Good morning Pete,
Very interesting post,
> Ah. I was listening to NPR last week, and
was fascinated by a piece
> on the Kurds, and their religion(s). According to the Kurds, they
> are often portrayed by regional governments as being moslem, so
> that they may be considered subject to Islamic law, and assimilated.
> But, they say, most of us are not moslem at all. The religion
> they subscribed to they called Yezidi, and it had in common with
> Zoroastrianism a stringent anti-proselytization policy, to the extent
> that the teachings are largely secret and accessible only by being
> born into it, but distinct in having no notion of the Zoroastrian
> duality of elemental personified evil versus good.
> on the Kurds, and their religion(s). According to the Kurds, they
> are often portrayed by regional governments as being moslem, so
> that they may be considered subject to Islamic law, and assimilated.
> But, they say, most of us are not moslem at all. The religion
> they subscribed to they called Yezidi, and it had in common with
> Zoroastrianism a stringent anti-proselytization policy, to the extent
> that the teachings are largely secret and accessible only by being
> born into it, but distinct in having no notion of the Zoroastrian
> duality of elemental personified evil versus good.
That will teach me to get my information from the
CIA web site. It seems your description of the Yezidi as well as the
Zoroastrians resemble policies of my own group as well. Zubin
Mehta the conductor from India is Zoroastrian.
This naturally
> got me curious, and I went off to the web, to discover that, besides
> a fraction variously pegged between 30 and 50 percent of the group,
> who are moslem, there are in fact four separate and somewhat related sects
> among the Kurds, at least two of which are disputed as to whether they
> should be regarded as Islamic or not, the others being decidedly outside
> Islam. In addition to the religious differences, the Kurd language
> is indo-european, distinct from the asiatic Turkic, and the semitic
> Arabic of Iraq, and more closely resembling the pharsi of Iran.
> got me curious, and I went off to the web, to discover that, besides
> a fraction variously pegged between 30 and 50 percent of the group,
> who are moslem, there are in fact four separate and somewhat related sects
> among the Kurds, at least two of which are disputed as to whether they
> should be regarded as Islamic or not, the others being decidedly outside
> Islam. In addition to the religious differences, the Kurd language
> is indo-european, distinct from the asiatic Turkic, and the semitic
> Arabic of Iraq, and more closely resembling the pharsi of Iran.
Isn't the world wonderful?
Just when you think it had become as simple as our President's mind you find it
isn't. That the simple world defined by our simple minded press
doesn't exist. That this more resembles what our people
said to Europeans once we learned to read the worlds in their
books. My ancestor's said simply "Tell them they lie!"
>
> I found the whole subject fascinating, as this seems to be a whole
> religious culture that has managed to go by under my radar.
>
> >There is no substitute for coming into the 20th century and there is no
> >justification for any religion denying the role and revelations of others
> >including science, medicine, art and so on.
>
> Better they come into the 21st century, I guess. I wonder, how much
> do religions need intolerance in order to exist?
Oops! I hope you are not going where it sounds like you
are. I was so enjoying this post.
This is something
> along the lines of the survival and evolution of memes. The religions
> we have are the ones which successfully indoctrinated their followers
> deeply enough to perpetuate through time.
> along the lines of the survival and evolution of memes. The religions
> we have are the ones which successfully indoctrinated their followers
> deeply enough to perpetuate through time.
I don't think so. That is just Western pre-modern
scientific philosophy trying to understand a non-linear world that doesn't fit
their language. Religion is a basic impulse based on
relationship with non-linear, non-visual reality. Sometimes it
becomes understandable in a linear way over time and sometimes we develop
instruments to sense the realities that we cannot (such as what bees see and
dogs hear) and sometimes meditation can be used to anesthetize the body and mind
in the face of unbelievable oppression allowing the person's family and culture
to continue in the face of the knowledge that their life is garbage and will
always be garbage even though they see "heavens" in their
meditations. But I believe you are mis-understanding the basic
modality of religion in the human persona as a useful and necessary
process. It is what you have Ultimate Concern with (Tillich)
and the issue is whether you dedicate your life to that which is truly Ultimate
or to something more mundane but which you adore. That is also
the understanding, in my spirituality, of idolatry but it doesn't have the big
angst behind it that it does for the "Big Three" venerators of "the
book." Religion, like Art and Health, is a
pursuit. A psycho/physical pursuit of values in
the whole of reality but all within the context of relationship and
dialogue. Science makes things while religion makes "persons"
through the act of dialogue. The scientific process must make
the "thing" world unconscious and does so even to live beings. The
ultimate insult being Mengele but Walter Reade was only a step back in
that type of thought from the Nazi scientists and today's animal
researchers insist that Dogs are "Things" as well as other living "research
tools." I don't find the Nazi attitude towards
experiments an aboration but a logical conclusion from such thought
that. It is is alright to use dogs because of their difference
in consciousness then it must be alright to use people who
speak "unintelligible" tongues or who are retarded as well. In
fact Stephen Hawking may well end up in a cage using that type of
logic. Religious dialogue with the entire world does not share
that attitude.
On the other hand, there are later versions of religions that turn
predatory and in effect are involved in spiritual imperialism.
But this is not the religious world, impulse or process in
human history. In fact the only version of this that I
know of in the Traditional religions was in the adolescent religion of the
Aztecs that was grounded in a fundamentalism that demanded human sacrifice and
went around the world "capturing" statues from other peoples believeing that
those symbols were in fact the "Gods" of the people they
conquered. These Spartan souls were eventually, in their
own words, "eaten by the Ants." Today we sit between two
monoliths preparing to make the ultimate war called for in the manuals
written by their ancestors. That is not religion but
profanity.
They presumably contain
> the necessary appeals to deep motivations which enabled them to
> persist in hostile environments. Perhaps the same needs which keep
> religions alive foster ethnocentricism and bigotry....
> the necessary appeals to deep motivations which enabled them to
> persist in hostile environments. Perhaps the same needs which keep
> religions alive foster ethnocentricism and bigotry....
That is the offshoot of the overfed adolescent belief that religion is at
its heart communal rather than personal. Try telling such a
thing to a monk sleeping on an icy ledge in Tibet with only a cotton sheet for
warmth or to an ancient Cherokee who could walk naked through the snow because
his religion had trained his body to accept the world rather than resist it.
Religion has the purpose of expanding the body to meet the soul and when
that is done, to talk to the other souls wherever they are found whether in
plant, animal or "in-ani-mate ob-ject".
Thanks for the information.
Regards
Ray Evans Harrell
