ISIS, Cockroaches in our midst…

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Cockroach

We find, on this Memorial Day, that we are still at war. Seventy years ago, Germany put pen to paper and acknowledged their unconditional surrender to the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force and the Soviet High Command. It has been nearly ninety-seven years since the end of the ‘War to End All Wars’. And while it is true that there have been no formal declarations since, (neither Korea nor Vietnam were declared wars, but were considered a ‘police action’ and a conflict for Communist containment) we never the less remain in a de facto state. We entered Afghanistan in 2001 to get Bin Laden and shut down the Taliban, then Iraq in 2003 to get Hussein and his WMD’s.

Apart from murder and rape, there is no more detestable a form of human conduct than war. Sadly, it seems engrained in too many of us. Daily, my stomach churns over stories about ISIS, ISIL, Al Qaeda, and Boko Haram. I don’t care what religion or form of ideology they claim; they are animals. Actually, that does the animal kingdom a disservice. They are cockroaches. Just this morning comes the news that ISIS executed 262 Syrian fighters and civilians, including 13 children. The ancient city of Palmyra is in danger of destruction if they follow the pattern established at Nimrud. When they capture a town or a village, men and boys over the age of 14 are murdered, and the sisters and wives suffer the abuse of rape and torture.

In the past, America has been slow to take up a cause, especially when it involves putting our military in harm’s way. It’s easy to understand our reticence. Who wants to see their son or daughter, their husband or wife leave with the possibility they’ll never return. It took us three years to intervene in WWI and more than two to answer Germany’s declaration of war in WWII. The night before the invasion of Iraq, I overheard a conversation in a Pizza place in Queens. The girl was speaking in cliché, saying that we shouldn’t be going in, that it wasn’t our problem. I feel the tug of conscience pulling from either side of the argument. But all the while, insects like the dark-clothed jihadists spread their evil and subject our fellow humans to unimaginable despair, torture, and death. It’s embarrassing to read that in the past couple of weeks, six people have been arrested while attempting to go to Syria for jihad, and the FBI estimates that at least 150 have already gone. Garland, Texas should serve as a wakeup call that the war has arrived inside our borders. Leaders of these fundamentalist organizations are practically begging their adherents to attack military, police, and civilian targets to such a degree that our bases have put personnel on alert. Not content to fight on their own soil, they are committed to bringing the conflict right here.

We all know what happens when you fail to take a cockroach infestation seriously; it raises the possibility of extermination to nearly impossible levels. We need to think hard about what it will take to curb this aggression, both here and in the Middle East. I’m afraid that the choices may feel neither popular nor palatable.

In Memorium…

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Last night, I read yet another report on a blogger being killed. This time it was a man, Evany Jose Metzker, from Brazil who was decapitated for speaking out about political corruption. It stood as a stark reminder of the benefits of living in a free society. The other day, I posted about political correctness and the freedom of speech. This is the flip side of that coin, and it’s disgusting.

Metzker, most recently, had been looking into the operation of a child prostitution organization and posted on his blog Coruja Do Vale. He knew the risks and was aware of the dangers Brazilian bloggers and journalists face. Murder is common. CPJ (Committee to Protect Journalists) Research is on record as saying that 14 journalists have been murdered since 2011. During his career, he’s tackled subjects involving government leaders and politicians. Men and women, like Metzker, must be admired for the service they perform.

The recent killings in Bangladesh are most likely the result of a group called the Defenders of Islam. Ananta Das had been critical in his posts especially on the tenets of fundamentalist religion. He was also an advocate of science and keen on the interpretation of religion against a scientific backdrop. Religious fanatics, especially Islamic extremists, are particularly ruthless and deadly as we see in the increasingly frequent news stories coming from Syria and Iraq. It is hard to imagine the courage it takes for writers like Das and the many who have been murdered in Bangladesh before him in the face of that danger.

In their honor, I have set up a page to remember them. For all who read this post, no matter where in the world you are, if you know of any blogger who’s voice has been silenced, please let me know. I would like to add their names here.

“When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful.” Malala Yousafzai

Write on!

Atheism, a Religious Irony

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There is a fair amount of coverage lately about the decline of religious affiliation in our country. The right wing conservatives of the Republican Party seem to be concerned, as if their constituency is fast disappearing along with the moralistic key holders of hetero-sexual marriage and gun rights. The bible thumping adherents of the middle states must be cringing in their pews.

Well, considering that religion has been the root cause of more death, destruction, and misery over these many millennia, I can’t look upon this recent trend as a bad thing. They say the decline comes in part with the influx of immigrants of non-Christian faiths and the rest as a slacking off from Sunday-morning church attendance to a less caustic spiritual existence (whatever that means).

When I was eight years old, my parents informed me that my father was taking steps to answer his “calling” to enter the priesthood. Sure enough, he disappeared from my life for several years as he worked by day and went to Mercer School of Theology at night with the goal of being ordained in the Episcopal Church (that’s catholic-lite to the R.C.s amongst you or catholic without the guilt). Three years later, I rose from my bed with the flu to witness our bishops administer the laying on of hands at the Cathedral of the Incarnation in Garden City, NY (yes, Episcopalians do have the ‘authority’ of Apostolic Succession). From that day forward I became a PK. Shortly thereafter, we moved into a rectory and began a life that was heavily infused with religion – it was our daily existence. And, I did my part. I trained the acolytes, became a Sunday school teacher, joined the vestry when I was eighteen, and passed the requirements to become licensed as a Lay Reader and a Chalice Administrator. On rare occasions, when my father was sick, I even led the congregation in Morning Prayer. This continued into my adult years.

One day, while showering, I had an epiphany (not of the religious sort) and answered a nagging question: why did I have so much trouble holding my faith? Answer: I never had it in the first place. It was stunning in its simplicity. Something clicked into place at that moment. I realized that most of the teachings of the church didn’t make sense, never did, but I was now free to explore alternatives, and not to stubbornly try for the forced acknowledgment of a faith I didn’t have. I embraced agnosticism for about a month. The exploration ultimately led to atheism.

Now, here’s the irony. The thirty years of religious life, of going to church weekly, if not semi-weekly, of reciting and memorizing countless prayers and creeds never came close to the profound realization I gained from becoming an atheist.

Simply, it is this: imagine, just for a moment that there is no God, that there is no life after death, that your time on earth is truly the only shot you have at living – just picture this for a second. Now imagine how much more the value of a life increases. How much more heinous is a murder, or a war, or neglect of our fellow man given that this is all s/he will ever have. It increases the magnitude of those transgressions beyond understanding. You would no longer be able to suffer life with the thought that it’s all right, that your reward will come after you die. You can no longer take solace in the concept that the evil-doers of the world will suffer an indescribable fate when the Day of Judgment comes. It knocks the system of justice off its well-oiled tracks and trashes thousands of years of assumption. When you free yourself from the constraints that teach against the idea that it’s possible to have evolved into sentient creatures without benefit of a divine magic wand, it liberates your thought process to imagine so many other insightful and meaningful truths.

Atheism taught me this. Atheism taught me to honor the life of every deserving human being. It taught me restraint. It created in me a painful sensitivity to injustice – something which hurts more every day as I read the roundup of news both here and abroad. Take a good hard look at the world – it’s insane and it’s getting worse. Much of it has to do with religion.

Maybe the answer to it all is the paradox of atheism.