March 2008

Good equals Evil

Plato believed that there was a natural goodness in the universe, from which humans had fallen. He also believed that this natural goodness could be reachieved by these fallen humans through prolonged contemplation and clarification of their thoughts. Once that realm of perfect goodness was reached again, Plato also assumed that whichever human achieved that goal would be, from that point on, always good. Socrates took this concept of perfect goodness even one step further, believing that this state of perfection was somewhere beyond human grasp, uninvolved in the affairs of the universe and the affairs of humans, but nevertheless responsible for all that happened in the universe. These philosophies are discussed in detail by Richard Taylor in his book on good and evil. Although those discussions are elucidating, they still leave us wondering: “What were they thinking?”

Christians were not shy about adopting some of this Greek thought into their system of theology. They took whatever they thought would make their religion appealing in order to entice as many followers as possible. The result was that they adopted the Jewish belief in a personal God who was up close and intimately involved in human events, as well as this Greek concept of a distant, impersonal, perfect, almost unreachable God. Then they took the entire mythology of Mithraism and emptied it on their hero, Jesus, to create a marvelously multicolored mythology, which had something in it for everyone. The mythology of Mithra, as accounted by Barbara Walker, is virtually word for word the accounting of the Jesus story. There is no doubt that Christianity is the champion copycat religion of all comers. It has everything, and can offer comfort to most anyone, no matter what their concept of life. Unfortunately, it is also, as a religion, a bag full of inconsistencies. The lame attempt of Christian theologians to bring all these inconsistencies together into one strange deity called a Trinity, containing an intensely personal God, a distant perfect God, and a spirit God of the universe, leaves us quite bewildered. The Christians also leave us wondering; “What were they thinking?”

We are left wondering, because none of this theoretical natural goodness or natural perfection in the universe makes any sense. Our universe doesn’t operate that way. Our universe doesn’t give a doodly bat drop about what happens to humans. It operates on natural laws of physics and random occurrence. The only thing the universe “cares” about is whether we adapt or not. If we do not adapt well to our environment, we do not progress and do not survive. If we do not adapt to our environment and protect our resources, we will die off and some other form of life more willing to live under the rules of natural selection will survive in place of us. Human survival does not depend on whether we are “good” or “evil.” Human survival depends on whether we understand we are all as humans in this together, and have to accept each other with love and tolerance. Part of the reason we are currently failing miserably at that job is because we are lost in these religious mythologies of perfect good and absolute evil.

Good and evil are inventions of the human mind. These concepts have no reality or substance beyond human thought. Whatever circumstances give us greater comfort, shelter, survival, sexual advantage, pleasure we think of as “good.” Whatever circumstances take away these bits of sustenance, either individually or as a group, we think of as “evil.” To project our self-centered assessment of what exists in our minute environment, on to the universe as a whole, is a rather sad mistake. Galaxies, solar systems, planets, moons, asteroids, seas, hills, earth, valleys, rivers and most forms of life have no such value system. The only value that the universe contains is a requirement of balance. For every positive force, there must be a negative force. For every action, there must be an equal and opposite reaction. Motion, energy/mass, and electrical charge are all conserved and balanced. There is not any exception, within all of our knowledge, anywhere in the universe. There is always balance in the universe. Our universe, and us as part of it, do not exist in any other way.

The suspicion arises in our minds that this system of balance also applies to these human value systems of good and evil. If there is a great pool of goodness, somewhere, we will have to suspect that there is also, somewhere else, a great pool of evil, in human terms. We cannot expect to find a safe haven of goodness where we will be happy and protected for an eternity. The human race is currently sustained by our little cocoon of earth and its atmosphere, surrounded by a protective magnetic shield. We are also constantly under attack by the universe, and within a short time, in terms of the life of the universe, that universe will win. We will suffer greatly and die off as a species. What we can do is to put that eventuality off as long as possible, with as much quality time as possible for those inhabitants of this Earth planet home. That means learning to live with each other with empathy and tolerance, rather destroying our resources and hating each other. We are blundering through life, deceived by mythical perfect Deities, Trinities, Heavens of eternal goodness and diabolical Demons that do not exist. There is a balance of good and evil everywhere we turn. It is the human race against the universe. That’s enough evil. We don’t have to add to it with our blundering behavior, induced by theologic myths.

March, 2008

As soon as humans became humans, and as soon as there were expressions of art or literature, even in its most primitive forms, there were expressions of belief in deities, and reverence for those deities. There was, in other words, religion, as soon as we became identified as a separate species. Religious faith and religious reverence are a part of how our minds work. There are so many things we do not understand, and have no other good way of ordering our lives other than believing those events are under the hand of some force much greater than us. Whatever we do not understand, and whatever we have no power to control or contain, we are wont to believe are the work of whatever force began and controls our world. Our religions formed as we have tried to make sense of our lives and our circumstances. Mystical floating experiences, overwhelming love, dazzling beauty, soul-sucking loss, crushing defeat and stark evil are to us inexplicable. They are far beyond us to comprehend. The only way we can understand these life-changing events is to place them beyond us, as the expression of deities of great power. Religion allows us to place our lives in order, in the sense that we take care of those things we understand, and leave to our God those things that are beyond our control. Religion is our expression of faith that there is something good to be accomplished by our lives and some purpose for our existence.

Religions of all form and description have, in these manners, provided great solace and direction for humans in our lives. We have used them as signposts and guides in our lives. Since religions exist as part of our general plan for life, they have been associated with and amalgamated to those other guides in our societies, those being our systems of ethics and morals. All of the major religions have sterling moral lessons as part of their belief system. We are admonished to have empathy and compassion for other humans and other life. We are sternly reminded that we must live in great reverence for the forces that began and that control our universe. We are given stories, parables and historical lessons, reminding us over and over to how to live our lives most fully, and how to be the most productive with the time that we are allotted on this Earth. Most people on the face of this Earth probably believe that without these religions to serve as our directions in life, most human societies would be in a terrible mess. Perhaps that is so.

The opposite is also true, however. Those who defend the value of religions will immediately cite their creeds of mercy, compassion and justice. They certainly have those moral values, and are to be admired for them. Unfortunately, the major religions affecting world events at this time are those coming from the descendants of Abraham, namely Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Each of these religions has, in addition to their compassion and morals, a darkly evil side of intolerance for all humans of any other faith. That intolerance, as primarily expressed by true believers in those religions, becomes manifest as invasions, bombs, murders, rapes, beheadings, torture, massacres, cruelty to women, child abuse, and fields of bloodshed. Jewish pride, Christian arrogance, and Islamic exclusivity are leading us to kill each other with wanton abandonment and plunder the precious resources of our planet home. Each of these religions has marvelous morals at one pole, and at the other pole, intensely evil hatred of all other humans who do not share their beliefs. They are highly bipolar, and have shown variable expression of those poles throughout their history.

Muhammad, the founder of Islam, was the epitome of this bipolarity. As a child, he grew up as a dispossessed, displaced desert orphan. Those lessons of want and need were seared into his brain. He did not want anyone else to suffer those same deprivations. He demanded, as one of the five pillars of his religion, that all who wished to go to Heaven must treat the orphan, the child, the poor, the widow and the slave with compassion. Islamic true believers are commanded to give of whatever means they have to those who have less. Unfortunately, Muhammad was also a violent, militant egocentric, who demanded total allegiance to him and his beliefs, and who taught that all humans who did not believe in Islam should be killed. Each of those poles has been highly expressed in Islam.

Muhammad showed his violent side first. The wealthy traders of Mecca found this upstart and his new religion disruptive of their society. When this foolish man who believed that the dead would come back to life did not respond to threats, harassment and bribes, the plot to kill him formed. Muhammad escaped in the dead of night in 622, emigrating to Medina, where he was welcomed as a great prophet. He was soon leading Medinan raids on Meccan caravans, killing the men, capturing the women and children as slaves, and confiscating that property. When Mecca sent an army of 800 to Medina in 624 to get rid of this renegade, they were defeated in a bloody battle at Badr by the craftier Muhammad and his followers. Mecca sent a larger army of 3000 men in 625, which defeated the army of Muhammad at Uhud, inflicting considerable carnage on men, crops, fields and property. This mercenary army made the mistake of not killing or incarcerating Muhammad. Had they done so, Islam would have died at that point in time. Instead, Muhammad was able to convince his devoted followers that this meant they had to be more savage, and believe more fervently that their God was on their side. The caravan raids continued. Mecca, now realizing its mistake, sent an army of 10,000 to Medina in 627, to finish the job they should have finished previously. That also would have meant the end of Muhammad and Islam, but for a freak of nature. A violent storm erupted the day of the battle, The Meccans could not control their horses, and were unwilling to battle through a storm to fight protected defenders. They withdrew, leaving Muhammad victorious. His prophethood was now proven to all Arabs. The Jews in the market place of Medina paid dearly. They were killed and their women and children appropriated as concubines and slaves for the pleasure of Arab men. Islam had begun in violence and bloodshed.

Fortunately, Muhammad showed his peaceful side after that victory. He took command in Mecca, threw the pagan idols out of the Kabah, and gave amnesty rather than death to all who professed allegiance to Islam. All of the Arab peninsula became united under one religion and one cause. Science, education, tolerance and social programs of great value flourished throughout the Arabian kingdom for the next several centuries, not becoming undone until the crusades of the eleventh century. Then the violent side of Christianity, Islam and Judaism erupted again, and has not stopped since. The whole world is now suffering because of the violent intolerance of these faiths. Their bipolarity is currently deeply destructive of human society.