If there are any values in this world that appear to have a purely relativistic essence, it would be the religious ones. This is because, religion as culturally-existential phenomenon, does not have innate qualities, despite the fact “representatives of God on Earth” are trying to convince us in otherwise. In his book “The Descent of Man”, Charles Darwin states: “There is no evidence that man was aboriginally endowed with the ennobling belief in the existence of an Omnipotent God. On the contrary there is ample evidence, derived not from hasty travelers, but from men who have long resided with savages, that numerous races have existed, and still exist, who have no idea of one or more gods” (Darwin, 1871).
Therefore, we can refer to religion as necessary, but counter-productive element of human evolution – whereas apes do not need the religion “yet”, super-men do not need religion “already”. It is a mistake to refer to world’s religions as simply a reflection of people’s inner longing for God and to talk of them as “different but equally valuable” (as Robert Ellwood and Barbara McGraw do in their book “Many Peoples, Many Faiths”). It is not the religious beliefs that define people’s existential mode, but other way around – people’s racial affiliation defines the essence of their religious beliefs. For example, Arabs have been living by the “word of Allah” for 1500 years, and continue to do so even now, with the thought that forcing women to wear black cloaks over their faces (as Mohammed requires) might not be a very nice practice, never occurring to them.
On the other hand, White people (associated with Christian religion), have been continuously trying to re-interpret the Bible, so that “holy book” would make more sense in their eyes. Islam corresponds to Arabs’ existential essence, as people who value family relations above everything else; who think that sins can be redeemed by the mean of monetary donations and who consider women as such that do not have soul. Islam simply endorses these beliefs, but even without Islam, Arabs would still be who they are now. For example, the Islamic celebration of Kurban Bairam involves cutting a throat of a goat, with spectators enjoying the sight of goat’s convulsions in the pool of blood. In Arab countries, such practice is absolutely appropriate, as Moslems think that there is nothing wrong with torturing animals.
In Bible, we can also find many passages that promote the cruel treatment of animals – after all, Christianity is a Semitic religion, just like Islam. However, if in the center of London, for example, someone would begin cutting off sheep’s head, in order to make a sacrificial offering to Jehovah (as it is described in Old Testament), he would be immediately arrested, despite the fact that Britain is a Christian country. This is because Christianity is spiritually alien to White people, whereas for Arabs, the bloodthirsty commandments of Allah make a perfect sense.
It is not the ordinary people that require religion as “moral foundation”, within a context of adjusting their act to be socially appropriate, regardless of whether they find themselves in the state of peace of war, but solemnly the representatives of ruling elite, which utilize religion as a tool of providing their subjects with “emotional comfort”. During the course of Thirty Years War (1618–1648), the population of Europe has been reduced by half. Is it because that, during the time of this war, Christian values has been radically revised by warring parties? Is it because some new Jesus’ commandments were being found, which were meant to prompt Catholics and Protestants to derive pleasure out of slaughtering each other?
No – this is because, during the time of war, what we consider as “religious morality”, is simply being put aside. Besides having “commanded” people not to kill each other (a sin!), Jesus have also told them not to bury dead bodies, not to wash hands before eating, not to attend crops and not to have sex with each other, because “kingdom of heaven is at hand”. If people were taking these commandments seriously, there would be no Western civilization in the first place, as these people would have extinct long time ago. The Crusades and the religious wars between Catholics and Protestants in 16th – 18th centuries, have always been about the money and about gaining a geopolitical influence and not about “pleasing God”, even though that many naïve people did believe that by killing “heretics” they were perpetrating a “godly deed”.
Every religion contains numerous theological contradictions, within its very core. Let us illustrate it with the example of Christianity – on one hand, Jesus teaches his followers to “honor thy father and mother”, on the other, he treats his own mother with utter contempt when she tries to talk to him: “Woman, what do you want from me?”. On one hand, Jesus appears as being the embodiment of kindness (and mental depravity, we might add): “I say unto you, that ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” (Matthew 5:39), on the other, he suggests that those who do not seem as being particularly eager to think of him as a “savior”, must be slaughtered: “But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.” (Luke 19:27).
Therefore, we cannot discuss a “religious value” as “thing in itself”, because these values lack perceptional integrity. Authors who wrote chapters of Bible, Koran and Tipitaka were well aware of the fact that it is impossible for the individual’s behavior to closely match theological dogmas, which is why there are many commandments in these “holy books” that are mutually exclusive – “holy fathers” could not care less of whether believers live by the “word of God” or not, all they care about is that believers never loose their motivation to steadily provide members of clergy with monetary donations.
In fact, at one point of its history, the Catholic Church had openly declared that there is only one thing that has a universal value – money. Catholic clergy used to sell “indulgencies” to redeem sins that were committed in the past and to also redeem sins that were about to be committed in the future! The same can be said about Islam – according to Koran, mullahs are entitled with the power to redeem believers’ sins, for as long as they are willing to donate money “to good cause”.
Every religion is best imagined as a heavy weight that drags swimmers down and does not allow them to reach the shore. Therefore, religion cannot be associated with any value whatsoever. Religious people are best described as such that are not overburdened with intellect. This is why they are much more likely to have their behavior subjected to their animalistic urges. It is not by pure accident that the most notorious American serial killers operated in what it is now being referred to as America’s “bible belt”.
Believers are simply incapable of perceiving some purely idealistic principles (religious values) as such that define their everyday lives, but they are capable of “believing” in it. In only takes one trip to a jail to realize the validity of this statement – no matter how many horrific crimes have been committed, on the part of a particular serial killer, for example, he is still most likely to believe that “God loves him”, as a result of such individual having accepted Jesus.
War and peace are the natural forms of people interacting with each other. Throughout the history, wars have been continuously replaced with periods of peace and this will continue to be the case into the indefinite future. Thus, we can talk of socio-political phenomenons of war and peace as being innately objective. The same can be said about such concepts as culture or science. For example, today’s scientific disciplines are based on empirical notions, associated with ancient Greek and Roman science. The Euclid’s geometry is still being taught in colleges and universities. But how many people out there that still believe in Zeus or Apollo as their Gods? It is always religion that resorts to science to substantiate its validity (scientific creationism), and not the other way around. Therefore, there can be no “religious values”, but only religious prejudices.
The fact that White people are being entitled with the sense of existential idealism, prompts them not to wish a particular harm to each other, during the time of peace, and to refrain from committing a particularly horrible atrocities, during the time of war – that is about it. Their religion has nothing to do with it. The non-Whites, on the other hand, derive a pleasure out of seeing people and animals suffer, regardless of whether it happens during the war or during the time of peace, and it also has nothing to do with whether they believe in Allah, Jesus or Mickey Maus, but simply with who they are, in racial context of this word.
We can deny it all we want, just as we can deny that it is Earth that revolves around the Sun, and not the visa versa – the objective reality proves the validity of earlier statement. Thus, it does not make a whole lot of sense to talk about religions with utter respect, as Ellwood and McGraw do. In his book “The God Delusion”, Richard Dawkins is making a good point when he says that only utterly naïve people can think of religion as representing some “value”: “Imagine, with John Lennon, a world with no religion. Imagine no suicide bombers, no 9/11, no 7/7, no Crusades, no witch-hunts, no Gunpowder Plot, no Indian partition, no Israeli/Palestinian wars, no Serb/Croat/Muslim massacres, no persecution of Jews as ‘Christ-killers’, no Northern Ireland ‘troubles’, no ‘honour killings’, no shiny-suited bouffant-haired televangelists fleecing gullible people of their money (‘God wants you to give till it hurts’)” (Dawkins 2).
The reason why only senile White people seriously believe in Biblical nonsense, as opposed to overwhelmingly young Muslims, is because White race stands on the brink of new “evolutionary jump”, which might effectively turn it in to the race of semi-Gods, whereas other races became fully “specialized” – that is, they can only advance for as long as they maintain close contacts with Whites. Apparently, despite the extensive knowledge of world’s religions, Ellwood and McGraw had failed to realize this simple fact.
Bibliography
Darwin, Charles “On the Origins of Species”. 1872. Internet Infidels. Web.
Dawkins, Richard “The God Delusion”. London: Bantam Press, 2006.
Ellwood, Robert and McGraw, Barbara “Many Peoples, Many Faiths”. NY: Prentice Hall College Division, 1995.
Scofield Study Bible: New King James Version. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson. 1982.