Human beings are essentially religious.
There is no human, who is not religious. Some people are more engaged with
religion, their consciousness is preoccupied with religious ideas and their
actions are associated with religious ideas. Others do not think much about
religion in course of everyday life, but their thoughts and actions are shaped
by a religion with which they are associated.
Those, who follow an ideology, which claims
that it is not religious, who claim that they are not religious, are in fact
followers of some form of a primitive religion.
Rationalism, which tries to explain
everything based on reason, rational thinking, is one of more sophisticated
forms of primitive religion.
The article of faith of Rationalism is an
unquestionable belief that Reason could explain everything; not necessarily an
individual Reason and not necessarily now, but communal Reason, when it makes
sufficient effort to arrive to such explanation. This assertion cannot be proved,
and rationalists themselves do not follow it in their everyday life, but they accept
it as a basis of their thinking and decision-making. Non-rationalist could
observe that this faith often leads to decisions detrimental to well-being of
rationalists and those who are in touch with them. However, as with any faith,
this cannot be conveyed to rationalists.
Even the best of “non-religions” is a form
of a primitive religion. Derivatives of Rationalism, as communism, are obvious
forms of primitive religion and often dangerous forms.
Through millennia, Humanity developed
numerous forms of religion.
They
emerge and vanish, some because other forms replace them, others because their
followers perish. Often, a form of religion, which became rigid and run in
conflict with reality, is an important factor in demise of its followers.
Some
forms of religion grow in sophistication, retain flexibility and serve well
their followers. In the same time, there is a perpetual process of emergence of
new primitive forms of religion.
There
are two major mechanisms of emergence of new forms of Primitive Religions.
One
is primitivization of an existing religious form. Primitivization is collapse of a few concepts into one,
removing a few other concepts and especially freezing potential variants of
interpretation. In short – making it more defined, one, which could be followed
more mechanically.
The
other is perversion of natural human desire to extend control of circumstances.
There is a natural appreciation of something beyond one’s direct control and
there is a desire to create at least indirect control in that difficult area. This
could lead to establishment of special ritualized behavior as superstition,
magic, “negotiation with deity”, etc. This ritualized behavior becomes a part
of the culture and passed through generations.
No
wonder, that a combination of these two powerful mechanisms produces a
perpetual flood of new forms of Primitive Religions.
Successful
religious forms have to have ability to withstand this process of erosion. They
have built-in safeguards against primitive forms of religion. These safe-guards
have to be sophisticated and not formal, because Primitive Religions “mutate”
and pretty soon “find” a way around any formal safe-guard. In addition, such
religion has to be able to reinvent itself after safe-guards fail.
The
story of three religions with roots in the religion of Jews is highly
educational in this respect.
Two
millennia ago, a form of religion, which served Jews for a long time, ran in
conflict with reality. Numerous new forms of religion, which were modifications
of existing one, but still new forms, were emerging and competing each with other.
After the national disaster of expulsion of Jews from own land, only one form
of religion was able to sustain the nation in new difficult circumstances. This
form exists till now – Judaism.
No
other form of religion came even close to fulfilling this task; hence no wonder
that Jews were not seduced by other religions and did not abandon Judaism for
two thousand years.
Judaism
faced its challenges, when various exciting movements tried to bring a
primitive form of it. Judaism repulsed them, recovered after brief flirtation
with them or incorporated them with embedding of proper safeguards.
Judaism
is remarkable in its ability to sustain the nation in Diaspora. Currently, it
is quite clear that it has difficult times adjusting to new circumstances, when
Jews have own state in own land. In the same time, it is quite obvious that
Jews of Israel need a form of Jewish religion corresponding current
circumstances. It should be a modification of Judaism, as Judaism itself
emerged from a previous form. Hopefully, it will emerge soon.
Roots
of Christianity are in the Jewish religion. Current forms of Christianity took
shape, when this religion spread across
Association
with political power and wealth helped its expansion and eroded it in the same
time. To be useful as a tool of governance, it had to make itself more rigid
and hence more susceptible to perversion and primitivization.
It became a tool of social organization, which often provided social continuity
through difficult times, and this brought even more rigidity needed to survive
through periods of social instability.
Eventually,
Christianity as religion eroded to a degree that Christian community revolted
and produced numerous competing forms of Christianity, some of which acquired
large number of followers and stability. Currently, existence of numerous
competing forms of Christianity makes Christianity as a religion a stable one,
because when one form of religion reaches a detached from reality state, its
followers switch to another form.
Islam
emerged later than Christianity. In comparison, it is a young form of religion.
It is customary to point out that introduction of Islam among Arabs stopped
their perpetual infighting, a detail is omitted though – they immediately
embarked on a conquest. It is customary to point out that Islam teaches Muslims
to treasure life of other Muslims, but no one kills Muslims in such large
numbers as other Muslims. Not often it is mentioned that unreasonable
interpretation of religious limitations on money lending greatly limits
possibility of modern economic development in Muslim countries.
One
does disservice to Muslims not pointing at problems of current forms of Islam.
Current
forms of Islam do not have sufficient safe-guards against its misuse.
Many
of current forms of Islam are self-destructive. They encourage actions, which
lead to massive death of Muslims, they encourage actions, which are destructive
for Humanity as a whole, and they encourage individual self-destructive
behavior. All this is a sign of a deep problem in the religion itself, not only
in its interpretations.
Current
close association of Islam with political power is extremely dangerous for the
religion. While it is convenient for a political power, which could use
religious authority to achieve political goals, it makes religion rigid and
eventually detached from reality.
Only
Muslims know how to modify their religious forms. There is plenty of experience
to learn from.
There is a common misconception that
differences between religions or differences between forms of the same religion
lead to conflict and strife.
Usually, boundaries between religious forms
only delineate existing boundaries between stable cultures or even between
national groups. To see this, it is sufficient to analyze history of change
from one form of religion to another. Usually, when a new form of religion is
chosen, it is different from one used by a neighbor of a different culture or
from a neighbor of a different national group. Such choice only reinforces an
existing boundary; often this is done consciously.
When there is no sufficiently sophisticated
flexible religion, Primitive Religions emerge. When there is nothing that could
satisfy one’s need for a religion, which fits ones circumstances, one tries to
grab at least something.
Such vacuum happens, when dominant forms of
religion grew detached from reality or when political system enforcing a
particular form of Primitive Religion fell.
Twentieth century brought imbalance between,
from one side, quickly developing technology and science and growing population
and, from the other side, slowly developing and unresponsive dominant forms of
religion.
It allowed emergence of stable forms of
Primitive Religion as communism, Nazism and radical Islamism.
Persisting of this vacuum should not be
allowed. Human society needs new forms of sophisticated religion, forms which
do not try to provide political, social or scientific solutions, forms, which
support development of religious side of a human being.
In
religious circles it is customary to fret about lack of religious enthusiasm.
The real problem is religious enthusiasm directed toward some Primitive
Religion.
What
is needed is religion, which prevents such enthusiasm. Different forms of
religion could do this trick to different people. Thus, one arrives to appreciation
of variety of forms of religion, as long they help maintaining sanity of their
followers.
This
is a starting point of understanding of what arrival of monotheism with Jewish
religion brought to the Humanity. It brought a safe-guard from Primitive
Religions. This safe-guard is customized for each person separately – it is
called “interpretation”.
No
religion could claim to be monotheistic, if it does not carry such safe-guard.
[
Alexander Liss 2006-03-07 ]