Religion, Despair and Good for Good’s Sake.

     This one’s heavy. Trigger warning for those with religious beliefs. I respect your right to hold your beliefs, and will fight tooth and nail to preserve that right. I am literally planning to write a book that digs into the merits of that place where religious thought came from. I do not dismiss its power (quite the opposite), and I have no problem with benign beliefs that can give profound meaning to an individual’s life.

     I do have a problem with beliefs that are imposed upon others against their will, and will equally fight for the individual’s right to decide for themselves what they choose to believe. And the freer the individual can be of bias and indoctrination, the better.

     Just as I am against children being pressured to take up a particular profession, but rather they are opened up to all the possibilities and given as much opportunity as possible to choose from – this parallels my views on the topic of religion and spiritual matters.

     I’ll have to return to that can of worms, I think. But, putting that instant tangent aside for now, and with my warning voiced – deep breath. Here we go.

     Religion as an antidote to the question of morality.

     Morality is one of the major arguments for religious belief. And it is grounded in some profound questions.

     If there is no god, then can there be good and evil at all? Can anything truly be deemed as an immoral action? Are we just making this all up?

     Delve into moral relativism if you want to follow that rabbit hole a little further. I will just say, I don’t buy that argument, and do not think a god is necessary in order for us to do good. There are many sources, much greater minds than myself, who make the case for objective morality without the supernatural (well, objective for all intents and purposes, at least).

     But here’s my two cents. And my call to humanity to take responsibility for ourselves. (Sorry for the soapbox opening. Never forget I am but a rambling fool who is simply getting things off my mind, and likely to be wrong about… well, everything.)

     I propose that the “morality seed,” from which religious doctrine sprouts forth, is sown in the soil of despair.

     And, ironically, the resultant branch of religion that declares what is good or evil with absolute conviction, is responsible for casting a historically totalitarian shadow – a shadow that has inflicted so much devastation and suffering on our world.

     Now, religion is many things. The word is now loaded and stained to the point of being almost unusable – everyone has their own interpretation, and the conversation rarely gets past this fact. In this way, I wouldn’t dare to simplify it to just one thing. If there’s a single position I take on almost anything, it’s that the subject is usually so nuanced and complicated that to take any black and white stance is inevitably wrong. And often dangerous in unforeseen ways.

     That said, my focus here is purely on the ethical/moral branch of religion, leaving aside all other aspects of that gargantuan word for the moment. So let us conduct a closer examination of said branch.

     We humans, in all cultures, in all times, have done some horrible, undeniably evil things. No group is without a deplorable blood stain. We commit these acts on others, and we commit them to ourselves, our families.

     Particularly in the Abrahamic branches of religion, there is a powerful thrust of damnation, of heretic labelling, of “chosen one” thinking and tribal loyalty. Basically, the story goes, “humans are evil, cursed, and beyond redemption… but follow us and you will be saved.”

     Variations include, “sorry, but there are limited tickets in this club,” or, “too bad you were born in a place where the good news didn’t reach you in time,” or “don’t think about leaving, if you know what’s good for you…”

     Yet, all the traditions contain some wisdom, if one is willing to get beyond the literal words and take them as simply stories, writings from people who had thoughts about life at a particular point in history.

     And these people were, simultaneously, horrible people and wise, well-meaning people.  As are we all – to varying extremes and degrees, but nonetheless.

     Much of the time it was about power, in some way or another. But even tyrants – to be successful ones – must study the way humans behave and think, must understand the way they are moved, if they hope to control them in mass.

     “Know your enemy, know yourself, and victory is certain.”

     A wise scholar wrote that line. Also, a murdering warlord wrote that line. (He also might not have existed at all!)

     His name is Sun Tzu, and I have the utmost admiration for the wisdom he articulated in “The Art of War.” It’s use goes far beyond the obvious application of defeating the enemy on the literal battlefield. The battlefield can be metaphorical, the wisdom can be used by the oppressed to stand up against their oppressors. It can be used to better ourselves as human beings, to overcome the demons waging war in our hearts and minds.

     It is also a book about cold-blooded violence.

     We must never forget the dichotomy of human nature, nor think ourselves so enlightened as to be beyond it. It is something we have to reconcile – within ourselves, and within our human nature as a whole.

     We are all of us, simultaneously, monsters and saints. So “who are we to point our fingers? We must be out our heads!” (M.J. Keenan)

     Baby with the bath water and all that jazz. Don’t throw out the saint with the monster.

     So, religion doesn’t just “make shit up” to control people, in my estimation. That is much too simple. The people have to believe it, for one. That means it has to be rooted in something real, something in the human psyche. The fear of death, certainly. But there is also a deep basis of evolution at work being hijacked to make it all fly – to control the puppet, the strings must be there in the first place to pull.

     And poorly attached strings rip off too easily to be at all useful. They have to be secure strings, capable of holding the weight of masses.

     I come back, now, to the notion of ethics in religion. The damnation story is a real one. We have done such horrible things to each other, and we are really effective at coming up with new ways to generate suffering. We fight wars over love and candy. We murder our families for a dime. We seethe at the happiness of our friends. We eat without any concern in front of the starving. We chase pleasure like predators.

     What other conclusion could we come to, but that we are evil?

     But this is not the case.

     Not by a long shot. Not at all.

     We love. We care. We cry together. We are joyful with each other, for each other.

     We give a shit.

     And we do all of this despite having every reason not to. We don’t give up on each other, even as we do everything in our power to push each other away.

     We don’t deserve love, yet there it is – given freely, unconditionally. We don’t accept love, yet in it comes – inexhaustible and without expectation. We kill love, yet it never dies – immortal and infinite.

     It is the profound contradiction of humans – the impossible question of who we are. To give us a single, simple answer is folly.

     And that is why I refuse religion as a necessary mechanism to be good. It’s time for us to take responsibility for our morality, religious and non-religious alike. Time to put this punishment and damnation shit aside, and start working together.

     Punishment is a last resort to encouraging good behaviour – it is, in fact, not encouragement at all, but intimidation to behave in a way the tyrant dictates as good. It concedes that the person is beyond learning, beyond understanding why it is simply good to do good.

     It means giving up on a person.

     Religion is a victim to the despair that humanity is beyond realising its own redemption. It has given up the hope that we can stand up on our own.

     In exact opposition to the word it so often leans upon, it reveals a fundamental lack of faith.

     I have faith that humans are good, despite everything we’ve done. And even if we fail to work our shit out in time, I know there are so many trying to do so. The attempt alone is worth the effort. Every bit of love that is created along the way, is worth far more than the suffering we might wade through to attain it.

     If we fail, it will be a spectacular failure.

     Or, despite our human shortcomings, despite the insurmountable odds and the fool’s hope, we will succeed…