Chapter 6: The Conspiracy of Religion

Chapter 6: The Conspiracy of Religion.

The motivation behind this chapter comes from an incident involving Michael Barkun of Syracuse University. While he was involved in a presentation on his book "A Culture of Conspiracy" someone called into the show and asked why don't people target the conspiracy of religion more frequently?

The caller went on to elaborate with an example:

                          Parents in the Ancient times would tell children not to touch the burning fire because it  will make the fire God angry, and the Fire God will hurt them. 

The caller continued to argue that this is an example of a conspiracy theory because it involves individuals hiding the truth and using deception to manipulate and control others. 

Let's respond. 

There is no hiding it. I am a Doctor of Divinity, so perhaps you can predict where my response will be.

First, the definition of a conspiracy theory as used for this book is two or more people hiding the truth, usually for a malicious purpose. In the example provided, there is no malicious purpose. In fact, it is quite the opposite, parents are trying to keep their children safe. However, let's entertain the statement all the same. 

Next, what religion names the Fire God to be precise? Often criticisms of religion and theism deal with hypothetical and inaccurate examples of Deities that no one in the discussion worships. Or the definition of a Deity has been altered in an obscure manner that it does not reflect upon any Earthly relevance. 

Does religion hide the truth?

When parents tell their children not to touch the fire because the Fire God will hurt them, what is the truth? 

The truth is that the fire will hurt them, and the parents care about their children. The child does not understand that the fire will cause them harm, so the parents explain the message in a figurative way, yet the fire is not message. The fire is not the be all end all. The fire is not the truth. 

The truth is the love between the parents and the children, caring about another human being that is not physically connected to you. Bringing safety and a life with as little destruction as possible, not because of animal instinct, but because it is the right thing to do. This love between humanity is the real truth. 

This can also take other forms such as a love for the Earth, a love for living things, and even a love for the entirety of the universe. It is this love that joins us all. This unbreakable bond between a human and everything that serves as the basis on which we all live. From the joy of innocent laughter to the warm feeling of helping a child learn a new skill to the older times when parents protected a child from the fire. 

The love and responsibility to protect and save is the truest form of the truth itself. It is not created by any human. It is not argued in any classroom, and it is never broken. It simply exists.

Statements and viewpoints such as this often overlook the very nature of what religion, spirituality, and theism are all about. For starters, like all subjects in academia and world events, the definitions of religion, theism, and spirituality have evolved over time. The concepts have stayed the same, but the words that we use to describe them have altered. To be clear when discussing any religious meaning, let's use the following definitions. 

1) Theism: Anything referring to God, a God, or the Divine. 

As opposed to the classical definition of Theism, which requires a being with a personality and character traits. That definition is out of date and is not inclusive to Deism, Pantheism, Panentheism, Gaiaism, Cheondoism, and many other religions. 

2) Spirituality: A single person's own connection or viewpoint on the divine.

3) Religion: When spirituality begins to affect culture. 

Spirituality is what a single person believes, yet religion is when many people with the same spiritual belief alter the course of a particular human culture. Believing in God privately is spirituality, but when individuals start going to Church at a fixed time on Sundays or when Muslims begin to pray five times a day and fast during Ramadan, culture is affected. At that moment, it becomes a religion. This is very clearly exemplified in the term "spiritual, not religious."

Using this more updated terminology, individuals using folkloric and illustrative methods to communicate a message to children is not a conspiracy. If religion is spirituality affecting culture, the truth is not hidden as culture is in plain sight. 

Moreover, when it comes to statements that come from the religious eras of antiquity. Many of them are not literal. As previously mentioned they are trying to communicate a message and illustrate a concept rather than deceive. 

To refer to all allegories, metaphors, figurative statements, illustrations of concept, and deeper meanings as a conspiracy is inaccurate. To elaborate, not every statement in all forms of religious literature is 100% literal. This is something that has been accepted by the overwhelming majority of the religious community. 

Religious movements across the entirety of human history have employed the aforementioned characteristics and literary techniques to convey a message. In the most serious sense, everyone knows this and has this understanding. Allegory, metaphor, and inspirational sayings are filled throughout most major religious texts, again not to hide the truth, but with the understanding that not all human beings are the same.

Not all of humanity will think and process information in the same way. Therefore, the messages of peace, love, and life free from destruction are communicated through different forms of metaphorical description and illustration of concept. This does not mean for a second that there are not certain characteristics of religion that are meant to be taken literally, such as the previously mentioned love of humanity. 

The point is...there is a force of goodness in the world that exists in an unbreakable manner and human beings illustrate this concept in a variety of different ways, and by doing so, the truth does not remain hidden. Instead, it is shared on a path toward peace, love, and unity.