 How Can You Laugh at a Time Like This? is a Dream Machine SiteThe Dream Machine --- The Imagination of the World Wide Web |
| How Can You Laugh at a Time Like This? is a Dream Machine Site The Dream Machine --- The Imagination of the World Wide Web |
| Home | Current Column | Previous Columns | Other Sites | Libertarian | Feedback |
The essay struck a note in both of us. Both our families, spanning almost the entire spectrum of organized religion in our ancestry, were not "observant" in any of them. So, both of us were allowed...if not encouraged...to try them ALL out for ourselves. We were as anxious to "discover" true belief as everybody else. After all, religion purports to answer the Big Questions...something that science, in all its glory, has never even attempted. To oversimplify a bit, all these questions really boil down to one.
Now this "defect" in human cognition is "handled" by organized religion in various ways. Mostly, social pressure from other "believers" is used to pressure youngsters into "committing" to a single religion...usually the same one their parents pretend to believe. Some religions, like Islam and Roman Catholicism sidestep the issue by making no distinction from SAYING you believe something and actually believing it.
Note: if you doubt this, simply ask a practitioner of one of these "faiths" to spell out the contrast. As likely as not, he or she will respond with the question, "What's the difference?"
As Gypsy puts it to anyone who asks her if she believes in God, "Which God? The old man with a beard who sits on a throne in the sky, hates homosexuals and thinks woman should be pregnant and barefoot? Or perhaps the one who promises 72 virgins to Islamic 'martyrs' who distinguish themselves with suicide attacks against infidels? Or maybe it's the Woman-God, Gaia, who will allow all of us to live forever if we just restrict our diets to pumpkin seeds and soy-burgers?"
To those we say, how do you know that Man with the pie-in-the-sky isn't a gay advocate who thinks we breed entirely too much anyway; that the Holy text about jihad was mistranslated and that it is really just ONE 72 year old virgin you get for your (mis-)deeds; or that all those vegetables scream bloody murder as you rip them from the ground, chop them up and stir-fry them?
So we have the skepticism part down pat. But, we think that current problems demand a great deal more than skepticism. We are certain, for example, that Jews who converted to Christianity during the inquisition rather than burn at the stake were, in their heart of hearts, quite skeptical. But, we are not now just engaged in theological debate or the conversion of the few to the True Faith. The very existence of human civilization is being threatened. Old, cowardly men are sending young, brave men to their deaths in order to advance their own personal desires to transform the world into some form of medieval "good-old-days." The otherwise harmless or even beneficial doctrines of religious practice are thus transformed into fangs, "The better to eat you with, Little Red Riding Hood!"
So it has always been, since the first witch-doctor or medicine woman conned his or her tribe into trading food for bunkum about the stars' or the weather's influence upon the hunt. After all, it is easier to "interpret" signs from the gods in the safety of one's cave than it is hunting bison or mammoth in the open plains. As modern research on "superstition"...the insulting rubric applied by science to ALL religious and other forms of gambling behavior...demonstrates quite clearly...even with "lower" animals...that you don't have to win very often at roulette to be driven to keep spinning the wheel and betting bed-and-board on the outcome.
So, we believe...truly believe, we're not just claiming it...that the world needs an enormous makeover, vis a vis religion. Since each of us...no exceptions...yearns to find mystical meaning in the universe, we do not think that merely being skeptical about absurd claims or tolerance of those with whom you do not agree is enough. Governments everywhere, from Iran to Israel to the good old U.S. of A. need to banish religion once and for all from secular matters. As the Bible advises, leave matters of God to the priests and let Caesar (et al) do the Caesar thing.
After 9-11, we found it absolutely creepy, having just been viciously attacked by individuals in the name of Allah, that Jehovah...presumedly the same entity with a different name...was invoked time and time again in American meetings and ceremonies discussing what had occurred. Isn't it time to once again rebuild the wall between church and state that our forefathers so thoughtfully put into our constitution? Isn't it time to banish ALL charlatans to obscurity, whether they advocate holy war against infidels or the occupation of Holy Lands to keep out the goyem?
At the very least, we Americans should restate the principle that while we are free...as individuals...to practice ANY religion we choose, we must also be able to remain free FROM religion if THAT is our choice. Any other practice is barbaric.
Talk to you later...
Visit Write your Congressperson or Senator and DO IT!
Visit Write your Congressperson or Senator and DO IT!
...the best independent ISP in the Twin Cities
The Dream Machine --- Network Services
A newspaper near you.