Monday, April 21, 2008

Commonalities of “Proper” Religions

Walking to work today, I noticed a number of flyers along the way decrying the evils of Scientology, posted by local members of Anonymous. I took most of them down, because I was deeply offended by this absurd media notion of a “war” on Scientology. There is no war on Scientology until someone gets blown up. That's what war is: killing people who don't agree with your ideas. There are no Internet suicide bombers taking out Scientology clinics; there have been no drive-by shootings at anime conventions by Dianetics zealots. Unless you have killing, you don't have war. You merely have a debate of increasing levels of impoliteness and rhetoric, which ends either when someone brings out the swords or everyone shuffles home in cowardice.

Then it occurred to me: what would it take to get a Scientologist to kill someone for his beliefs? Sure, I've heard horror stories about Scientology members dying from negligence, but in my estimation it doesn't count when you kill your own flock, or else Jim Jones and those Hale-Bopp aficionados in the black Nikes would have more historical respect. Real religious fanatics kill other people.

Do all “true” religions (i.e. the ones that get the 501c tax breaks) have assassins? We certainly know the Jews killed plenty of people; their own books laud their massacres like football scores in a sports almanac. One need look no further than the Bhagavad Gita to implicate the Hindus. Certainly those Buddhist monks don't need all that Shaolin kung fu for spreading Dharma. As for the Christians, don't even get me started about the Crusades, the Inquisitions, the conquest of Mesoamerica...

It wouldn't be so galling if these same churches didn't constantly claim to be religions of peace. For the most part, I find that the more someone feels compelled to tell you how peaceful their religion is, the less peaceful it actually is. For example, the Rastafari (and here I mean the true practitioners in the lineage of the Burru men, not your local Stoned White Guy With Dreadlocks And A Tie-Dyed Bob Marley Shirt) almost never feel the need to explain how peaceful their beliefs are; the beliefs themselves do that for them. On the other hand, Muslims constantly talk about Islam being a religion of peace, almost to the level that one wonders if they're trying to convince themselves as well.

You can make the argument that assassins are the rogue zealots of faith and operate independently of the “pure” believers, but that's a convenient cop-out. In truth, no one likes to be told that they need to get their house in order. If violent fanatics call themselves Jews, Muslims, Christians, Hindus, etc. then it's unarguably the responsibility of everyone else who bears that classification to pull these antisocial elements aside and straighten them out. Sitting on your balcony sucking your teeth in disapproval will not keep Kitty Genovese from getting raped.

In summation: if you kill other people then you're in a religion, but if you only kill your own members then you're in a cult. If you don't kill anyone, you're probably just a hapless ascetic.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

assassin (as·sas·sin) \ə-ˈsa-sən\
...
1 : a member of a Shia Muslim sect who at the time of the Crusades was sent out on a suicidal mission to murder prominent enemies

-- merriam-webster.com