Cause and Effect

"Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!"
"But I'm not dead yet!"
THUD

Remember that classic scene in the Monty Python's Holy Grail where cause and effect get a little intertwined? Well it seems like a similar sort of confusion seems to be bringing us closer and closer to a dangerous religious world war.

I was raised Catholic and studied the Bible like a good European intellectual, but lost my last bit of my faith somewhere around the time I studied the story of Job, and realized that, unless you happened to be Job and not the thousands of people who died pointless and painful deaths so that Job could learn a lesson (and God could win a gambling bet with Satan), the Bible didn't make much sense. It's all fine and dandy if you are suffering because God is testing your faith; it's another thing to be burned alive with your kids because God is testing the faith of Joe Schmoe down the street. But I digress...

Religion can be opium to the masses, as the cliche goes. (It also appears that it can be more like amphetamines- if you look at what's going on in extremist regious sects around the world.) In educated agnostic America, we have generally looked onto various religions with a distance but respect, like we give people who walk on the sidewalk without stepping on any of the cracks. You can think whatever you want as long as you don't bother me; I'm sure I have my own superstitions. However, the events around the world in the last 8 years and the parallel rise in relgious fundamentalism and extremism, should probably cause us to reconsider that lack of concern.

As many religion and world politics experts are beginning to publicize, there is a growing mass of Americans who have taken those popular apocalyptic Left Behind thrillers seriously and believe that the end of the world is upon us (an AP poll conducted in 1997 -before the books came out- found that 24% of Americans believe that these events will take place during their lifetimes). However giddy they may be about their soon-to-be "rapture" (and everyone else's fire and brimestone ending - good Christians, as they are, they seem to be unusually giddy about this, too), they still take the Bible "literally" and await the fulfillment of several prophecies that have to occur before the coming of Armageddon. And this is where the rest of us should start to worry...

As the conservative publication, The National Review revealed a few years ago, certain events (such as a great war against Islam in Israel and the birth of a rare red heifer) must occur in order for the second coming to occur. And as the article further points out, even devout Christians aren't leaving these events to chance. A red heifer has been recently born in Israel, though not without the help of a special breeding program set up by Texas fundamentalist Christians. And the tensions between Islam and Christianity continue to grow, though again, one could question whether the angry protests seen around the world today would have been possible without an internationally opposed invasion of Iraq by a president who likened the war to the Crusades.

And so here we are. Scientists, nurses, business owners, college students: going about their daily lives, disappointed and frustrated with the policies of this country, but waiting for the next round of elections to balance things out again. We are surprised when the conservatives win another round at the polls, after "motivating the church going folk" -- but maybe we shouldn't be. Maybe we should realize the destructive power people are capable of wielding when they actually believe that the end of the world is near. They're not too concerned about their gas milage, global warming, or even human rights; but don't take kindly to having their faith threatened or their power usurped.

In the last week, many of us have been surprised by the irrationality, passion and anger displayed by Muslims around the world in response to the now infamous cartoons. Don't they realize that they are being manipulated by extremists? How can they even honestly be upset when cartoons like this against Judism and Christianity are published in their papers regularly? But that is rational thinking, and when it comes to religion, there is less and less room for reason. As religious tensions rise and extermist view points continue to influence politics around the world, the rest of us are waking up to a frightening new reality: a reversal of the cause and effect paradigm, where religious people are so convinced of their own beliefs that they are willing to do anything to make them real.