The Wandering Heretic

I had an interesting conversation with a workmate the other day. I am not certain what was the lead-in topic. However, at one point, he noted that he had some Muslim relatives who have put their children in Catholic School. I nodded my head, acknowledging the information. Then the talking took an interesting bend:

He:Do you know what the teacher told that child?
Me: (Not having a clue where this was going) No, what?
He: They were talking about religion and when he said his parents were Muslim, they said that his parents were wrong!!
Me: (Confused–really!) You did say it was a Catholic school, right?
He: Yeah. So?
Me: I mean, what did you expect? It’s not a Catholic school for nothing, right? I mean, if they sent him to a Republican School and his parents were Democrats or something they would say that his parent’s political beliefs were wrong. You would expect that.
He: Well, you can’t say that to a young kid. I mean, think what that puts him through!

That one took me back. Public schools teach about birth control and homosexual sex and homes with two mommies or two daddies. They will allow if not encourage pregnant teens to get abortions without parental consent. They spend time showing young people, male and female, how to put condoms on bananas. None of those activities can cause emotional turmoil in a child. But if a Catholic school actually believes that they are the correct religion and therefore Islam is not, we should then bring in the straight jackets? Give me a break!

I sat there in my own silent and confused turmoil. That’s when I should have seen it coming, but didn’t.

He: Yeah, well you can’t have one religion say they are right and the others are wrong. They are all right!
Me: Huh? If they say mutually exclusive things they can’t all be right. That’s not even a logical option.
He: Huh? (It was his turn.)
Me: If religions teach different things, especially in their core beliefs about God, man, and responsibility, then they can’t all be right. You are left with only two alternatives: either one is right and the others are wrong; or, they are all wrong. Them all being “right” doesn’t work and makes no sense at all.
He: Hey, all religions exist only to get people to believe that something happens when they die. To get them to feel better about it. Not to think that you close your eyes and darkness..

At that moment, the phone rang and the working day went back into full swing. I wasn’t able to get back to the problems with his Freudian viewpoint about religion and death. Still, the whole “all religions are equal” fantasy is part and parcel of the American philosophy. I understand it would be hard to shake since it is pretty much the cultural air we breath. Certainly, religion is not allowed in America to influence our political and/or legal decisions. That wall of separation is the ultimate American value.

Even Christians fall prey to this mode of thinking. Even Christian Conservatives. Witness The Thinker‘s series on Islam, Muslims, and America. Overall, it was a great series of posts in applying the American Political Philosophy to the issue of the Muslim religion. To very badly summarize the arguments from that series (please go read it yourself), in essence the priority should be “God, Country, and Religion.” This is the “hierarchical belief system predicated upon those who settled the new nation.”

As I noted in my comments on that site, I find it hard to conceptualize making “God” higher than “religion” since religion defines the nature of the God of which you believe. This system only worked in an environment that was raised basically Christian or with the same basic, underlying conception of God (such as Judaism). It only worked when that majority religious view was basically catered to (whether such catering was constitutional or not). In short, you could be any religion you wanted as long as in your behavior and ethics you acted like a Christian (whether you attended church or not.)

It then worked even when the Enlightenment/Deist view became predominant and God was not really all that important anyway. (Then, like a public school teacher, you could be any religion you wanted as long as you behaved and taught like a secularist/materialist.) We could do lip service to God but that was about it. Then we could move on to the really important things like politics and science. God, Country, and Religion was okay as long as you behaved like Country, God, and Religion were the real hierarchy.

So that is why the whole system is being threatened by those who take their religion seriously, whether it come from the “Christian Right” or the Jihadist Muslims. They don’t follow the rule as set so eloquently by my co-worker that “all religions are right” and “they only exist to supply a fiction to make people less unhappy about their demise.” Since some religions that are “right” under this system tell their followers that strapping on explosives and blowing up buildings is the way to be “less unhappy” about your death, I think this rule has developed a fatal flaw.

Nor do the pundits of the Enlightenment crowd, the elites in government or education, know how to handle this paradox. Therefore, they appear to constantly be in a state of appeasing the group that uses violence to achieve their aim, in the misguided hope that eventually they will settle for less than total supremacy. They also attack the group that whose founder was less inclined to legitimate violence since they are the easier target of which to relieve your frustration.

The problem is that this approach will not stave off theocracy except at the cost of chaos and destruction. It was propped up by a “soft” theocracy under at least the values and structures of its previously Christian majority. As it rejects even this lukewarm rule of the Christian God, it exposes itself to the harder theocracy of Sharia. As I see the West capitulate to more and more of the resident Muslim population’s cultural demands, it is not hard to figure out where the trends will lead.

This may ultimately end up a war of theocracies. “Choose this day who you will serve.” If [Allah], then serve him; if YHWH, then serve Him. The Enlightenment compromise is running out of steam and did not stand up to logical scrutiny anyway. In fact, unless we have the logical consistency to look Islam in the eye–like that hated Catholic School–and tell them their religion is wrong and we are right, I fear the war is lost anyway. We may not have any more buildings come down (though I predict we will), but it won’t matter. They will have won without it.

Mecca is east. Unless the West as a whole starts getting more cultural resolve I advise buying a carpet and a compass. You are going to need them.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 6th, 2007 at 8:48 am and is filed under Culture, Journal, Rants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.