Religion and Teh Gay
Let me start off by stating that I am neither religious nor gay, so by contemporary journalistic standards that makes me fully qualified to shoot my mouth off on this subject, which I am about to do. So there.
I hardly suppose I am alone in noting the fact that Conservatives, who feel free to ignore just about everything Jesus had to say about the poor, strangers, the sick, etc. feel fully justified in falling into a self-righteous fit of Christian indignation over two subjects that Jesus never felt called upon to mention- gays and abortion. Here's my guess as to why that is.
A salient factor of religion that I rarely hear mentioned is its role in making a virtue out of necessity. The great example of this, to my mind, is Lent. In the winter in Europe food was scarce, so the Church created this custom to give a veneer of virtue to what otherwise would have been a time of deprivation and want. Even Christmas, and the pagan customs that preceded it, can be seen as primarily functioning as a way for people to get through the darkest and most depressing time of the year without collapsing into mass depression.
Before the industrial revolution, the survival of a group was very much connected to its ability to reproduce. The more children a culture produced, the more likely it was to continue to exist. As a result, religion became a tool to force behavior that maximized reproduction. In many cultures that meant grafting onto religion strictures against abortion and homosexuality, which reduced population growth. These new rules were adhered to (as we still see today) far more strictly than many of religion's basic tenets of charity, peace, etc. because in the end, people understood that a large population enhanced a group's likelihood of survival while, unfortunately, caring for the poor, etc. didn't. So, religion was quickly warped to suit people's self interest and their fear for their own survival.
Of course, this is no longer true. Since the industrialization of agriculture in the nineteenth century, the population problem facing the world is that of too many people, not too few.
Unfortunately, if there is a single characteristic that all religious hierarchies seem to share, it is resistance to change. What we see happening today is the world's major religions, out of sheer inertia and self-righteousness, defending positions which no longer insure survival. Popular opinion, on the other hand, has moved far past religious doctrine, so that now both gays and abortion are widely accepted. This is not, as religious people would have us believe, because the world has descended into mass decadence and immorality; it is because most people have accepted what the religious refuse to see: Abortion and homosexuality, once serious threats to survival, now actually enhance cultures' chances of continuing to thrive.
Unfortunately, another function of religions is to give their adherents a built-in sense of superiority to everyone else, so there is every prospect that the religious are going to do everything they can to leave us stuck hundreds of years in the past, but in the end, the battle is already over. A couple of centuries from now, people will look back on the convictions of the religious right in much the same way that we today look back on the Spanish Inquisition or Aztec mass sacrifice- as bizarre and stupid aberrations.
I hardly suppose I am alone in noting the fact that Conservatives, who feel free to ignore just about everything Jesus had to say about the poor, strangers, the sick, etc. feel fully justified in falling into a self-righteous fit of Christian indignation over two subjects that Jesus never felt called upon to mention- gays and abortion. Here's my guess as to why that is.
A salient factor of religion that I rarely hear mentioned is its role in making a virtue out of necessity. The great example of this, to my mind, is Lent. In the winter in Europe food was scarce, so the Church created this custom to give a veneer of virtue to what otherwise would have been a time of deprivation and want. Even Christmas, and the pagan customs that preceded it, can be seen as primarily functioning as a way for people to get through the darkest and most depressing time of the year without collapsing into mass depression.
Before the industrial revolution, the survival of a group was very much connected to its ability to reproduce. The more children a culture produced, the more likely it was to continue to exist. As a result, religion became a tool to force behavior that maximized reproduction. In many cultures that meant grafting onto religion strictures against abortion and homosexuality, which reduced population growth. These new rules were adhered to (as we still see today) far more strictly than many of religion's basic tenets of charity, peace, etc. because in the end, people understood that a large population enhanced a group's likelihood of survival while, unfortunately, caring for the poor, etc. didn't. So, religion was quickly warped to suit people's self interest and their fear for their own survival.
Of course, this is no longer true. Since the industrialization of agriculture in the nineteenth century, the population problem facing the world is that of too many people, not too few.
Unfortunately, if there is a single characteristic that all religious hierarchies seem to share, it is resistance to change. What we see happening today is the world's major religions, out of sheer inertia and self-righteousness, defending positions which no longer insure survival. Popular opinion, on the other hand, has moved far past religious doctrine, so that now both gays and abortion are widely accepted. This is not, as religious people would have us believe, because the world has descended into mass decadence and immorality; it is because most people have accepted what the religious refuse to see: Abortion and homosexuality, once serious threats to survival, now actually enhance cultures' chances of continuing to thrive.
Unfortunately, another function of religions is to give their adherents a built-in sense of superiority to everyone else, so there is every prospect that the religious are going to do everything they can to leave us stuck hundreds of years in the past, but in the end, the battle is already over. A couple of centuries from now, people will look back on the convictions of the religious right in much the same way that we today look back on the Spanish Inquisition or Aztec mass sacrifice- as bizarre and stupid aberrations.
Comments