Heaven, hell and religious politics

 

The latest horrifying episode of religious terrorism in France has, unfortunately, put Malaysia in the international limelight with the former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, adding fuel to the religious fires and hatred.

Many that have followed Mahathir’s career during the past 70 years will not be surprised by his extremist response.

Unfortunately too, we have not seen the last of such fire and brimstone practitioners. They follow a well-trodden pattern going back thousands of years.

Perhaps the only way to get out of this cycle of religious violence and terrorism is for the leaders of religious institutions to also teach about the history of the estimated 6,000 religions of the world, the differences, commonalities and patterns, and associations with cultural and political features.

Using scientific evidence, logic and rationality, such courses can help put into proper perspective the so-called universal truths and answers peddled by the religious books and scriptures of the Abrahamic religions as well as those of other religions.

Comparative Religion Course 101

Design of a course on "Comparative Religion 101" can begin by pointing out that the idea of an ultimate creator responsible for all living things on earth, including man, is one common to many religions found in the different parts of the world.

It would also draw attention to the fact that the origin and spread of religion are inextricably connected with the quest for authority, power and followers.

The search for a supreme maker goes very far back in history. We do not have a precise date for it. However, some idea of how far back it goes can be obtained if we look at the history of evolution.

Irrefutable scientific evidence has shown that the physical and behavioural features shared by all people originated from ape-like ancestors and that these evolved over a period of six million years. The ability to walk upright evolved over four million years ago.

Other important human characteristics such as a complex brain, ability to use tools and capacity for language have developed more recently. Advanced traits such as complex symbolic expression, art, cultural diversity etc, emerged over 100,000 years ago. 

With this emergence came ideas and beliefs of hell, heaven and the worship of gods, goddesses, spirits, deities and other man-created objects or points of veneration to facilitate the ascent to a better existence after death.

What happens after life ends?

Questions and answers about where we come from and where we go after the end of life on earth have been voiced without any resolution. Archaeological evidence suggests that early men such as the Neanderthals who can be dated to over 50,000 years ago had some sort of preoccupation with death. 

They were self-conscious beings and were likely to have an awareness of death and the meaning and implications of death. Such consciousness has continued unabated and unresolved with modern man; it will remain unresolved until all humans die off.

Most if not all religions have been concerned with man's destiny after death. They probably began with some notion of an underworld as an abode for the dead. Evidence from ancient burial sites and rituals also indicate the concern with ensuring that the spirits of the dead were appropriately sent off or they would not rest peacefully which explains the presence of priests and other before and after-death guides.

A parallel role in society was performed by soothsayers, seers, oracles and diviners who were regarded as able to foresee the future by magical and other means. The roles of priests and diviners and oracles were often integrated into the ancient and more recent religions. 

Predicting the near and distant future as well as promising some form of paradise after death proved a lucrative and privileged undertaking for those who belonged to these occupations.

From its earliest days, priestly and equivalent personages have not only exploited man's sense of insecurity and fear of the supernatural. They have also used it as their powerful ideological tool. 

This modus operandi served the needs of its founders and prophets who could then impose on their tribes their understanding of "truth", "hell", "heaven", "light", "darkness", and "paradise" and their solutions to the anxieties of their followers.

These "holy men" can be considered to be among the world's first politicians. Women priests have been relatively sparse in history except in matrilineal societies. Perhaps if they had become dominant, it could have made a difference in the history of the world.

Above the witch doctors, shaman, priests and similar personages holding positions in the little or great religions of the world have been the chiefs, lords, emperors, caliphs, sovereigns and other similar potentates standing at the highest rung of their society. 

Whether it is with pre-Homeric Greek religion, Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam, the world’s religious systems can be seen not only as providing explanations for our earthly existence. They also provided strategies and justification enabling the elite to maintain and manage the distribution of political and socio-economic power.

Today, despite the advancement of science and knowledge, the lure of religion continues as also its exploitation by the leaders and charlatans of religion.

In the past, primitive societies were petrified and mystified by natural phenomena such as thunder, lightning, floods and earthquakes. Modern science has demystified these phenomena and enabled us to conquer our fears about this aspect of the unknown.

In contrast to the fear of unknown nature, many primitive societies were relatively stoic about death. Some hunter-gatherer societies, for example, have no particular belief in an afterlife, and the death of an individual means a straightforward end to their existence.

It is paradoxical that such societies rather than our modern ones come closest to the current scientific position regarding the mind-body dichotomy which sees consciousness as derived from and/or is reducible to physical phenomena such as neuronal activity occurring in the brain. The implication of this premise is that once the brain stops functioning at brain death, consciousness ceases to exist.

Acceptance of a straightforward end to life - that humans, on death, simply become part of the earth, sea or river that we evolved from without any further afterlife - would, however, run against the worldwide industry that is organised religion, and the political and religious elites who exploit and benefit from it.   

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LIM TECK GHEE is a public policy analyst and author of the book 'Challenging Malaysia's Status Quo'. He is editor-in-chief of the Myhometown website. - Mkini

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.