In places outside the Roman influence, the mutation of Christianity continued. It gave rise to many variations that still exist, including Islam, which today is one of the three major branches of monotheism. Islam can be seen as a linear descendant of Judaism through Christianity.

Judaism is the religion of the Torah as recorded by Moses. Christianity preserves this book as the “Old Testament” and Islam preserves it as the “Tawart.” Christianity added the New Testament concerning the teachings of Jesus Christ and his apostles. Islam preserves a version of the New Testament as the “Injil.” Islam further adds the Qura’n and the Haddith which record the recitations and acts of Muhammad.

These correlations are not exact, as each of these books is a compilation of other books and parts of books. For example, the Catholic New Testament is the collection of gospels chosen at the Council Nicea. Some versions of Christianity still exist which chose to include gospels that were excluded by the Roman Church at that time. Islam branched off from a version of Christianity that never adopted the Nicean Creed and therefore does not include the mysterious “polytheism within monotheism” idea of the Holy Trinity, even though it does include the teachings of Jesus and his disciples.

One interesting thing to realize is that historically slow communications due to long travel times is one of the main reasons why religions tended to break apart into other religions. The teachings of a new prophet would first take root in the area where he lived and died and then spread slowly from there.

For example, the Jews who were in the area where Jesus was born and died were more likely to have become Christians than those living farther away. The Jews who were farther away and had less connection to Christ’s death are more likely to be the ancestors of modern Jewish people than those who were actually there when Christ was crucified.

Therefore, when someone says that the Jews played some part in the death of Jesus, you can correct them and say:

“The people who killed Christ became the first Christians.”

Christianity is really just one of many offshoots of Archaic Judaism. In fact, over half of the religious belief in the world originates with those first Jews. But you shouldn’t blame modern day Jews for that either – they are the ones that have allowed their religion to mutate the least.

The family tree we have shown is complicated enough. But consider that this is really just a sampling, and that many related religions, sects, and cults (existing and dead), have not been included. Also consider that all of these religions continue to sprout new mutations regularly. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are broad categories. Each of them has at least several popular sects with tried and true traditions. But each also has (and has always had) numerous new cults springing up with new self proclaimed prophets on a fairly regular basis. Most die out quickly, but the occasional cult grows until it is a large respectable religion.

Try to imagine (if you can) that today’s familiar main-stream religions all started as weird little cults. When historical authorities threw Christians to the lions, they were just following the same sort of Collective Identity impulses that cause modern secular authorities to raid the compounds of modern charismatic cult leaders, throw tear gas through their windows, and burn them out if they continue to resist.

The Church of Rome, that dominated western ideology for the next thousand plus years, continued to fight against this sort of mutation of ideas, and was not unchanged by it. It had to continuously evolve with each new ideological change that it could not suppress.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080327/ap_on_re_us/daughter_s_death_prayer

It’s about a young girl who recently died from a very treatable condition because her parents chose to pray for her to get better rather than take her to a doctor.

While this is a tragedy, and certainly no laughing matter, it reminds me of an old joke:

A man is caught in a flood and ends up sitting on the roof of his house.

Eventually a boat comes along and he is offered a ride to dry land, but he replies “Thanks, but I have faith that GOD will save me.” The boat leaves to rescue others.

The water rises higher and another boat comes along. Again the man rejects the offer of aid saying “I have faith that GOD will save me,” and that boat also leaves to rescue others.

The water rises to the point that the man is barely able to stay on the roof, clinging to his chimney. A helicopter flies overhead and lowers down a ladder, but the man again insists “I have faith that GOD will save me,” and does not climb the ladder.

Finally the man is swept away by the flood waters and drowns. When he gets to heaven he confronts GOD and asks “I had faith! Why didn’t you save me?”

To which GOD replies “I don’t know what more you wanted – I sent you two boats and a helicopter.”

The deaths of those who, because of their faith, refuse to accept physical help are easy to notice and criticize, but there is almost certainly a lot more damage that happens for similar reasons but goes unnoticed. Whether it is a belief in mind over matter, spiritual energy, or prayer to GOD or gods, any sort of appeal to the metaphysical can be harmful. How many people die because they wait too long to get that lump looked at by a doctor, thinking that if they refuse to acknowledge it as a real problem it will magically go away on its own?

And this is not just a problem with medical issues. How many people wait for the right opportunity to present itself in life rather than going out and making things happen for themselves? Belief in destiny can certainly energize people, but it can also hold people back until “the signs are right,” which they might never be.

If you believe in the help and guidance of some Higher Power or have faith in some cosmic destiny, it removes from you a lot of the responsibility for the way things actually turn out. And perhaps that makes the world feel easier to cope with. But there is good reason to believe that choosing to rely on such things can cost you a lot of value in situations that you could have made better if you had only chosen to take responsibility for the direction of your own life.

There is no real evidence for anything beyond the physical here and now. There might or might not exist a benevolent creator of the universe. But even if GOD does exist, there is no reason to believe that HE ever intervenes in the physical world at all, and certainly a lot of reason to believe that HE does not – or only does so in very very rare circumstances.

Think about it this way: Praying to GOD – asking that he should cause reality to deviate from the course of events that it would otherwise follow, based on the established physical laws of the universe – is like asking HIM to cheat – asking him to break the rules HE created.

Do you have enough integrity not to cheat when you play Solitaire? Even if you don’t, GOD probably does…

Or putting this all yet another way: “The Lord helps those who help themselves.”

This new ideological organism, that I sometimes refer to as “Envirofundamentalism,” has many parallels to other religions. It has multiple Hell/Armageddon scenarios of global warming, ozone layer depletion, poisoned seas, genetically modified food monsters, etc. It has its own versions of a kosher diet with organic produce, free range meat, vegetarianism, and the like. It requires its sacrifices of time and energy to various odd rituals such as separating your trash into multiple categories. It even has its own version of Pascal’s Wager called the “Precautionary Principle.”

One of the advantages that this new religion currently has, is that it is not generally recognized as a religion. It is therefor more successful at influencing even those governments that are trying hard to maintain a separation of church and state. It has succeeded best so far in Europe where its biggest competitor, Christianity, had been previously weakened by the various “isms” clashing in World War II, but it has since spread to every other continent and is doing quite well.

In a previous blog post entitled “Pope Blasts Marx – Misses Gore,” I talked about a letter written by the Pope that showed his recognition of the way in which supposedly secular philosophies can compete directly with Christianity. However, I noted that he seemed to be missing the biggest threat of Environmentalism being such a competitor. But perhaps my criticism of his strategy came too soon. A new development has just occurred indicating that maybe the Pope recognized this competition but had another strategy in mind all along. (Either that or His Holiness reads this blog and I was the one that tipped him off :-)

What I am referring to is a recent news stories that the Catholic church is planning on increasing the number of deadly sins:

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=4424390

Three of the new “sins” to make the short list should be quite familiar to any faithful believer in the tenants of this new hybrid socialist/environmentalist religion:

• Environmental Irresponsibility
• Genetic Engineering
• Inequality of Wealth

So it is looking very much like the Catholic Church has decided to follow a strategy of “If you can’t beat ‘em – join ‘em.”

This is by no means a new way to go for a religion that started out as an offshoot of Judaism, granted divinity to its prophet to compete with the divinity granted to the Roman Emperor by his followers, folded its prophet/god back into its monotheistic GOD as well as an all encompassing over-soul by borrowing from Eastern religious ideas, co-opted other European religions by adopting their icons in the form of various angels and demons while stealing all of their high holidays and renaming them, drifted far into the secular world of bloody warfare and political machinations, and returned to the spirit of the recorded words of its prophet only when too many translations of those words into languages people could actually read finally existed for the discrepancies to continue to be ignored.

While it is certainly a long strange road from Genesis 9:2-3

And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered. Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.

to a Catholic church that may learn to embrace animal rights – stranger things have certainly happened in the world of Collective Idea-Organisms.

This is a very interesting play for Catholicism to make and it will be fun to see how it plays out.

Well, perhaps “fun” is not the right word. Western civilization has made great progress through a delicate trick of balancing religious and secular powers against each other and leaving space for individual freedom and innovation in between. If this new attempt at an alliance between Catholicism and Envirofundamentalism makes more people notice the similarities between the two, it could produce more resistance to the influences of such idea-organisms on secular governments – and that would be a good thing. However, it could just as easily be a path back to the bad old days of people being ruled by a single united idea-organism – a church/state combination that called for the death of all unbelievers. The balance that we have achieved may be much more precarious than people realize.

It remains to be seen whether or not we can continue down the path of progress that western civilization has only relatively recently learned to tread, or if we will return to the big old sins of waging collective war on individual liberty and achievement. The unification of a powerful old icon for enslaving minds and the hottest new “up and comer” among such icons is a prospect to be greatly feared by those who believe in individualism.

Cartoon from the book “God Wants You Dead” by Sean Hastings and Paul Rosenberg.

Merry X-mas to all…

I am pretty sure that I came up with this image myself, based purely on random collisions of ideas in my skull, in the mid 1990s – but the urban legend of the “Santa Cross” may be older. See Snopes:

http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/cross.asp

In the letter, the Pope blames atheism as the cause of the many atrocities committed in the name of Communism in the 20th century. He also points to the ideological remains of communism, continuing to live on in more capitalistic cultures even as previously communist states have left these failed ideas behind, as the cause of rising atheism in Europe and North America. The overall theme of the letter is that faith equals hope, that atheism causes misery, and that religion that reaches out and embraces others will save the world.

The English translation of the letter can be found here:

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20071130_spe-salvi_en.html

Now I have to give the Holy Father credit here, because he is definitely correct about some of his causality. He is right that Communism could not have seized complete control without minimizing the influence of Christianity. He is also correct that the left over influences of communism (often called progressivism) is definitely playing a role in the current reduction of Christianity in Europe and North America. But (and this is a really big but) in extolling the virtues of hope/faith he is missing the fact that it is actually faith that causes the big problems.

While it is true that the communists didn’t believe in GOD, they definitely had faith in The State, and their belief in the greater good allowed them to do some terrible things. The Nazis also had their own religion that gave them hope/faith in the natural superiority of the Aryan race, and perhaps they even thought the old Norse gods would lend them a hand or hammer. And belief in a monotheistic GOD has no shortage of culpability for atrocities. The Catholic church of the middle ages, in full control of the show, committed acts of torture and genocide that, if they do not actually surpass the death toll records of communism and fascism, at least put it up on the score board as a respectable third runner. (And please note that these results are not yet final.)

The truth is that peace and prosperity have never been achieved through the dominance of a single ideology over the minds of a group of people. Historically, where we see times of peace and prosperity, we see separation of power and co-dominance of ideas. Where no single philosophy is allowed to gain too much power, no one is persecuted and new ideas are given a fair hearing.

The free exchange of ideas creates a better world for us all.

The creeping effect of too much faith is why I sometimes refer to hope as the “slowest evil.” This is also a reference to the fable of Pandora’s box. She was said to have a box containing all the evils in the world. Then one day she foolishly opened the box to look inside. As all the evils in the world started to escape, she quickly closed the box again, but Hope was the only thing she managed to keep from escaping. The fact that Hope was in the box at all implies that it was one of the evils that the box contained.

Hope can indeed be evil, or at least lead to evil – that is if it is an irrational hope. There is nothing wrong with being optimistic rather than pessimistic when those are the only two choices, but never discount being realistic whenever you can be. Maintaining hope/faith when it is unwarranted is a sort of evil. When your hope is proved wrong, it should be abandoned. Not doing so is to abandon reason instead.

Gradual change from optimistic hope to irrational faith is the course run by every ideology that turns to evil means to accomplish its ends. Hope that they are doing the right thing becomes faith that they are doing the right thing becomes the knowledge that they can do no wrong.

When people believe they can do no wrong, they are rarely found to do anything right.

In the book “God Wants You Dead,” Paul and I explain that religious and political philosophies are sub categories of a type of ideological entity that we call “collective idea-organisms.” We show how such multicellular ideological constructs, existing across many minds, will turn individual hope/faith to their own (often evil) ends. We try to show the reader how the story of humanity is the story of the evolution of, and competition between such ideological entities. (We also included funny cartoons to lighten the mood ;-)

But let’s get back to what the Pope thinks is happening today. He recognizes that his own particular faith is on the decline in Europe and North America, and that something else is on the rise. He calls it atheism, but is that really what it is? Is it just the absence of his particular religion, or is it actually the encroachment of another ideology that is very much like a religion? Is there a new collective idea-organism battling Christianity for mind share – mental territory?

Looking at the ideology of the modern Western world, I fear that a new collective idea-organism is indeed on the rise. It has moved more quickly in Europe, where the rise and fall of fascism and communism significantly weakened Christianity, leaving an ideological void to be filled. In North America, Christianity is still strong enough to give it some resistance, so this new ideology is gaining strength more slower there.

This new collective idea-organism is known as Environmentalism, and it is indeed using the remains of communist/socialist/progressive philosophy to advance its cause. It is a new religion where the idea of a “Divine Plan” is replaced by the concept of “Natural Order,” and it certainly offers its own ideas about morality. It could probably be part of an overall climate of peace and prosperity, just as Christianity has been in various places at various times, but only if there is separation of powers and other ideas are allowed to exist in a state of co-dominance. Given full control, this collective idea-organism will be just as dangerous as any other.

If Environmentalism is allowed to take full control of any government, we are likely to see as much evil as we might expect from any religious oligarchy or other form of totalitarianism. This seems particularly likely when you consider that Environmentalism starts out openly containing an idea that most other ideologies end up with only when things start to go very bad – the idea that individual human lives are not of paramount importance.

If you are a person who is infected with the collective idea-organism of Environmentalism, you may now think I am an evil person for saying these things – that I must be a tool of the earth-hating corporate devils. But please consider that when you find yourself inclined to think that someone is evil, simply because they hold opinions that are contrary to your own, that this is an indication that something is bending your mind in an extremely unpleasant direction. Please also consider that your hope/faith that your cause is good may some day lead to a great deal of harm, should you let go of your ability to rationally question the dogma.

Just as not every person who thinks of themselves as a Christian is an evolution-denying fundamentalist who believes the earth is only 6000 years old, not every person who thinks of themselves as an Environmentalist is an intellectual slave to an ideology that promotes nature over man. But I have seen the passion that Environmentalism inspires in some, and I really do fear its potential to evolve into a more harmful Enviro-fundamentalism.

There is nothing wrong with the altruistic idea that one should minimize one’s impact on shared resources. But this does not mean that you should buy into everything that anyone attempts to sell to you in the name of Environmentalism. You must ALWAYS question each new idea separately, and be willing to abandon old ideas as new evidence dictates. If you refuse to allow multiple ideas to bundle together under a single label, and continue to question old and new ideas, then no collective idea-organism will ever be able to control your mind.

And try not to allow yourself to be labeled. If you don’t buy into the group label, then it is easier to think for yourself. Instead of thinking of yourself as a Christian, think of yourself as a person who sees many important truths in the teachings of Jesus Christ. Instead of thinking of yourself as an Environmentalist, think of yourself as a person who sees the wisdom in considering the impact on shared resources before acting.

Or to quote the great Ferris Beuller:

It’s not that I condone fascism… or any “ism” for that matter. “Isms” in my opinion are not good. A person should not believe in an “ism,” he should believe in himself.