Create Your Own Religion (12 page)

Just to prove religious fanatics don't have a monopoly over totalitarianism, Fascists, Nazis, and Communists all stole a page from the playbook of repressive theologies to form their own secular exclusive claims to the truth. Even if we rule out the connections and occasional alliances between these movements and organized religion,
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the similarities between them make it clear these movements are nothing but forms of political fundamentalism—different from religious fundamentalism in name only.

Thomas Paine was the first to notice the similarity between secular and religious fundamentalism. Commenting about the French Revolution, he wrote, “The intolerant spirit of church persecution had transferred itself into politics; the tribunals, stiled Revolutionary, supplied the place of an Inquisition; and the Guillotine, of the Stake.”
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Similarly, Nazis, Fascists, and Communists never really challenged the premises of religious fundamentalism. They often resented it because they wanted to replace it as the dominant ideology, but they never really questioned its aims or its methods. Just like religious totalitarians, they had no problems forcing people to follow their dogmas. Whereas Christians, Muslims, and Jews attacked
heretics, Communists would target any other leftist movements as well as people with alternative interpretations of Communism.

Despite their heated competition, both religious and secular totalitarians are after the same goal: they all want total control. They all want to reform society according to their priorities, they want everyone to submit to a single source of authority, and they are ready to trample freedom under their feet. In order to defend their ideals (take your pick on whether you prefer Biblical or Koranic concepts, or visions of a classless society or a pure race), violence is sanctified as a legitimate means.

Censorship, squashing dissent, and limiting personal choices are at the essence of totalitarianism. Don't be fooled by the colors of their uniforms or by the different dogmas they spout: from Communist Red Guards to Christian fundamentalists, from Nazis to Islamic fanatics, members of the most extreme fringes of these movements are united in an effort to repress free thinking and eliminate different points of view. This is why they have all consigned thousands of texts to the flames.

This passion for book burning resurfaces anytime exclusive ideologies become more aggressive. In 390 CE, a Christian mob burned down the Library of Alexandria, where over 700,000 volumes had been carefully preserved. Little over a century later, the Byzantine Emperor Justinian the Great closed down the main schools of Greek philosophy. Non-Christian writings were banned throughout much of Europe, and many of them ended up permanently lost. When they conquered Mexico, Catholic Spaniards promptly set fire to
Aztec and Maya books, forever erasing a wealth of irreplaceable knowledge. Far from being the personal initiative of intolerant conquistadores, this was perfectly in line with the official policy of the Roman Catholic Church, as evidenced by their keeping a “List of Prohibited Books” to be eliminated (incidentally, the Church kept openly arguing for the utility of the list until the 1960s!). Even translating the Bible from Hebrew and Greek and making it available to the general population was enough of a crime in the 1500s that early translators, such as William Tyndale, paid for it with their lives. I could go on, but I think you get the gist.

C'mon, Bolelli, this stuff belongs to the past. No one burns books anymore, right? Yeah, just ask Chinese Communists. Better yet, go ask Salman Rushdie. Ever since 1989, Rushdie has had to live under police protection after Ruhollah Khomeini—that champion of Islamic fundamentalism and former religious leader of Iran—issued a death sentence against him, urging faithful Muslims to kill him on sight. His crime? Writing a book that offended the delicate sensibility of Islamic fundamentalists. In other words, Rushdie has been sentenced to death for nothing but expressing his opinions. Whereas Rushdie has been able to escape execution, several publishers and translators of his book have been assaulted and in some cases even killed. In a perfect gesture of solidarity among book burners, the Vatican as well as scores of Protestant and Jewish religious leaders reacted to this by criticizing Rushdie. In their eyes, he was guilty of provoking the violent reaction by fundamentalist Muslims.
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Even more recently, in 2005, when caricatures of Muhammad were published in a Danish newspaper, the fundamentalist Muslim world responded with its usual cool rationality and respect for freedom of expression. “Behead those who insult Islam,” read the signs held by Muslim demonstrators throughout Europe. All together,
the riots following the publication of the cartoons caused over 100 deaths. Just as with the Rushdie affair, the Vatican and other Christian religious authorities criticized the violence but criticized even more the blasphemy that triggered it.
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Blasphemy. . . it's hard to believe how many people have been murdered over such a bullshit concept. Someone says something about God or religion we find offensive, and we feel the need to burn them at the stake, disembowel them, or stone them to death. What kind of pathological insecurity makes totalitarians so ready to take offense, and unleash an orgy of blood? What makes them so delicate as to be unable to deal with freedom of speech? From Giordano Bruno to Jean-Francois de la Barre, plenty of people throughout history have been tortured and killed for the crime of expressing their opinion. In some countries (Pakistan, for example), blasphemy is still punishable with death or life in prison (Life in prison? Yeah, I know . . . these fundamentalists are getting soft.).

Blasphemy's evil twin, apostasy, has usually ignited the same kinds of reactions. In this case, nothing offensive is said at all. The believer in a certain faith simply decides to abandon it. That's it. Nothing else. According to the Hadith, a collection of traditional sayings attributed to Muhammad, this warrants the death penalty. Upholding this tradition, death is still the recommended punishment for apostasy in several Muslim countries, including the “Westernized” Saudi Arabia.

Accordingly, in 2006, when an Afghan man by the name of Abdul Rahman decided to convert to Christianity, he was charged with a capital offense. Shahnawaz Farooqui, a religious intellectual (I use the word “intellectual” very loosely here) perfectly explained the logic for the death penalty: “If somebody at one point affirms the truth and then rejects it or denies it, it would jeopardize the whole
paradigm of truth. This is such a big offense that the penalty can only be death.”
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Jeopardizing the paradigm of truth?!? This is why fanatic followers of exclusive ideologies kill people?

But wait. Before you start thinking these are evil, blood-thirsty people, listen to the generous offer made to Rahman by the chief judge in this case: “The Prophet Muhammad has said several times that those who convert from Islam should be killed if they refuse to come back. Islam is a religion of peace, tolerance, kindness and integrity. That is why we have told him if he regrets what he did, then we will forgive him.”
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Understood? Since we belong to a religion of “peace, tolerance, kindness and integrity,” we'll give him a chance to publicly squash his own opinions. But if he is stubborn, we'll kill him. Ah, yes, a heartwarming example of “peace, tolerance, kindness and integrity” at work.

Do Judeo-Christian scriptures prescribe the same brand of peace and tolerance? Judge for yourself. Here's what the Old Testament has to say, “Anyone who blasphemes the name of the Lord must be put to death. The entire assembly must stone him. Whether an alien or native-born, when he blasphemes the Name, he must be put to death.”
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Damn . . . even the Taliban can't top this.

In another passage, the Bible confirms the same idea:

If your brother, the son of your father or of your mother, or your son or daughter, or the spouse whom you embrace, or your most intimate friend, tries to secretly seduce you, saying ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ unknown to you or your ancestors before you, gods of the peoples surrounding you, whether near you or far away, anywhere throughout the world, you must not consent, you must not listen to him; you must show him no pity, you must not spare him or conceal his guilt. No, you must kill him, your hand must strike the first blow in
putting him to death and the hands of the rest of the people following. You must stone him to death, since he has tried to divert you from Yahweh your God.
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Anyone who doesn't display the necessary murderous enthusiasm for the executions of religious dissidents and refuses to participate in the proceedings must be put to death as well.
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Also, just so you don't give in to some wimpy, soft-hearted reformations watering down the laws, Deuteronomy 4:2 warns us to never alter these divine instructions.

These clearly are the kinds of passages that tickle the souls of people like the grandma from hell. Since I don't want to bury you under too many quotes from scriptures, I'll spare you. But if you are into this sort of thing, check out the Bible for yourself: it's full of pleasantries like this.

Drawing inspirations from these Biblical ideals, the history of Christianity is littered with acts of violence and religious repression. Shortly after becoming the official religion of the Roman Empire, the very Christian Emperor Theodosius banned all other religions (and alternative versions of Christianity) on penalty of death.
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Cultural diversity and religious liberty were clearly not high up on his agenda.

The more than 600-year history of the “Holy” Inquisition picked up where Theodosius left off. For centuries, throughout Christian Europe, anyone holding unconventional opinions could be brought to trial, tortured in a million of highly creative and horrifically painful ways, and burned at the stake. Protestants were as active as Catholics in this endeavor. In 1553, for example, the great Protestant reformer Calvin had the theologian Michael Servetus burned at the stake for denying the Trinity. During the witch-hunt, both Protestants and Catholics murdered thousands of suspected witches.
Whereas the highest estimate for this carnage lists over 9 million deaths, the lowest argue for “only” between 50,000 and 100,000. Even if we assume the lowest estimates to be correct, the body count still adds up to a minimum of seventeen 9/11s piled on top of each other. Bin Laden, clearly, is just an amateur.

The same story repeats itself in any country controlled by fundamentalist versions of Islam and Christianity. Save for short-lived exceptions, a worldwide repression of Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and indigenous religions has been the norm. Even relatively recently, between the late 1800s and the mid-1900s, in the supposedly secular United States, the fundamentalist intolerance for different traditions manifested itself in the banning of many American Indian religious ceremonies. Yes, you read right, deep into the 1900s, in the United States people could go to jail for practicing the wrong religion.
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The same desire to protect the “paradigm of truth” that has spawned Inquisitions, witch-hunts, and other forms of repression has also been responsible for many religious wars. For millennia now, the earth has shaken under the feet of self-styled armies of God marching to war on a quest to conquer the world and submit it to their One True Faith. “God is with us” has been the battle cry before unleashing hell on the enemy. Nazi soldiers had this motto emblazoned on their belt buckles. Mohamed Atta probably thought something along those lines right before he crashed a jet into the World Trade Center. Christian crusaders slightly paraphrased it (“God wills it”) as the slogan for their own murderous activities.

The amount of blood spilled by these people, and the countless others who believed they were doing God's will, can hardly be
measured. Once you believe you have been entrusted by God with the task of destroying evil, killing people becomes much easier. Your enemies are not simply human beings in competition with you; they are the Devil's minions. Can't you hear God's voice commanding you to wipe them off the face of the earth? Hitler himself justified his Final Solution by saying, “I believe that I act today in unison with the Almighty Creator's intention: by fighting the Jews I do battle for the Lord.”
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For those seeing themselves as God's warriors, armed conflict is no longer a means to an end. It's a sacred enterprise. It's a Holy War.

Just writing these words strikes me as deeply disturbing. Two words that were never supposed to go together somehow found each other, with very regrettable consequences for humanity. How can war be holy?

Inclusive ideologies don't believe it can. Taoists, for example, value fighting skills for last resort self-defense, but they would much rather get the job done without having to go to battle. Throughout the Tao Te Ching, weapons and soldiers are referred to as “instruments of evil.” “Even in victory,” Lao Tzu writes, “there is no beauty, and who calls it beautiful is one who delights in slaughter . . . The slayings of multitudes should be mourned with sorrow. A victory should be celebrated with the Funeral Rite.”
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At best, war is sometimes a regrettable necessity, but it certainly is never holy. Since they follow a similar thought process, inclusive ideologies have a nearly spotless record when it comes to initiating religiously motivated wars.

Exclusive theologies, on the other hand, embrace the notion of a holy war as the logical outcome of the cosmic battle between the forces of good and evil. Judaism developed this theory with a passion but only very rarely had the power to carry it out. So it was up to the
other two main Western religions to inherit the theology of a holy war along with the means to actually wage it.

According to exclusive theologies, war is a sacred duty, a wonderful occasion to extend the borders of God's kingdom on earth. This hyperaggressive belief has spurred them to expand by conquering the lands of unbelievers. Christianity and Islam are the two most widely practiced religions in the world today. They are also the two with the most blood on their hands. This is not a coincidence, for their popularity has been won at the tip of a sword. Holy wars and forced conversions have been their main proselytizing tools.