Religion and Morality:
A Triptychby William Edelen
God Talking To You "Now hear this. Now hear this. This is your Captain speaking." Every Navy and Marine person has heard that blare out over the loudspeakers of a ship or station. Now, we are in real trouble when the men wackos (I emphasize men), crazies and loonies start thinking they hear that call from "God." I knew a guy in seminary who always said "God" was telling him what to do. He was a guy who didn't have both oars in the water; he was a half bubble off plumb; his elevator didn't go to the top floor; he was two tacos short of a combination plate. You get the picture? He told his wife God told him to go to Africa as a missionary. His wife said, "Fine . . . GO," but that God had not told her to go with him so she was getting a divorce and staying in the good ole United States. Unfortunately, theological seminaries attract too many of those flaky types, as recent studies from both Roman Catholicism and Protestantism have well documented. If God is unknown and beyond human comprehension, then "theology" is a pseudo-science without a subject matter, and the "theologian" is simply a person who has no idea what he is talking about. How much of the horror and brutality of history has come from men who used God as an excuse for every kind of obscenity and psychotic behavior. MOSES claimed that God told him to "gird his loins . . . kill his neighbors . . . rape his women . . . starve his children and steal his land." Look it up if you can stand to read it. It's in the bible, the book of Numbers, Chapter 31, where Moses claims that God blessed all that carnage, rape, murder and genocide. MARTIN LUTHER claimed that God told him to destroy the Jews, burn their houses of worship and to cut the throats of the German peasants. "To cut the throat of a peasant will get you in heaven quicker than prayer," said Luther to the aristocracy. Hitler admired Luther more than any other German, according to William L. Shirer in his classic The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. JOHN CALVIN claimed that God told him to burn Servetus at the stake. So what is God up to today? He (has to be a He . . . a She would never order such atrocities) so, He, God today directs bombings in New York and is behind ethnic cleansings everywhere, telling his men followers "take the land . . . rape the women . . . kill all those heathens." (Heathens being everyone other than you of course.) Moses would have liked that approach, having followed it in his own time. God came to Waco telling Koresh to keep all the women and girl children for himself. Women could not sleep with their husbands, only Koresh. Some of his 'wives' were 11 years old. History reeks with the stink that 'men', wacko and loonie, have justified every violent, lustful, insane, stupid, act of their lives by crying "but God" told me to do it . . . its "God's will." Ministers all over America, stand up in pulpits every Sunday morning telling their 'flocks' what "God's will" is and what God wants them to do. Are you not sick of a male 'God' who sounds just like the wacko men . . who keep 'speaking' for Him? If there is that unknown Mystery, that Creative Spirit, in the Universe, then let it be truly omniscient . . . without gender, without geography . . . without ideology and without theology. For only then will not even a sparrow fall to the ground unknown and the least shall be considered side by side with the greatest. Cults, Catastrophe, and Mainline Religion You probably were shocked when you read about the nightmare of Waco, Texas and the man who thought he was Jesus Christ, but if you pause and think it through you should not be "shocked" at all. We live in a culture that feeds this kind of religious insanity. The distinguished psychiatrist Dr. Karl Menninger once said that fundamentalist Christianity had put more people in mental institutions than any other cause. Those who study cultic movements estimate that today within the United States there are at least ten million who are members of groups and organizations not far removed from Jim Jones and David Koresh. The language they use, as well as the ideas and concepts they spew out, are directly related to orthodox Christianity, and especially evangelical, fundamentalist Christianity. In the words of Norman Cousins: "so long as we in the United States are prepared to provide unlimited hospitality, and give status and tax benefits, to those claiming to speak for God, who call themselves religious, then we must be prepared to deal with all the horrors that are the natural progeny." The Duke University anthropologist Weston La Barre in his classic The Ghost Dance: Origins of Religion, made this observation: "the traditions of orthodox Christianity give powerful support and impetus to cult fantasies and fanaticism." There is no concept of being "saved," as such, outside of orthodox and fundamentalist Christianity. You cannot have a cult without a savior leader, promising to lead you out of darkness into light. . . and who claims to speak for God. The concept of an authoritarian savior figure is repugnant to Taoist, Buddhist, Zen Buddhist, classical Hindu or Native American. In our country we live in a religious climate that breeds father, savior, authoritarian religious figures. I say that there is a very fine line between cult leaders and their language and the Billy Grahams and Pat Robertsons of the world who will stand before people and say "everyone is going to the hell of judgment unless you listen to me and my words of salvation . . . I have the 'saving' words for you that will lead you to heaven." Now, there is also a very fine line between the Billy Grahams of the world and any orthodox, traditional, Christian minister who actually believes that he/she is speaking for God. A number of years ago I was invited to speak to an annual ministers' conference in the state of Washington. The ministers were all from mainline Protestant denominations. There were around 170 present. They asked me to speak on "The relationship between Cult Movements and Orthodox Christianity." They did not like what I asked them. I asked, "how many here, really, believe that when they stand in that pulpit on Sunday morning, they are speaking for God? . . . that God is literally speaking through them?" "Raise your hand," I said to them, "if you believe that." About three-fourths of them raised their hand. Can you imagine it? These ministers cannot even explain how a light bulb works, and yet they think that they are the spokesperson for the mystery that is behind millions of galaxies and the entire universe. And they proceed to tell people. speaking for "God," what this God wants them to read, what movies God doesn't want them to see, what God wants them to do, etc., etc. Religious arrogance, insanity and lethal superstition comes in many forms. It is a very fine line between various expressions of these forms. Nobody should be "shocked" at Waco, Texas. The soil is fertilized for such outbreaks every Sunday morning, all over this country. Morality Without Religion MORALITY DOES NOT DEPEND ON RELIGION. I am talking about organized religion. I am NOT talking about living one's life filled with wonder over the sacred dimensions of existence. A person can be filled with the sacred, in the most profound sense, and have no use for organized religion. In fact it is those persons who understand the sacred dimensions of the earth and their relationship to it, that are usually the most moral and the most ethical. And so, it is "organized religion" and morality that I am writing about here. No more meaningless or inane cliche is promoted by the religious right than the "without religion people would not be moral" or "the bible is where our morality comes from." Anyone swallowing this hogwash should do a little reading, starting with all of the immorality that saturates the bible, and then move on through the history of the church from Constantine to the Salem Witch Trials, to "religion" supporting the obscenities of World Wars One and Two, and from Viet Nam to Central America, from Northern Ireland to the Gaza strip, The Christian church today talks of a "just war" in Africa and the World Council of Churches has supported, financially, change by violence. So, let us clear away the cobwebs of thought that equate "morality" and "religion." Many of the most moral, most ethical, most just and righteous people in the history of civilization have not had any use for either the bible or organized religion. We also hear that threadbare phrase that "without the fear of punishment or judgment (or some other fundamentalist phantasy) people will not do good or be moral." Again, the fact that this is not true could be documented for hours by looking at the millions of good, just and moral human beings who do not believe in punishment or divine "judgment" of any kind. They are simply good and moral because IT IS GOOD TO BE MORAL AND ETHICAL and being moral contributes to a harmonious society. A very large segment of religion always appeals to FEAR. There is a lion behind every bush. Frenzied injunctions warn us of their latest "dangers" from Humanism to abortion, I am sure of one thing. If you are hiking along a narrow ledge, overlooking a chasm, you certainly do not want a frenzied and fear-filled person as your leader or guide. It is not through panic and fanatic frenzy that human beings find right answers for contemporary society. It is, rather, through knowledge and enlightenment. Tragically, more often than not, it has been religion that leads us away from knowledge. Without religion . . . responsible and just human beings, free of fear, can use their reason and find solutions to human problems. Without religion . . . they can contribute toward developing the potential for human growth. Without religion . . . they can be dedicated to education, human rights, democracy, cultural development and civil rights. Without religion . . . there would be today, far more women's rights. Without religion . . . there would be today far more compassion and understanding in North Ireland, Africa, the Gaza strip and the United States. Morality does not need religion and, in fact, it is religion that often leads to a total breakdown in morality.
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