Religion and Society

I want to respond more substantively to the remarks of the insane and bigoted ignoramus Pete Hegseth, who says there is something wrong with people who are not Christians. My thinking on this subject was strongly influenced by two books by Sigmund Freud that I read in high school. I was visiting my older brother who was taking a course at Williams College in which they read Freud's book, “The Future of an Illusion.” So I read it, along with its sequel, “Civilization and Its Discontents.

Freud defines his terms in the first book. An illusion is something someone believes which cannot be proven to be true, and Freud says that that belief leads to neurosis. A delusion is a belief which can be proven to be untrue, and that belief leads to psychosis. Religion clearly falls into the first category, though some people like Hegseth also have delusional beliefs, which is why I call him insane.

In the introduction to the second book, Freud stated that he had encountered many people who asked him something like, “Don't you have a sort of oceanic feeling that there is something bigger in the universe?” He answers that with a no and proceeds to discuss how that sort of feeling has been created in some people's minds. But the main subject of the book is to discuss all the serious problems in human society caused by religious beliefs such as wars, severe repression, inquisitions, witch hunts, etc.

I don't want to make a quantitative assessment of which particular religions have been the most dangerous, but it seems clear to me that Christianity and Islam lead the pack in that regard, not just through the sheer numbers of their adherents but because of their virulence, intransigence, and hate for infidels, i.e., those who do not share their illusions. Think of the tremendous amount of blood shed in the Crusades, and think of the role that the Roman Catholic church played in the inquisitions, which were a campaign to destroy attempts to create diverse forms of human society which challenged nobility, hierarchy, and, later, capitalism. In particular, women who tried to break out of their patriarchal chains were burned as “witches.”

That history is particularly interesting. The bubonic plague devastated Europe in the 14^th century. It is estimated that about 25 million people died, and it took a couple of centuries for the European population to recover. In those circumstances, there was a tremendous labor shortage. As a result, wages and working conditions improved and there were openings for both peasants and urban dwellers to experiment with new relations of production. Under attack, the nobility mobilized its armies and its churches to suppress such dissent. Anti-Semitism grew tremendously in that period, too, because Jews were blamed for the spread of the plague. The inquisition was the church's method of eliminating dissidents and forcing people back into their tightly regulated social and economic roles.

I focus more on Christianity because I am more familiar with its historical record, but also since it helped create the ideological foundation of European colonialism, its crimes have been pretty terrible. Consider that a pope formulated the so-called doctrine of “discovery,” by which European colonialists could seize the land and resources of non-Christians in Africa, both Americas, and Asia, and seize they did. This doctrine continues today, particularly in Palestine, where Israeli leaders openly dismiss the idea that Palestinians have any rights whatsoever in their native land. Israelis are not Christians, but they share that Christian belief even though political Zionism was always a secular colonial movement.

Of course, I am not alleging that all Christians or all Muslims share these beliefs and practices. But I do allege that those who have engaged in them almost invariably use religion as a kind of justification, just as Hegseth uses his warped religious beliefs as an excuse to attack people of color, women, immigrants, and people with a broad spectrum of gender identities. I am also not alleging that only religious zeal results in terrible acts. Stalin, for example, though he was educated in a religious seminary in Tbilisi, Georgia, was not motivated by religion. What he shared with religious zealots, however, was intolerance for anyone who disagreed with him or who threatened his hold on power.

There are many undemocratic flaws in the US constitution, but one of its strengths is the Bill of Rights, particularly its first amendment which reads “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” Hegseth's many statements on Christianity clearly violate the ban on “an establishment of religion.” That alone is a clear ground for his impeachment. He isn't Congress, but that language clearly applies to him as an official of the US government.

In other words, he is free to believe any cockamie thing he wants, but he has no right to impose that belief on anyone else. The United States of America is not and never has been a Christian nation. The first amendment requires that the government be secular. It protects the right for everyone to freely exercise a religion or to not have any religion at all. And it insulates the government from any particular religion or, for that matter, from atheism. I, in particular, do not demand that anyone abandon their religion, but I do demand that they refrain from trying to impose it on me, and the US constitution gives me full support on that.