Religions are not the sources of virtue and ethical conduct.
Religions, all religions, adopt what is around them; good and evil.
To begin somewhere in the middle of the story, Christianity
began as a sect of Judaism. Jesus was a Jew, as were almost
all of his earliers followers. Most of the ethics of Christians
were Jewish. And where did the Jews find their value systems?
From being an exiled people, in Egypt, and in what is now Iraq.
They were a desert people, despising pork, afraid of the sea,
reading messages in mountain storms, defending their particular
god, or gods, sticking together, afraid of strangers, protecting
their families, keeping women in their places.
When Christianity spread, it took on the character of the
places and people and ethics of the people it spread to.
The Christians of northern Africa are hardly recognizable
to Christians from Constantinople or Russia or Rome.
When St. Paul followed Jewish settlements into what is now
Turkey, and all the way to Rome, he recognized that he
could not be just Jewish, anymore, and the recognition of
multi-ethnicity and Greek and Roman virtues became part
of his gospel. It is always like that. Paul did not really
make the Roman Empire Christian. The Roman Empire
adopted and adapted Christianity, and made it European.
As an offshoot of the same Semitic roots, we are witnessing
Islam, 600 years after the Christian movement began, continue
its process of making a religion for the place and culture
it lives in. Islam is more Arabic and African and Asian
than Christianity is, whatever our common roots.
Some sects of established religions become very successful:
Christianity and Islam, for instance. Some are hopeless
offshoots, too strange, or crazy, or unlucky to grow large.
In the U.S., for instance, Joseph Smith had visions, and wrote
down what he said he saw, or heard, or imagined. For a while,
it practiced polygamy, as many ancient cultures have done,
including Old Testament people, but in this country, Mormonism
was forced by the American culture to adhere to our laws,
and today only a minority of Mormons (or Latter Day Saints)
openly practice the fine art of religiously screwing lots of women
all at the same time. Most of the rest of us practice serial monogamy.
America is not a Christian nation, nor a Judeo-Christian nation.
Our Founders were mostly Deists, riding easy in the religious saddle.
It is more true to say that Christianity in the United States has been
shaped by the American culture. Jews here are not what Jews are
in Israel, or Russia, of Spain. Religions are not the fountainheads
of morality so much as they are the carriers of it. It is true that
religions, given their own internal history, try to shape the
communities they are in, the nations they are in, but history shows
they have to follow the laws, and following the, become them.
It is time we quit getting things backwards, and look honestly
at the plain and simple fact that sometimes religions espouse
the most god-awful positions about race, and sex, and marriage,
and gender roles, and evolution, and science, and history,
and chosen people, and heaven and hell and handbaskets.
Joseph Smith did not have a secret pipeline to the truth.
Neither did Martin Luther, or Pope Benedict XVI, or Paul
of Tarsus. Moses did not talk to God and learn that men
should be the lords of their households. The Sabbath is
a reworking of a Babylonian tradition about every seventh
day being evil, when no work should be done.
It is so hard to grow up, and take responsibility for our own
actions, and our own intentions. We have every right and
responsibility to say to any religion, "No, you can't do that here!"
Religions, all religions, adopt what is around them; good and evil.
To begin somewhere in the middle of the story, Christianity
began as a sect of Judaism. Jesus was a Jew, as were almost
all of his earliers followers. Most of the ethics of Christians
were Jewish. And where did the Jews find their value systems?
From being an exiled people, in Egypt, and in what is now Iraq.
They were a desert people, despising pork, afraid of the sea,
reading messages in mountain storms, defending their particular
god, or gods, sticking together, afraid of strangers, protecting
their families, keeping women in their places.
When Christianity spread, it took on the character of the
places and people and ethics of the people it spread to.
The Christians of northern Africa are hardly recognizable
to Christians from Constantinople or Russia or Rome.
When St. Paul followed Jewish settlements into what is now
Turkey, and all the way to Rome, he recognized that he
could not be just Jewish, anymore, and the recognition of
multi-ethnicity and Greek and Roman virtues became part
of his gospel. It is always like that. Paul did not really
make the Roman Empire Christian. The Roman Empire
adopted and adapted Christianity, and made it European.
As an offshoot of the same Semitic roots, we are witnessing
Islam, 600 years after the Christian movement began, continue
its process of making a religion for the place and culture
it lives in. Islam is more Arabic and African and Asian
than Christianity is, whatever our common roots.
Some sects of established religions become very successful:
Christianity and Islam, for instance. Some are hopeless
offshoots, too strange, or crazy, or unlucky to grow large.
In the U.S., for instance, Joseph Smith had visions, and wrote
down what he said he saw, or heard, or imagined. For a while,
it practiced polygamy, as many ancient cultures have done,
including Old Testament people, but in this country, Mormonism
was forced by the American culture to adhere to our laws,
and today only a minority of Mormons (or Latter Day Saints)
openly practice the fine art of religiously screwing lots of women
all at the same time. Most of the rest of us practice serial monogamy.
America is not a Christian nation, nor a Judeo-Christian nation.
Our Founders were mostly Deists, riding easy in the religious saddle.
It is more true to say that Christianity in the United States has been
shaped by the American culture. Jews here are not what Jews are
in Israel, or Russia, of Spain. Religions are not the fountainheads
of morality so much as they are the carriers of it. It is true that
religions, given their own internal history, try to shape the
communities they are in, the nations they are in, but history shows
they have to follow the laws, and following the, become them.
It is time we quit getting things backwards, and look honestly
at the plain and simple fact that sometimes religions espouse
the most god-awful positions about race, and sex, and marriage,
and gender roles, and evolution, and science, and history,
and chosen people, and heaven and hell and handbaskets.
Joseph Smith did not have a secret pipeline to the truth.
Neither did Martin Luther, or Pope Benedict XVI, or Paul
of Tarsus. Moses did not talk to God and learn that men
should be the lords of their households. The Sabbath is
a reworking of a Babylonian tradition about every seventh
day being evil, when no work should be done.
It is so hard to grow up, and take responsibility for our own
actions, and our own intentions. We have every right and
responsibility to say to any religion, "No, you can't do that here!"
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