My atheist friend Sam Harris tellingly said that under any circumstances you will always have bad people doing bad things; but it takes religion to get good, decent people to do despicable things. While he was speaking mostly about savage things like clitorodectomy and suicide bombers, really the list is virtually endless. Someone immersed in the entrancement of the BS (belief system) being artfully wielded by an illuminated power bloc has no recourse to sound judgment, whether of self or of others, regardless of their degree of learning or depth of piety. They have drunk the coolaide.
Now Belief Systems are not only important, they are essential and unavoidable in human socialization. I have commented elsewhere on their proper application, so although Sam and his colleagues in the New Atheist movement may perceive themselves less prone to the moral inanity (no I didn’t forget the ‘s’) that religious fundamentalism can invoke, they would do well to apply the Blood of Jesus to their own hearts, lest themselves become unanchored as their group experiences new levels of power and influence,. resulting from generations of determined advocacy now bearing fruit – (this the much feared but unavoidable course anticipated by the Bible brandishing Trumpians who want to cling to a past whose foundations they themselves have already irrevocably eroded but unwilling to bear their responsibility, seek any scapegoat for demonization to avoid facing the mirror.)
So there it is, I applied in good conscience a highly loaded religious metaphor apparently inappropriately….but what determines appropriateness is audience; and I know to whom I speak or rather who is listening. The fact is whatever mega-narrative speaks to the eternal verities of the soul (in this case the expiation of guilt and fear) – the dispositions of heart that are constant throughout time and culture (such as the adoption of a posture of humility) is appropriate…. once understood. The problem with an infantile religious acquiescence, (however useful that may be in early spiritual formation) is the tendency to become lost in symbolism and unmoored to reality, rather than becoming artful in discerning and engaging reality due to mastery of a highly crafted symbolism.
That kind of susceptibility I have also written about elsewhere. Whatever else may be said of the religious experiences that continue to buttress the Trumpeters in their bid to prolong the familiar life, however flawed and offensive, to which they have grown accustomed, and undoubtedly derived benefit from, regardless of whom it has disenfranchised, they would do well to remember that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, regardless of the skewed narrative that only projects (understandably) an eternal triumphalism (note the ‘i’, I promise you no pun intended) is first and foremostly, as any fair-minded reading of Judeo-Christian history will attest, a God of truth and justice, not a God of political faction, whose covenants whether personal or national must reflect same or otherwise impugn His Great Name. The same God invites His people beyond blind belief to open eyed discernment, and the standard for such, as suggested by Jesus himself, is observed fruit or character.
The convenient postulation of Trump as modern day Cyrus is immediately exposed as the falsehood it is when applying the fruit test. Cyrus’ Zorastroanism was no impediment for the God of Israel using him as signet ring, because Justice and truth are issues beyond religious belief and iconography. They like Mathematics are eternal verities. But if all one has known about God is from traditions taught by men, there is no basis to see any distinctions between which ‘Thus saith the Lord’ is incredulous and which is authentic. Cults thrive on coolaide, but David refused their drink offerings.
YeKengalé 