Dreaming of Changing Faiths

Kansas City

Last night, I had the oddest dream.  I was walking in Kansas City – I’ve never been there, but a friend just got a job in a company based there – when I was recognized by a sheriff, who was dressed in a suit.  I didn’t know him, and have no idea how I knew he was in law enforcement, but he knew me as a reporter and called me by name.  I have retired, but he didn’t know that.

Heaven?

He told me that he was a member of the Church of Christ, but was concerned because membership had fallen.  As we walked past stores in a crowded business area, I started to explain why.

I woke up then, but still remember the reasons.

For starters, the internet has opened our eyes to multiple cultures and religions.  It’s no longer realistic to tell people only believers of one religion will go to heaven and everyone else will be punished.  When we didn’t know how many billions of other people there are or that some of them have the same belief, but in their own religion, any claim will work.  That’s not true anymore.

Second, the more we know, the less plausible heaven and hell seems.  A true believer has a problem believing he’s going to be rewarded after death, but must accept the existence of multiple heavens for others, who have different beliefs, but are living “good” lives.

Hell?

Pope Francis tried to end that confusion by saying all good people, including atheists, can go to heaven.  That disrupted the centuries-old insistence that only Catholic believers in Jesus can be “saved.”  After all, the New Testament claims that.  However, Francis had no choice but to concede the obvious.

If heaven has an open door, hell has vanished.  The concept of people being punished for not believing a certain dogma simply makes no sense, not with a known 4,600 religions with each having its own tenets.  Many have punishments as well.  Actually, the idea that all the people born before Jesus and having no way to believe in him would face eternal punishment simply because of when they were born never seemed plausible anyway.

Then, too, religion has undermined itself with the Catholic Church trying to hide pervasive priestly abuse of children, and evangelicals actively supporting such known pedophiles as Roy Moore and known adulterers like Donald Trump.  They have conceded morality to nonbelievers without a whimper of shame.

Bible

In addition, biblical claims of inerrancy have been completely compromised by archaeology, anthropology and other sciences.  Believers are forced to close their eyes and ears to documented research, moaning as the Bible is reduced to a collection of unsupported stories combined with morality teachings.  As time passes, concepts of morality are altered anyway.  The Bible has come up short in that area, too.  The Catholic Church has abetted the shift in culture by conceding that the Bible represents not facts but the “beliefs” of the authors.

Moreover, the old concept of a God who sees everything and is involved in our lives has become unbelievable.  A simple glance at the news shows that innocent people are struck down randomly, such as a child dying of the flu or a car driver swept away by a surprise cascade of mud. We are inundated with such obvious contradictions of faith on a daily basis.  The traditional excuse that God works in mysterious ways falls flat.

Where can anyone find a God in daily life?

Wiesel

Elie Wiesel gave his definition when, in 1945, he watched the hanging of a young boy in a concentration camp.  That was God, he told a companion, hanging from that noose.  He lost any faith, as have many others since.  That life is a series of random events has become increasingly obvious.

Then, too, we have new gods.  Humans like Mao and Stalin were elevated as divinities, in the same way Romans defied emperors or Greeks turned heroes, even imaginary ones like Hercules, into gods.  We have done the same with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Abraham Lincoln and other cultural touchstones, including the National Anthem and the flag. 

Everyone has their own god anyway: Allah or Muslims, Yahweh for Jews; and Jesus for Christians. Or no god, like Buddhists; or thousands of gods, like Hindus. The whole concept has become untenable.

Besides, we are also turning electronics into gods, just as Paul Simon noted in the 1960s: “And the people bowed and prayed/to neon god they made.”

Tragg

The end result is that vast numbers of people are walking away from our existing religions.  Statistically, nearly 24 percent of the American population are no longer associated with a religious organization, the highest number of “nones” ever reported.  The totals continue to grow, leaving my dream sheriff, who reminded me of Lt. Tragg from the old Perry Mason TV series, to wonder about the future of his belief.

Even in my dream, the sheriff knew today's violence, along with the persistent attempts by believers to control books, media and lives, represents the last spasms of aging, fading religions.  One look at the lonely old souls who are typically the only ones these days occupying pews would illustrate that.

For the shrinking remnant of believers, of course, this scenario is not a dream, but a nightmare.  For the rest of us, it’s the end of one era and the beginning of the next.

Long-time religious historian Bill Lazarus regularly writes about religion and religious history with an occasional foray into American culture.  He holds an ABD in American Studies from Case Western Reserve University.   He also speaks at various religious organizations throughout Florida.  You can reach him at www.williamplazarus.net.  He is the author of the famed Unauthorized Biography of Nostradamus; The Last Testament of Simon Peter; The Gospel Truth: Where Did the Gospel Writers Get Their Information; Noel: The Lore and Tradition of Christmas Carols; and Dummies Guide to Comparative Religion.  A recent book, Passover in

The Shepherd Poem

Amidst the steady stream of cars

In a crowded intersection,

He stood.

Proud and erect, directing the flock

By his meek presence.

They moved around him,

Shaped into a proper flow

In easy rhythm.

He gave no signals,

Made no gestures.

He smiled, he looked,

Into the eyes of each driver,

Silently directing.

The cars swirled about him;

He was not afraid.

As Jesus before him,

He loved his sheep.

He raised his sign

In silent prayer

That all might read the good news.

It read:

“Will work for food.”

True Believers Debase Society

No room for anything else

I recently added some historical commentary to a Facebook posting about a biblical tale.  My information was correct, but contradicted the claims of the person who posted the information.   His reply to me was that “I need to believe.”

Apparently, belief can eliminate facts. 

I don’t believe that.  Instead, I believe that unfettered belief causes immense problems, undermining a free society.

For example, belief forces people to ignore research.  Take evolution.  No theory has been studied more, yet no one has ever found a flaw, only an increasing awareness of its complexity.  Recent studies have further verified how natural selection causes creatures to change.

New species of birds

Scientists these days are observing the birth of a new bird species on the Galapagos Islands.  Other researchers investigated how fast environment forces demonstrative changes.  In one case, researchers put long-legged lizards on an island where short-legged lizards had a natural advantage.  The offspring of the long-legged lizards were short-legged.  The reverse happened, too.  It’s all documented; that's the way science works.  It can be verified; the experiment can be repeated.

Belief must pretend such studies don’t exist, and not just in biology.  Any research that somehow belies belief is suspect, eliminating such fields as geology, astronomy, physics, chemistry and history.

Following the same logic, religious students in my college class rejected evolution because it seems random (it is) and therefore cannot be directed by the God of their faith.  Open minds snap shut when belief arrives.

Any democratic society depends on the free flow of information with the ability to adjust when facts don’t match up with preconceived notions.  Without that, we are living in a religious dictatorship.

True believers at work

Belief doesn’t just spurn hard-earned knowledge.  It tries to impose unproven ideas on nonbelievers.  Every dominant religion has demanded that those who have not accepted the faith either join or die.  Jews, who have rarely had enough power to impose their religious zeal, did that in Samaria when a Jewish theocracy was independent prior to Roman conquest in the first century BCE.

Christians practiced forced conversion for centuries until the Reformation in the 1500s finally broke the Roman Catholic monopoly over daily life.  Islam spread quickly as Muslim armies gave conquered people a choice of conversion or death.  These days, Islam leaders who control countries in the Middle East are still issuing death sentences to apostates. 

Wailing Wall confrontation

Today, ardent Christians in this country are pushing for control of textbooks and perverting science for their ends, such as denying and even opposing efforts to mitigate Climate Change.  Orthodox Jews are doing similar things in Israel, including fighting against women being allowed to visit the Wailing Wall.  Muslim clerics have already perfected such techniques in lands they dominate in the Middle East.

Again, believers don’t want a free society.  They want to control thought.

Belief also divides.  It separates society into “good” and “bad.”  For example, the Missouri Synod chastised a member for daring to attend a community-wide program in Connecticut after a mass shooting there.  Why? Members of other religions were represented, and the minister would only be judged an equal, not superior.

As we have seen in recent elections here, belief obligates otherwise normal people to support pedophiles, neo-Nazis and other scum because the candidate “believes” instead of backing an opponent who isn’t “one of us.”

Free societies cannot function that way, especially one with the founding concept that “all men are created equal” and which promises freedom of religion.

Islamic militants killed fellow Muslims in a mosque.

Worse, all religions fragment as “true” believers try to weed out opponents.  Who are radical Muslims attacking now -- their co-religionists, recently killing hundreds praying at a mosque in Egypt.  The fight between Christian sects spread across Europe in the 1500s, resulting in the deaths of millions.  Orthodox Jews in Israel have attacked Reform and Conservative Jews. 

No one is pure enough.  No one can be.  And society is worse for it.

There are an estimated 4,600 religions in the world.  All of them think they are correct.  All members believe they have found the “truth.”  Most likely, they are all wrong, but that’s not going to stop any “true” believers.

They will continue to demand, to harm, to denigrate, to subvert, to do anything to make their belief supreme, twisting facts, ignoring uncomfortable facts and trying to silence anyone who dares to differ. 

So far, at least in this country, they haven’t succeeded.  However, don’t believe, given the slightest opening, that they won’t continue their efforts to undermine a free society.

Long-time religious historian Bill Lazarus regularly writes about religion and religious history with an occasional foray into American culture.  He holds an ABD in American Studies from Case Western Reserve University.   He also speaks at various religious organizations throughout Florida.  You can reach him at wplazarus@aol.com.  He is the author of the famed Unauthorized Biography of Nostradamus; The Last Testament of Simon Peter; The Gospel Truth: Where Did the Gospel Writers Get Their Information; Noel: The Lore and Tradition of Christmas Carols; and Dummies Guide to Comparative Religion.  A recent book, Passover in Prison, details abuse of Jewish inmates in American prisons.  His books are available on Amazon.com, Kindle, bookstores and via various publishers.  He can also be followed on Twitter.