The origin of religion is murky but there can be no doubt that primitives on awakening to a subhuman conscious world were inexplicably mystified. That they found themselves vulnerable to unpredictable phenomena soon drove them to surrendering to powerful elements over which they had no control, and ultimately worshiping thereof.

Injury and disease led to witch doctors; death led to witchcraft under whose imaginative rituals the spirit of the deceased would hopefully endure. Eventually witchcraft was supplanted by organizational beliefs by which the unexplainable was delineated through sophisticated myth hinging on the heroics of a superhuman past, and out of which emerged an omnipotent god demanding unswerving faith.

To maintain this faith, rewards — in life and death — were promised by the hierarchy of organized religion provided the faithful followed an elaborate system of rule leading to total authoritarianism. As modified reasoning began to take hold, fractious sects branched out to suit the rationale and imagination of the innovators. However, they dared not swerve from the prima facie of an all powerful deity to whom all would have to answer.

The history of religion has always been a process of muddling and meddling with respect to the oughtness of behaviors. The apparently beneficial edict of thou shalt not kill has offshoots in that human sacrifice, and in time of war killing is acceptable, on the other hand abortion is murder and the death penalty is a branch of an eye for an eye. Tribal longevity required incest, but today it is taboo. A man child is forever Adam in need of Eve, regardless of his deviant homosexual proclivity that must doom him to celibacy unless he overcomes his “abnormal” fixation. That family values are the bedrock of civilization is unquestioned, in spite of its dysfunctions, let alone the dysfunctions of civilization. To separate religion from politics is another aberration that isolates the soul of governance that should mirror the ideal of humankind’s marriage with the soul’s surrender to authoritarianism.

In addition, muddling and meddling have taken us to the prevailing view that the voter ought to be church-going if he or she is to cast a ballot wisely in accordance with divine will. That one has the audacity to utter the pledge without reference to God is heretical. With the absence of the Ten Commandments in a public building, one should at least bless himself upon entering a fabricated secular shrine. A young Catholic couple who opts out of a High Mass Nuptial is forever plagued by doubting the validity and sanctity of their marriage. An evangelist is encouraged to read the Bible but cannot question it. Notwithstanding the Islamist in a modern environment, he cannot partake modernity. The devout Hebrew must not “read into” the Sacred Scriptures. The volunteer armed services have oddly been elevated to the status of Christian soldiers — pure fighting machine, divinely patriotic and dedicated — implying a draftee could never rise to such titanic heights. Americans that do not endorse the right to arms, defy the wrath of God and are at high risk when terrorism rules the Judgment Day.

Copyright © 2004 Richard R. Kennedy All rights reserved. Revised: July, 10, 2004.