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Beginning
in the second half of the 20th Century and continuing into
the 21st Century, civilizations and cultures that were
previously semi-autonomous and comfortably ethnocentric have been forced
to interact with each other and to accept (or reject) foreign beliefs and
values as minimally legitimate. This forced interaction of
societies—the shrinking global village—is caused by new technologies in
communication, entertainment, travel, and commerce. It’s also caused by
capitalism and by increases in world population and pollution. Scholars,
pundits, and news analysts call this process globalization.*
Globalization creates a difficult
balancing act for us all. Nobody wants war or threats of violence between
cultures, and so we try to tolerate other cultural views as much as
possible. But tolerance is easier at a distance. The foreign beliefs we
try to tolerate sometimes imply that our own beliefs are wrong and should
not be practiced or allowed to influence society. Religion is a major
source of these kinds of polarizing beliefs, beliefs that can quickly lead
to conflict when in contact with divergent views.
The purpose of this
presentation is to argue for an opinion I would think everybody has, but
I’ve discovered many people don’t, and that is that religions have
irreconcilable differences that will increase violent conflict as
globalization continues.
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*My assumption in this presentation is
that globalization is obviously occurring. For descriptions of the forces
that drive globalization, I recommend Samuel Huntington’s “The Clash of
Civilizations” (first published in Foreign Affairs, Vol. 72, 1993);
Benjamin Barber’s “Jihad vs. McWorld” (first published in The Atlantic
Monthly, March 1992); and Robert Kaplan’s “The Coming Anarchy” (first
published in The Atlantic Monthly, Feb 1994). These and other
excellent articles I found reprinted in Globalization and the
Challenges of a New Century, edited by O’Meara, Mehlinger, and Krain
(Indiana University Press, 2000).
But first, what is
religion? I need to discuss several definitions before I argue my
opinion. I’m not being tediously pedantic. A preliminary discussion of
definitions will give us a clearer view of the opinion I’m advancing, as
well as its justification.
Fifty years ago,
and back even further, as far back as the earliest dictionary of the
English Language assembled by Samuel Johnson, Western lexicographers
usually defined religion (i.e., they described our usage of the
word) roughly this way:
Religion is any set of beliefs and practices that express
worship of God or other supernatural realities.
That definition,
that description of our word usage, reflected a Judeo-Christian bias on
the part of the lexicographers about what constitutes a religion. The
bias was in their assumption that they had thoroughly described all the
things we call religion when they described Western forms of
religion (forms that included worship of “God or other supernatural
beings”). Their description was, very simply, an inaccurate description
of how we use the word religion. The description excluded
Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism even though we regularly list them
among the greatest religions of the world. Buddhism, Confucianism and
Taoism are automatically excluded because, in their original forms, they
did not, and still do not, advocate belief in, or worship of, any
supernatural being. Instead, they advocate pursuit of Nirvana, or
becoming a Chun Tzu (a Superior Person), or living in accord with one’s
Tao (or nature).
Later scholars, including scholars writing
for the courts, decided the definition of religion should be expanded. In
other words, they wanted to provide a better description of our actual use
of the word religion. These scholars described, in their new
definition, the one characteristic they believed was common to all
phenomena we call religions, whether Christian, Buddhist,
Confucian, Hindu, or Shinto. This new, more inclusive description of our
use of the word religion was first proposed, so far as I know, by
the Protestant theologian Paul Tillich (who died in 1965). This is the
definition he proposed.
Religion is any set of beliefs and
practices that express an
ultimate concern around which a person
orients his
or her life and for which he or she is
willing to live and die
This new definition
included all the traditional religions that advocated worship of gods, and
it included Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism as well, since they each
propose an “ultimate concern” around which a person orients his or her
life and for which he or she is willing to live and die. The
“ultimate concerns” were Nirvana, becoming a Chun Tzu, and living
according to Tao.
A version of that
expanded, more inclusive definition of religion has been adopted by most
academic disciplines, such as anthropology, psychology, and sociology, and
it has been adopted, as well, by the Supreme Court and lower courts across
the country. In West’s Encyclopedia of American Law (Vol. 8,
1998), we read this:
The Supreme Court has interpreted religion to mean a sincere and
meaningful belief that occupies in the life of its possessor a place
parallel to the place held by God in the lives of other persons. The
religion or religious concept need not include belief in the existence of
God or a supreme being to be within the scope of the First Amendment. The
Supreme Court must look to the sincerity of a person’s beliefs to help
decide if those beliefs constitute a religion that deserves constitutional
protection. (303)
The Supreme Court’s
definition of religion is a version of Tillich’s definition in this
way. Any “belief that occupies in the life of its possessor a place
parallel to the place held by God in the lives of others” has, as its
primary example (in our monotheistic culture), the place God holds in the
story of the life of Abraham. In other words, as I will more fully
discuss in a moment, the belief would be the “ultimate concern” of the
individual just as obeying God was the “ultimate concern” of Abraham.
But before we get
to the story of Abraham, let me point out that the new definition of
religion is too broad. It includes beliefs and activities we don’t
ordinarily call religion. According to this definition, tending
your garden or your stamp collection above concerns for family and health,
or, putting all your energies and commitment into making money, could
count as religions. The legal scholars who formulated the court’s
definition of religion realized it was too broad, so they included
a “wiggle-room” clause you probably noticed in the above quotation from
West’s Encyclopedia of American Law. That clause mandated that the
court must decide on the believers’ sincerity as well as the worthiness,
for protection, of their beliefs.
This is why
prisoners in the Missouri legal system can legitimately sue the
state for the right to use marijuana in prison. Marijuana, these
prisoners say, is like a god in their lives. They live and die for
marijuana. They orient their lives around its ritual use. Consequently,
they demand right of access to their bag of herb just as Jewish and
Christian prisoners demand, and are granted, right of access to their
Bibles (under ordinary prison conditions). But the prisoners suing to use
marijuana in prison don’t win their suits. The judges must acknowledge
that, technically, the prisoners’ claimed use of marijuana fits the
court’s definition of religion, but the judges rule the prisoners to be
insincere and their beliefs unworthy of protection.
What is the point
of all this? The scholars’ and the courts’ definition of religion is
particularly interesting when considering the forces of globalization.
Their definition highlights a fundamental truth about diverse religious
beliefs. Let me explain.
Nobody wants to
call every “ultimate concern” (i.e., every commitment like that of
a monotheist’s commitment to God) a religion, since doing so would include
as religion an obsessive practice of science, or an obsessive pursuit of
money, or even abuse of drugs, and we would have to give tax exemptions
for such institutionalized activities, as we give to traditional religious
institutions. I think we can agree that we don’t call, and don’t want to
call, every “ultimate concern” a religion.
I hope we can also
agree that all phenomena we ordinarily classify as religions do
make ideological beliefs and behaviors “ultimate concerns” around which
followers orient their lives and for which they are willing to live and
die. Religion supplies a center of purpose, a center of meaning and
direction. Religion provides explanations for the world and for our
existence. It provides justifications for society and its institutions.
Religion offers a way of understanding and identifying oneself and one’s
community by faith and shared values. Religion specifies the character
and structure of families. Religion provides, or implies, designs for
national government. Religion tells us our origin, our future, and what
to do before we get there. These beliefs become ultimate concerns because
they define and classify in systematic religious terms everything in the
world of the believer.
Now here is the
fundamental truth about religion: The Ultimate Concerns of
religions—i.e., beliefs that hold places in people’s lives like that held
by God in the life of Abraham—are non-negotiable. I’m not just
spinning a tautology out of the phrase “ultimate concern.” As Samuel
Huntington says in The Clash of Civilizations,
…different views on the relations between God and Man, the individual and
the group, the citizen and the state, parents and children, husband and
wife, as well as differing views of the relative importance of rights and
responsibilities, liberty and authority, equality and hierarchy…are the
product[s] of centuries. They will not soon disappear. (p. 5,
Globalization & the Challenges of a New Century)
The phrase
“ultimate concern” was first used by Paul Tillich in Systematic
Theology and Shaking of the Foundations as a description of the
degree or extent of a follower’s commitment. How much commitment are we
talking about?
Many religions have
recorded in their scriptures tests of commitment—tests of faith—undertaken
by men and women of ancient times. One of the most famous of these tests
is the test we’re told God gave Abraham. Abraham’s test of faith is used
by all three monotheistic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—as an
example of the ultimate man of faith. Abraham’s test of faith is also
commonly used by Western scholars as an example of what they mean by “the
place of God in a monotheist’s life,” as well as what they mean by
“ultimate concern” and “religious commitment.”
In the story,
Abraham is commanded by God to slit his son’s throat. This is described
as a test of Abraham’s commitment to the will of God. Abraham accepted
the challenge, built a sacrificial altar, bound his son, and was about to
bring a knife down on his son’s neck when an angel sent by God stopped
Abraham’s hand.
Abraham shows us,
in that story, an ultimate concern, a concern above all others for
following the will of God. Abraham’s story is an example of using one’s
religious beliefs as the sole judge and criterion for one’s directions and
purposes, even unto the death of one’s family and, presumably, if the test
were carried far enough, even unto the death of all humankind. The man
of faith will trust the wisdom of God or Tao or Shiva or the
pronouncements of his latest guru over the witness of his own senses and
his own conscience. This sounds wildly fanatical, but this is what the
story of Abraham advocates and illustrates. All religions claim they
provide the sole judge and criterion for human directions and purposes and
actions, and, in a word, one’s life. These are not beliefs amenable to
compromise.
The core beliefs of one religion often
call for the downfall of the core beliefs of another religion, not just
because they’re heresy, but because each set of religious beliefs have
non-negotiable expectations of society as a whole. Judaism, Christianity,
and Islam are perfect examples of this. And yet many people I meet talk
as though they are unaware of the incompatibility of diverse religious
views.
American citizens often maintain a
comfortable and self-satisfied illusion that religious people should be
able to live together peaceably and that we Americans have the
governmental-political model for doing so. The model is our government’s
separation of church and state together with our politically correct
tolerance of diverse religious views. But this is a total illusion, an
idealist’s imaginary bubble that drips with American provincialism. Here
are a few pins.
1.
A secular government (a religiously
neutral government) such as America tries to maintain is a violation of
religious principles for people whose religions claim the state should be
a theocracy (e.g., Judaism, Islam, and Shintoism). Thus, a true
separation of church and state is impossible, since the structure of the
state is stipulated by many religions, and they don’t all mandate the same
structure.
2.
A secular (religiously neutral)
school system is flat out impossible. We don’t have that kind of system
in the United States—we never have and we never will. We can remove from
the schools all teaching of worship or deference to various gods and
supernatural realities. However, the remaining form of idealism teachers
must teach—and they must teach some form of idealism to children who need
encouragement to learn—is humanism, secular humanism, since teaching any
form of idealism derivative from supernatural realities is prohibited.
Secular humanism defines all values and goods as being whatever
contributes to the flowering of one’s health and capabilities, and the
health and capabilities of the human community. But that view contradicts
related “truths” of many religions, e.g., that God alone determines value,
and the highest value is obeying and glorifying God, even if He asks you
to kill your children. Thus, secular humanism promotes human welfare as
an ultimate concern. The ultimate concern of secular humanism cannot be
proven true. It must be taken on faith. Thus, secular humanism, by the
Supreme Court’s definition, constitutes a religion. This is why
fundamentalist and evangelical Christians home-school their kids and
demand a share of tax monies through a voucher system for their children’s
education. They argue that general education will always imply or deny a
variety of religious truths (at least by the court’s definition of
religion), and therefore public general education cannot be
religiously neutral as mandated by our laws and courts. In other words,
religion cannot be removed from the pubic schools, and so, in fairness, we
must equally fund parochial schooling, too.
3.
Our illusion of separation of
church and state has worked without great turmoil in the past because our
nation was built and structured on majority acceptance of one religion,
i.e., Protestant Christianity. Historically, American Christians have had
the political power to ignore the complaints of Jews, Muslims, Buddhists,
atheists, and anybody else who disagrees with our system of Holy Days
(Sunday, Christmas, Easter, etc.) or prayer in the classroom or
governmental references to God or religious views of abortion. Acting
with the majority creates an illusion of freedom for everybody but the
nitpickers. And if complaints from minority nitpickers get too loud,
Christians can, and do, abandon all pretense of separation of church and
state and loudly proclaim that this is a Christian country created and
founded by Christians on Christian principles, and if non-Christian
minorities don’t like it, if they feel their religious rights are being
abused, they can leave.
4.
Our widespread American practice of
lukewarm, uncommitted religious observance contributes to the illusion of
religious compatibility. Seriously committed religious people are not
lukewarm in their religious observances. Religion defines the committed
person’s life, rather than being a philosophical view unrelated to daily
activity. Consider, for example, the life of the committed Jew.
Religiously committed people appear to the blasé Christian as fanatical.
Religiously committed people make demands on society by, among other
things, changing the character of the neighborhood and society itself. If
enough Hindus or Muslims or Buddhists move in around here, the area won’t
look, vote, or even smell like a Bible-belt Missouri neighborhood
anymore. Some citizens consider this a threat to the basic values of the
people of Missouri. And, of course, it is.
5.
The illusion of peaceful
co-existence of various religions within one nation occurs because
incompatible religions either (a) have little interaction together or (b)
one religion is politically dominant and forces the others into varying
degrees of temporary capitulation and submission.
6.
Here are a few topics about which
there are contradictory religious beliefs that are, for many people,
“ultimate concerns.”
·
Access and use of Holy Lands and
burial grounds
·
Structures of government.
Secular? Theocratic?
·
Marriage. Number of wives? Male
authority?
·
Legal and/or moral acceptance of
homosexuality
·
Legal and/or moral acceptance of
male & female circumcision
·
Legal and/or moral acceptance of
abortion
·
Entertainment -- definition and
allowance of pornography
·
Rituals: weddings, funerals,
baptisms, coming of age ceremonies
·
Education—more or less religiously
influenced?
·
Scientific views on the origin of
humans and character of the universe
Inner peace and tranquility and spiritual
enrichment come through selfless living and caring for one’s neighbor as
one cares for oneself (a principle that can be found in all major
religions and is consistent with an evolutionary view of the development
of a social species). But who is my neighbor? In practice, most
religions see only fellow believers as neighbors, although spokespersons
for those religions might claim a more magnanimous view. The history of
religion, drenched in blood, speaks for itself.
Regarding religious compatibility at the
international level, I think the Enlightenment helped create an illusion
still inhabited by many Americans and Europeans. Enlightenment thinkers
encouraged us to believe that educated or “enlightened” governments will
act in accord with humanistic notions of the well being of humankind, and
that all rational leaders, committed to this common humanistic goal, will
use logic and argument to adjudicate their differences.
But the Enlightenment humanist’s hope of
nations acting rationally in pursuit of common humanist goals is not, and
never has been, the way international relations have been decided.
Instead, international disputes are always decided in favor of the states
having the most power or the most perceived power. And the princes and
presidents of power decide in accord with their best self-interests—unless
they’re consulting chicken livers, in which case they’ve identified their
self-interest as being guided by their religious beliefs rather than their
own senses and good judgment.
Operating at the foundations of all
international relations is the threat of force and the willingness to kill
and be killed. At the international level, the ruling principle continues
to be power. This was the view of Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan, and
I believe it remains true today. A small minority—the Gandhi’s and Martin
Luther King’s—can decide not to fight, which would be their ultimate
concern, but they will always be a very small minority, and they and their
families will be subjugated or killed.
In this Hobbesian political context, this
“state of nature” in the international scene where might makes right and
physical violence and economic hegemony are the ultimate adjudicators of
every major issue, divergent religions appear on the scene as catalysts
for war. Religions are each other’s enemies.
What conclusions can we reach from these reflections? Compromise between
religions is not achievable except at the furthest periphery of religious
conduct. What we might call a moderate position, one that allows for
political compromise, the doctrinaire faithful will call heresy. People
in power will never allow their children to be reared and taught the ways
of “pagans.” Thus, religiously motivated conflict—wars and rumors of
wars—will be more numerous and more intense as globalization continues to
shrink the world and compel competition between ultimate concerns.
The Crusades were
not unique. They’re coming again.
Please give us YOUR opinion!
...and see what others are saying, too
The Global Forum |
Blanchard
DeMerchant, Ph.D.
SCC Philosophy Department
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