15 July 2006
On morality and warfare
I know you can't equate religiosity with goodness and altruism. It's part of our cultural indoctrination that because a few religious groups feed homeless people once in a while or give them a cot to sleep on when it gets cold, all for the meager price of exposing their soul to some hokum about some ethereal wizard-king in the sky, religious groups must have the best intentions. I mean, going into the hinterlands and attempting to brainwash gatherer-hunter cultures in to accepting our unsustainable lifestyle along with a pile of iron-age superstition is a good thing, right? Religious leaders of human rights movements don't really count in this argument - they only represent a fraction of the leaders of similar movements and their success can likely be attributed to a ready and receptive audience in their flock. For whatever reason, we do think of the pious as good people. Maybe that's why atheists get so indignant when some religious folk behave like complete scum bags.
I wonder about what causes people, especially religious people, to find any justification in supporting the murderous bastards who seem to hold a monopoly of power in the world. How can so many supposedly religious people support any regime - like the United States, for example - which considers the anonymous murder of children an acceptable collateral effect of modern warfare. This is especially galling when the motivation for the war in question is rooted entirely in a capitalist ideology and the securing of assets and marketable natural resources, as most wars inevitably are. Spare the indignant cries of freedom and democracy for the sheep, please. The language of idealism is only fit for a billboard, selling a campaign where the main goal is profit - be it from oil, military equipment or no-bid support contracts, it's all the same. If there wasn't money to be made, the troops wouldn't be sent abroad.
Let us pretend for a moment that there is some populist utopia in store for the people of the middle east. It seems a noble goal, but the end hardly justifies the means. How does the christian worldview see mechanized warfare and overwhelming force as a suitable catalyst for democratic change. How can anyone with, say, strong family values think that putting children in a position to lose their lives or their limbs or their families is an acceptable way of changing the world. Why does the moral compass of the god-fearing so often point in the wrong direction.
One of the things that comes to mind is this amazingly naive assumption about morality that is inevitably voiced in any argument with an atheist. For some reason, many christians believe that morality must be based in holy law and be sanctioned by god alone. I suggest that this is at the root of the problem because it is a way of deferring responsibility for one's actions or the support of others' actions.
I was involved in a discussion not too long ago about forgiveness, and one person gave his christian perspective that basically to forgive is to hand the power of retribution over to god. Supposedly this frees us up so that we don't have to continue seeking retribution ourselves. I have two complaints about this mode of thinking.
First, there can be no forgiveness unless we give up on the idea of retribution altogether. We can't hand off the desire to anyone, regardless of whether they are a real person or some imaginary deity. By doing this, we are - virtually, mind you - setting into motion the act of retribution. We hand the noose over to someone else to perform the hanging. For all intents and purposes, the hanging that we desired commences by our command if not by our hand. And so we still manage to find retribution and avoid forgiveness at the same time. Forgiveness is a state of mind. If that mind is corrupted by superstitious beliefs, the retribution of a god's wrath is as real as the noose in my analogy.
Second, by handing over all ill will to a god, we avoid the real work of forgiveness and are unable to own that act. It takes an effort to leave wrongdoing in the past and move on with a clean slate. In some cases it takes all of our effort to be able to overcome vindictiveness. Maybe some imaginary creature in the sky can endow us with the strength of will to do this, because it is, after all, a state of mind. But to hand the task over entirely to this imaginary being is to avoid that work. Since there is no god, the work doesn't get done - hence, no forgiveness at all.
Now, granted, this is just one person's view about forgiveness. But that's what faith and salvation is all about, isn't it - to surrender yourself entirely to the will of some supreme, omnipotent ruler of souls? I think there is a similar idea about morality - that if some divine being doesn't spell it out for us, then it doesn't matter, or if it is defined that way, then there's no need to think about it further in any detail.
The debate about morality and atheism inevitably descends into the argument that god is the sole fount of morality, and that without god as the basis of morality, the world would descend into chaos. For some reason, some christians believe that the only thing stopping them from killing and raping and pillaging is god. It's as if some divine decree alone can keep anti-social behavior at bay.
But this denies the natural social behavior that humans had long before jehovah or jesus entered the picture, and it exists today in places where the popular religious fixation doesn't even include those judeo-christian icons. I think we have thrived as a species because of our empathy for one another. Because we have a very good idea about what physical and psychological effect any offensive act will have on another person, we tend not to commit them unless some misunderstanding or act of selfishness drives us to retribution.
It's important to own your values and to have a willingness to work toward being a better person. Maybe there's not much incentive to strive toward such a goal if some deity is taking care of it for you by proxy. And if your religious education has taught you do defer all judgement not only to your "creator" but to the spiritual leaders who act as interpreters of its holy will, you leave yourself open to abuse of that faith.
It's impossible to get elected in the U.S., and nearly impossible elsewhere, if you do not proclaim allegiance to the cult most popular with the majority or win the endorsement its principals. As a result, we see a symbiotic relationship between governments and religion, where the establishment filters its agenda through the popular dogma, granting the church or temple some political sway, which in turn keeps the politicians in a job by selling them back to its adherents. In the end, morality gets muddled with the objectives of The Great Game, and the supplicants follow along blindly, ever-loyal subjects of the kingdom of god, ruler of heaven and earth, and valuable propaganda tool.
I wonder about what causes people, especially religious people, to find any justification in supporting the murderous bastards who seem to hold a monopoly of power in the world. How can so many supposedly religious people support any regime - like the United States, for example - which considers the anonymous murder of children an acceptable collateral effect of modern warfare. This is especially galling when the motivation for the war in question is rooted entirely in a capitalist ideology and the securing of assets and marketable natural resources, as most wars inevitably are. Spare the indignant cries of freedom and democracy for the sheep, please. The language of idealism is only fit for a billboard, selling a campaign where the main goal is profit - be it from oil, military equipment or no-bid support contracts, it's all the same. If there wasn't money to be made, the troops wouldn't be sent abroad.
Let us pretend for a moment that there is some populist utopia in store for the people of the middle east. It seems a noble goal, but the end hardly justifies the means. How does the christian worldview see mechanized warfare and overwhelming force as a suitable catalyst for democratic change. How can anyone with, say, strong family values think that putting children in a position to lose their lives or their limbs or their families is an acceptable way of changing the world. Why does the moral compass of the god-fearing so often point in the wrong direction.
One of the things that comes to mind is this amazingly naive assumption about morality that is inevitably voiced in any argument with an atheist. For some reason, many christians believe that morality must be based in holy law and be sanctioned by god alone. I suggest that this is at the root of the problem because it is a way of deferring responsibility for one's actions or the support of others' actions.
I was involved in a discussion not too long ago about forgiveness, and one person gave his christian perspective that basically to forgive is to hand the power of retribution over to god. Supposedly this frees us up so that we don't have to continue seeking retribution ourselves. I have two complaints about this mode of thinking.
First, there can be no forgiveness unless we give up on the idea of retribution altogether. We can't hand off the desire to anyone, regardless of whether they are a real person or some imaginary deity. By doing this, we are - virtually, mind you - setting into motion the act of retribution. We hand the noose over to someone else to perform the hanging. For all intents and purposes, the hanging that we desired commences by our command if not by our hand. And so we still manage to find retribution and avoid forgiveness at the same time. Forgiveness is a state of mind. If that mind is corrupted by superstitious beliefs, the retribution of a god's wrath is as real as the noose in my analogy.
Second, by handing over all ill will to a god, we avoid the real work of forgiveness and are unable to own that act. It takes an effort to leave wrongdoing in the past and move on with a clean slate. In some cases it takes all of our effort to be able to overcome vindictiveness. Maybe some imaginary creature in the sky can endow us with the strength of will to do this, because it is, after all, a state of mind. But to hand the task over entirely to this imaginary being is to avoid that work. Since there is no god, the work doesn't get done - hence, no forgiveness at all.
Now, granted, this is just one person's view about forgiveness. But that's what faith and salvation is all about, isn't it - to surrender yourself entirely to the will of some supreme, omnipotent ruler of souls? I think there is a similar idea about morality - that if some divine being doesn't spell it out for us, then it doesn't matter, or if it is defined that way, then there's no need to think about it further in any detail.
The debate about morality and atheism inevitably descends into the argument that god is the sole fount of morality, and that without god as the basis of morality, the world would descend into chaos. For some reason, some christians believe that the only thing stopping them from killing and raping and pillaging is god. It's as if some divine decree alone can keep anti-social behavior at bay.
But this denies the natural social behavior that humans had long before jehovah or jesus entered the picture, and it exists today in places where the popular religious fixation doesn't even include those judeo-christian icons. I think we have thrived as a species because of our empathy for one another. Because we have a very good idea about what physical and psychological effect any offensive act will have on another person, we tend not to commit them unless some misunderstanding or act of selfishness drives us to retribution.
It's important to own your values and to have a willingness to work toward being a better person. Maybe there's not much incentive to strive toward such a goal if some deity is taking care of it for you by proxy. And if your religious education has taught you do defer all judgement not only to your "creator" but to the spiritual leaders who act as interpreters of its holy will, you leave yourself open to abuse of that faith.
It's impossible to get elected in the U.S., and nearly impossible elsewhere, if you do not proclaim allegiance to the cult most popular with the majority or win the endorsement its principals. As a result, we see a symbiotic relationship between governments and religion, where the establishment filters its agenda through the popular dogma, granting the church or temple some political sway, which in turn keeps the politicians in a job by selling them back to its adherents. In the end, morality gets muddled with the objectives of The Great Game, and the supplicants follow along blindly, ever-loyal subjects of the kingdom of god, ruler of heaven and earth, and valuable propaganda tool.
Labels: empire, morality, neocon bunk, war
// posted by Parge @ 2:05 PM
