George,
A lot to think about there. While trying to construct a coherent reply, a comment on Alex's comment:
Having erred (grotesquely) on the side of abstraction, let me get simplistic about it. As I have an 8 year old son, I'll draw on recent folk mythology.
It's like Star Wars... we have the force, we have the light side and the dark side. The way that traditional religious and political institutions control the dark side is to try to squash the force altogether. It often fails - examples of both sides pop up all too frequently. It succeeds, too - it's all too easy to see that vast hordes of people around the word behave like docile, de-forced mobs of sheep, doing and believing whatever they're told to do and believe.
The answer? Stop trying to squash the force and start training people to recognize and use the positive side of it.
Obviously, Star Wars is kid stuff, and we're not talking in those terms. But there is a real energy and vitality in humans that can be turned to either positive or negative uses. And I don't think that enforcing obedience to words written down on paper is the way to do it.
What is the way? Wish I knew. I think that acknowledgement of the conscience, which cuts across most religious lines, as a far clearer expression of the divine will than anything written down on paper might be a good start.
How much have things changed since old testament days? If your priest, pastor, rabbi, mullah, or whatever came down from the hilltop and told you that God wanted you to put the next town to the sword because they didn't believe, would you do it? Or would you call the nearest asylum?
Some things do change.
Steve |
