Off: Religion: problem or solution?

Tue Oct 9 14:24:30 EDT 2001

well said
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From: "Karen Kusic" <kkusic at EXECPC.COM>
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Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2001 6:22 PM
Subject: Re: Off: Religion: problem or solution?

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/282/oped/Religion_problem_or_solution_+.sh
tml

Religion: problem or solution?

By James Carroll, 10/9/2001

POLITICIANS AND commentators are going to great lengths to affirm the
religion of Muslims, rejecting the terrorists' claim that the heinous
crime of Sept. 11 was an act of Islamic devotion. That is as it should be.
Islam is a noble religion that emphasizes ''surrender'' to God and
compassionate love for the neighbor. It is a source of meaning for
millions, and, as the commentary insists, all but the smallest fraction of
those millions reject violence and the savagery of terrorists.

Islamic religious leaders have been forthright in condemning the murderous
assaults against America. But something is lost in the well-intentioned
assertion that Islam is a pure religion entirely unrelated to evil acts
committed in its name. With so much violence being inflicted in the name
of God by religionists of various kinds around the globe, an old question
presents itself, and not just about Islam: Is religion the solution or is
it the problem? Or is it both?

Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair said last week that the attacks were
no more a reflection of true Islam than the Crusades were of true
Christianity. Fair enough. But the comparison is instructive. Latin
Christians would like to be able to say that the rampaging fanatics who,
to cite only one instance, assaulted Jerusalem in 1099 were acting in ways
that had nothing to do with Christian belief or practice but in fact - and
this is what makes the Crusades so chilling - that holy war was integrally
tied to theology (the violence of God), liturgy (the sign of the cross),
and authority (crusader popes).

Today, we like to think of ''religion'' as one of those purely positive
aspects of life, and we are quick to dismiss negative acts or attitudes
spawned by religion as not ''really'' religious. The Vatican does this in
asserting that the Catholic Church is entirely sinless, which means the
crimes of the church (Crusades, Inquisition, etc.) were committed by
''sinful members,'' never by the church ''as such.'' Religion is good. If
religion prompts bad behavior, then it is not ''real'' religion.

But this way of thinking lets religion off the hook. It means we can
deplore the ''sins'' of sinful members without asking hard questions about
where those sins came from. To stay with the Christian example, were the
endless acts of Christian anti-Semitism aberrations, or were they tied
somehow to anti-Jewish texts in the New Testament, or to the fundamental
way Christianity defined itself against Judaism, and so on? If
anti-Semitism were an aberration, then an apology for acts of ''sinful
members'' would be enough. If anti-Semitism grew out of core beliefs and
practices, then apology would not be enough. Core beliefs and practices
would have to change. If crimes committed in the name of religion could be
easily separated from religion ''as such,'' then a full understanding of
those crimes, and a way to resist them at the source, may elude us.

Obviously, I am talking here about all religions. It is misleading and
unproductive to think of religion as purely good. Religion, like
everything of the human condition, is ambiguous - partly good and partly
bad; part solution, part problem. Religion has enabled major improvements
in human life and still supports some of the world's greatest works for
good. But religion also easily confuses the object of its worship - God -
with itself, often prompting human beings to make absolute claims that
lead inevitably to absolute disaster.

Feelings of religious superiority can and do lead to ranking by race,
nationality, gender, and class. Religion can make unholy alliances with
commerce and with conquest, as happened throughout the era of European
imperialism. The univocal claims of monotheists can lead to contempt for
human beings who do not share them, and the open-endedness of polytheism
can undermine the distinctions essential to thought. And the certainty
that often accompanies the phenomenon of ''true belief'' seems always to
result in a cruel rooting out of what - or who - might threaten it. The
religious impulse to die for the faith slides all too quickly into the
impulse to kill for it.

There is no crime of which Muslims acting as Muslims have been accused
that Christians, to cite only one other religion, do not also stand
accused by history. To be religious is, first, to be repentant. The danger
of a ''clash of civilizations,'' or even of a new holy war between the
remnants of a Christian West and ''the Islamic world,'' will be far less
if we all understand that we are alike as human beings. Our noblest
impulses come inevitably intertwined with opposite inclinations that
betray them. We religious humans must constantly submit to the judgement
of history, practicing self-criticism, always seeking the reform that will
drawn us closer to our best ideals.

Certainly, Islam is engaged in such a reckoning today. But this task
belongs to all religious people - the only way to honor God and love our
neighbor as ourselves.

James Carroll's column appears regularly in the Globe.

 > > ALL HAIL
DISCORDIA!
> I said NEARLY all religion, don't you people read these posts properly?
> Buddism doesn't either, but I'm not a buddist, just an earthbound in
despair
> that the human race can't get on, and the only main reason for this is
> RELIGION, period.
>