The Main Hope for Humanity: Secularization
by John Lawrence
When you consider all the wars that have been fought in the name of religion, it is not too farfetched to propose that the main hope for human civilization is secularization. Some of the commandments would be
- No war is worth being fought over someone's religion.
- There is no sacred ground, land, location, site or artifact.
- Only the earth as a whole is holy.
- Remember the body, to keep it holy. Thou shall not kill.
- Do not despoil or pollute the environment.
- Only extract resources as needed.
- Replace, regenerate, replant or renew extracted resources.
- All life on earth is to be respected.
- All humans are equal and have the same rights including economic rights.
- No religion is more important or more holy than any other religion.
Humans have slaughtered each other from the beginning of time. Many times the slaughter has been carried out in the name of religion. The slaughterers have maintained that God was on their side. The other side were infidels who needed to be converted to the correct religion or be killed. We, as a species, have not made any progress in the elimination of war. We have only made progress in the invention of gadgets, many of which have been destructive to the environment: namely, fossil fuel based gadgets and advanced weapons. Chemistry has led to the invention of plastics which have accumulated in the oceans. Pesticides and herbicides have accumulated in the ecosystem creating conditions conducive to cancer.
Islam, Christianity and Judaism trace back the founding of their religions to Abraham. The descendants of Abraham's two sons, Isaac or Israel and Ishmael, became the Jewish and Arab tribes respectively. Muslims are the descendants of Ishmael; Jews are the descendants of Israel. Christians also trace their lineage back to Abraham since Jesus was a Jew. There are schisms in Christianity (Protestants and Catholics) which led to centuries of European wars. Schisms in Islam (Sunnis and Shiites) led to wars between them. For hundreds of years Christian crusaders killed Muslims and vice versa. Jews have been persecuted and killed for millennia right up to the present day. So what good has religion done for the human race? In terms of world peace we would have been better off without it. It has led to the justification of war and killing and the belief of the killers that their religion was the only correct religion. PreChristian religions have been labeled with the pejorative word - pagan. NonChristians have been labeled as heathen, another pejorative word. Eastern religions have led to conflict between Hindus and Muslims. Pakistan was created by partitioning India so Muslims could live in one place, Hindus in another. China seems to be the only place where there was religious tolerance. In Chinese philosophy, the three teachings are Confucianism, Taoism, and Chinese Buddhism. All of these three teachings are considered a harmonious aggregate.
Meanwhile, while religious people were not killing each other, they were despoiling the environment under the Biblical edict of dominion: "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." So man is free to use the environment in any way that profits him regardless of the harm to the ecosystem. Animals can be slaughtered to extinction with no Biblical or religious consequences just as humans who are not of the correct religion can be killed without consequence. The earth can be polluted by corporations for whom externalities do not impose a cost so that pollution of the environment without consequence increases profits to shareholders. Earth is plundered; shareholders profit.
There will never be world peace until religion has no bearing on respect for the human rights of all people, and until respect for the environment predominates over the extraction of the earth's resources. There is always a rationale for war. There is never enough work done to create peace and understanding. Human rationality has led to war which is undertaken in a very rational way, but the rational human mind seems incapable of working out a rationality and a followup for a peaceful world especially when creating a peaceful world costs money.
