I tried to write emphatically about the utter exasperation I feel when religion claims a special divinity to a people, but it just came out all wrong. By the time I was done, it looked too much like a rant from Mel Gibson at a DUI arrest, because the most outward example I can think of is the Jewish claim of being “The Chosen People of God”. That very premise disgusts me! Trying to write about that in anger, doesn’t work out well. So, I calmed myself down and hashed it out again, doing my best to quell my angry tone.
My ire is toward the idea of racial theism itself, not any particular flavor of it. Racial theism certainly isn’t an exclusive Jewish phenomena. Any group claiming to be the “Chosen People” of any god are propping themselves up to be better than everyone else. In a very real sense, theism is racism when used this way. The Jewish faith just happens to identify itself as a race as well as a faith, which you are born into, which makes their particular expression of religious superiority a very sticky subject to speak against – especially in anger. As it stands, you can’t utter criticism of any kind against Jewish religious doctrine without being labeled a racist for it. Which is ironic, as claiming to be the “Chosen People of God” is the ultimate in racism!
I have to ask, what is it with the Middle East that produces this kind of theocratic thinking? The majority of religious superiority complexes seems to come out of the Middle East. Whether this is a reflection of the history of the region, going back to the start of Western civilization itself, or of the specific cultural aspects of the last two millennium, I have no idea. Middle Eastern theism and racism have gone hand in hand, with a belief in a particular god being the source of racist expression from all groups involved. The current strife in Iraq, with warring factions at each other’s throats, is the result of conflicting religious views, which have been associated to particular races. The entire Middle East has been rife with this nonsense for the last 2000 years.
How does theology lead to racism? No better example of this dynamic can be found than in the sordid history of Christianity in Europe. Springing from Judaic tradition, melded with a rehashed story of Appolonius and others, Christianity was used as the measure to determine racial status. Aside from the Crusades and the wanton stupidity of Christian and Islamic clashing, the stratification of people according to faith allowed the various European peoples to associate together as a “chosen people”, who just so happened to all be white in skin tone; justifying the heathens as expendable, simply another resource to be used. Two continents were attacked using this doctrine, with its inhabitants enslaved or slaughtered in the name of theocratic racial purity. It can be argued that governments were the source of such desires, not religion, but if it was not for the religious tennants pushed out, the common man would not so easily go along with these plans. Religion is ultimately a system of control.
The simple truth of reality is that there is no chosen people of any god. We don’t even have evidence for the existence of any god, let alone any racial declarations from one. We need to drop the entire idea into the dust bin of history and move on.
As long as the human race continues to use theism as a guide, the human race will suffer the racist and “creedist” outcome of it. When the claim of the divine is made, anything can be justified by that claim – even genocide. History proves this. As long as any religious group claims to be the chosen people of a god, we will never achieve the ideals of a unified human race. Mankind needs to release itself from the shackles of religion and open up its collective mind to the ideals of humanism. As resources dwindle and population grows, this becomes a more important goal every day. If we continue to view the world through religious glasses, we will never reach a point that allows the cooperation needed to resolve our world issues, we will instead only escalate our conflicts against each other.
