- Groups within this so-called civilization have been pointing
fingers at one another since the beginning of recorded history, blaming
each other for systematically trying to and succeeding in conquering, exploiting,
and even exterminating others whose ideals or ways of life don't align
with their own principles or beliefs.
Sadly, this is part of human evolution, seeing as how we are tribal creatures,
hardwired at birth and carrying the genetic instructions to form groups,
establish borders, patrol and defend those borders against invasion, which
still comes quite naturally. Some do not find this fact easily acceptable,
seeing as how it lowers us on the evolutionary scale to the level of our
simian cousins, chimpanzees, with whom we share 99% of genetic information.
But as we have seen through the advances of science, genes don't lie.
As set as the rules seem to be for human evolution, we differ from other
species in having the unique power to change ourselves and change our
environment on a grand scale.
The big difference between our cousins and us is that we have had moral
and social standards stack up through the ages, either through the process
of "civilization" via education, or through religion, thus the
heightened development of individual and collective behavior through conditioning.
Naturally, we possess the ability to discern right from wrong, which is
the rudimentary framework of a moral conscience, and it works just fine
in nature as observed in chimpanzee behavior, but the multitude of social
and religious standards standing guard have forced us into a most unnatural
state. Through one of our greatest developments, the ability to communicate
through language, we have seen it fit to create just reasons for our behavior,
excuses if you will, to justify all sorts of actions, even acts of violence
against members of our own kind.
Somewhere along the developmental path, several members of mankind created
the perfect tool to manipulate fellow group members, enabling them as well
to control and subdue opposing or neighboring groups. Through verbal and
written communication, something deep inside the human being was being
called upon, being molded a word at a time, imposing the ability to believe
in the unseen. Man dipped into the well within where all things unseen
thrive or die, Man drew the bucket and named what he saw within, Faith.
Man has looked to the stars since the beginning of time, and wondered many
things. In its helplessness to explain all things around him, it created
simplistic and self-satisfactory explanations to account for his surroundings,
thus calming his fear of the unknown and giving his own existence and
role vital significance amongst all things in this realm. The "invisible
force" which seemed to rule and overwhelm man through the scope and
complexity of all that accompanied his existence no longer seemed a threat,
but rather a benevolent giant entity that created everything around him,
and watched over him. Mankind, initially in what can be compared to as
an orphan state, created out of desperation both a maternal and paternal
figure, nicely rolled into one single entity. Man made God.
But somewhere down the line, things got shaky, with this once comfortable
state of all-encompassing belief starting to wobble as some of mankind
started questioning the existence of something that could not be seen
or be proven to exist. These would later be known as what we sometimes
hear or read about referred to as "infidels" or non-believers.
Evidence of the existence of a force responsible for the creation and meaning
of life in physical terms came most notably through the stories about
a man called Jesus. Suddenly, God had a face. God manifested itself in
this world through its ambassador, Jesus Christ, thus apparently putting
to rest all doubts regarding its existence and power. In other religions,
some messengers appear here and there in equally relevant stories of emissaries
making themselves physically present in one form or another. Whenever
faith has come under attack, or seemed to develop a fracture, mankind
has always found a way to re-affirm his own beliefs and stop things from
falling apart. But times have changed, and the age of "miracles",
as found in religious scriptures throughout, is now but a murky and somewhat
redundant memory. Today, "miracles", as originally defined by
the Roman Catholic Church, have acquired a more humble and subdued nature
as such, easing the continuation of one of its favorite pastimes, beatification.
The Roman Catholic Church once ordered the mass extermination of all cats
in Europe, deeming them accomplices of the Devil, and fit for nothing
more than a death by burning as a result of its verdict. In a matter of
months after this belief took hold and was applied, the rat population
shot up by gigantic proportions. Man succeeded in creating a monster,
"Black Death", or what is also known as the Bubonic Plague.
Just one of mankind's little faith-related blunders. Lately we've heard
such things as that there is no such place called Hell, as we know it,
which coming from the Pope himself would have started a religious revolution.
But it didnt do much more than create some outcry here and there, thanks
to a great public relations maneuver on behalf of the Vatican. In more
recent times, we hear about the same man performing the religious rite
known as exorcism, which serves the purpose of freeing a person's body
of a demon occupying it.
-
- Demons, according to the Bible, come from a place called
Hell. The Vatican is yet again trying to stay in stride with the time,
yet awkwardly. The Pope, when it comes right down to it, is nothing more
than the head sales representative of a large corporation striving to
stay in business through stimulating and preserving the consumption of
its product. Sales reps do make mistakes, as we all know, but backed by
a solid public campaign and a good longstanding product that serves a
need, its easy for them to stay in business. For self-serving practical
purposes, every religion in the world has a timeline, an estimated time
of "The End". This keeps people in check, keeping them busy
preparing themselves and their children so that they may in turn prepare
theirs for the moment of truth, or judgment day. This keeps the "corporation"
well nourished through the continued support from its congregation.
Most of mankind, nowadays, constantly adjusts and fine-tunes its beliefs
according to the circumstances, prioritizing and arranging things according
to its convenience in order to justify its actions through its reasoning
that it all has been pre-ordained somehow and sanctioned by a higher being
that rules omnipotent. Two men, George Bush, and Osama Bin Laden, lend
themselves as examples of this kind of behavior, both symbolic of a much
broader and deeper problem. The aggressor claiming to have been given
divine right to inflict harm, and the victim given the divine right to
retaliate.
Chimpanzees demonstrate the purest and most honest form of this behavior
by instinct, and not inspired in the least or ruled by religious belief.
Carrying out invasions on neighboring groups with the purpose of acquiring
better feeding grounds and absorbing members of the opposite group in
order to broaden the gene pool, thus adding insurance to the species success
as a whole. We, too, behaved that simply and were motivated by the same
factors once.
The twisted and perverse ideology at the core of Hitler's vision of world
domination and the creation of a master race is just a deformed part of
the genetic blueprint that nature supplies us with at birth. Unfortunately,
as seen in the aforementioned example of this one man, it can go to disgusting
extremes when coupled with religious beliefs as well as with other ideals
attained through various states of conditioning. The Catholic Church at
the time turned a blind eye to the genocide and was instrumental in not
only its execution, but also the successful escape of some of its perpetrators.
The ongoing struggle in the former Republic of Yugoslavia is yet another
example of this deformation of one of our instincts through conditioning.
Tribalism at its best, but with the added twist of a valid killers license,
issued by an omnipotent being that no one has ever seen or heard.
In today's headlines, after you dig through the different layers of conveniently
arranged "information", you will come face to face with the
root of todays and yesterdays most prominent problems: Religion. I know
it seems like an overly simplistic and narrow view of what is in my opinion
the source of todays conflicts and problems, but it is so much a part
of the heart of the matter that it cannot be ignored, or mistaken for what
it is.
It seems somewhere down the line we were led down a path that drew us away
from our true self, keeping mankind from developing a universal sense of
being that would instill behavior based on conscience, awareness of ourselves
and of all around us. On the evolutionary scale, we have been naturally
granted qualities that put us in the outstanding position to influence
and change the world in ways that it affects even the smallest and of
organisms. Ideally, we would function as just another part of the chain,
without upsetting the balance, but it is too late now to turn back. The
sense of respect that we should have, and would have, developed through
a natural process has been perverted, seemingly beyond rescue.
We now live with constant reminders of our achievements and mistakes in
the form of literature, museums and monuments, as testament of what we
have done right, and what we have done wrong. The Holocaust Museum is
perhaps one of the most remarkable and starkest reminder of what mankind
can do when at its worst against its own. And yet, today as seen in the
Middle East, the lessons that should have been learned from such horrific
acts seem to have been lost in the muddle of religious righteousness.
Fuelled and caused entirely by religion, the "Us Against Them"
drama plays itself out yet again, with different cast members, but all
the same, oblivious to what historical and genetic information has proven,
that the Israeli and Palestine people were once one and the same, one
tribe, one people. When put side by side, the Holocaust and the current
Middle Eastern crisis seem somewhat disproportionate, but sadly, ironically
the same.
Perhaps John Lennon was a bit too arrogant for his own good by having claimed
"Were more popular than Jesus Christ," but it reflected slightly
through hyperbole a deeper, broader, and contemporary phenomenon. Mankinds
renewed self-awareness and newly acquired perception that faith in ones
self and in others should not be dictated by any one nation, organization,
or individual. A faith under which no one is encouraged to perform acts
of goodness out of fear of punishment, or kill fellow humans, stacking
up favors under the watchful eye of a God, literally buying their way
into a place called "Heaven" or "Paradise". But instead,
perform and live life with the utmost respect and consideration for all
fellow beings inhabiting this world.
The different religious beliefs of the world have been distorted through
the passage of time at the hands of those whose interests it may have
served in both the distant and near past, and continue to be even today.
Religion has been rendered useless and obsolete in light of the goals
that we aspire to as mankind. It is now fashionable to concoct our own
self-serving brand of faith. We now create and consume cocktails that
mix the power of believing in one self and that of a universal unseen
force that rules everything. Everything from how to arrange your furniture
so as to harness invisible forces and make them work for you, programming
yourself into a better version of you through self-motivation, to tapping
into the divine through meditation. Designer faiths to go.
I, myself, at times find comfort in fleetingly believing that beyond all
that is visible, that a benevolent universal power "pulls the strings,"
so to say. Perhaps, just as I speculate about our ancestors having done,
my fear of the unknown and the need to explain the still unexplained inspires
me to sometimes summon this faith and give it some form in order to curl
up comfortably in its lap. But that's as close as I'll ever get to being
"religious".
Having worked in the field of restoring stained glass windows, I have seen
how one church collected through their congregation $150,000 Canadian dollars
in order to finance the restoration process. I personally think that the
money would have better served the community in other much more tangible
and practical ways, not by enhancing the churchs appearance. I was shocked
to learn of how other churches have spent as much as a million dollars
on restoration work.
The Roman Catholic Church offers so-called "marriage courses"
to couples about to marry, and even serves sometimes as counsel to couples
experiencing marital difficulties. This has always struck me as a strange
and utterly contradictory practice, seeing as how the people dispensing
these courses and advice know nothing about the dynamics and inner workings
of a relationship. While some members of the community and their congregations
live out their lives in near-poverty, Ive seen priests living in luxury,
driving the latest model cars, and enjoying the services of cooks and
maids. To further undermine my belief in this one particular faith, are
the accounts that constantly surface of sexual abuse on the part of priests.
The lack of administration of proper justice, in light of these hideous
crimes, serves as evidence of the self-serving and unbalanced attitude
that seems to be policy within this one religion. Others, though somewhat
different in some aspects, reflect the same practice of constantly contradicting
themselves and conflicting with laws that are governed by nature.
I have been embittered, quite obviously, by all this, but continue to keep
my heart and mind open to the idea that we will someday be free of these
parasitic beliefs and overcome the differences rooted in differing religious
beliefs. Religion, in my opinion, has dug trenches wider and even deeper
than racism itself. Right now, throughout the world, in synagogues, churches,
mosques, and all other kinds religious meeting places, both the seeds
of love, and of hate, are being sown, prolonging this state of confusion.
In the end, only believing in our own collective spiritual strength, with
no strings attached, masters of our own destinies through the development
and application of our conscience, will we be able to even begin to understand
the source and reason of our existence and role. We know what is right
and what is wrong, beyond the grip of the primeval instinct that rules
chimpanzees and the laws and religions of all the nations in the world.
I think we can do better than what we are doing right now. Its just a
matter of time. Perhaps one day this world will be one house, serving
as a single place of congregation for all people as one, believing only
in the goodness of humanity, and putting it to practice. Until then, mutual
respect, fairness, justice, and tolerance will serve this purpose well.
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