So, this Damon Fowler story had me really pissed. I started writing most of this diary when this poor kid was completely ostracised, basically exiled, from his community for what he thinks. This should never happen in this country. Yet, here we are.
The same goes for the Imperialist inspired mass murder in Norway. All of us should be outraged an act of brazen religious terrorism occurs. The religion in question should be moot.
Yet, here we are. Right in the middle of, not one, but many different crises, all connected to the fundamentalist extremism launched by Jerry Falwell, Marion "Pat" Robertson and their minions with their reaction to Roe v. Wade.
Let me just say now that there is a big difference between a pro life Democrat & an anti-abortion Rethuglican. However, I stand with the pro choice crowd, not only because we need to protect the right for a woman to control her own body & reproductive system, but also we, as a secular, pluralistic society, should not let a religious argument be the basis of US law.
Fast forward to today. The religious movement has metasticized, fueled by Fox News Christian baiting, the hostile takeover of the GOP by the Religious Right & the teabaggers. That organization IS filled with religious nuts using a secular label to hide that fact. Sorry if you disagree, but I went to the rallies and saw it firsthand; preachers & pols up on stage, playing the martyr card and spewing all kinds of bile against Muslims, Jews, Atheists, agnostics, and even Unitarians! The Koch Brothers were only half the story.
But I digress.
This diary is my attempt to channel this anger and turn it into something productive. It's not meant as a broad brush indictment of religion per se, but with a subject like religion, I'm sure there are going to be some of you that will be offended.
Clearly, religion is, and will be, a contentious topic, even on an atheist-friendly site like Daily Kos.
My name is Joe Bruemmer, and I'm an atheist. I also co-host a progressive radio program on WGNU 920 AM in St. Louis called the Murdock Report.
In my role as news director for the show, I've had the op
portunity to do a couple of shows on the subject of fundamentalist violence, like Kos' own Troutfishing (a.k.a. Bruce Wilson of www.talk2action.org), the director of the Danforth Center on Religion & Politics and sociologist Mark Juergensmeyer, author of Global Rebellion; Religious Challenges to the Secular State. I've also studied the issue on my own for about a year. It's been a fascinating (and sometimes repugnant) journey through history, anthropology, sociology, linguistics and a little archaeology. Below are my findings.
About to jump into the deep end with me, and maybe we can find some common ground in Kosville...
First, let me make a distinction, a disclaimer of sorts: outside of the vast array of Christian sects, there are really two basic categories that Christian faith systems can be put in: Social Justice Christians and Imperialist Christians. (I think you know which one you're in) There are exceptions from person to person, but generally speaking, you can boil it down to this. All religons seem to have these two factions for the most part, from Buddhism to Sikhs, Hindi and Parsiism, and possibly even the adherents of the church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Second, let me share with you my journey and explain to you where I'm coming from.
The Like everyone else here, the Bush years really pissed me off. Central to that was this divine claim he had made concerning his installment as pResident. By the time the 2004 aftermath rolled around, I decided I had to figure out why people bought this line of crap and didn't storm the White House with torches & pitchforks.
My first stop was Christopher Hitchens. Now, I was still pretty angry at him at the time for his support of Iraq, but the title of his book was too good to ignore: God is Not Great. Of course, that work just reaffirmed what I felt, but it had many small tidbits of history I was not aware of. It was a start, but it did not answer many of the questions I had about how America, the great secular nation that it was, got into this mess we're in, or how there is a de facto religious Litmus test for elected officials, or why a jackass like Bush could get away with launching an illegal war using undertones Innocent III would be proud of.
Next came my tattered copy of the London Times' Atlas of World History. There, near the beginning, I learned possibly the most obvious truth hidden from us in plain sight.
Priests were the first politicians.
It was the priesthood who controlled & inventoried the grain; they ran the temples, which served as big box retailers with a chapel in the back; it was they who recruited the warriors that would lead attacks on other tribes and eventually elevated the succcessful ones to warlords, and then kings, whom they deified to protect the status quo. Priests did the crowd control, they decided who should be educated and who would not; it were the priests who acted as judges, juries and executioners. It was the priests who made up the excuses to enslave those they deemed unworthy, or to add some perks for the local warlord.
Once you realize this historical fact, the rest falls into place pretty quickly.
This is the basis of the Imperialist ambitions that all religions have.
Now, I want to point out that the pioneer priests that formed this system were very much of the polytheist variety. We have to take these faith systems into account, since they did lay the foundation for all religions. Not just in Egypt, but in Sumer & India, where that original system can be seen today. Yes, Hinduism has evolved with the accumulation of humanity's collective knowledge, just like anything else. I'm referring to the structure of ancient Polytheism here.
Nevertheless, the polytheist system could not withstand the accumulation of said knowledge that humanity was acquiring. That, along with events like the Poleponesian war (for starters), eroded the credibility & viability of both the Greek & Roman faith structure.
Religion, just like every other facet of human existence, has to evolve. The existence and subsiquent near extinction of polytheism proves it.
If you doubt that, you should know that Socrates was alive during that very same war. Think about the huge philosophical jump he made during that time. Was it because of the times that he was able to become Socrates? I think so, (I also think he was killed as part of the political fallout from that war.)
This spelled doom for polytheism. The polytheists just didn't know it yet, but the first nail in its' coffin was Socrates' execution.
The other great evolutionary jumps came in Asia: Zoroaster and Judaea. Now, people argue that Zoroaster was the first monotheist leader. I disagree. What he did do was give one god primacy over the rest of their Persian Pantheon in a new and unique way. However, his influence is not really felt in western civilization.
Not like Judaism.
Judaism is utterly fascinating. On one hand, it was a movement that was invented by Canaanite slaves, and it gave them the courage to overthrow their oppressors. On the other hand, the god they came up with looks a lot like an overbearing slave master.
It was a huge paradigm shift, a brilliant political innovation. However, I think that's why there is anti semitism; because of their ingenuity, this band of rebel slaves overthrew the old status quo and developed the next big evolutionary step in religious thought. Of course, the creation myth is BS, but that doesn't mean I don't admire what they did, or even their continued influence today.
But I digress. Let's get back to polytheism and the transition to monotheism.
As we all know, the Romans would assimilate the Greek gods as part of the Empire they inherited. But alas, the Greeks had sold them a lemon, one that was doomed to fail because it was quickly becoming obsolete. Therefore, the republic had to reorganize into an Empire, and the deification of Imperial leaders began.
Not so ironically, this is the time that history places the man called Jesus, the alleged son of god, his disciples, and Saul of Tarsus, not to mention the rise of what's known as the "Mystery religions". All of these movements were threats to the existing status quo. All of them were also very urban in nature. All of them were, to some extent, assimilated into what would become the next Imperial religion of Rome.
Kinda ironic, since its' founder was basically an anti Globalist rebel who wanted to reassert the sovereignty & autonomy of Judea. Unfortunately, other people had different plans for the legacy of this failed, would-be successor of David.
The environment Saul of Tarsus was one that was ripe for exploitation. Hefound himself in an era of great uncertainty and doubt, and so he exploited the situation. He stole what he liked about Judaism, the mystery cults of the day, plus Imperial polytheism, and started a new religion.
Yet, while he laid the foundation, and Nero gave the new cult credibility with an unjust persecution, it would be later figures in the Chrisitian hierarchy that would give the religion its' unique Imperialist ambitions life. There are Athanasius and Ambrose that did their part to infuse that uncompromizing militarism into early Christianity. And then we have the man who really set our current religous history in motion: Constantine the Great.
It was Constantine who gave us Imperial Christianity AND feudalism. Amazing how these two systems always pop up together.
What we are witnessing, The Breivik mass murder, the Fox News popularity and anti-secularism that it promotes, even to a small degree the debt ceiling brinksmanship, is in my opinion, part of the latest wave of Imperialist Christianity. This religion is actually the wellspring of all other sects, whether or not they themselves practice Imperialism. This is a very important distinction, because the Imperialists do not like the non-Imperialists (for example, Unitarians).
The Imperialists smell blood. They've been in overthrow mode since Y2K, 9-11 and this apocalyptic undertone that has bubbled up to taint every facet of our political debate today.
And America isn't the only country who has this problem. All over the world, religious activists are actively undermining secularism so they can impose their absolutist and Imperialist designs on any populations that come under their jurisdictions. This has been well documented by sociologist Mark Jurgensmeyer in his book, Global Rebellion.
We had him on the show once. Fascinating stuff. He's president of the Orfalea foundation out of the University of California univerity system. I urge everyone to read his work.
But back to business...
Juergensmeyer has identified that secularism, the one kind of system that allows for a multicultural society that we all, atheist, agnostic & religious alike, is in jeapordy. It is the one common enemy all fundamentalists hate on a global scale.
And it's what the historical Jesus (assuming he did exist & did actually say & do the things the Bible credits him with) was actually fighting against.
According to Professor Phillip Barron, Phd., Jesus never himself proclaimed that he was the son of god. Instead, what he claimed was that he was the rightful heir of the kingdom of Judaea and the throne of David. What bears an eerie resemblance to today is that his movement gained traction because of what was then the Global Economy was changing Jewish culture in strange, new ways that was anathema to many practicing Jews.
That Global Economy was, of course, the economy of the Roman Empire. I find that to be ironic, since we have another global economy in place today, and a variety of religious forces aligned against it.
Now, I'm no fan of globalism, with its' highly flawed trade deals, the creeping corporatism that threatens our rights, or the way these corporations use religion to advance themselves.
Yet, here we are, in a global village, with religious activists out to impose their will on all of us.
It has to stop.
We cannot allow the religious discrimination to overtake our society. We can't let people like Damon to be ostracized, and we can't let the neo-fascists like John Hagee, Marion "Pat" Robertson, and the teabagging debt denialists inflict their Imperialist mindset on us.
Finally, atheists are citizens, too. We deserve respect in the public square. We deserve a voice, just like any other group.
We all need to oppose any faith structure that marginalize our rights, period.
Yet, here we are.