Religion II: Posers

If you haven't read Mano Singham's Weblog yet, I suggest you do. In one entry he discussed the differences between his Methodist upbringing in Sri Lanka and his change in perspective once he came to the United States. I highly suggest reading this and many other entries.

That entry in particular seemed to sum up many of the concerns I have with Christianity in the US. Read his entry since he is much more eloquent then I am.

As I was running and contemplating Mano's entry a hypothetical situation popped into my head and I thought I would share it. What if you were a god (Einstein asked you to ride a freaking photon... bear with me!) and you had brought into existence a peoples. With no previous knowledge of current religious doctrine, an assumption closely approximated by me, how would you like them to act: A. according to your principles but with no knowledge of yourself, or B. not according to your principles but knowing and worshiping you. Yes, these are extremes, but if there is one thing I have learned from engineering is that the use of extremes can often make a problem blindingly obvious.

The situation as it stands is useless. What is needed is the nature of your principles [1] by which you wish your creation to live by. We will assume, with no elaboration, that you want your creation to be good. To be good to themselves and others. Let the philosophers tell us what good is!

I can't think of any reason, besides vanity and pride, to choose option B. Choice A seems to be the ideal, if unattainable, solution.

So, where does that leave us? I worry that as religion, specifically Christianity, becomes ever more popular with less religious individuals the term becomes a status symbol as opposed to a label indicating a doctrine of self improvement. The influence of these individuals can be great as who among us doesn't desire to be accepted by the group? Focus is gradually drawn from true self-improvement to the appearance of self-improvement. Meditation and soul searching are replaced with reading of books such as the Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, listening to all Christian radio programs, watching all Christian television networks, and associating with all Christian friends. A defacto situation B.

A common method used to unite a large, varied, and relatively diverse group of people is fear. A common enemy can unite even the French and the Americans :-). Enter the Liberals: Liberal activist judges, Liberal college students and professors, Liberal hippies undermining our social fabric, and so on. Given something both groups, sinciere and poser Christians alike, can hate focus is drawn away from the differences within those groups. Fear of breaking up the alliance against the evil of Liberality prevents those who are aware from fighting the change.

This is more speculation then I am usually comfortable writting but ultimately how I feel about the situation. Why do I care so much? Many things I believe whole-heartedly in such as tolerance and compassion seem to be selectively applied by the republican party. Examples include: the fight against allowing gay couples equivalent legal privileges, the dismantling of social welfare programs, the war in Iraq, and the role back of environmental protection laws. These seem to be fundamentally Christian ideals and so I am often baffled as to why there would be such opposition to them. Well, baffled in the absence of the explanation I have given above.

So, the question become this: how does one convince a group, united against all opposition capable of being labeled "liberal", that they are being led astray? I am at a loss...

[1] A fascinating read. This compares several different perspectives on the Ten Commandments.