
pls ban religions
thanks

hashfunction November 14th, 2007 12:57 pm

Interesting perspective! Thanks Joe!
LeeAnnG November 14th, 2007 1:23 pm

When people say “I’m not religious,” there is an implication of “I’m not part of any organized religion concerning an overt belief in a deity.” However, the dictionary defines religion broadly as “a social institution that includes a set of common beliefs and practices generally held by a group of people.”

Mythology (I include all forms of religion here) is a way of connecting people to some kind of higher power. That higher power may be a god or it may simply be an ideal. Mythology at its best can elevate humans to amazing heights of beauty, art, and achievement. At its worst, it enables people to perform horrific acts in the name of the divine, whether that divine is God, Jesus, Democracy, or the American Way of Life. It’s not surprising that so many Christians - who seem to have a greater than average need to connect to something larger than themselves, also tend to worship America as another great liberator. It’s no surprise that the phrase “the only entities to sacrifice themselves for mankind are Jesus Christ and the American soldier” has been making the rounds through fundamentalist email and rightwing talk radio. It’s an absurd, almost meaningless statement, but it generates a lot of repeating from the mindless crowd.

I personally don’t adhere to the idea that American military might will save the world from the dark side, nor do I believe that whatever we do in the name of democracy is fine because the ends justify the means. I know a lot of other people who feel the same way I do - that imposing one’s values on other people or other countries is counterproductive and destructive. It doesn’t matter if it’s a religion that emphasizes an omnipotent, omniscient creator or if it’s a secular religion that is centered in bringing “freedom” to the world.

What I do believe is that we are all in this together, that we are all part of a much larger universe, and that the forces of love, community, sharing, and caring are much more likely to make the world a better place than the use of force or intimidation.
karlof1 November 14th, 2007 2:12 pm

The “American military” IS “the dark side” is a reality based narrative I use to try and liberate folks from the “Victory Culture” story they’ve been enculturated/socialized into accepting. This article helps to put a dent into the prevailing mythos waterboarding US citizens. But as George Lucas showed in his Star Wars saga, the US mythos is very potent; millions saw the “Matrix,” yet it appears few were swayed by an alternative story despite its more realistic message. When asked individually about climate change, many profess concern, but that concern hasn’t translated into the sea-change in behavior respondent’s acknowledge as needed from a primary personal interest POV. You can see why info-news is the key MSM tool as it can be made to conform with the National Mythos.
Chuck Cliff November 14th, 2007 4:18 pm

There can be little to add to a well-written essay.

However, I will say this: in our daily lives we define what it means to be a human being and thereby define something of our common humanity.

It is only through our common humanity that what we often all too easily call “God” is manifested in the world.
ClassAct November 14th, 2007 4:34 pm

Would not the US have remained a British colony without the War for Independence? Would plantation owners have abandoned their property in slaves without the Civil War? Moderates dreading the first war proposed a compromise that would have made the US a country on the eastern seaboard with membership in the British commonwealth. Moderates dreading the second war would have likely left slavery spreading throughout the west (and perhaps further south). Wars can be important in shaping history for the better, provided that they address real principles transcending the notions of “belief” and cynical realpolitik or imperial “geopolitics.” The struggle for civil rights did not require a war. It merely required the victims to organize sufficiently to claim the rights already available to them by federal law in the wake of the Civil War – rights which the neo-Confederates under the Mugwumps and southern Democrats had undermined with state laws.
As far as being a child of “God” goes, does not a belief in “God” imply that there is divine support for one’s own opinions? If the self perceived a contradiction, would not the individual change opinions to correspond to those of the divine Martian? The Buddha held that a “God” would be subject to the same delusions of self and perceptions as any mortal – a view independently supported by Immanuel Kant. Can we live together under moderation when the law itself fails to recognize the victimization of some?
Veritas longa, vita brevis.
dougrambo November 14th, 2007 6:00 pm

If I were to sum up this article in one phrase. I would find the old phrase from the Vietnam era to suffice.
Make Love not war!!
ezeflyer November 14th, 2007 6:46 pm

Great article.

Religion does not consider our deeper ecological struggle for survival as a species in a finite world where we are just one more animal that overpopulates and pollutes its habitat, over-exploits and destroys its resources, concentrates remaining resources in a tiny few of its members using jingoism and religion itself as tools to subjugate their own kind in an attempt to pass on and favor genes that have not stood the fitness tests of strength, courage and personal attraction. A case of the unadapted making every other member of the species adapt to them in an unnatural world of their own making.
KaneJeeves November 14th, 2007 7:13 pm

…and what would you think of a father who favored one child, sometimes to the harm of his other children? Or what would you think of a father who grouped his children into a favored “us” group against “them”?

Good fathers love all their children equally and infinitely. And yet Christians of all stripes can’t seem to make the analogy between this and their God the Father. Maybe it’s because once they admit their god doesn’t do this, it’s a small step to seeing he wouldn’t support the religion they’ve invested so heavily in emotionally. And the same for the arbitrary division of nation. They’d be forced to stop hating. And that’s tough, since it instills such a feeling of self-importance and superiority.
jld_overseas November 14th, 2007 8:00 pm

ClassAct: “Would not the US have remained a British colony without the War for Independence?” Who is to say? That India is no longer a British colony due to the non-violent rebellion led by Gandhi suggests that it could have been possible.

“Would plantation owners have abandoned their property in slaves without the Civil War?” Again, who is to say? That South Africa was able to break free of the bonds of apartheid due to the non-violent rebellion led by Nelson Mandela and others suggests that it could have been possible.

Violence - in thoughts, in words, in actions - only generates more violence. Maybe not immediately but at some point the violence will always manifest.

Only kindness, peace, gentleness, compassion are strong enough to end violence.
White Rose November 14th, 2007 10:25 pm

“Would not the US have remained a British colony without the War for Independence? ”
-classact

Maybe not, Canada didn’t have to go to war. Maybe they jumped the gun, quite possibly the whole continent would be one country today, instead of the mess we have today. Power corrupts, who has power?
John Freeman November 14th, 2007 10:51 pm

To me, Religion is whatever set of beliefs a person accepts that ‘repackages’ the spirituality each of us is born with. That repackaging costs us pretty much everything, including truth.
redjeff November 14th, 2007 11:26 pm

I agree with this article’s premise, that religion is a cloak to give moral immunity to one’s political beliefs and social customs.
Our values spring from what we learn as we live. Most people stop learning after a time and simply cry out for protection from an ever-changing world.
What we have to do is not become disengaged from the greater reality, not retreat into an alternate reality that is no bigger than family, friends, and workplace. The learning process must continue, as does time itself, and the learning must lead us to understand and accept the greater reality.
canuckchuck November 15th, 2007 12:32 am

NEWSFLASH!!! The USA IS the “bad guys”!!!

Who as illegally taken over a couple of resourse rich countries, installed ppet regimesm and murdered a million civilains? the supposed “terrorists”??? Not on their best day…

AND THE NAZIS ALL THOUGHT THAT GOD WAS WITH THEM TOO…THEY EVEN HAD IT WRIT LARGE ON THEIR BELTBUCKLES, AND WRAPPED THEMSELVES IN THEIR HIDEOUS FLAG, AND WE TRUE “PATRIOTS”!!

WAKE UP
jmacneil November 15th, 2007 12:48 am

What a stupid article. Advice to the author: learn something about history and philosophy before proselytizing a comparative flight of fancy designed to appeal to, and appease, those of a timid nature.

“..South Africa was able to break free of the bonds of apartheid due to the non-violent rebellion led by Nelson Mandela…”

Clearly, there are many in this world who have but a mediocre and distorted understanding of history due, no doubt, to all of the corporate government nations owning the publishing houses and schools and their publishing and teaching the kind of drivel that serves their propaganda. The racist apartheid regime of South Africa was not defeated nonviolently and it was not significantly affected by boycotts and sanctions because it’s benefactor countries didn’t pay any attention to such. The racist South African regime was defeated militarily in Angola. Cuba had their army in Angola from 1975 until 1989, fighting on several fronts against the U.S. backed mercenaries in the north and west and against the South Africans coming in from the south.

If Cuba hadn’t defeated South Africa then apartheid would still be there because it was backed by it’s partners the U.S., Britain, Denmark, Australia and the usual gang of sycophants.
Advocate November 15th, 2007 5:13 am

ClassAct (5) wrote:
“Would not the US have remained a British colony without the War for Independence? Would plantation owners have abandoned their property in slaves without the Civil War?”

COMMENT:
Except for what became the United States, British colonies obtained their independence one by one without resorting to war. I most certainly do not regard the United States morally superior to Canada in any way, nor in any way that allows the average citizen of the United States to have better lives than Canadians. What the Revolutionary War accomplished was to create a nation that began with establishing a precedent for the ruling elite - the plutocracy - getting what they wanted through violence: violence against such as the indigenous First Nation peoples and Mexico, and decade after decade throughout its history at the cost of thousands of US citizen’s lives and the lives of millions of other peoples around the world.

As for the US Civil War, even Lincoln admitted that war had nothing to do with ending slavery and everything to do with preserving the Union. It was about preserving the Union but more to the point preserving the power of the wealthy ruling elite in the North.

ClassAct (5) wrote:
“. Moderates dreading the second war would have likely left slavery spreading throughout the west (and perhaps further south).”

COMMENT:
Likely? More like unlikely. Mechanization was, in the mid-nineteenth century, already making slavery less profitable: slaves had to be fed, housed, and provided medical care 365 days a year, slaves were no longer imported, and many were running away to the North. Wage-slaves, supposedly “free,” like today’s migrant workers, required none of these expenses, and many wage-slaves only had to be paid during certain seasons of the year when there was enough work for them to do. Furthermore, by the time of the US Civil War, most other countries had already banned slavery.

ClassAct (5) wrote:
“The struggle for civil rights did not require a war. It merely required the victims to organize sufficiently to claim the rights already available to them by federal law in the wake of the Civil War – rights which the neo-Confederates under the Mugwumps and southern Democrats had undermined with state laws.”

COMMENT:
ClassAct first argues that war was necessary to achieve change, but then, using an example, claims war was unnecessary to achieve change. Contradictory?

ClassAct (5) wrote:
” Wars can be important in shaping history for the better.”

COMMENT:
The American Revolution against Great Britain was the birthing of the most destructive, violent, economically-enslaving, totalitarian government supporting and dictatorship-supporting, empire the world has ever known. An empire that has, and may yet use, the power to destroy much or all life on the planet. Is that better than the other former British Colonies that didn’t have a war? I don’t think so, and if you could ask the millions of people who have been killed by the empire, I doubt they would think so either.

As for the US Civil War, I believe that if both the North and the
Confederate South had become and remained separate countries, the people in both the north and the south would be better off. Certainly many Southerners still think so today. In any event, the world would be better off, and at this time I think the majority of Iraqi citizens would agree.
jimbob November 15th, 2007 5:57 am

We all worship one god: Oil. It’s embedded in every single aspect of our lives. To remove it would be suicide.
jmacneil November 15th, 2007 7:39 am

I made a geographical mistake in my previous post where I seem to have used “west” when I meant to say “east” as a direction from which armed forces were trying to enter and take over Angola.
Siouxrose November 15th, 2007 9:34 am

EZEFLYER: Interesting posting.

JOHN FREEMAN: Being a mortal, endowed with a limited sensory repertoire, our understanding of Truth grows along with consciousness. I don’t think truth is a finite location, although I do believe that our universe is founded upon inviolate Truths, cosmic laws.

This whole article speaks of the unconscious belief that sacrificing some will save others. The author seeks to show some advance between sacrificing virgins to old gods, and yet mocks the larger sacrifice of entire urban populations (collateral) in air wars. No mention was made that the CHURCH sacrificed those same virgins who were burned as witches for maintaining spiritual practices that were closer to nature, not conforming to the authoritarian protocols of the church. MANY were killed as heretics.

The article also uses the reference of Mars, which is metaphorical in that according to myth, Mars IS the premise of war, anger, ego, destruction and armaments. MANY times in this forum I have made the point that the US identification with militarism, its disgusting waste of its fortune on weapons, supporting 700 bases all over the world, etc is a TRIBUTE to Mars, and is the antithesis of the teachings of Jesus (prince of peace, spiritual proponent of forgiveness and turning the other cheek) and then the rank hypocrisy that the supporters of war call themselves Christian. It is a total inversion of Truth, a depiction of an anti-Christ mentality in a nation (perhaps world) where every decent thing has been turned into its opposite. The cries against the women bridge players for making a SIMPLE statement, itself reflecting the PRINCIPLE of free speech in a democracy, proves one example of this “fair is foul and foul is fair” Orwellian nexus our government and national psyche has come to emulate.

In sum, the CIRCLE has no sides. Our planet circles, our solar system circles, our lives are composed of cycles, women menstruate to the cycle of the moon. The circle and the architects of past philosophical constructs about the nature of human life came to recognize 12 archetypal expressions within that Divine circle. Of them, Mars being ONE. When the other 11 are given due and equal representation–thus following Heaven’s model of democracy–we would not see a world so driven to the ravage and rage of Mars rules. I write books to lift minds to this understanding since the old teachings inevitably pit one against another. The emphasis on polarity sees conservative versus liberal, Christian versus Muslim, and so many other apparently irreconcilable divisions. ONLY in transcending these bases for polarity can we build a new ethos that is itself unifying.

Many of my books are directed at children (granted, they are being formatted to be consumers from near birth these days) as they stand the best chance of making the phoenix rise out of the collapse that a focus on bankrupt values (like militarism–motor driven madness = a facet of global warming and climate destabilization) is courting.
willybill November 15th, 2007 10:49 am

jmacneil…12:48 AM….Huh? Huh? Can you show me one place in this article that mentions South Africa? I believe you are referring to another commentors statement.
jmacneil November 15th, 2007 11:08 am

Referring to 10:49’s comment:

Of course the comment in regard to the racist regime then prevalent in South Africa was a response to a comment of a poster who previously commented in this thread, which is why I enclosed the comment responded to in quotations previous to the actual rebuttal. While I have the urge to respond to articles immediately upon reading them and reaching my own conclusions about their relevancy, I never post until I read all of the other posts by contributors because I wish to know if there is anything else I should address or if the point I would make has already been covered by another progressive.
hybridoma2001 November 15th, 2007 2:22 pm

These are some difficult posts to respond to. While reading the article, I kept waiting for the name of William James to appear, mostly because the author uses the phrase “spiritual experience” a few times.

I would urge anyone with the time and interest to read William James’ books, The Variety of Religious Experiences and The Will to Believe. As a final bit of reading, I would also recommend James’ essay The Moral Equivalent of War.

James was what he called a “radical empiricist.” In short, it means a person who looks for real and tangible results in this world and in our lives when considering religion to anything else. If it had no meaning in our day to day lives, then it was not worth adapting such a system of belief.

I would also recommend Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason to understand his take on religion, or, his views of how a free will, immortality and believe in a God can be justified. Kant also wrote several essays on war and how it might possibly be replaced by other human activities.

Yes indeed, we are all brothers and sisters, and if we were truly capable of really seeing life in that light, we would be living in a much better world. Thomas Jefferson made a comment about Jesus, and Jefferson said that if Jesus were to be living amongst us today, he wouldn’t recognize nor understand the world we have today.

I can only finish by saying that these issues are so darned difficult to debate. As James wrote, we all have a different will to believe.
Nietzsche November 15th, 2007 5:54 pm

Renee Girard has explored this subject in more depth. His theories on mimetic desire, rivalry, and violence are fascinating and compelling. The power of the scapegoat mechanism (ie, human sacrifice) to restore temporary peace to a community has been in continuous use since the beginning of civilization.
JBPM November 16th, 2007 5:39 pm

As a Martian anthropologist, working incognito since my “birth” in 1972, I’ve long noticed the strange ability, possessed in great quantities by Americans but also found in most Earthling populations, to sacrifice thousands of human beings every year in war without seeing it as sacrifice. Except that they do see it as sacrifice. “We thank him for his sacrifice…” “Some sacrificed all…” I think the reason for this ability is the strange Earthling penchant for using words without actually paying any attention to what those words mean.
nspire November 18th, 2007 2:00 pm

What is the context of

“power of love and to use the force of truth” ?

All too often the appearance of scarcity and justification for immoral acts sits solidly upon the mistaken beliefs of many (contents), to wit:

BE
DO
HAVE

Mostly we believe that if we DO the right thing, we’ll HAVE security, or if we have enough oil we’ll BE happy - wrong! What is it that precedes action and accumulation?

It is ALL about BE’ing, and spirituality, which is vastly less obvious than “religions” nominally instruct. All religions are about the ONE, within the all too often hidden sanctuaries of those protected from life’s viscitudes.

Remember who we are, human BEINGs? We do hear much of HUMAN DO’ings like war, and human HAVE’ings like possessions, but when do give ourselves time to simply BE?

I revere ALL life, strive for balance between my actions and principles, connect with others as my mirror forging insight. We mis-believe in the power of LOVE & TRUTH when confronted with mere DO’ing and HAVE’ing.

I believe that ‘turning the other cheek’ is about unconditional LOVE and REVERENCE for LIVE itself.

Thank you Siouxrose: “CIRCLE has no sides”

Consider that the Hindu concept of the ‘wheel of life’ === that we are spiritual beings living in a physical existence === plastered centripetally along the wheel’s edge, while all the while the peace of eternity is equal distance from ALL of us ___ at the motionless center and axis of BEING ___.

We live most of our lives, as pendulums swinging from one part of the wheel to another, moving the fastest as we pass the peaceful center (least likely to notice it). No wonder there is such frustration, striving, and suffering! Remember as well, that eternity is just w/o any time, not endlessness. We have each moment NOW, but are nearly always slaves to connecting with the wheel’s past or future.

Let us BE

O N E

Although laudable in notions of symmetry and making appearances, without true transcendent BEING, our usual shallow lives are but re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic - we must go deeper!

Namaste
elsaidst November 20th, 2007 10:57 am

Prayer:
god if you exist
pls ban religions
thanks

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