This is a response to Mr. Terry Burgess’s Letter to the Editor that ran on Jan. 14, 2015.
The most prescient phrase in the history of religion, in my view, isn’t the “turning cheek” doctrine of masochistic pacifism. Neither is the “Golden Rule” attributed to Jesus, but actually crafted long before by Chinese thinkers.
No, the one that stands out to me the most comes from an obscure 14th century German church figure: Dietrich of Nieheim.
The reason we remember him is a quote printed in preface to the second part of Arthur Koestler’s "Darkness at Noon": “When the existence of the Church is threatened, she is released from the commandments of morality. With unity as the end, the use of every means is sanctified, even deceit, treachery, violence, usury, prison and death.”
That is all this hedge-priest version of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor ever needed to say. If a religion’s existence feels threatened, than anything is justified in working towards its survival.
As Mr. Burgess says, religion is “very susceptible to being used for nefarious purposes because it claims to have the ultimate source of power and truth.”
I would suggest that claiming to have the ultimate authority over all others (an inherent religious trait, no matter what bleating moderates may say) is a thought that will always lead to violence in the long run. When one has the truth in hand, the murder of French cartoonists that offend the truth isn’t a huge logical step.
The difference between our two stances is that Mr. Burgess believes religion “is used” for evil, while I hold that anyone who is able to believe, with certainty, that they posses the final revelation is also capable of overcoming our inborn human decency to protect that revelation.
In this way, the stepladder toward fanaticism is built into faith-based religious thinking. An inborn tendency towards evil taints the entire enterprise of religion.
Mr. Burgess then suggests turning to the religious texts themselves, and not the actions of its believers, to find the moral pulse of each religion. I will be the first to say that not all religious ways of thought are necessarily morally bankrupt (although I could list many, many instances).
But, as every person knows, religious texts can be followed or not followed at any time. The various modern Christian denominations show a pick-and-choose mentality when it comes to the word of God. Notice how every religious denomination not currently being hunted by the police follows the specific policies that fit into today’s society and leaves the “stoning witches and queer people” behind. Christian morality adopts its precepts by regular human morality and crudely writes its name on it.
Religion a la carte, if you will.
As moderate believers won’t choose to follow laws that command murder, extremists will ignore injunctions against murder.
As for moral standards: the simple ones — don’t murder or rape children, don’t mutilate what doesn’t need to be mutilated, don’t steal other people’s stuff — come to us naturally. We are selfish, sure, but we are also able to work together for our mutual interests.
Unless it is chased out by horrible abuse in childhood, empathy is in our nature. Were this not the case, we would have murdered each other for our food, and have died out long, long ago. Morality, empathy and self-sacrifice in higher primates is well documented, and, as far as we know, they haven’t made any religions lately.
The mistake Mr. Burgess makes is to conflate the first (and worst) system of thought humans developed for the origin of morality. Just because we can’t remember a time when neither morality nor religion existed doesn’t mean that they are related.
In fact, the opposite is the case. Who would be complicit in their daughter’s female circumcision unless they believed that there was an ordinance for it from God?
Who would murder satirists unless they believed they had a divine warrant?
As to his point on the number of atheistic regimes that had committed unprecedented evil, I believe Mr. Burgess misses a central point: just because one doesn’t have religion doesn’t mean one is necessarily good. You can be an atheist and a sadist at the same time. Humanism isn’t necessarily implied from irreligion.
But the basis of Western society, the origins of the “progressive moral standards” which I mentioned, are built on the backs of people like Baruch Spinoza, John Locke, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and many others. The founders of our government simply did not need the folksy parables of Jesus or the demented ranting of John. They didn’t need to consult any world religious leaders, who, by Mr. Burgess’s logic, would know morality best. All they needed were their own faculties and a cooperative vision for the future.
Thinkers, not priests, built the kind of society that Charlie Hebdo was created by and stood for. I am not “using” their murder by pointing out that religion is the reason they were murdered. (At least, no more than your inclusion of Stalin’s victims in your article “uses” those people.)
The sooner we recognize what we are up against — the desperate actions of mankind’s oldest ghost to stay relevant — the easier it will be to stand up against it.
My “personal vendetta,” Mr. Burgess, should be yours as well.