Good and Evil in World Religions
Before I get into my topic today, I thought it might be useful to talk briefly about how I became interested in religious inquiry, to put my views in perspective.
When I was growing up, my father was in the military, and there were three choices of religion, Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish. Since my parents had been brought up as Baptists, I was taken to Sunday school and church as a Protestant. I was a good student, memorizing my psalms, scriptures, commandments, and professions of faith. I didn't think much about the meaning of it all at the time. But there was a lot of talk about love and kindness, and it left me with a warm feeling.
Like many American children, I had no reason to doubt that the world was a wonderful place. I had plenty to eat, a place to live, and loving parents. Everyone treated me nicely, and Santa Claus came to our house every Christmas. And he was generous. Life was great!
Of course, a part of growing up is learning that the world is really more complicated after all. When I learned that Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny were just nice myths for children, I started asking lots more questions.
I was curious about everything, and it didn't take me long to discover books. I was a voracious reader. The more I read, the more I thought. I began to see that when I trusted facts and applied logic, I could always depend on getting the right answer. I became a rationalist even before I knew the word. I discovered that almost everything could be analyzed and understood. Patterns and structures leapt out at me, and I could see causality everywhere I looked. Almost.
It happened that at about this time, my father retired and we moved to East Texas. Coming from the regimented, stable world of the military, it was quite a change. I had never even conceived of such things as racism, religious intolerance, and the like, and here I was, thrust smack into the middle of it. When I tried to apply logic to these things, it didn't compute. Where was the cause? Why did people hate one another so?
My parents tried several churches. After some interesting places where hellfire and damnation seemed to be the hot topic, they settled on Presbyterians as a comfortable, moderate group. I was promptly baptized and declared a member.
After awhile, I became more and more bothered by the words I was hearing. "Our" way was right, so the others, by deduction, must be wrong. As I thought about it, it seemed a bit preposterous to think that only Christians were good people. But again and again, every Sunday, the same things were said. Only through belief in Jesus Christ as my savior could I escape the fires of hell.
The trouble was, I didn't really understand what I needed saving from. I was a good kid, and I didn't feel as if I was eaten up with badness. And as I thought about it, I couldn't imagine that all those people in China, or Japan, or India were bad people just because they didn't attend the same church as me. How could someone who had never even heard of Christianity be condemned to eternal punishment? I could not fathom a vindictive, violent, vain God like the one they were describing in church. These were otherwise rational adults, saying and apparently believing all these things with complete seriousness. It bothered me a lot.
So, at age 14, I asked my parents to explain how this could be, and unable to answer my questions, they got me an audience with the minister. I met with him in his office, and I expressed my concerns, that I had no way to know what the true religion was, if there was such a thing, and that I couldn't imagine how someone who had no way to know about Christianity could be condemned by God. Since he had no logical explanation, he of course he answered all my hard questions with the standard answer that has served every religion since the beginning – "You must have faith."
Faith? What about reason? Where was the proof? The Bible is the proof? But the Bible was written by men. Divinely inspired men? But they contradict one another. "You must have faith."
Well, if I wasn't having a spiritual crisis before, I was now. Not long after that meeting, I wrote my first essay on religion. Rather than bring me back into the fold, the minister had only succeeded in pushing me out into the world of ideas. I told nobody I was a heretic, even as I marveled at how people could just accept it all so easily. Most kids my age didn't even think about things like this. I didn't tell anyone that I had serious doubts for another 4 years, until I went away to college. I was quite relieved when I found others who had the same doubts. At least I knew I wasn't alone.
Some years later, with my spiritual ship still adrift, I set forth in a lifeboat for the island of Philosophy. And I finally found a home. Here were people who could debate fundamental questions logically, never calling on me to simply have "faith", and never condemning one another for having different ideas. Instead, they worked down to the root of things and sought meaning and understanding without all the trappings of religion.
I occasionally attended church services of some sort, usually at the invitation of a friend. But if I stayed long enough, I generally found the same patina of love-talk covering deep-rooted judgement, hypocrisy, intolerance and hatred. I spent many years angry with Christianity.
My journey into philosophy allowed me to find the fundamental principles I believed in, - such things as truth, justice, tolerance, compassion, and love were my ideals. I've never rejected those teachings from any religious teacher or prophet. I began to see that my troubles with Christianity were not with the founder, but rather with the followers who attached their agendas to his simple messages to suit their own needs.
A Word of Thanks to the Freethinkers
I want to mention briefly that having the ability to speak about religious ideas under the protection of law is a precious right that many people in the world don't enjoy. And though people in the community may harbor ill feelings about those they consider heretics and infidels, religious violence is quite uncommon in this country. Our diversity ensures that our religion is generally considered nobody else's business.
We have some very farsighted individuals to thank for this. When our country was being formed, a group of Freethinkers spawned by the Enlightenment of the 18th century was on hand to craft an unprecedented document – the Constitution of the United States.
I want to read a quote from Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States, and co-author of the Declaration of Independence
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with soveriegn reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and State.
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Danbury Baptist Association, CT. The Complete Jefferson by Saul K. Padover, pp 518-519
How do we define good and evil?
And now, on to the subject at hand – good and evil in world religions. To start, it would be handy to define good and evil. Some people smarter than me have thought about this already.
From behavioral psychologist Erich Fromm (1900 – 1980):
Good is all that serves life, evil is all that serves death. Good is reverence for life, and all that enhances life. Evil is all that stifles life, narrows it down, cuts it to pieces.
[Erich Fromm, "Creators and Destroyers"]
From social philosopher Ayn Rand (1905 – 1982):
The standard of value … by which one judges what is good and evil – is man's life, or; that which is required for man's survival qua man. Since reason is man's basic means of survival, that which is proper to the life of a rational being is the good; that which negates, opposes or destroys it is the evil.
Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness
And so, perhaps we can say that something is good if it elevates the human condition of an individual without harming another. Something is evil if it diminishes the condition of an individual.
What defines a religion?
Now that we have a working definition of good and evil, what defines a religion? A religion is a system of belief which attempts to explain the meaning of life and the workings of the universe. Commonly, it requires its adherents to accept its teachings on faith, in the absence of objective proof. And, a religion invariably makes requirements of its members, in the form of rituals, moral codes and rules.
Philosophers uniformly have trouble with the mystical parts. For example:
From the 19th century German Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 -1900)
All religions bear traces of the fact that they arose during the intellectual immaturity of the human race - before it had learned the obligations to speak the truth. Not one of them makes it the duty of its god to be truthful and understandable in his communications.
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Dawn
And from George Santayana, an early 20th century Spanish-born American (1863 – 1952)
Faith in the supernatural is a desperate wager made by man at the lowest ebb of his fortunes; it is as far as possible from being the source of that normal vitality which would subsequently, if his fortunes mend, he may gradually recover... If all went well, we should attribute it only to ourselves... The first things which a man learns to distinguish and repeat are things with a will of their own, things which resist his casual demands; and so the first sentiment with which he confronts reality is a certain animosity, which becomes cruelty toward the weak, and fear and fawning before the powerful... It is pathetic to observe how lowly are the motives that religion, even the highest, attributes to the deity, and from what a hard pressed and bitter existence they have been drawn. To be given the best morsel, to be remembered, to be praised, to be obeyed blindly and punctiliously - these have been thought points of honor with the gods, for which they would dispense favors and punishments on the most exhorbitant scale.
George Santayana, Reason in Religion
Major World Religions (current)
Great religions have come and gone as civilizations rose and fell. The gods of ancient Egypt, of Olympus, and of Scandinavia have disappeared. Today, there are eight or nine major world religions, and many smaller ones. The current major ones are:
So we've achieved a reasonable definition of good and evil, and we have some ideas about what constitutes a religion. Now let's think about world religions in the context of good and evil.
As I was gathering material, I made an outline with the two headings, Good, and Evil. I made quite a list of topics under "Evil", but I struggled a bit with things to put under the "Good". In fact, several times, I wrote something under Good, but upon reflection, had to move it over to the Evil column. Still, I managed to find some things for each. So, in the tradition of saving the best for last, let's start with the Evil.
Evil
The Question
When we contemplate the existence of evil, we can take some comfort that we aren't alone in our thoughts. Philosophy developed in ancient Greece as an intellectual backlash against the traditional mysticism and mythology used to explain the workings of nature. As logic became the habit of intellectuals, it was inevitable that the flaws in religious constructs would be exposed. About 300 years before the Common Era, the Greek philosopher Epicurus posed the logical question:
The gods can either take away evil from the world and will not, or being willing to do so cannot; or they neither can nor will, or lastly, they are both able and willing. If they have the will to remove evil and cannot, then they are not omnipotent. If they can, but will not, then they are not benevolent. If they are neither able nor willing, then they are neither omnipotent nor benevolent. Lastly, if they are both able and willing to annihilate evil, how does it exist?
Epicurus (Greek, ca. 300 BC)
It's a powerful question, and it's been repeated in various forms by
philosophers ever since. But today I want to ask a more answerable
question, and that is:
"Does religion add to or subtract from the evil in the world?"
Religious Imperialism
There seems to be a fundamental need in human beings to control the world around them. If there weren't many people in the world, this wouldn't be too much of a problem. But as the number of people increases, so does the competition for pieces of the physical world. In the early days of civilization, in order to protect their territory and possessions, people began organizing in tribes and groups, and finally into states and countries. And the groups began fighting in order to take things from one another.
The Hebrew Bible recounts again and again how Jehovah bade his chosen people, the tribes of Israel, to smite their enemies, for one reason or another. Never mind the innocent men, women, and children, annihilation was usually the order of the day. If mercy were to be shown, sometimes the women would be saved as spoil for the lusty soldiers and the children sold into slavery.
The Hindu Bhagavad Gita recounts the moral dilemma of the warrior chief Arjuna, who in a crisis of conscience, refuses to go into battle and kill the enemy soldiers, since loved ones and relatives are on both sides of the battlefield. Rather than applaud his regard for human life as an ethical victory, Lord Krishna counsels Arjuna that failure to slay the enemy would be a disgrace, and he will be branded a coward. And besides, they will all be reincarnated into other lives. Now that he's got Arjuna's attention, Krishna engages in a long dialogue in which he details the "true path to righteousness", some of which is quite sensible, but including of course, worship of Krishna.
And so it is with sacred writings of many religions, tales of conquest and bloodshed sanctioned by the gods.
Some religions have followed the example of civil governments. Not content with attracting new believers through passive means, they have engaged in religious imperialism. While some religions of the Orient were encouraging followers to seek inner peace and lead an exemplary life, the rising religions of the West, Christianity, and Islam, took a much more aggressive approach.
Christianity developed gradually in the three centuries after Jesus' time, through the prolific writings of Paul and other authors of the texts which Church leaders would later organize into the New Testament. It developed in the twilight of the Roman Empire, slowly replaced the fading Olympic Pantheon and the civil power of Rome with a loose theocracy, unifying an intellectually stagnant Europe for a thousand years. Some Christian groups preferred a monastic devotion to their beliefs, but others seized the opportunity to control the affairs of state, resulting in an ever more powerful papal authority in Rome.
While Pope Gregory was sending missionaries to forcibly convert the people of England and Gaul to Christianity around 600 AD, Muhammad was attracting a core of followers in Mecca and Medina. These followers, like those of Jesus, soon developed a new religion, Islam. After Muhammad's death, and under the direction of the caliph Abu Bakr and his successors, jihads were launched to forcibly convert the surrounding heathens. It was inevitable that Christianity and Islam would run out of room to expand when their spheres of influence began overlapping. After only a hundred years, Islam controlled a vast region from northern Spain to India, including much of the previously Christian Byzantine Empire centered in Constantinople. The Muslim advance on Christian Western Europe was finally halted in the battle of Tours in 732.
By the eleventh century, Western Christians had convinced themselves that they had a claim on Palestine, and at the direction of Pope Innocent III, the Crusades were launched. For almost 200 years, waves of soldiers were dispatched on quests to regain the Holy Land from the Muslims. In spite of the untold lives lost, the lack of a strong civil government thwarted any hope of maintaining control of a land so far from home, and when there were victories, they were short lived.
An especially horrid example of the power of this misguided religious imperialism was the Children's Crusade of 1212. Thousands of boys and girls between 10 and 18 years old marched south and east from France and Germany believing the waters of the Mediterranean would be parted for them, and they could walk to Jerusalem. They believed that because they were poor and faithful, God would take care of them on the journey and deliver the Holy City into their hands. Many starved on the journey to the sea, and when the waters failed to part, some turned back in shame. But many took ships to sea and were ultimately drowned or sold into slavery in Muslim lands. None of them reached Jerusalem.
Religious strife continues into our own time, a strange brew that mixes ideology with territoriality. Rather than stress the fundamental ethic of toleration, many of our major world religions continue to pit people against people, in internecine conflict. Christians battle with Muslims in the Middle East and in the Baltic States, Hindus battle Muslims on the Indian subcontinent, and Catholics fight Protestants in Northern Ireland.
The question we should ask is why the leaders of these religions fail to decry the violence and bloodshed with the same ferocity they attack those they label as heretics. What if the Roman pope, who since the Vatican Council of 1869 has pronounced himself infallible, declared that those who kill in the name of their religion are to be excommunicated and destined to eternal damnation? What if leaders of the other groups taught that ideological war is wrong. Why do they condone the evil of religious imperialism?
Mark Twain, who gave us all those wonderful stories that made us laugh and think pondered these things. He summed it up this way:
Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion - several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn't straight.
Mark Twain, The Damned Human Race]
And from George Santayana:
Christianity persecuted, tortured, and burned. Like a hound, it tracked the very scent of heresy. It kindled wars, and nursed furious hatreds and ambitions. It sanctified, quite like Mohammedism, extermination and tyranny. All this would have been impossible if, like Buddhism, it had looked only for peace and the liberation of souls. It looked beyond; it dreamt of infinite blisses and crowns it should be crowned with before an electrified universe and an applauding God . . . Buddhism had tried to quiet a sick world with anesthetics; Christianity sought to purge it with fire.
George Santayana, Reason in Science
And finally, from Asoka, the Bhuddist Emporer of India in 238 BC:
It is forbidden to decry other sects; the true believer gives honor to whatever in them is worthy of honor.
Asoka, Bhuddist Emperor of India, 238 BC
On imperialism, the score: Bhuddists, one. Hindus, Christians and Muslims, zero.
Intellectual Intolerance
If religious imperialism forms the leaves of the tree of evil, then intolerance is its root. Intellectual intolerance and fanaticism can be found in virtually all religious groups. Since it can be observed that those who are most passionate about a thing are the ones who work hardest to possess it and control its destiny, it should come as no surprise that religions are often guided and controlled by the fanatics in their midst.
If we consider the history of religions, those that emanate from a single person, a savior or prophet, generally repeat the same story. The prophet is a heretic in the religion of his day, cursed and despised, and perhaps largely unknown, but he attracts a small cult of followers. The authorities, whose power is threatened by the heretic, may banish him, or even put him to death, making him a martyr and hastening their own eventual downfall. Of course the one time heretic is always recast as a prophet or messiah by his followers, whether he ever claimed to be such or not. The most recent examples are Christianity and Islam, but the story has been repeated in many cultures. One author I read recently listed over twenty examples.
Curiously, the prophet is usually much less dogmatic than the followers. He has a clear vision of the ways of man and sets about teaching people how to coexist in harmony.
Albert Einstein noted this and wrote:
The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of (cosmic) religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man's image; so that there can be no Church whose central teachings are based upon it. Hence it is precisely among the heretics of every age that we find men who were filled with the highest kind of religious feeling and were in many cases regarded by their contemporaries as atheists, sometimes also as saints.
Albert Einstein, The World As I See It
Unfortunately, the followers of prophets, lacking that same vision, become so consumed with self-righteousness that they lose the message in the race to convert the world. These followers are the creators of dogmas, and the true founders of religions. When these dogmas and purported sayings of the prophet are in conflict with reality, or they contradict one another, casting suspicion on their reliability, there is but one method which can be called into service to explain the inconsistencies. And that method is Faith.
Faith
I think Friedrich Nietzsche's definition of Faith is particularly good
"Faith" means not wanting to know what is true.
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ"
Or a little more to the point, from H. L. Mencken:
[Faith is] an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.
H. L. Mencken
It has always been customary in religious circles to speak of faith as a good thing. But what is the real purpose of faith? What does faith require of us?
Let's start with a passage from Bertrand Russell:
The question of the truth of a religion is one thing, but the question of its usefulness is another. The harm that is done by a religion is of two sorts, the one depending on the kind of belief which it is thought ought to be given to it, and the other on the particular tenets believed. As regards the kind of belief; it is thought virtuous to have faith – that is to say, to have a conviction which cannot be shaken by contrary evidence. Or, if contrary evidence might induce doubt, it is held that contrary evidence must be suppressed. On such grounds, the young are not allowed to hear arguments, in Russia, in favor of capitalism, or in America, in favor of communism. This keeps the faith of both intact and ready for internecine war. The conviction that it is important to believe this or that, even if a free inquiry would not support the belief, is one which is common to almost all religions and which inspires all systems of state education. The consequence is that the minds of the young are stunted and are filled with fanatical hostility both to those who have other fanaticisms and, even more virulently, to those who object to all fanaticisms. A habit of basing convictions upon evidence, and of giving to them only that degree of certainty which the evidence warrants, would, if it became general, cure most of the ills from which the world is suffering. But at present, in most countries, education aims at preventing the growth of such a habit, and men who refuse to profess a belief in some system of unfounded dogmas are not considered suitable as teachers of the young.
The above evils are independent of the particular creed in question and exist equally in all creeds which are held dogmatically. But there are also, in most religions, specific ethical tenets which do definite harm. The Catholic condemnation of birth control, if it could prevail, would make the mitigation of poverty and the abolition of war impossible. The Hindu beliefs that the cow is a sacred animal and that it is wicked for widows to remarry cause quite needless suffering. The communist belief in the dictatorship of a minority of True Believers has produced a whole crop of abominations.
We are sometimes told that only fanaticism can make a social group effective. I think this is totally contrary to the lessons of history. But in any case, only those who slavishly worship success can think that effectiveness is admirable without regard to what is effected. For my part, I think better to do a little good than to do much harm. The world that I do wish to see would be one freed from the virulence of group hostilities and capable of realizing that happiness for all is to be derived rather from cooperation than from strife. I should wish to see a world in which education aimed at mental freedom rather than imprisoning the minds of the young in a rigid armor of dogma calculated to protect them through life against the shafts of impartial evidence. The world needs open hearts and open minds, it is not through rigid systems, whether old or new, that these can be derived.
Bertrand Russel, preface to Why I Am Not A Christian
Adherence to the teachings of a religion is widely hailed by "good people" everywhere, regardless of whether it serves a useful purpose or makes a great deal of sense. We are strongly encouraged to be sure our children are instructed in the true path, which is of course whichever one our group is on. Never mind all those other paths, since by definition, they must be false.
From Arthur Schopenhauer, an early 19th century philosopher:
There is no absurdity so palpable but that it may be firmly planted in the human head, if only you begin to inculcate it before the age of five, by constantly repeating it with an air of great solemnity.
Arthur Schopenhauer, Parerga and Paralipomena
Most of us were brought up in such a way, taken to our religious services, where we could establish an almost unshakable pattern in our subconscious. Even some of the most brilliant of the philosophers have recognized that their emotional attachment to religion, implanted in their childhood, is a thing they cannot simply remove from their psyche, even though they can identify all the intellectual flaws.
Denial of Reason
The trouble with Faith is that it cannot coexist with Reason. When the religious beliefs run into a conflict with the senses, or with the world of science, we must either somehow accept incompatible ideas or we must choose. The number of intelligent people who attend church services regularly suggests that many people can live in a sort of schizophrenic reality, where the laws of nature operate at all times except when thinking religious thoughts. Or, they pretend to believe both but really only believe one. But some of us can't do that, and we are asked to abdicate our intellects so as to preserve the purity of the dogma.
As Schopenhauer puts it:
Instead of trusting what their own minds tell them, men have as a rule a weakness for trusting others who pretend to supernatural sources of knowledge. The bad thing about all religions is that, instead of being able to confess their allegorical nature, they have to conceal it; accordingly, they parade their doctrine in all seriousness as true sensu proprio, and as absurdities form an essential part of these doctrines, you have the great mischief of a continual fraud.
Arthur Schopenhauer, Religion: A Dialogue
Many years ago, I devised a simple measure of faith, since I suspected that most people were doubters at heart, but didn't have the courage to stand up and say so. I decided that a good measure of the degree to which a person has accepted religious dogma to the point of true belief is their attitude toward death. (Of course, I'm assuming a religion which supports an afterlife or reincarnation concept. Confucianism, for example, does not.) If a person believes completely the concepts of afterlife or heaven, then death should be a celebrated event, whether our own or someone else's. I've been to a lot of funerals, and most of them were decidedly not celebrations. Indeed, sadness and tears have been the rule rather than joy and laughter. But on rare occasions, we may find a true believer who is so convinced of the doctrine of afterlife, that he greets death with anticipation. By this definition, I have come across exactly two true believers in all my years.
Suppression of Knowledge
When the distance between dogma and real world knowledge becomes too great, either the dogma can change or the real world must be obscured, since even the faithful eventually cannot deny what they see and hear. And so, the expedient religious technique is simple; suppress the knowledge. By branding a person or a book heretical and forbidding contact by the faithful, the intrusion of knowledge can be slowed.
From Thomas Paine, intellectual influencer of the Constitution:
Later times have laid all the blame upon the Goths and Vandals, but, however unwilling the partizans of the Christian system may be to believe or to acknowledge it, it is nevertheless true, that the age of ignorance commenced with the Christian system. There was more knowledge in the world before that period, than for many centuries afterwards; and as to religious knowledge, the Christian system, as already said, was only another species of mythology; and the mythology to which it succeeded, was a corruption of an ancient system of theism.
Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason
It is no accident that theocracies founded on faith and dogma are always accompanied by intellectual stagnation. It took a thousand years for the people of Europe to emerge from darkness, and it only happened when the absolute authority of the Church was sufficiently weakened by the Reformation and the Renaissance.
And from Robert Ingersoll, early 20th century religious thinker:
The writers who have done most for science have been the most bitterly opposed by the church. There is hardly a valuable book in the libraries of the world that cannot be found on the "Index Expurgatorius." Kant and Fichte and Spinoza were far above and beyond the orthodox world. Voltaire did more for freedom than any other man, and yet the church denounced him with a fury amounting to insanity -- called him an atheist, although he believed not only in God, but in special providence. He was opposed to the church --that is to say, opposed to slavery, and for that reason he was despised. And what shall I say of [the] hundreds and thousands of others who have filled the scientific world with light and the heart of man with love and kindness?
Robert Ingersoll, "A Christmas Sermon"
For the record, the Index Expurgatorius was the official Catholic list of heretical books, and it governed what the faithful could read from 1559 to 1966. For over four hundred years, from the wonders of the Renaissance to putting man in space, the church bade its followers to avoid anything which challenged people to think with an open mind. I would surmise that they finally gave up on the list only because it was being completely ignored.
Lest we think that Faith is only a small problem, we must understand that religious authorities, who often arise from the most fanatical members of the group, will stop at nothing to maintain belief, and therefore control the group. When the Christian authorities in the Middle Ages began to encounter rebellion against their dictates, they understood that their power depended upon total suppression of heresy. Hence, in 1231, Pope Gregory IX began the Inquisition. For the next several hundred years, anyone suspected of heresy was tortured and murdered under the auspices of the Church. When Martin Luther's Reformation began seriously challenging Catholic dogma in the 1500s, the early Protestants became prime targets for the Inquisitors. The value of public spectacle was not lost on the leaders, and burning someone tied to a post became the most favored method of torture and murder. In fact, William Tyndale, who first translated the Bible into English from the Hebrew and Greek in the early 1500s, was burned at the stake for his transgression.
From Thomas Jefferson:
"On the dogmas of religion, as distinguished from moral principles, all mankind, from the beginning of the world to this day, have been quarreling, fighting, burning and torturing one another, for abstractions unintelligible to themselves and to all others, and absolutely beyond the comprehension of the human mind."
Thomas Jefferson to Carey, 1816
I've not found any record that there was ever an official end to the Inquisition. Heresy is still officially regarded as a serious crime deserving serious punishment in most religions. But civil government has intervened in most countries. Just a few years ago, author Salman Rushdie published a critique of Islam called The Satanic Verses, and Islamic leaders pronounced a a large bounty and death sentence on him.
The methods of the Inquisition were so successful, that this unspeakable evil has been emulated by autocrats and despots ever since. The methods of Hitler in Europe, Stalin in Russia, Mao in China, the Khmer Rouge in Kampuchea, to name a few, followed the pattern precisely; identify the people which threaten the ideology, and exterminate them.
From Mikhail Bakunin, a Russian contemporary and rival of Karl Marx:
Both [Church and State] have the same principle at their point of departure: that of the natural wickedness of man, which can be vanquished, according to the Church, only by divine grace, and the death of the natural man in God; and according to the State, only by law and the immolation of the individual upon the alter of the State. Both strive to transform men, the one into a saint, the other into a citizen. But the natural man must die, for the religions of the Church and of the State unanimously pronounce his sentence.
Mikhail A. Bakunin (Russian Anarchist, rival of Marx), Le Progres, 1869.
So we've seen the fruits of intellectual intolerance. Religions depend upon Faith for allegience, and when it is not freely given, when questions are asked, when dogmas are challenged, the punishment is swift and final.
Subjective Morality
I want to move on now to another area where religion has made contributions to society - morality. Systems of morality are a major part of virtually every religion. Certainly, the prophets or chief spokesmen for the various religions spent much of their time defining right and wrong thoughts and behaviors. We have the sayings of Confucious in China, as recorded by his followers in the Analects. The Tao Te Ching gives moral advice often in opposition to the Analects. There is the record of the Old Testament, where visions and stone tablets revealed right and wrong through prophets like Moses. Krishna lectures Arhuna on right and wrong behavior in the Bhagavid Gita, and the Vedas and other Hindu writings codify proper behavior. Jesus is quoted in the New Testament on matters of right and wrong by writers who never met him, many years after his time. And of course the Koran, as revealed to Mohammed by Allah, is full of advice for living a righteous life.
Scarcely a day goes by that I don't hear in the news where someone has proclaimed, in the name of his or her religion, that something or someone should be avoided, that a moral wrong is at work. Yet when I examine the evidence objectively, asking whether the purported wrong has caused harm to any individual, I can find no evidence. Such moral judgement has been the basis of persecution of every minority group you care to name, be it based on race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or anything else which can be used to distinguish one individual from the herd, or one small herd from the larger.
From Helen Gardner's book published in 1885, Men, Women, and Gods:
I think they are making a mistake. I think they are making a mistake to sustain any religion which is based upon faith. Even though a religion claim a superhuman origin … it must be tested by human reason, and if our highest moral sentiments revolt at any of its dictates, its dictates must go. For the only good thing about any religion is its morality, and morality has nothing to do with faith. The one has to do with right actions in this world; the other with unknown quantities in the next. The one is a necessity of time the other a dream of Eternity. Morality depends upon universal evolution; Faith upon special "revelation"…
That Moses or Confucius, Mohammed or Paul, Abraham or Brigham Young asserts that his particular dogma came directly from God, and that it was a personal communication to either or all of these favored individuals, is a fact that can have no power over us unless their teachings are in harmony with our highest thought; our noblest purpose, and our purist conception of life. Which of them can bear the test? Not one "revelation" known to man to-day can look in the face of the nineteenth century and say, "I am parallel with your richest development; I still lead your highest thought; none of my teachings shock your sense of justice." ..
It is faith in "revelation" that makes a mother tear from her arms a tender, helpless child and throw it in the Ganges -- to appease the gods! It is a religion of faith that teaches the despicable principle of caste -- and that religion was invented by those who profited by caste. It was our religion of faith that sustained the institution of slavery -- and it had for its originators dealers in human flesh. It is the Mormon's religion of faith, his belief in the Bible and in the wisdom of Solomon and David, that enables … polygamy to flaunt its power in the face of morality of the nineteenth century, which has outgrown the Jehovah of the Jews.
Every religion must be tried at the bar of human justice, and stand or fall by the verdict there. It has no right to crouch behind the theory of "inspiration" and demand immunity from criticism; and yet that is just what every one of them does. They all claim that we have no right to use our reason on their inventions. But evil cannot be made good by revelation, and good cannot be made evil by persecution.
A "revelation" that teaches us to trample on purity, or bids us despise beauty -- that gives power to vice, or crushes the weak -- is an evil. The dogma that leads us to ignore our humanity, that asks us to throw away our pleasures, that tells us to be miserable here in order that we may be happy hereafter, is a doctrine built upon a false philosophy, cruel in its premises and false in its promises. And the religion that teaches us that believing Vice is holier than unbelieving Virtue is a grievous wrong. Credulity is not a substitute for morality. Belief is not a question of right or wrong, it is a question of mental organization. Man cannot believe what he will, he must believe what he must. If his brain tells him one thing and his catechism tolls him another, his brain ought to win. You don't leave your umbrella at home during a storm, simply because the almanac calls for a clear day.
A religion that teaches a mother that she can be happy in heaven, with her children in hell -- in everlasting torment -- strikes at the very roots of family affection. It makes the human heart a stone. Love that means no more than that, is not love at all. No heart that has ever loved can see the object of its affection in pain and itself be happy. The thing is impossible. Any religion that can make that possible is more to be dreaded than war or famine or pestilence or death. It would eat out all that is great and beautiful and good in this life. It would make life a mockery and love a curse.
I once knew a case myself, where an oldest son who was an unbeliever died. He had been a kind son and a good man. He had shielded his widowed mother from every hardship. He had tried to lighten her pain and relieve her loneliness. He had worked early and late to keep her comfortable and happy. When he died she was heartbroken. It seemed to her more than she could bear. As she sat and gazed at his dear face in a transport of grief, the door opened and her preacher came in to bring her the comfort of religion. He talked with her of her loss, and finally he said, "But it would not be so hard for you to bear if he had been a Christian. If he had accepted what was freely offered him you would one day see him again. But he chose his path, he denied his Lord, and he is lost. And now, dear madam, place your affections on your living son, who is, thank God, saved." That was the comfort he brought her. That was the consolation of his religion. I am telling you of an actual occurrence. Well, a few years later that dear old lady died in her son's house, where she had gone on a visit. He broke her will -- this son who was saved -- and brought in a bill against her estate for her board and nursing while she was ill! Which one of those boys do you think would be the best company for her in the next world?
It has always seemed to me that I would rather go to hell with a good son than to heaven with a good Christian. I may be wrong, but with my present light that is the way it looks to me; and for the sake of humanity I am glad that it looks that way.
Helen H. Gardner, Men, Women, and Gods, 1885
Ethical treatment of one another really isn't too hard to figure out. The golden rule is a good starting point for developing a system of real justice. But religious groups just can't stop there.
Subjection of Women
Persecution of individuals and minority groups is unfortunately the rule rather than the exception. In India, the Hindu caste system thrives even after years of official disapproval by the civil, democratic government. In the caste system, no merit is sufficient to raise a person beyond the station of their parents. Just recently, I saw on the news where some members of the lowest caste, the untouchables, rebelled and committed small acts of defiance, for which the upper castes retaliated with a massacre. Such an injustice is difficult for us to comprehend today, yet slavery was judged to be morally correct by religious authorities in this country just 150 years ago.
Yet more perplexing to me is an even more widespread persecution, which targets fully half of the human race under the auspices of divine plan. Of course I am speaking of the subjection of women.
The view that women are reprehensible, and useful only for procreation and menial tasks reemerges again and again in virtually all religious writings and among many philosophers, notably all male. Though there have been brief periods of history when women stood equal to men, such as height of the Roman Empire, the leaders of religions have worked diligently to put women in their place, as possessions of men.
If we read the sacred writings of Judaism, of Christianity, or of Islam, we find verse after verse declaring the low worth of women, beginning with the Adam and Eve story, in which the woman is created from the man, and then causes him misery by yielding to temptation and eating the forbidden fruit. This forms the justification for all that follows. Women are declared incompetent for any position of leadership or decision making, whether religious or secular. They are told to be cover and hide themselves so as not to cause men to look upon them with desire. They are commanded to submit to their husbands, regardless if he be kind or cruel, just or unjust. Women are told that they are worth little, incapable of useful thought or judgement.
In fundamentalist Islamic countries, the lot of women is growing worse rather than better. Afghanistan's rulers have lately imposed such strict rules for women that they can scarcely leave their homes, and when they do, they must be accompanied by a man and wrapped up like a mummy.
Again quoting Helen Gardner:
This religion and the Bible require of woman everything, and give her nothing. They ask her support and her love, and repay her with contempt and oppression. No wonder that four-fifths of the earnest men are against it, for it is not manly and it is not just; and such men are willing to free women from the ecclesiastical bondage that makes her responsible for all the ills of life, for all the pains of deed and creed, while it allows her no choice in their formation, no property in their fruition. Such men are outgrowing the petty jealousies and musty superstitions of narrow- minded dogmatists sufficiently to look upon the question not as one of personal preference, but as one of human justice. They do not ask, "Would I like to see woman do thus or thus?" but, "have I a right to dictate the limit of her efforts or her energy?" -- not, "Am I benefited by her ecclesiastical bondage and credulity? Does it give me unlimited power over her?" but, "Have I a right to keep in ignorance, have I a right to degrade, any human intellect?" And they have answered with equal dignity and impersonal judgment that it is the birthright of no human being to dominate or enslave another; that it is the just lot of no human being to be born subject to the arbitrary will or dictates of any living soul; and that it is, after all, as great an injustice to a man to make him a tyrant as it is to make him a slave.
Helen H. Gardner, Men, Women, and Gods, 1885
The question is, why, if religion is so unkind to women, are women the most ardent supporters?
French writer and philosopher Simone de Beauvior has this to say:
Religion sanctions woman's self-love; it gives her the guide, father, lover, divine guardian she longs for nostalgically; it feeds her day-dreams; it fills her empty hours. But, above all, it confirms the social order, it justifies her resignation, by giving her the hope of a better future in a sexless heaven. This is why women today are still a powerful trump in the hand of the Church; it is why the Church is notably hostile to all measures liable to help in women's emancipation. There must be religion for women; and there must be women, "true women," to perpetuate religion.
Simone de Beauvior, The Second Sex
To me, it seems like the same sort of behavior that is seen in a slave who has just been freed, yet returns to the cruel master because he fears the new reality, or the woman who has been abused again and again by a vicious husband, yet returns every time when he briefly expresses remorse. It is an empty dream, that some day, if you just go along with the way of things, the tyrant will cease to be a tyrant. It is the behavior of a human being who has experienced complete degredation, whose self esteem has vanished.
The Doctrine of Original Sin (or Vicarious Sin and Vicarious Attonement)
I've touched on the Adam and Eve myth, and it leads me to what I think may be the most evil religious concept. That evil is the doctrine of original sin, and it's corollary, vicarious atonement.
Its invention by western religions was necessary to explain how evil and injustice could be compatible with a loving, omnipotent God. It is religion's answer, and especially Christianity's answer to the question of Epicurus, which I quoted earlier.
According to this doctrine, all human beings are born bad, simply because they are born. If a normal, just human being would not hold another person responsible for the actions of his forebears, how can the concept of original sin and everlasting punishment be explained? Is God less just than a common man?
From John Calvin, the Protestant Reformer:
And therefore the very infants themselves, since they bring with them their own damnation from their mother's womb, are bound not by another's but by their own fault. For although they have not as yet brought forth the fruits of their own iniquity, yet they have the seeds thereof enclosed within them; yea their whole nature in a certain seed of sin.
John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion 1536
Once the concept of sin as a violation of arbitrary morality is established in a religion, the trap is set. By offering a means of atonement, which can only be had through the Church, the faithful are locked into a never satisfied relationship with the priest. Christianity developed the confessional and the selling of indulgences. But unsatisfied with this power, the doctrine of salvation through the punishment of another was invented. Ultimately, this became the centerpiece of Christianity, that the just was punished to remove the sins of the unjust, that the innocent suffered for the guilty, and we are all guilty.
From Nietzsche:
From a psychological point of view, 'sins' are indispensable in any society organized by priests; they are actually levers of power, the priest lives on sins, he needs the 'commission of sins.'
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Anti-Christ
What does such a creed do for the human condition? Does it elevate the human spirit, or does it cast it down? Does it teach people to be responsible for their actions, and live by the golden rule, or does it teach them to abdicate responsibility, since atonement is as close at hand as the nearest priest. Thank goodness civil law does not support such a concept of justice!
From Edith Hamilton:
The innocent suffer - how can that be and God be just? That is not only the central problem of tragedy, it is the great problem everywhere when men begin to think, and everywhere at the same stage of thought they devise the same explanation, the curse, which caused by sin in the first instance, works on of itself through the generations and lifts from God the awful burden of injustice.
Edith Hamilton, The Greek Way
Denial of Personal Responsibility
The theory of vicarious atonement is the child of cowardice and fear. It allows a man to be a criminal and escape the consequences of his crime. It destroys personal responsibility, the most essential element of moral character.
From Albert Einstein:
The man who is thoroughly convinced of the universal operation of the law of causation cannot for a moment entertain the idea of a being who interferes in the course of events - that is, if he takes the hypothesis of causality really seriously. He has no use for the religion of fear and equally little for social or moral religion. A God who rewards and punishes is inconceivable to him for the simple reason that a man's actions are determined by necessity, external and internal, so that in God's eyes, he cannot be responsible, any more than an inanimate object is responsible for the motions it goes through. Hence, science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.
Albert Einstein, The World As I See It
Fear
And so we come to the basis which causes men to invent religions; fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of death, fear of natural events which he cannot foresee.
From Thomas Jefferson:
Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.
Thomas Jefferson letter to Peter Carr, Aug. 10, 1787
And from Robert Ingersoll:
[Christianity] taught some good things -- the beauty of love and kindness in man. But as a torch-bearer, as a bringer of joy, it has been a failure. It has given infinite consequences to the acts of finite beings, crushing the soul with a responsibility too great for mortals to bear. It has filled the future with fear and flame, and made God the keeper of an eternal penitentiary, destined to be the home of nearly all the sons of men. Not satisfied with that, it has deprived God of the pardoning power…
Personally I have no quarrel with the Universalist Church. I have no quarrel with any creed that expresses hope for all of the human race. I find fault with no one for filling the future with joy, -- for dreaming splendid dreams and for uttering splendid prophecies. I do not object to Christianity because it promises heaven to a few, but because it threatens the many with perdition.
Robert Ingersol, "A Christmas Sermon"
Good
And now, as promised, I've saved the best for last. With all the evil that has been wrought in the name of religion, what potential has it for good? Does religion have the means to elevate the human condition?
The Seeds of Wisdom May Be Salvaged
As I earlier described the evils, I tried to make it clear that the prophets who inspired religions have often had a clear vision for humanity. It is the followers who have stumbled.
Again quoting Thomas Jefferson:
Among the sayings and discourses imputed to [Jesus] by his biographyers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence; and others, again, of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being. I separate, therefore, the gold from the dross; restore him to the former, and leave the latter to the stupidity of some, the roguery of others of his disciples. Of this band of dupes and imposters, Paul was the great Coryphaeus, and the first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus."
Thomas Jefferson, to W. Short, 1820
A Vehicle For Moral Principles
I wonder if the majority of people would adopt a sensible moral code without the rewards and punishments of religion. Those of us who have no allegiance to a particular religion, yet live our lives by strong fundamental principles, such as truth, justice, and compassion, are proof that sound ethics need no religious sanction.
From Santayana:
The Old Testament abounds in poetry and metaphor; the Jews who composed it did not take their own figures literally; but when European peoples, more literal and less imaginative, mistook these poems for science, our Occidental theology was born. Christianity was at first a combination of Greek theology with Jewish morality; it was an unstable combination, in which one or the other element would eventually yield; in Catholicism the Greek and Pagan element triumphed, in Protestantism, the stern Hebraic moral code. The one had a Renaissance, the other a Reformation.
George Santayana, Reason in Religion
Removal of Death Anxiety
Anxiety over death is a part of being human. And our religions provide the hope of a reward for those who would rather not face the question of eternity head on.
From Einstein:
I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are molded after our own - a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither do I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear of ridiculous egotisms.
Albert Einstein, quoted in New York Times obituary
And from H; L. Mencken:
In every unbeliever's heart there is an uneasy feeling that, after all, he may awake after death, and find himself immortal. This is his punishment for his unbelief. This is the Agnostic's Hell.
H. L. Mencken, A Mencken Chrestomathy
Bearing Hardship
Life is full of hardship. For some, perhaps most people, bearing the pain of life is too much. When our childhood is over, and we realize that in her impartial blindness, nature is as likely to be cruel as kind, we need a refuge; a way to lighten our burden.
From Santayana again:
Add to fear, imagination: man is an incorrigible animist, and interprets all things anthropomorphically; he personifies and dramatizes nature, and fills it with a cloud of deities; "…the rainbow is taken … for a trace left in the sky by the passage of some beautiful and elusive goddess." Not that people quite literally believe these splendid myths; but the poetry of them helps men to bear the prose of life.
George Santayana, Reason in Religion
Someone sent me an e-mail a few days ago, and it was just the sort of story that shows the human need we look to our religions to fulfill.
I was watching some little kids play soccer. These kids were only five or six years old, but they were playing a real game, a serious game, with two teams, complete with coaches, uniforms, and parents. I didn't know any of them; so I was able to enjoy the game without the distraction of being anxious about winning or losing. I wished the parents and coaches could have done the same. The teams were pretty evenly matched. I will just call them Team One and Team Two. Nobody scored in the first period. The kids were hilarious. They were clumsy and terribly inefficient. They fell over their own feet, they stumbled over the ball, they kicked at the ball and missed it but they didn't seem to care. They were having fun. In the second quarter, the Team One coach pulled out what must have been his first team and put in the scrubs, except for his best player who now guarded the goal. The game took a dramatic turn. I guess winning is important even when you're five years old, because the Team Two coach left his best players in. The scrubs from Team One were no match for them. Team Two swarmed around the little guy who was now the Team One goalie. He was an outstanding athlete, but he was no match for three or four opponents who were also very good. Team Two began to score. The lone goalie gave it everything he had, recklessly throwing his body in front of incoming balls, trying valiantly to stop them. But Team Two scored two goals in quick succession. It infuriated the young boy. He became a raging maniac, shouting, running, diving. With all the stamina he could muster, he covered the boy who now had the ball, but that boy kicked it to another boy twenty feet away. By the time he repositioned himself, it was too late. They scored a third goal. I soon learned who the goalie's parents were. They were nice, decent-looking people. I could tell that his dad had just come from the office because he still had his suit and tie on. They yelled encouragement to their son. I became totally absorbed, watching the boy on the field and his parents on the sidelines. After the third goal, the little kid changed. He could see it was no use; he couldn't stop them. He didn't quit, but he became quietly desperate. Futility was written all over him. His father changed too. At first he had been urging his son to try harder, yelling advice and encouragement. But now he became anxious. He tried to say that it was okay - to hang in there. He grieved for the pain his son was feeling. After the fourth goal, I knew what was going to happen. I've seen it before. The little boy needed help so badly, yet there was no help to be had. He retrieved the ball from the net and handed it to the referee. And then he broke down and cried. He just stood there while huge tears rolled down both cheeks. He went to his knees and put his fists to his eyes. He cried the tears of the helpless and the brokenhearted. When the boy went to his knees, I saw the father start onto the field. His wife clutched his arm and said, "Jim, don't. You'll embarrass him." But he tore loose from her and ran onto the field. He wasn't supposed to. The game was still in progress. Suit, tie, dress shoes, and all - he charged onto the field, and he picked up his son so everybody would know that this was his boy. He hugged him and he held him . . . . and he cried with him. I've never been so proud of a man in my life. He carried him off the field, and when he got close to the sidelines I heard him say, "Scotty, I'm so proud of you. You were great out there. I want everybody to know that you are my son." "Daddy," the boy sobbed, "I couldn't stop them. I tried, Daddy, I tried and tried, but they kept scoring on me." "Scotty, it doesn't matter how many times they scored on you. You're my son, and I'm proud of you. I know you want to quit, but I want you to go back out there and finish the game. And, son, you're going to get scored on again, but it doesn't matter. Go on, now." It made a difference. I could tell it did. When you're all alone, and you're getting scored on - and you can't stop them - it means a lot to know that it doesn't matter to those who love you. The little guy ran back onto the field. They scored two more times on him before the game was over, but it was okay.
I get scored on every day. I try so hard. I recklessly throw my body in every direction. I fume and rage. I struggle with temptation and sin with every ounce of my being - and Satan laughs. He scores again, and the tears come. I go to my knees - sinful, convicted, helpless. And my Father - my Father rushes right out on the field - right in front of the whole crowd - the whole jeering, laughing world - and he picks me up, and he hugs me and he says, "I'm so proud of you. You were great out there. I want everybody to know that you are my child, and because I control the outcome of this game, I declare you - The Winner!"
The author goes on to quote a verse from the Old Testament Book of Zephaniah:
The Lord your God is with you, a warrior who gives victory; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with his love, He will rejoice over you with singing.
Zephaniah 3:17 NIV
It had been a long time since I read the book of Zephaniah, so I was curious to see the context. After a lengthy, graphic description of all the violence Jehovah will unleash on the unfaithful nations, after a tirade on the wickedness of man, these last few verses hold out promise to the children of Israel of their day of redemption. We all need hope to cling to in the face of adversity.
Hope
Philosopher George Santayana kept his religion for the good it could do. Having grown up in the Catholic Church, he loved the myths and rituals, and even while he believed there was no God, he adorned his rooms with pictures of the Virgin and the saints. He wrote:
The man of culture then, will leave undisturbed the myths that so comfort and inspire the life of the people; and perhaps he will a little envy them their hope. But he will have no faith in another life.
There are two stages in the criticism of myths. The first treats them angrily as superstitions; the second treats them smilingly as poetry… Religion is human experience interpreted by human imagination… The idea that religion contains a literal, not a symbolic representation of truth and life is simply an impossible idea. Whoever entertains it has not come within the region of profitable philosophizing on that subject. Matters of religion should never be matters of controversy… We seek rather to honor the piety and understand the poetry embodied in these fables.
George Santayana, The Sense of Beauty
From philosopher Herbert Spencer:
Truth generally lies in the coordination of antagonistic opinions. Let science admit that its "laws" apply only to phenomena and the relative; let religion admit that its theology is a rationalizing myth for a belief that defies conception. Let religion cease to picture the Absolute as a magnified man; much worse, as a cruel and blood-thirsty and treacherous monster, afflicted with a love of adulation such as would be despised in a human being. Let science cease to deny deity, or to take materialism for granted. Mind and matter are, equally, relative phenomena, the double effect of an ultimate cause whose nature must remain unknown. The recognition of this Inscrutable Power is the core of truth in every religion, and the beginning of all philosophy.
Herbert Spencer, First Principles
Love
As I mentioned earlier, when I was a child, my religious teachers were heavy on love and kindness. I liked going to Sunday school. It fit right in with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny; goodness was the way of the world. But something changed along the way. Not satisfied that love and kindness would inspire a person to a moral life, they began speaking more and more of punishment, of the dark side. They claimed that the love was unconditional, but you would be sent to hell for eternity, with no chance of appeal, if you failed to have faith. What sort of love was this? If only they had left the love unconditional, I may have not started asking difficult questions they couldn't answer. As much as religions teach children of love, kindness, and compassion, they can do good in the world. If only they could leave it at that.
From Thomas Wolfe:
The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, peculiar to myself and a few other solitary men, is the central and inevitable fact of human existence.
Thomas Wolfe, "The Anatomy of Loneliness"
Humans need love, and almost all of us fear loneliness. Our religions, when they tell us of a divine, loving God, who cares for us as individuals, can make the difference between despair and hope.
Life Purpose
Why are we here? What is our purpose? Is there a purpose?
Thoreau, as he was contemplating such things on the shore of Walden Pond wrote:
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
Thoreau, Walden]
And the older we get, the more we can see the truth of his simple observation. We feel small and insignificant. Our religions have the potential to lift us up, to feel worthwhile, to give us purpose. And perhaps if they could be less dogmatic, they could help us to escape our desperation, to feel the wonder of nature and the warm glow of kinship with our fellow man.
A Free Man's Worship
I'd like to close with the last three paragraphs from one of my favorite essays, "A Free Man's Worship", by Bertrand Russell:
The life of Man, viewed outwardly, is but a small thing in comparison with the forces of Nature. The slave is doomed to worship Time and Fate and Death, because they are greater than anything he finds in himself, and because all his thoughts are of things which they devour. But, great as they are, to think of them greatly, to feel their passionless splendour, is greater still. And such thought makes us free men; we no longer bow before the inevitable in Oriental subjection, but we absorb it, and make it a part of ourselves. To abandon the struggle for private happiness, to expel all eagerness of temporary desire, to burn with passion for eternal things--this is emancipation, and this is the free man's worship. And this liberation is effected by a contemplation of Fate; for Fate itself is subdued by the mind which leaves nothing to be purged by the purifying fire of Time.
United with his fellow-men by the strongest of all ties, the tie of a common doom, the free man finds that a new vision is with him always, shedding over every daily task the light of love. The life of Man is a long march through the night, surrounded by invisible foes, tortured by weariness and pain, towards a goal that few can hope to reach, and where none may tarry long. One by one, as they march, our comrades vanish from our sight, seized by the silent orders of omnipotent Death. Very brief is the time in which we can help them, in which their happiness or misery is decided. Be it ours to shed sunshine on their path, to lighten their sorrows by the balm of sympathy, to give them the pure joy of a never-tiring affection, to strengthen failing courage, to instil faith in hours of despair. Let us not weigh in grudging scales their merits and demerits, but let us think only of their need--of the sorrows, the difficulties, perhaps the blindnesses, that make the misery of their lives; let us remember that they are fellow-sufferers in the same darkness, actors in the same tragedy as ourselves. And so, when their day is over, when their good and their evil have become eternal by the immortality of the past, be it ours to feel that, where they suffered, where they failed, no deed of ours was the cause; but wherever a spark of the divine fire kindled in their hearts, we were ready with encouragement, with sympathy, with brave words in which high courage glowed.
Brief and powerless is Man's life; on him and all his race the slow, sure doom falls pitiless and dark. Blind to good and evil, reckless of destruction, omnipotent matter rolls on its relentless way; for Man, condemned to-day to lose his dearest, to-morrow himself to pass through the gate of darkness, it remains only to cherish, ere yet the blow falls, the lofty thoughts that ennoble his little day; disdaining the coward terrors of the slave of Fate, to worship at the shrine that his own hands have built; undismayed by the empire of chance, to preserve a mind free from the wanton tyranny that rules his outward life; proudly defiant of the irresistible forces that tolerate, for a moment, his knowledge and his condemnation, to sustain alone, a weary but unyielding Atlas, the world that his own ideals have fashioned despite the trampling march of unconscious power.
Bertrand Russell, "A Free Man's Worship"
dm 4/2/99
