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Serving The Almighty |
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by Tom Ulatowski
Email: tulat (nospam) netzero.com (unverified!)
Phone: (217) 367-8960 |
02 Apr 2003
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When all else fails, give reasoning a try. |
Serving the Almighty
by Thomas Ulatowski
Christians, Muslims, and Jews believe that their religion was provided by the One Perfect God who is All-Powerful and All-Good. It follows that some religious doctrine should stand out as the best possible moral code, but this is simply false.
I compiled the following list of major social reform movements to help evaluate religious teachings.
Abolition of Child Labor
Promotion of Fair Labor Relations
Abolition of Slavery
Abolition of Torture and Inhumane Punishment
Abolition of Colonialism, or Aggressive War
Abolition of Oppressive Governments, Promotion of Civil Rights
Promotion of Women's Rights
Promotion of Universal Education
Protecting the Environment
Suppression of Poverty
Elimination of Preventable Diseases
There is no doubt that religions de-emphasize the significance of, so-called, "worldly concerns" like the listed social reform movements. In fact, religious doctrine never even mentions most of these reforms. There are some exceptions. On the plus side, churches have traditionally advocated the mitigation of poverty, and a few sects are against war. In addition, some Northern congregations worked to help abolish slavery in the United States, and some ministers have been civil rights leaders. But, the negative side is extensive, and the following list is just the non-deadly examples:
1. During the centuries of the Dark Ages before the secular Renaissance, the Catholic church discouraged literacy, except for the clergy.
2. At the beginnings of the labor movement in England in the late 1800's, ministers actually spoke out in favor of child labor. At this time, children were working up to 13 hours per day in coal mines and cotton mills.
3. The Southern Christian churches actively resisted the abolition of slavery.
4. Most religions have advocated the oppression of women, and several still do.
5. For many centuries, religions have actively supported the Divine Right of kings, and serfdom. As late as 1885, Pope Leo XIII wrote an encyclical criticizing democracy and promoting royalty.
Why do religions provide such inept leadership? For anyone to improve, the first thing that he or she must do is accept that there is a problem; therefore, the worst thing someone can do is to embrace an unjustified excuse which makes the problem seem unworthy of concern. Unfortunately, the adherents of each faith must presume that their religion's moral dogma is completely sufficient because they maintain that it is the Holy Word of their Infallible God who long ago told them everything they need to know about morality. This religious presumption is clearly false. For example, today the overwhelming consensus is that we should care about universal education, world peace, ending child exploitation, preventing disease, and many other important causes. Consequently, any religion that failed to mention these obligations can't possibly be the final word about morality.
The religious presumption is particularly harmful because it excuses believers from their obligation to personally contemplate moral questions. Once responsible reasoning is put aside, nothing is unreasonable. Consequently, this lack of personal concern with moral issues makes the religious susceptible to the immoral propaganda of ruthless dictators. For example, Hitler gained great popularity while promoting supremacism, hatred, and violence.
Religion thoroughly prepares believers for dictators. In the name of religion, children are inculcated with beliefs. Then dogmatic authorities tell them that it is immoral to ever question these beliefs. In addition, the children are repeatedly taught that their culture's greatest leaders relied strongly on their faith. The result of all this is that most believers never feel a personal responsibility to determine their obligations. Instead of learning to follow the dictates of their own conscience, they are conditioned to follow someone else's dictates.
Besides inspiring a dogmatic mentality, religions facilitate war by denying the importance of this life. Consider that it is probably impossible to make up a more pleasing myth about death than the religious belief that death is really just the beginning of an everlasting life of total bliss. Consequently, for true believers on a crusade or on a jihad, it's great to be a soldier, dead or alive. Therefore, it is no wonder that the religions which promised an exquisite and eternal afterlife were often spread by conquering armies.
What ultimately matters to believers is their place in the next world which is determined by their personal relationship with God; consequently, this world and the people in it are relatively less important to them, and believers have wreaked incredible carnage throughout history:
1. In Mediaeval Europe, thousands of so-called heretics and witches were burned at the stake.
2. In the Spanish Inquisition, thousands of people were tortured to death in the name of religion.
3. Christian Crusaders plundered the holy land for centuries.
4. During the Protestant Reformation millions were slaughtered. The Thirty Years War, 1618-1648, was particularly brutal.
5. There were hundreds of years of European colonial conquests with widespread genocide, and slavery, but there were no significant protests by any European religious leaders.
6. Today, Pope Pius XII (the World-War-Two Pope) is actually being considered for sainthood, even though he gave no significant argument as the Nazis gained power at his doorstep.
7. Millions of Christians followed Hitler after he explicitly advocated continuous, unjust warfare.
8. Christian military chaplains have facilitated even the most unjust and genocidal of wars.
9. During their colonial period prior to their defeat in WWII, the Japanese were fervently religious, and they thought war and brutality were reasonable.
10. Today, Islamic professionals encourage suicide terrorists to their greedy pursuit of virgins in heaven.
The bizarre harshness of holy wars, Aztec virgin sacrifice, and witch and heretic burning clearly shows that the religious have regarded injustice in this world as insignificant. If your religion condones child exploitation, dictators, torture, slavery, prejudice, and war then it is more consistent to think that your religion was really started by a tricky devil who was claiming to be a Perfectly Good and Just God in an attempt to make people disregard their fellow humans by tempting them into a greedy pursuit of a blissful afterlife! Clearly, no religion has distinguished itself with anything even remotely resembling moral perfection.
Most countries have traditional religions; and even in the United States, there still is a correlation between an individual's faith, and his or her parents' religion. If most people are simply inheriting their beliefs, obviously they can't be choosing them responsibly. If there is no significant reason to distinguish one religion from another, or to distinguish religion from superstition, then it is impossible to choose a religion conscientiously. Therefore, the religious must believe that a just God rewards some people for jumping to an arbitrary conclusion, and that a just God let the chance for eternal bliss be determined primarily by inheritance, and that a just God revealed Himself unjustly and unreasonably!
Belief in divine revelation produces this critical paradox. Either God is not all-powerful because He was incapable of making himself clear regarding the existence of one true religion, or most of the world's population is too defective to recognize God's clear message. Therefore, faiths based on a revelation by an all-powerful and loving God must either instill a prejudice against nonbelievers, or a fear of thinking. For example, if you ask Catholics why their Church was once a "terrorist organization" that started religious wars, tortured infidels, and brutally murdered heretics, some of the true believers might quietly assume that you are in league with the devil and hope that God strikes you dead "to show that you are wrong." Unfortunately, the religious are so concerned with their selfish pursuit of an unjust and unreasonable reward that they don't care whether their beliefs are just or reasonable.
The greatest religious principals are worth little when they are not implemented with a concern for responsible reasoning. When Jesus said, "Do onto your neighbor as you would have him do onto you," many Christians think that this was a Divine teaching and that it adds veracity to their opinion that Jesus was the Lord. This again illustrates how irrational and prejudiced the religious can be. As it turns out, the Golden Rule was previously a tenet in several other religions and philosophies. Before Jesus, it was already central to Confucianism, Buddhism, and Hinduism; and the Greek philosopher, Plato, also taught the Golden Rule about four hundred years before Jesus. So, if Jesus was divinely inspired, so were several of his predecessors. Moreover, there is the grievous problem that both Plato and Jesus condoned the absolute power of kings and emperors, and they condoned slavery! Clearly, a moral rule means nothing when someone can arbitrarily choose when or to whom it applies! Considering religion's long history of support for serfdom and the Divine Right of kings, it is absurd to suggest that religion is capable of supporting our democratic ideals such as equal rights and equal justice. And, the fact is that the idea of Equality wasn't popularized by any religion‚ it was first popularized by secular proponents of Democracy during the Age of Enlightenment.
Today, we live by the principle that all citizens are equal under the law, and we know the exact meaning of the word justice. Although it is extremely difficult to determine what is right in complex situations, the principle is simple to understand: Any moral rule must be applied consistently to everyone in the same situation. In other words, injustice always requires an unreasonable choice to treat someone differently from the way one would treat others. No matter how you define it, sin is essentially selfish behavior, and selfishness can be seen as a kind of prejudice that requires a lack of regard for responsible thought.
Unfortunately, in order to maintain their pretensions of moral authority, religious professionals irresponsibly encourage their followers to endorse unjustified beliefs on faith. This denial of the importance of rational self-control is the epitome of irresponsibility. Without a concern for responsible reasoning, there is no way to impede nonsense, propaganda, prejudice, and other selfish forms of presumption.
It is always our responsibility to be careful about important decisions because there can never be an excuse for jumping to a conclusion. It is logically impossible to argue against the importance of careful reasoning because it is impossible to provide a logical argument without acknowledging that good reasons are important. Accordingly, no god and no religion ever has or ever will provide a reason to give up our responsibility to think carefully.
Adult responsibility requires a demand for logical judgments which are based on sufficient information. When you don't know something, it is conscientious to withhold judgment and not to presume you know. For example, the Nazis believed that they were superior to other people. Just like the religious, Nazis said that their supremacist belief gives meaning and purpose to their lives. And, just like the religious, Nazis adhered to their pleasing beliefs without a concern for sound evidence. To supremacists, even World War II did not prove that their belief was wrong, as recently as 1999, a neo-Nazi party received 27% of the parliamentary vote in Austria. Perhaps we cannot prove that the supremacists, belief is false; however, we can conclude that supremacism is illogical when the reasons that the supremacists give to support their belief are completely ridiculous.
Responsible reasoning requires several virtues. It requires the concern to learn about important questions, the courage to face disturbing facts, and the humility and discipline to avoid pleasing presuppositions.
Every kind of love is shown by responsible behavior, so responsibility is the key to prosperity and to morality. Therefore, if we don't teach the respect for responsibility, we will certainly be doomed to decadence. Since our ideas influence our behavior, it is impossible to teach respect for responsibility without acknowledging the importance of responsible reasoning. |
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