Today in Burma, there are reports that soldiers have mutinied against the leaders of the junta. This was inevitable. Almost everyone in that country is a Buddhist, and the dictators ordered their troops to fire upon Buddhist monks who were leading a peaceful protest.
Try to imagine what would happen in the United States if George W. Bush were to order Christian troops to gun down clergy staging a peaceful protest. Some of them would refuse to obey, too. However, others would accept the word of their Pope or Dobson or Falwell or their commanding officer who leads them in prayer each morning that they are doing God's work in cutting down the enemies of the State. They have been brainwashed into believing that they are not entitled to interpret the Lord's will themselves. Their "betters" have to do it for them. They have been denied the mystical experience that is the basis of Buddhism and that was once the foundation of Christianity.
At its inception, Christianity was a lot like Buddhism. From "The Gospel of Thomas", a text that probably represents some of the earliest forms of Christian teaching:
"Jesus said 'If your leaders say to you "Look, the Father's imperial rule is in the sky, then the birds of the sky shall precede you. If they say to you " It is in the sea" then the fish shall precede you. Rather, the Father's imperial rule is inside you and outside you. When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will understand that are children of the living Father. But if you do not know yourselves, then you live in poverty, and you are the poverty.'"
The religious right would have everyone in America except a tiny number of corporate CEOs and their lackeys live in spiritual as well as material poverty. They have attempted to co-opt the Christian Church, turning it into a great big list of "Thou Shalt Nots", reminiscent of the cult in Aldous Huxley's futuristic book Ape and Essence . Why? Because they know that a religion based upon spirituality can motivate people to right injustices, defy tyrannical laws, protect those weaker than themselves and put moral values ahead of material self interest.
"Jesus said 'I have cast fire upon the world and look, I am guarding it until it blazes" Gospel of Thomas
Or, as William Blake wrote "Jesus was all virtue and acted from impulse and not from rules. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.
Among many common people (not corporate CEOs and not military dictators) across the globe, spiritualism trumps patriotism. Spiritualism holds the answers to questions "Why are we here?" "What can we do to ease the suffering inherent in life?" "How can we give our lives meaning?" Patriotism, on the other hand, provides only a justification for war and an excuse for stripping individuals of their freedoms in support of a nebulous "greater good."
If the Pope was not in charge of interpreting Catholic dogma, a lot more Americans might be in the streets protesting the death penalty and the war in Iraq. Previous popes who were less eager to please the Bush administration have come down hard on these issues, which violate Catholic rules about the sanctity of life. If the IRS was not threatening to strip the tax exempt status of Churches that talk about the war as a spiritual issue, we might see more Christians take to the streets to act out Christian values. How many young people are turning away from religion altogether and embracing a spiritually empty, consumer driven lifestyle, because Pat Robertson and Co. have tainted Christianity? One of the oldest political tricks in the book is "If you can not defeat your enemy, co-opt him."
You only have to look at the way that Americans cheer the Buddhist monks in Burma to know that they feel the lack of a similar spiritual force in their own country. We have a two party political system that competes for the same corporate dollars that enrich our "non profit" churches, but where is the heart? Where is the soul? AT&T and Exxon and GE bought it and perverted it into a marketing catch phrase for their latest products.