Charles Dickens held that “missionaries are perfect nuisances and leave every place worse than they found it.” Religion, like the Bible, puts faith above reason. A necessary stance of supernatural religions is that one’s faith must over-ride or control one’s reason; for the believer, logic is secondary to faith. This subjecting of humankind’s highest natural power to faith can lead to various sorts of illogical and destructive results: inter-faith terrorism, over- population, repression of free scientific inquiry, impoverishing the poor and ignorant contributors to dubious causes, to name a few. But I think the most destructive result of subjecting reason to faith is the loss of respect for our highest power, the logical human mind with its ability to problem solve responsibly.

Anything that undermines reliance on logical thinking and behavior can be labeled a bunion on the foot of progress. Some of the bunions are huge; some go almost unnoticed.

MORE SOULS FOR GOD
Overpopulation is clearly one of the great causes of poverty, conflict and human misery. It is a huge bunion on the foot of progress for much of the world; and this bunion causes pain for most of the world. Nevertheless, responsible artificial birth control is officially forbidden by the powerful Catholic Church and other smaller religious bodies. In such religious circles, procreation is accompanied by God and should not be obstructed by humans. This unhampered breeding, so those believers say, enlarges the body of Christ—the more souls for God, the better.

Should the pope be challenged or held responsible when a poor, believing mother of five in south Texas says to their over- burdened father: “I just don’t know how we can afford another child; I trust God will provide! God will give us another bundle of joy from heaven with an immortal soul.” Credulous parents co- operate with God, create more souls, so they do more of God’s will? It seems to be the will of the pope anyhow. Would that the pope pick up some of the extra tax burdens based on over-population and the resultant ignorance, disease and poverty!

A soul created in God’s image, religionists hold, is of infinite value even if that new life (well-formed or mal-formed) resulted from ignorance, rape, incest or immature carelessness. Often mis- sionaries preaching their gospel refuse to teach birth control or the responsible handling of human fertility even in the poorest and already overpopulated areas. Then those same missionaries send pathetic pictures of the starving and diseased children back home to tug at the heart strings of caring human beings in their cunning attempts to raise funds to support more missionary work. Irresponsible over-breeding shown in the large numbers of sick and starving street urchins expanding “the body of Christ” throughout the world is a glaring example of how religion hurts society far more than is generally recognized.

Actually the Catholic Church does want more and more people on earth. Every person is of infinite or immortal value. It makes little difference, it seems, that those multiplying members live in demeaning poverty and squalor as they overtax the infra- structure of, for example, Mexico City. Those twenty million or so Catholics, where there ought to be perhaps less than half that many residents, are still counted as Catholics. They help make the membership numbers look good. They buy religious jewelry and votive candles, put money in offertory baskets and alms boxes; and, perhaps more important, those large membership numbers increase ecclesiastical power. These large masses believe that popes, cardinals, bishops, and priests (all male, incidentally) represent God. This faith provides abundant cheap power and political influence.

CHEAP DIVINE POWER
Such divinity-based power has influenced the history of the world. It worked for Moses; it worked for kings with so-called divine rights (gratia Dei Rex). It continues to work today for ministers, priests, bishops, popes, rabbis and mullahs of all stripes. “By the grace of God, I claim to represent him (and a lot of votes!), so you’d better follow me and my divinely inspired controls. I have divine authority to tell you how to pursue happiness.”

Catholic and Protestant seminaries get control of naïve and brainwashed youngsters and send them forth to convert the world. So Jehovah’s enthusiastic witnesses come in many flavors and re- present thousands of faith systems reaching to the ends of the earth for God, Christ, Allah, Yahweh or Jehovah. These missionaries must first become humble, lowly little children before they can become naïve and credulous enough to do their superiors’ sales work, sometimes in life-threatening circumstances, with little or no commission. Such missionaries can be deeply offensive to freedom- loving, informed twenty-first century adults. Overt preaching of their divine mysteries is offensive enough, but the offense can be worse when the messages are surreptitiously snuck in with the beats of the rocker or the cadences of the rapper.

SERVICE TO THE NEEDY OR POWER AND INFLUENCE
A little noticed but very noteworthy bit of news was reported by CNN TV on February 12, 2002. It showed again the compe- titive divisiveness of religions. “Roman Catholic Church establishes diocesan organization for Russia; Orthodox Church strenuously objects.” What goes on here? The Roman Church and Orthodox Church claim the same God. Their belief systems and dogmas are almost identical. So why wouldn’t each one welcome the other to help teach the truth and do the many undone acts of Christian charity?

On the very next day, the Associated Press reported that the head of the Roman Catholic Church in Russia strongly denied that the Vatican’s decision to set up four dioceses in the country was aimed at expanding its influence in this predominantly Ortho- dox Christian nation. How obvious does a lie have to be before meriting that label?

The central problem here is not what is truth and who should teach it; the real problem is sales turf and power. Dare the Russian Orthodox Church allow such a big and strong organization as the Roman Catholic diocesan set-up to come into Russia? The fear is of competition for souls (loyalties) and sales—influence and profits. “We have our turf, and we don’t want you Roman Catholics to invade this turf.” The Russian Holy Synod did not actually suspend contacts with the Vatican, but the Russian officials had threatened to do so, saying that proselytizing was a major obstacle to better relations. So here is the big news: in line with Dickens’ thought, proselytizing is divisive.

This Russian-Roman situation seems like one large company competing with another. These two big competitors are both selling the same products by the same methods. But if they share the same turf, they might have to divide the influence and income. Therein lies the rub. Loyalties and devotees might be divided thus diminishing someone’s power, influence, and income.

MULTITUDES OF RELIGIONS, MULTITUDES OF DIVISIONS
This divisive competition between the Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox Churches isnot very different from that between the thousands of religions here in America. Time’s Almanac 2000 reported at least 29 so-called Christian religions that claim at least 500,000 members each. Besides these 29 sizeable groups, there are over 3,000 smaller “Christian” groups, who, even though they cannot get along together nor agree on what is true, claim to instruct and unify good human beings.

The above refers only to the many Christian divisions in our society. Non-Christian religions expand the divisions of our citizenry even further. I doubt that my prayer inscribed on my new gold chalice in 1956 “that we all may be one” is going to be answered for a long while.

It’s in the book. Holy books dogmatically divide humanity with divinely inspired authority: the Bible tells me this; the Koran tells others that; the Book of Mormon tells of yet other revelations of divine truth; the Vedas reveal the truths of Hinduism; Buddhism enlightens us further about the Tree of Perfect Knowledge as early as the fifth century before the present era; and Taoism showed humankind the True Way at about the same time.

The similarities, differences, and contradictions within and among the major religious groupings accepting these various revelations demonstrate the infinity of the human imagination. They also show that once a dogma of a supernatural faith system is assumed to be true, then logic and human reason become secondary or unimportant. And once reason is de-based and not considered man’s highest power, any extreme of faith can be reached: popes become infallible; virgin births become possible; logical contradictions do not pertain to the Holy Trinity; and, dying defending your faith against another defending his faith against you is eternally meritorious.

Martyrdom, by the way, did not start with middle eastern Muslims. The eternal value of martyrdom was a manipulative tenet of the Christian Church from earliest days. The Church officially taught from antiquity that anyone who dies actively defending the Church and its faith dies a martyr’s death and goes directly to heaven. Do all these varied warring martyrs finally find unified bliss in their heaven? Which heaven? Perhaps the Roman heaven with Jupiter and Juno (Mrs. Jupiter)? Or perhaps the Greek heaven of Zeus and Hera (Mrs. Zeus)?

The god concept, since it is not evidence-based but is based on subjective and logic-free faith, necessarily remains different things for different people. I think it will remain so until we quit assuming that there is any power higher than man’s logical and unifying reason. In America, cults are broadly condemned, while religions are generally approved. I find it extremely difficult to distinguish between a religion and a cult. In fact, the more experi- enced I become, the harder it becomes for me to distinguish between cult and religion. Webster’s Dictionary certainly does not help in this important matter.

Is a religion just a more popular cult? What is the real and basic difference anyway? Is it purely a matter of personal opinion or belief? Is it a matter of numbers? Is it perhaps dependent on how long the group has stayed together? Is the Branch Davidians more a religion than a cult, or vice versa? Ask the same question of yourself regarding, say, Mormons, Seventh Day Adventists, Moonies, Pentecostals, Catholics, Lutherans, Baptists (which sections?), etc., any of those heretical groups other than the one you might believe in. Here we find further foundation for the multiplicity of divisions of citizens. It seems much harder to unite “under God” than “under reason.”

RELIGION CAN CONTRIBUTE TO MENTAL LAZINESS
St. Paul wrote that faith is the foundation of things hoped for, the explanation of things unseen. And the poet Robert Browning wrote “Ah, that man’s reach exceeds his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?” This basic and commonly felt desire for more than man can actually achieve creates a wish-fulfilling heaven for many. On the other hand, it energizes curious, rational, scientific minds ever further in their pursuit of knowledge of the real facts of life. The former see a lot of supernatural mysteries and miracles with God solving human problems; the latter work hard building better microscopes, spectroscopes, and computers to expand human knowledge and dissolve the mysteries of ignorance.

Recall that the original sin against God in Moses’ Garden of Eden, as described in his biblical story in the Book of Genesis, was man’s desire for knowledge. Adam and Eve (more correctly, “Man and Woman” or “Male and Female”) were given totally free access to all the delights of the Garden of Eden with one very important exception: they were not allowed to eat of the Tree of Knowledge. Well, you probably know the rest of the story, how Satan (Snake) tempted Eve, Eve tempted Adam, and they both ate of “the Tree of Knowledge.” Having eaten of this specially forbidden tree, having committed The Original Sin, they discovered they were naked, became ashamed of their good bodies, and were kicked out of the beautiful Garden of Eden.

And what was God’s specific punishment for Adam and Eve and all their descendants for this curious seeking of knowledge? “In the sweat of your brow shall you eat bread.” Ah, ha; now man has to work in order to eat. What a shame! And the very natural and reasonable tenet that man has to work in order to eat is a hard reality for the lazy. It is surely not nearly as hard as the reality for the little fish swimming his tail off trying not to get eaten by the big fish. Did you ever wonder what that little fish’s original sin was? Why does he have to work so hard to stay alive or else suffer and die so that the big fish might live?

It is so much easier for some to “believe and be saved” from such harsh natural reality—all things are possible for him who believes; the Bible tells me so. Therefore, just believeand be saved; ask the ignorant poor in a soup line waiting for a free handout. Their faith assures them that God will provide! But some sweaty human being first has to kill an innocent turkey.

The oldest Catholic order of monks, the Benedictines, have a central tenet: Ora et labora, pray and work. When I belonged to that order of monks, yet another of the thousands of divisions within the Christian Churches, we were taught to pray as if all depended on God, but work as if all depended on us. Is that a can’t-lose or a can’t-win arrangement?

(pp. 49-56 of Imagine No Superstition, ©
Stephen Uhl, 2007)
www.imagineNOsuperstition.com

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