Believing Everything: Are Religions Equal?

I have been criticized by some who have visited this Page for not believing in the absolute correctness of All Religions, even by those who have shown a decided partiality toward their own particular Religions. I suppose they hold themselves guiltless since they have never explicitly declared themselves on why they despise the other Religions while holding their own as a decided favorite. I am blamed because I have. While it is tacitly understood that we can DO anything we like with our preferences, there are some things we ought not talk about. Yes, while that may be the rule at cocktail parties and formal dinners, where the first concern is to be amiable and discreet, certainly being able to talk openly should have its place in a Discussion Forum.

Anyway, let’s try to clear up these ideas. It may have been Voltaire, or someone equally clever who had said “Philosophers find all Religions equally false, the People find all Religions equally true, and Magistrates find all Religions equally useful”. Well, the truth of such a brilliant generality really shouldn’t be stretched too far into any particular situation and still be expected to hold – Philosophers are more appalled at some religions than others; People find some religions more attractive than others, and magistrates find some religious systems to be almost entirely unworkable and obstructive to the Public Order and the General Good. But the clever generality mentioned above must seem so intuitively true, that it is the general assumption, from many who visit this Page, that since I take the Philosophical stance of criticizing some Religions, then I must equally find them all false. Again, while that makes a for a good generalization which I am willing to own up to, generally speaking, still, it does not apply to every particular. Allowing me to pick and chose, there are some Religious beliefs and doctrines that I am rather fond of.

There also seems to be the Moral Judgments implied by accusing me of being a hater of Religions. Now, I don’t see many intellectual arguments justifying these accusations, but I get a lot of moral judgments aimed against me, not amounting to much more than simple surly assertions of dislike, and this from ostensibly Religious and Spiritually minded people. Perhaps there should be a rule, that people who cannot think ought not to make judgments. Trusting one’s feelings should not be enough, because such feelings could be coming from anywhere. If one cannot assemble a reasonable argument, then one should simply assume that one’s feelings are coming out of a neurosis or some mental conditioning or brainwashing propaganda. Your hatred for me could be only the product of a series of 30 second advertisements you saw when you were a child. Is that how you wish to behave? Like an automaton.

But let me go on to tell you why no moral blame should attach to my criticisms upon Religion, and that is because I am only trying to help it. Religion needs to do three things – appease the Philosophers, be attractive to the People, and be useful to the Magistrate. Religion must fulfill the Spiritual needs of individuals while at the same time forming a framework and support for a viable and perpetual Civilization. After all, was that NOT what Jesus was all about, with his Messianic Mission – to Spiritualize the World by both convincing each individual of their Moral Duties while placing his own Moral Authority behind the Role of Absolute Political Leadership. His wish to be King of Kings speaks of a One World Civilization based on an underlying moral and religious principle.

Every Civilization so far has had a good deal of Religious underpinnings, but so far every Civilization has failed – declining and then falling. This needs to be assigned to the fault of whatever Religion or Moral System that was supposed to keep everything working as one well-oiled Machine. We can measure how good a Religion is, on at least this scale, by determining how supportive the Religion was for Civilization. For instance, Catholicism maintained a Civilization for over a thousand years (remember Christ’s Prophecy of a Thousand Year Reign of Christ on Earth – well, that referred to European Christendom) but this was when Catholicism still reviewed a broad range of Moral Issues, including the stemming of Greed and Exploitation. Now, Christianity does not do as well when it only looks at particularities of sexual conduct as the only possible field for sin, while Greed and Exploitation are applauded as Modern Virtues, and the World is handed over to Capitalist Barbarians with the Blessings of Bishops and Good Old Boy Reverends. Some other Civilizations had been rather like sparks in the pan – perhaps adequate to the job of forming a Civilization out of lightly populated Dark Ages, but never arriving at Institutions that could maintain Peace and Balance when populations would saturate. For instance, Islam was great at getting a few Horsemen Bandits to go out and ride and conquer, but was later plagued during its attempts to administer its conquered territories because the Religion continuously sprouted ever more waves of conquering bandit horsemen who would insist upon conquering the original conquerors. With Religions, it is necessary for all the details to work together. One can hardly be expected to show much admiration for obviously dysfunctional Religions.

Today we have a unique opportunity where every Religion is largely discredited, with the Philosophers, the People and with the Magistrates. With a Huge Time of Troubles soon to come, the World, to survive, will have to reorganize and re-civilize. The necessity of having a Religious Foundation will occur to others besides myself. I can’t be the only person alive today who has read a few history books.

Allow me a brief aside to explain one of the major reasons we are not told of the UFO Aliens. We had actually captured a few Space Aliens, and they learned our language, and wrote up a book about their Civilization and Religion. It is called the Yellow Book because when the Aliens had asked for a binder and some paper, and they had been given a yellow binder – the resulting book became what they referred to as the “Yellow Book”. Anyway, reading the Yellow Book is still quite a top secret affair. One can only suppose that it delineates a Civilization that has stabilized into a perpetual working balance. The Space Aliens had found the formula – that just right mix of Social and Moral Institutions that can perpetuate Civilization as though it is one Eternal Collective Living Organism. We can only suppose that those who had read this “Yellow Book” saw that it did not correlate well with Capitalism, Democracy (the Dictatorship of Winners over Losers), or probably with the Religions that our present set of Magistrates think they are honor-bound to protect.

But, anyway, as the Social Order crumbles around us, we should be looking for and thinking about a Religion and Moral Standard that might actually work for us in our lifetimes and continue to work for us even after the demographic situation changes. Or at least we should not insult and pass judgment on the people who do.