On May 19, 2005, at 7:03 AM, Nick Arnett wrote:
On Wed, 18 May 2005 19:04:22 -0700, Warren Ockrassa wrote
The attempted genocide (alleged, to be fair) of American aborigines in the 19th Century was possibly acceptable to many in the context of its time...
and
The concept itself is rooted in the idea of a deity, of course, which is an unprovable (unfalsifiable too) hypothesis.
I think the important lesson from this and other seeming contradictions among
actions, religion and morality is to see that there is no religion that is
more or less likely to endorse immoral behavior.
Contextually. From the sensibility within the religion, whatever behavior it endorses is arguably moral. (That's one of those words I don't like, as I've mentioned before; I prefer "ethical".)
When the Jewish tribe was murdering its neighbors, they thought it was perfectly moral, because they thought JHVH had commanded them to do it, and that JHVH was responsible for their victory.
Had the Sumerians won out, we'd be thanking Marduk, though, and of course it would have been because Marduk was the One True God, not JHVH.
So to me (obviously) the only reason that either Judaism or Christianity -- and probably Islam as well -- exist as major religious creeds today is because of historical accident, nothing more.
Despite the fact that I'm an
adherent to a particular religion and I do recommend it, I don't believe that
we are any more or less likely than any other religion to endorse violence and
terror.
For example, here's a declaration by a Japanese coalition of those peaceful
folks, Buddists, in 1937:
"In order to establish eternal peace in East Asia, arousing the great
benevolence and compassion of Buddhism, we are sometimes accepting and
sometimes forceful. We now have no choice but to exercise the benevolent
forcefulness of 'killing one in order that many may live'... We believe it is
time to effect a major change in the course of human history, which has been
centered on Caucasians and inequality among humanity. To realize the true
happiness of a peaceful humanity and construct a new civilization, it is
necessary to redirect the path of world history's advances from this false
path to the true path."
That's not the only example of Buddhist fundamentalism either. I believe it was during its feudal history that Japan brought forth a particularly dangerous sect of Buddhists who essentially declared jihad against anyone who didn't align with them, including other Buddhist traditions.
But 2500 years of history have moderated Buddhism, much like the history of Judaism has brought a toning down in the insistence on world domination (more or less). The Reformation did something similar with Christianity, IIRC. Islam hasn't had that yet, though I think it's inevitable. I just don't expect it to happen any time in the immediate future; it might be a few more centuries off yet.
I'm a bit surprised to find that I believe that in this very important sense
no religion is more or less likely to do good.
Again, contextually, but yes. That was *a* reason I began exploring religions in general about 15 or so years ago. I wondered how much similarity they had to one another. What I found was there's quite a lot, really, in general terms; it's the particulars where they diverge.
Ecumenism is something that threatens significant minorities in all religious traditions, it seems, and the reason for that is probably fairly complicated but likely rooted in our (individuals in the species) desire to be Right All The Time. I think chalking it up to xenophobia is a little too pat an explanation, though there may be some elements of xenophobia in there.
Yet ecumenism, I think, is the global future of religion. It's sensible; it's rooted in respect for others' points of view and it's much more likely to reduce strife than any other possible solution. Even One True Faith develops its schisms, after all.
The question is what will happen then. If the indications of torpor in the Unitarian Universalist church are anything by which to judge, ecumenism might result in religion becoming lukewarm, which will in turn, I think, result in a new wave of fundamentalism as various splinters form trying to find meaning or explanations that seem more active, dynamic and impactful.
Maybe we, as a species, really are evolved for strife with one another. Where there is none we certainly seem to want to inject it pretty regularly. Or maybe that's just *my* context. Maybe in three centuries societies will have changed sufficiently that this apparently-innate drive toward conflict will be shown to have been nothing more than a sign of the times. I'd sure like to hope so. I wouldn't mind being deluded in this case.
Nonetheless, it seems to me
that because religious institutions are human inventions, each has an equal
ability to deceive itself and pursue immoral actions. On the other hand, this
isn't surprising, since it seems obvious that great violence and terror have
been sanctioned by religious organizations convinced that they possessed the
truth.
*All* organizations believing they are possessed of truth can behave in the same way. I wonder, now, if megacorporations aren't a manifestation of this cultish tendency to clan up and destroy the outsiders -- the competition. The corporate environment at Enron was certainly toxic to ethics; Microsoft is committed to being the One True Software; and Halliburton has rooked the US government and got away with it. Internally those actions were sensible, I think; externally they're of dubious (at best) value.
I think that to have faith that one can surrender to the truth is quite a
different thing from believing that one possesses the truth. Faith is
stewardship of something so large that no human, no docuemnt, no book can hold
it.
That's an interesting way of expressing it.
-- Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books http://books.nightwares.com/ Current work in progress "The Seven-Year Mirror" http://www.nightwares.com/books/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf
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