Religion & Lying

This month I've been totally intrigued by the works of a fellow activist that I've recently met. His name is Jack Harich (thwink.org) and he has created an incredible website and written two books and a variety of papers on the topic of global sustainability. I am in the middle of one of his books, and all I can say is that it's awesome. Jack hits the nail on the head — as I'm reading his book I feel it was custom written just for me.

After all these years it is great to see more affirmation that all these crazy observations that I have made about the world have been noticed by others. Now, more lately, I've taken a "systems approach" to our global sustainability challenge. What this means is that I don't get as upset when I hear a politician lie because I realize that it's embedded in the system. When corporations try to manipulate public opinion, push their lies, and try to manipulate government, I don't get so upset anymore because a) I'm guessing this has gone on for thousands of years and b) again, I think it's endemic.

I'm 46 years old and it has taken me most of my life to unravel all the lies that are everywhere in our current, dysfunctional society. One area that seems to be sacred and unchallenged is religion. If we, as humans, are to maintain our integrity as a whole, then we must have the courage to "call a spade a spade" and identify a lie as a LIE. Is religion a package of verifiable facts, myths, superstitions, or beliefs? If something is NOT true, then it must be a LIE, and we must have the courage to say that.

I can't figure out what good it does for humanity to turn lies into truth and then center their lives around them. Maybe the lies provide comfort, or a moral compass (now, that's a paradox!). Maybe people just LIKE the lies so they keep repeating them, transferring them to their children, and playing the game.

I have ALWAYS felt, ever since age 15, that church and religion were simply a game people played. Up until age 37 I tried to play the game as well, but was never good at it. Over the years I finally began to realize that The Game is not harmless, and, rather, it was doing more harm than good. I can't help but think that if humanity stopped playing these religious games, we'd all be better off.

Without a doubt, religion does a lot of good. But at the same time it does a lot of bad because humans use it as a cover for violent and/or self-destructive behavior. Comments like "God will take care of it" or "it's God's will" are actually quite dangerous. Most religions also cast humans as inherently flawed, and this is problem too because it gives them an "excuse" to be dysfunctional. Of greatest concern is that religion makes people act irrationally.

In the sustainable future I envision, I'm not sure it's necessary to get rid of all religions. When that happens, people often just worship something else, like the state, their dictator, or even atheism is a sort of religion. So, I THINK the answer is to reform our current religions. I applaud the Episcopalians, United Church of Christ, and other liberal to moderate denominations that are leading the way in this area. The idea is to remove the bad stuff and adapt our religions to our current world values. For instance, the Bible is very much pro-slavery, yet we now abhor slavery. See, progress is being made.

As for those who cling to their LIES and refuse to at least modify them, these folks are taking humanity on a dangerous path. To people in this group, I ask that you reconsider your course and help us to create a sustainable future.