SOPHIA: RELIGION DEFINED; WHY THE LAIC SECULARIST
RELIGION TOPS THE GODS.
RE-LIGION TIES-AGAIN, AND CAN DO SO IN MANY WAYS.
WHY HISTORY IS INFESTED WITH MYTHICAL RELIGIONS TRYING
TO INFANTILIZE US ALL. WHY AND HOW TO DO AWAY WITH THEM.
THE MOST POWERFUL RELIGION: LAIC SECULARISM, ALL KNOWING,
OMNIPOTENT MYTH KILLER, MERCIFUL, FOREVER BORN AGAIN.
Overview: By definition re-ligion is what ties-again.
There are two dimensions available to tie-again: one
is by myth, the other is by public rationality. Both
span the space of all religions. Both can be logical.
A set of myths, logically articulated, is called a mythology.
Mythologies are inhabited by extraordinary beings who
give us orders under the threat of death and eternal
torture. Mythological religions are critical for expansionist
empires, closed minded tribes, and the rule of cliques.
Examples of mythologies are the Greek, Hindu, Aztec,
Christian and Muslim religions. All were associated
to oceans of blood. People who are ruled by terrorizing
myths find natural to be ruled by terrorizing cliques.
Good for cliques. A flurry of mythical religions brought
a lot to the war zone also known as Greco-Roman antiquity.
The mythologies of the Greco-Roman Mediterranean insisted
to make increasingly little of reason, and culminated
into dictatorship, civil war, and finally, the voluntary
destruction of science, literature, philosophy, literacy
and even grammar (!). Rare is the creation of the human
mind looking as silly as a mythological religion when
its age is past. Thousands of myths, and their cliques,
have come and gone.
If people can be submitted, and tied-again by cliques,
the most reasonable and altruistic ideas should tie-again
even better. Mythologies should not be the only religions
there are. They are not.
There are two methodologies to tie-again without making
things up out of sheer speech, i.e., without pure myths.
They tie-again stronger than any fable. They are supported
by facts, not fantasies. They are the re-ligions of
LAICITY and SECULARISM. One, laicity, draws from the
collective brain "of the people" (LAIKOS); the other,
secularism, comes from adapting to the age we are in
(SAECULUM). LAICITY AND SECULARISM ARE THE ONLY ETERNAL
RELIGIONS. They continually evolve, just as civilization
does, driven by the human condition, reason and technology.
Laicity and secularism are in direct touch with the
drama of consciousness: being deep enough to inflect
some of the universe, but not deep enough to inflect
it much. That drama tie human beings again and again
in the most poignant way. One cannot get more religious
than this. Laicity ties again with democracy, secularism
ties again with science.
Moves towards laicity in Rome were swept away by increasingly
dictatorial, anti democratic and anti secular mythologies
propped up by dictatorial and greedy organizations;
as some men became "gods", most men became very little.
Roman emperors imposed Catholicism as the latest tool
of oppression of the "demos". The Catholics booted out
the mind, causing the Dark Ages. The Catholics closed
the schools and academies, executed thinkers (starting
with the philosopher Sopatros, cofounder of Constantinople),
killed those who were pro choice (ANY choice!), burned
the libraries... The pagan Franks happened on a scene
of cultural devastation. The Franks wanted to be the
terror of the battlefield. "Frank" meant FREE and bold.
But there were few Franks. So the Franks allied themselves
with the strongest allies they could find, the ethics
of pleasure and equity, supported with their Lex Salica.
They became the Roman army, and popular.
The Franks imposed AGGRESSIVE LAIC SECULARISM, the
basic way of the genus Homo to tie again. The Franks
took control of the church. They were a quick study:
a Frank could transform himself from German pagan to
catholic bishop in a standard 40 day crash course (!).
The Franks' choice of the best ethical gear allowed
civilization to regain strong traction in the West for
the first time in a millennium, as ethics of the people
(laikos) and the age (saeculum) came to dominate the
ethics of domination for domination's sake which had
characterized the Greco-Romans' errancy from reason.
Because AGGRESSIVE LAIC SECULARISM IS BEST QUALIFIED
TO DESTROY IRRATIONALITY, MYTHOLOGIES, TRIBALISM AND
EXPLOITATIVE SECTARIANISM, the Franks vanquished where
all previous versions of Rome had tried, and failed.
Under the Franks' counsel, Christianity was put in the
service of laic secularism and education; obdurate tribes
were domesticated throughout Western Europe; slavery
was outlawed; Islamic armies were pushed back in a war
which is not quite finished yet. LIBERTY, EQUALITY,
FRATERNITY IS THE MOTTO OF THE RELIGION OF LAIC SECULARISM.
It is older than Islam.
Laic secularism is now being adopted worldwide. It
is the world's prominent religion, and the only one
the world can have. Technology has made tribalism too
dangerous. Laic secularism destroys tribalism. Our high
tech planet cannot stand myths, cliques, and ages long
gone. Our future, and our values, are about our people,
and about our age. That is what it means to be free.
Enemies of the people (laikos) and the age (saeculum)
such as mystical religiosity will have to be crushed.
Or they will keep on bombing us all. H bombs are really
big, remember. The ethics of domination from those voracious
enough to insist on (inept) parodies of imperial Rome
will also have to be crushed. High tech tribalism and
imperialism would be impossible to control long term,
precisely because our age will make them ever more powerful.
Their time is up. We had enough "shock and awe". Mythical
religions, far from being respectable and innocuous,
are the souls of tribalism, and their time is up too.
Cities can now be burned by man made thermonuclear stars;
it seems entirely appropriate to make sure people who
claim to see stars inside their heads are not adulated
by the multitudes. Awe and respect are the grounds on
which mythologies stand. To disarm the myths, hence
irrationality, it is morally correct that they get as
little respect as possible.
In particular it is morally correct that cliques which
subscribe to the myth that people should be killed because
of what they write should be considered culprit of hate
crimes, and object of international warrant of arrest.
Whatever their "religion", it's a small planet, and
we cannot share our space, our technology, and our lives,
with nuts.
RELIGION AS FASCISM LIGHT; A BIT OF ETYMOLOGY:
RE-LIGION RE-TIES (Latin: re-ligare). The fundamental
concept of religion is therefore distinct from any myth.
Religion is about tying up again, not necessarily about
hallucinating again. A religion is not to be proclaimed
just when wise guys claim they have seen their best
buddy walk on water, so please give them some respect.
From a distance, anyone can be seen walking on water
at high noon in the desert. That's called a mirage.
Guys who had one too many don't know that, but we do.
The very definition of the concept of religion gives
it a connection with fascism. Nothing ties again better
than common defense. The semiotics, and semantics, of
fascism are that of the fragility of the many tying
up around an instrument of war, the ax, to make a terrible
weapon. The concept of religion is more general and
slightly off. How and what a religion binds-again is
not specified in its definition, hence the immense diversity
of religions. In a sense then, RELIGION IS FASCISM LIGHT
(tied up again, but, perhaps, no ax). Religion is what
ties-again the spirit of the community, fascism is about
the most extreme tied-again spirit to strike the enemy.
One may wonder what the "re" in re-ligion refers to.
There was a first bondage apparently. What could that
be? A quick glance at history makes it plain, everywhere,
all over: WAR. Tribes and nations get together first
by war. There is not one exception (not even the EU!).
When maximum mayhem has abated, tribes and nations tie
again, hopefully more pleasantly: re-ligare. Religion,
implicitly, in its very definition, is born from war.
The relative peace of this second bondage contributes
to the aura of respect religion enjoys, because anything
feels nicer than the bondage war provides with.
Indeed history shows that big religions were born
of big wars. Including big civil wars. No exception.
A few examples: the emperor Constantine imposed with
force and violence Catholicism after, and during, the
huge, decades long civil war which gave him total control
of the Roman empire; Islam went from nothing to an empire
as large as Rome's in a century long, total war, which
decimated North Africa, and Spain; the religion of laic
secularism, in a 17 centuries world war, overwhelmed
most of the planet's mythologies; Nazism was a nostalgic
tying-again (re-ligion) of destitute WW1 soldiers of
the Germanic powers; Stalinism was the re-ligion of
those who had survived the conflicts which wrecked Russia
from 1914 and thereafter (including the Gulag and WW2).
Viewing those two European atrocities as the re-ligions
they were explains the messianic intensity of Nazism
and Stalinism, which was crucial to their lethality.
Many party members found in Nazism and Stalinism the
intensity their parents had found in Judeo-Christianism.
Nationalism can turn into a religion.
MYTH VERSUS REASON:
"Myth is the name of all that exists and subsists
solely on the basis of speech" (Valery). When people
sit together and think seriously, they do not stay stuck
in speech alone. They present reasons to each other,
buttressed by facts. Myths shut off this rational chatter,
making them useful to the mentally challenged. Famous
contemporary mythologies have come from a chief of brigands,
a racially superior group of Aryan invaders anxious
to keep the subhumans in abject terror, and Rome's military
dictators. Not a pretty picture.
RELIGION DETERMINES THE CHARACTER OF CIVILIZATION:
The oldest preserved mythical religion is found in
the Egyptian Book of the Dead (3,000 BCE), and it is
indeed completely dead. It was rather mild, and so was
Egyptian society, a mixture of capitalism and socialism,
surprisingly modern; slaves (captured enemy warriors)
were few. To the character of what binds people again
corresponds the character of their society. The mild
Egyptian half god dogs did not ask for blood. Nor did
they ask us to drink some. That was to come later, under
Rome's bloody imperial Christianity. The Aztec gods
asked for high quality protein, and that meant, they
said, live human flesh. On top of their giant bloody
pyramids, the Aztecs sacrificed thousands of prisoners
every month, captured in the lowlands. The Aztecs viewed
themselves delicately, and called their human food procurement
wars, "flower wars." They were shocked by the brutality
of the Spaniards. The Aztecs were hated, and the lowland
nations the Aztecs had victimized formed most of the
armies the Conquistadors destroyed the Aztec empire
with. The Vedas ("knowledges") define Hinduism, by far
the oldest ongoing religion (3,600 years, in writing).
Not by coincidence, the imposition of the (racial) Aryan
rule in India is about 4,500 years old. Part of Hinduism
was the mythological back up of that rule. If a lower
caste touched a high caste, even sometimes indirectly,
all sorts of mutilations and horrible deaths were inflicted
on the dark skin miscreant (females were treated more
favorably). Hinduism, just as Christianism or Islam,
is the sort of religions which will execute people for
reasons non believers have to accept, and should respect
(we are told). As a result, those strong arm religions
enjoyed vast followings. A reluctance to use enough
terror is the probable cause of Buddhism's ephemeral
rule in India and China. Strong masters have strong
religions to keep people obedient. Islam, Hinduism and
Christianism have been very strong. "Islam" means "submission".
"Catholic" means "universal".
MYTHICAL RELIGIONS ARE EPHEMERAL, ALTHOUGH WE OWE
TO CHRISTIANITY THE ETERNALLY USEFUL CONCEPT OF CRETIN:
Mythologies are more ephemeral than the myths they
use. Many myths get recycled: Moses ("son of" in Egyptian)
parted the waters, closely following a much older Egyptian
fable. Mythological religions explain the universe in
a few words, but, far from being immemorial, they are
often more short lived than the civilizations which
harbor them. Some examples: Chinese writing or society
did not change much in 3,000 years, but China went from
Confucianism to Buddhism to Neo-Confucianism to aggressive
socialism and secularism; Egypt knew half a dozen religions,
including monotheism twice, before Islam, although it
was essentially unchanged as a society. Religion can
also mollify extensively as the centuries pass by. Catholicism
has existed for 17 centuries, but contemporary Catholicism
is a sweet ghost of its former bloody self. Catholicism,
16 centuries ago, fabricated the Dark Ages, by the massive
terrorism of sheer cretinism. The word CRETIN is nearly
2,000 years old. It comes from the Latin Christianus,
the original word for Christian. Educated people saw
what Christianism was doing to civilization at the time.
The Cretins ruled the world by force, and the world
fell apart. Fortunately the Franks, those PAGAN German
masters, came, with the best weapons, and pounded some
sense in the Cretins. Christianism thus corrected became
a civilizing force. Mythical religions come from masters.
Violent masters with short lives, such as Roman emperors
and Caliphs carried over their erratic behavior to culture.
Sometimes they favored it, sometimes they burned it.
But culture, once destroyed, does not grow back.
ACCEPTING A MYTH AS EVERYTHING IS SUBMITTING TO IRRATIONALITY,
i.e., TO THE HIGHER RATIONALITY OF MASTERS:
The strongest mythological religions, are based on
beliefs so improbable that they require special people
known as "BELIEVERS". Last time the "believers" had
an explanation of everything with just one myth, they
were infants sucking milk, and their parents were gods.
Most people grow up, but it's painful. Now, instead
of parents, the believers have masters named Brahmins,
Ayatollahs, or Popes, or chiefs preaching as if they
were the gods themselves. Far out beliefs are indeed
the most remarkable thing about believers; they walk
as men and believe as children. There is something to
always think as a child. One believes in immortality
(of oneself), and in omnipotence (of one's parents).
No messing up with the dreary reality of human freedom,
and the responsibilities it entails. Childish myths
are also advantageous to empire formation. Myths keep
soldiers naive and obedient, the people supportive and
gullible: all can claim innocence, since they are children,
guided by religious dignitaries who do not hesitate
to maintain their powerful lifestyles. Any critique,
innuendo, insinuation, or slight against Islam or its
big guy, Mohammed, is punishable by death. As a result
Muslim philosophy could never really exist: cautious
parrots with delicate necks make bad philosophers. The
Shariah is currently the law in many countries. "Article
513 of the penal code of the Islamic republic of Iran:
The punishment for insulting or criticizing Islam, the
Prophet Mohammed, his entire family, or his representatives
known as Imams is death by hanging in public". Saudi
Arabia, Pakistan, and several hundreds of millions people
enjoy such laws in 2004. This, of course, makes the
present author extremely respectful of Islam, and Mohammed,
The Prophet, blessed be His name, holly the ground He
was generous enough to step on, sacred the words of
Allah the Merciful...
Accepting childish myths forces the reason of the people
to kneel for that of the masters, allowing the later
to reign as ordained by the gods. Being as children
is humiliating, so believers hate those who do not believe
with them. Silencing all critiques becomes an obsession.
MYTHOLOGISTS AND MYSTICS HATE QUESTIONS, BUT ARE CAPABLE
OF DEVIOUS LOGIC: "BELIEVE IN THE DEVIL, OR ELSE..."
This hatred towards those who suspect too much is
why the Catholics exterminated the philosophers in the
Roman empire (esp. 378/9 CE), resulting in the immediate
"decline and fall of Rome" down into hell. That the
world was hell, of course, proved the Catholics right.
It had been difficult to bring Jesus back, hell was
easier. Hell showed the world to be no good, as the
Catholics wanted to demonstrate. The Catholics seemed
confident that the very existence of the Devil made
the existence of his opposite, Jesus, undeniable. It
was the Yin-yang theory, Christian style: if it's all
black, it has got to be white somewhere else. So it
was, then, that the church found solace in the Devil.
Curious to the minds of our age (saeculum). The Devil
was such a trusted companion for the Catholics, that
it was actually "heresy", punishable by DEATH, NOT to
believe in the DEVIL. Yes, you read that right: not
believing in the Devil was the ticket to burn, the Catholics
had determined. This is the satanic truth about Catholicism.
In a sense, then, Catholicism was established as the
world's Devil worship. Of course, Catholicism was much
more than that: the bishops had found many other reasons
to burn their flocks alive. In its enthusiastic ferocity,
Catholicism was not original. Most mythical religions
of the Mediterranean had embraced ferocity for 1,500
years. Catholicism was just more enthusiastic in its
hatred of freedom of thought (soon faithfully adopted
by Islam).
THE EXCITING WAR RELIGIONS OF THE MEDITERRANEAN:
Starting before the time of Homer, Western Asia came
to be dominated by mythical war religions. The first
victims were the Hittites (annihilated); the Egyptians
defeated the enemy, but never recovered their old splendor.
Syria and Palestine were left to the invaders, some
of whom, the Etruscans, would go all the way to Italy
to civilize those peasants, the Romans. It was the time
of the Trojan war. The Greeks themselves descended from
steel armed Dorian invaders mixed with Cretan culture
and Greek women genes. Classical Greek culture came
out of that, permeated by the mentality of war as the
highest pursuit. War was the essence of the Greek gods
and the cities they protected. Violating that religious
spirit was impiety, punishable by death. We were far
from the mild Egyptian divine zoo, with its half dog
gods. Judaism, born around the Egyptian episode of monotheism
which corresponded to the aforesaid invasions, started
with a holocaust to clear the land for Israel (Hmmm...).
The Roman religion was more of the same, brutally virile
to the core. Roman globalization allowed religious tolerance,
for a while. Imperial Rome conquered by preserving as
much of the local social structures as possible, including
mythological religions. Rome became a melting pot of
religions. No laws existed against Christianity for
the first 250 years; Christians, when prosecuted, were
asked to show allegiance to civic gods, and to the emperor.
Jews by birth, even after the Judean war, were NOT asked
to do so; Jews, Egyptians, and other national religionists
were allowed to practice their faith exclusively (i.e.,
not to worship the emperor). The Roman tolerance for
mythical religions would be extended later on by the
Franks. Unfortunately for civilization, fascism was
strong in Rome. A return to laicity -to the demos- was
the emperors' clear and present danger. Soon would-be
emperors became wise to the advantages Christianism
could bring to their dictatorial bias. Catholicism was
imperatively selected, and allowed to establish its
dictatorship all over. The Catholic terror went well
beyond any previous imperial terrorism, and made the
Roman world senile (as some Franks pointed out then).
THE MORE INFANTILE THE MYTHICAL RELIGION, THE MORE
OF A BRUTE FORCE EMPIRE:
The more oppressive an empire, the more childish the
myths, because the more oppression is accepted by people,
the more stupid people have to be. Ancient Christians
and Muslims killed those who talked poorly of their
god. Most gods are so fragile, freedom of speech can
kill them. Saint Louis personally tied up to posts,
smothering them with pig intestines, men who had used
"god" as an expletive. Great saints do great deeds.
Mythical religions are typically the seat of inequitable
societies; extreme force has to be used, right from
the start, because people are initially reluctant to
give all their freedom of thought to some guys in robes.
Christianity and Islam started with oceans of blood;
the Aztecs butchered 80,000 live prisoners over four
days, to welcome God to his new temple. The Hindus maintained,
for millennia, a mythically based racist order of the
most extreme cruelty. In contrast, whereas Christianity
and Islam viewed slavery as ordained by "God", there
was no slavery in China, where Confucianism and the
like reigned, religions which are less mythical, hence
less conducive to inequity. A very practical consequence
was that China, initially backwards, forged ahead economically
and technologically as the West enjoyed the raptures
of uncontrolled Cretinism.
ACCORDING TO THE CATHOLIC ROMAN EMPIRE, ANY CATHOLIC
EXPRESSING "CHOICE" WAS TO BE EXECUTED:
The more tyrannization, the more infantilization,
the more mythologization. As imperial Rome went from
one tyranny to the next, it went from one mythology
to the next, way worse. It got so grand, Roman imperators
became gods: first Caesar, then Augustus, Tiberius...
Christ was according to the fashion of his age. A reason
for making some men into gods was that as some men became
everything, most men became much less. As the empire
went on, common citizens lost rights (until the only
thing they were allowed to argue about were the local
sport teams (Constantinople, 6C)). When Alexander the
Great had declared himself a God, his companions laughed
so hard, it was embarrassing. Whereas, three centuries
later, when Caesar lobbied to become a divine entity,
nobody was laughing anymore: freedom of thought, even
laughter, was getting scarce. The thinker Cicero wrote
too well. Marcus Antonius, Cleopatra's boyfriend, cut
off Cicero's hands, and had them nailed on the doors
of the senate, as a warning against inconsiderate writing.
Ultimately the Roman dictatorship decided to encourage
piety by legislating that "CHOOSING" DIFFERENTLY WAS
TO BE PUNISHED BY DEATH (Theodosius 1, 382 CE). The
Catholic hierarchy had found its fundamental enemy:
"CHOICE". In Greek: "HERESY" (Greek hairesis , a choosing).
The only thoughts allowed were those the Fathers of
the Church had first. Or be burned. The Dark Ages had
arrived. Reminded of such horrors, Christians talk about
good their "savior" was. They mean the one who engaged
in a monologue with his dad after being nailed on a
cross. That one just had enough power to drag his cross,
encouraged by the whip. The emperors, the church and
the popes, had real power, and they used it, not just
to ask us to turn our cheeks, for the next slap, but
also to turn over our brains, for disposal.
HOW HATEFUL MYTHOLOGY CAN GET: WHEN CHRISTIANISM WANTED
TO EXTERMINATE GRAMMAR:
The Catholics used power to fight education. Knowledge
is power, and the church wanted power, solely for itself,
hence knowledge, solely for itself: it had become the
Roman dictatorship. Knowledge comes from communicating,
hence, when using a language such as Latin, with all
its declinations, from grammar. It is impossible to
understand Latin without Latin grammar, the language
is too compact. If grammar was left in the hands of
the people, it was a clear and present danger, a weapon
of mass understanding, a weapon of mass destruction
of catholic myths. Some bishops were smart enough to
understand this. In 599 CE, pope Gregory the Great learned
that Didier, bishop of Vienne, taught some people; the
pope threatened him: "We have learned, and we cannot
be reminded of it without shame, that your fraternity
taught GRAMMAR to some people. We consider this a GRAVE
matter..." This was the reality of that mythology known
as Christianity: after making it so that people would
not know how to read, by closing public schools, the
Catholics would have preferred people not to know how
to speak.
The Franks would have none of this non sense. They turned
Christianity on its head, by starting to nominate the
bishops. Monasteries were turned into schools. The popes
were left to beg the Franks to do something about the
hated Lombards who occupied Italy. The Franks let the
popes simmer among the Lombards for 2 centuries.
THE TOP RE-LIGIONS: WHEN THE BINDING-AGAIN IS "OF
THE PEOPLE" (LAICITY), OR IS PROVIDED BY THE AGE (SECULARISM):
Millions of brains can do better than just one, such
is the fundamental reason for the superiority of democracy,
hence laicity. Man is nothing without technology, and
technology has changed symbiotically with the age (saeculum).
So it has been for three million years. Without fire,
weapons, tools and biotechnology, Homo Sapiens could
not even eat but for ants and grasshoppers, and would
feel empty. The people who ate grass, even the best
grass, even cooked, died during the Dark Ages organized
by the Catholics (6 C). Shortly thereafter the warriors
of Islam spilled over the world, dressed, armed and
supported by the technology three million years of secularism
had provided them with. By adapting to the age, the
people of man adapted to his evolving self. Laicity
and secularism have always been with us, and have always
given us the strongest ties, again and again.
LAIC SECULARISM IS THE NATURAL FUNDAMENTAL RELIGION
OF THE GENUS HOMO.
Laic secularism is the definition of Homo. All the
people together, thinking up to date. Intelligence is
the principle of man. By working hard together to achieve
the best of what the age can bring the people discover
new technology, in particular new ways to organize society.
The age changes as technology improves. New capabilities
of the people (laikos) appear. Old myths are then in
the way of REASON. LAIC SECULARISM, OMNIPRESENT, PERPETUALLY
MORPHING, CAN AT BEST TOLERATE SUITABLY DOMESTICATED
MYTHICAL RELIGIONS AS THEY ORDERLY RECESS INTO HISTORY.
Whereas mythical religions are ephemeral, secular religions
can reveal elements of (practical) eternity: many sets
of ideas have achieved practical immortality, and science
foremost. Some of these ideas are so old, it is not
perceived how modern they were in the age of their advent.
One of the oldest ways to tie-again is by sitting around
a fire, and that is two million year old. Even baboons
tie-again in caves, for warmth. A number of very old
religions (Buddhism, Confucianism, Stoicism) were laic
and secular. Some lost their secularism as they transmogrified
into myth (Neo-Confucianism). Europe finally got rid
of the Greco-Romans and their myths (the last one being
Christianism). The Europe of the Franks tied with human
nature again:
THE WORLD'S MOST IMPORTANT RELIGION IS AGGRESSIVE
LAIC SECULARISM, AN INVENTION OF THE FRANKS:
The Franks saw the racism and alienation (from other
Germans), the religious dictatorship, the inequity and
senility of Rome; they swept all with their rule. The
Franks were deadly, but they killed more in the name
of freedom and equal opportunity than those they smashed,
which was everybody else in Western Europe. The Franks
were able to dominate because their re-ligion, laic
secularism, was superior. The Franks' laic secularism
got civilization restarted in the West after more than
a millennium of mythologies partial to inequity and
war. Christianity and Islam considered slavery ordained
by (their) God; the Franks outlawed slavery as they
cracked down on myth and inequity. The Franks found
handy to use Christianity and Judaism as tools for the
improvement of their underlying lay and secular religion.
The modern "separation" of church and state, as found
now worldwide, was thereupon initiated in France, in
a very complicated, bloody and ongoing history spanning
more than 17 centuries. When the Christian emperor Justinian
ordered an updating of Roman law, he put a non Christian
professor in charge of the commission, and asked for
a separation of the laic law from the religious law.
Justinian was probably inspired by the domestication
of the church by the state, Rome's federates, the Franks,
had imposed in the western part of the empire. IN TRUTH,
THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE IS A TOLERANT DOMINATION
OF THE RELIGION OF LAIC SECULARISM ON ALL AND ANY MYTHICAL
RELIGION. To call it a "separation" is a pedagogical
ruse to incite those infested with god madness to learn
tolerance for those not sharing in their frenzy.
Conclusion: The times we are in are not without reminding
us in some ways of the Dark Ages. Rome was submitted
to violent, quick and devastating attacks from barbarians.
Those raids were similar to terrorist bombings. Rome
tried to adapt by setting up a huge quick reaction force
of heavy cavalry. The population terrorized and paralyzed
by the raids and the Christian Roman dictatorship, became
despondent. Raiders crisscrossed the land, or, having
moved over under treaty (foedus) did not follow either
civilized ways, or Roman law. Both traits have analogues
today: some nations deny the rule of UN law, and the
tolerance for intolerant barbarians, which is itself
intolerable, is on the rise. Muslims ask for a "Muslim
space", under Muslim law, just like the Goths asked
for a Gothic space, under Gothic law. Past "Muslim"
cliques made their own law, and it does not matter to
them if it treats women as sub humans and if anybody
is justified to kill anybody who "insulted" "Allah the
Merciful". It does not matter because Muslim "law" was
not democratically derived; it does not have to be just,
it does not even have to be from Mohammed.
The United Nations law was democratically built by Rome,
the Franks, and the US and French 1787/1789 CE constitutions.
It has receded in some places. For example, Pakistan
became a Muslim law country in 1961 CE; too much of
Muslim law is incompatible with UN law, or even very
old Roman law. We also have the equivalent of Vandals,
such as the North Korean dictatorship and its would
be nuclear arsenal. A few Vandals acquired immense military
force. For a while they even reigned over the Mediterranean
sea (!). Rome got harassed from all sides, by all sorts.
The success of some barbarians encouraged others. None
of this would have gone anywhere, but for the pernicious
undermining by Rome's dictatorial Christianity. The
reason to fight had been that millions of Romans had
known how to read and write, and the barbarians did
not. When Christianity's rule made the Romans illiterate,
and spiteful of life, there was no will, nor reason
to fight anymore. That is why pagans (the Franks) saved
civilization. The Franks had reasons to fight, they
found them in their love of life. They turned Christianity
from a vampire feeding on civilization, into a servant
of civilization. Christianism is not much nowadays,
thanks to the Franks and their descendants. One may
wonder which ideology could be taking its place, undermining
civilization. That misguided ideology is exaggerated
relativism, a noxious remnant of Christianism. We can't
respect all local cultures, and their mythologies, in
all ways, all the time. First, they want to kill each
other. Second, most mythologies evolved in ages long
gone to serve long gone cliques. They are to be swept
away, like old dirt on the floor, and not made into
new idols to be venerated on the altar of diversity
for diversity's sake. Or then be coherent, bring back
the Aztecs, and face the truth. Democracies are intrinsically
of the people (laic) but have to adapt to the age (secularism).
We have enough urgent real problems of mythical dimensions
not to err nostalgically in the fog of obsolete mythologies,
just because it's tiring to think.
Patrice Ayme', Mars 2004.
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