Religion revisited?

Some years ago I read in the Times of London an account of a British National Health Service (NHS) doctor who had taken a year from his medical training to become a jihadist in Syria. The story was told by a couple of journalists who had been taken hostage by a radical group to be exchanged for money. The journalists were eventually freed but during their captivity thy met the NHS doctor turned jihadist. He was a member of a small fanatical religious group, neither Assadists or rebels. His group wanted to use the war to create a society based on Sharia law. In other words, they waged a holy war, based on religious principles, to construct a religious society. The doctor had told the journalists that those of the opposition who were captured ought to be beheaded. 

Such stories add to the clamor of secularists that, clearly, religion is bad. "Religion, at the end of the day," they say "is a matter of barbarism. Humanity would be better off without it." I sympathize. But I can hear my Muslim friends, on learning of the jihadist doctor, respond, " I'm not that kind of Muslim." I have heard myself saying much the same recently. "I'm not that kind of Christian." I am appalled that American Christians are at the forefront of denying women rights to their own bodily integrity.

Perhaps we can only protest so long that religion has its good side before we give in to the secularists. Religion on too many occasions is exactly like that of the jihadist doctor or the "pro-life" extremist—primitive, brutal, extreme, foolish, divisive, deadly, and scary.

Even so, I remain a religious person. So how do I deal with the dilemma?

I have found an evolutionary approach to human religions is a helpful way to look at things. Scholars who study religious development suggest primitive humans worshiped the sun, the earth, animals, and such, in awe of the sheer power of the "other than human." In time, localized groups developed their own deities who they claimed as their own. As these groups fought each other, it was assumed the winning side had the better god. The defeated, if they were sensible, adopted the god of the victors. In other words, primitive religions were about tribal deities who defended communities, often in return for some kind of sacrifice. This development is seen in the ancient Jewish writings where the Israelites worship multiple deities, finally settling on one who is known as "the god of Israel." This god demands sacrifices to keep it happy. Much ancient Jewish writing (which Christians have in the Old Testament) is the story of other peoples and their gods being defeated by Israel and its god. The fate of Israel's enemies was not much different to the fate of the enemies of today's jihadists—a gruesome death.

Much of the religious landscape, as it evolved, has been about whose religion is the best , and why the god of that religion is better than the god of the other religions. More fuel for the secularists. Not much progress.

But it is not the whole story. Running at first on parallel tracks, but later to diverge, is a progressive view of the development from the many to the one. As human understandings of god developed, the sages and wise ones In all religions moved from exclusion to inclusion. From limited understandings of a tribal god to views of G*d beyond understanding. From exclusive "our god," to inclusive "G*d of all." From the particular to the universal.

The Jewish Torah tells of King Solomon, the wisest of all kings. He built a temple for god in Jerusalem. When his temple was completed Solomon extols god as the "god of Israel," that is, particular, tribal, looking after "us" and not "them." But he had second thoughts and said, "But how could G*d possibly live on earth? If heaven, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you, how can this temple that I've built contain you?" in other words, he began to see that G*d is more than "my god" or "our god." G*d is universal not particular. How foolish to think it could be any other way, as if any of us could put G*d in a box! How could any of us claim G*d as our exclusive property!

If this insight is followed it leads toward a universalism in religion. The different religions are human attempts, in different contexts, to grasp the Ultimately Real—Goodness, Truth, and Beauty as the ancient Greeks would say. Perhaps, the best of religion is found in Huxley's perennial philosophy, in all forms of non-exclusive spirituality, in love and goodness, in truth-seeking, in friendship, in universalism. This is far from the kind of religion espoused by the jihadist doctor or by the religious misogynists who want to take away women's rights. Though the religious landscape has too often been a little scary, we might hope for something better.

+Ab. Andy

(Revisiting a theme from 2012)