Excerpt #22 from my book, Religion, An Obstacle to Human Progress
Fundamentalism isn’t about religion. It’s about power. – Salmon Rushdie
Consequently (and for political advantage), we end up with government policies that blur the lines between religion and politics.
All of this is a direct contradiction to the concept of democracy (a government of, by, and for all people), and the phenomenon of evolution, which compels humanity to advance in order to survive.
The marriage of politics and religion is the dated mentality of monarchies (hereditary leadership) and religious control.
The United States was founded more than two centuries ago precisely to get away from this kind of political and religious domination.
The twin doctrines of separation of church and state and liberty of individual conscience are the marrow of our democracy, if not indeed America’s most magnificent contribution to the freeing of Western man. – Clinton Rossiter, American historian
Generally, our world is evolving away from this kind of antiquated control.
Many in the world are aware, as Richard Lederer wrote in his book Anguished English, that “There once was a time when all people believed in God, and the church ruled. This time was called the Dark Ages.”
Author Barbara Walker, responding to a popular right-wing columnist’s recommendation to remove children from public schools and Christianize their education, writes that in the 4th and 5th
centuries, the church’s political power forced the closing of all secular schools throughout the Roman Empire. As a result, the advances of classical science, engineering, art, culture, and learning in general were lost, and a newly illiterate Europe sank into its Dark Ages.
IGNORANCE IS COSTLY.
Walker notes that the columnist claims God commands fathers to bring up children “in the admonition of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4) though the Bible verse does not say that parents should be solely responsible for children’s education.
According to the Bible, God also commands that an adulteress, an engaged girl who is raped, or a bride found not to be a virgin must be killed (Deut. 22: 21-24); and that you must murder your spouse, children, or any other relatives who do not worship Jehovah, promptly and without pity (Deut. 13: 6-9).
Walker asks, “Has anybody obeyed these divine commands lately?”
The trouble with basing current action on biblical precedent, writes Walker, is that the Bible sanctions many brutal and immoral behaviors such as war, slavery, mass killing, and a great deal of
superstitious nonsense.
Tyrants and fanatics throughout history have always found God commanding whatever it is they want to do.
Of all of the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny of religion is the worst. – Thomas Paine