Thoughts On God, Faith and Nation in this Election Year

For persons who think and act without doubt, with the belief in the righteousness of their acts— in short, with their faith in “God” — they do so in a manner that is only consistent with their deepest, most selfish interests.

This is my firmly held belief: that our highest morals are merely shared selfish interests.

In short, the faith in a god who sanctifies our acts, is nothing more than the profoundest rationalization of our claims unto this world, our belief in our dominion over it, and justification of our selfish right to act as we see fit.

But beyond this personal rationalization of our highest beliefs, I see something much more sinister. Indeed, the belief in a god galvanizes and protects our selfish interests by binding us to other persons who believe in the one and very same god and ideology. And as a singular Family under this one Father, do we not we feel ourselves a stronger group, a stronger nation — one for fighting and repelling our enemies?

And is it not easier to sustain this ideology if everyone of us within the tribe subscribes to it? Is it not better to rid ourselves of the doubting Thomases who would erode the firmness of our shared beliefs?

I will tell you that most likely this concept of “god” — and the underlying proclivities for this belief — have evolved over a millennia due to the constant murderous habits of man against man upon this Earth. The “god” instinct has been born from War— sculpted by bloodshed and evolution. And as nations are born from gods and ideologies, nations are made to secure us against our enemies like a castle’s moat. This is a thing we all intuitively understand: there is safety in numbers.

And because both “gods” and “nations” bind us together as a people, it is for this reason that in America we confound the concepts of “church” and “state.” On the one hand, the “state” consists of our neighbors, our humble citizens — a “state” is a people bound together seeking to communally defend its borders against intruders. And likewise with our “church”, we are born unto one family, under one God—we are one flock seeking to avoid the sinners and murderous wolves at our perimeter.

As Americans, we can see that the seeds of this misidentification of church and state, are sown into our earliest memories as school children. When we recite the ‘Pledge of Allegiance’ we are given the words:

“I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

Perhaps this is why a country with the principle of separation of church and state written into the Constitution made the mistake of invoking ‘god’ and ‘nation’ in the very same pledge. It is because both God and Nation are binding forces for a people.

But we must remember that America was founded upon peoples seeking religious freedom. The pilgrims that originally came to the new world were escaping religious intolerance from the Church Of England and were seeking to practice their own beliefs. It is written into our American constitution the idea that church should not interfere in matters of the state. Quite simply, the founders who grew out of this persecuted minority feared that a new state and a new church could become one entity. In short, they feared that this very entity might set in motion the same religious intolerance that was endured in the old world.

But unfortunately, as Americans, we have forgotten this most important of principles entirely.

The problem at its core is this: as a unified, fighting nation, who amongst us is ready to speak against our ideas held most sacred? Is not the enemy we slay in battle always the demon, the evildoer, the one who speak lies and slanders our way of life? Is there anything more self-righteous than our feelings when engaged against the naysayer, the cynic, the unbeliever in our “truths”? Is there any greater rationalization than that which comes in the propaganda against the enemy?

The problem, in short, is, we are genetic lying machines — we lie to ourselves constantly about our righteousness. But anyone, or any minority, or opposing party, who dares tell us we are wrong, in our estimation, threatens the bonds of our nation. So, in essence, in order to be unified, in some way we have to squash the truth, and the truth is squashed to the exact degree that this truth impugns our belief system.

But then how can we ever speak the Truth, if it is perceived that Truth threatens Unity?

I ask you what American would contemplate that Samuel Adams was possibly a rabble-rouser who intimidated business people to support the tea party in defiance of Great Britain and against their own Free Will? Were they blackmailed into supporting the revolution?

Who amongst us as Americans is willing to say that John Quincy Adams was possibly a coward who ran away from battle when Paul Revere rode to spread his warning that the Red Coats had invaded?

And most treasonous of all — a thing that forms the very basis for the American Revolution —what American is willing to consider that taxation without representation was justified in the case of the American colony? What American amongst us is willing to suppose that after Great Britain had paid for the French-Indian war to protect the fledgling colony, it only sought to deny colonists the vote because it believed them certain to vote against higher taxes, regardless of their debt, and out of their own selfish interest? I ask you, was the American Revolution the greatest act of ‘civil disobedience’ or an act of simple, pure selfishness?

And would you ostracize a man for the above beliefs as a patriotic American? Would you jail him if his ideas and his use of ‘freedom of speech’ threatened the very force that binds a nation together, i.e., a binding faith, a unifying belief in the righteousness of our ideas and deeds and history?

You see built into every man is a strong instinct to protect and conserve— a kind of xenophobia which seeks to alienate non-believers.

Just as no man chooses the nation he is born into, none of us ever chooses our faith and belief in God. But rather something is coded into our very DNA and expressed as blind instinct. Regardless of whether we shall be born with doubt and skepticism in our bosom or whether we shall be confident, extroverted, and positive in mindset, this idea that we ‘choose’ between good and evil is a kind of heresy for today’s science. If we believe in evolution, if we believe that DNA is the code of life, if we believe that our instincts guide us and are written into structures in the brain by this genetic code, then how can we ignore physics and biology and assume that this thinking brain is some how free from the animal within us? Simply speaking, we cannot. We do not freely choose our actions. We are animals bound by nature. And when instinct comes up against the machinations of intellect, in the great majority of times, our animal nature wins. No high words of wisdom in a song, can ever seduce like a sweet melody. The melody intoxicates without effort. But words need to be deciphered before they can make their impact.

If a man is given to empathy and doubt, then perhaps he becomes a man of Science or Art looking to balance truth with heart. But if a man is without doubt and misgivings, and most importantly lacks empathy for his fellow man —or more insidiously, withholds his empathy from those he considers not his peers— then perhaps this man becomes an advocate, a partisan, a man comfortable inculcating persons with his own beliefs, and forever searching out compatriots of like mind.

And who amongst us is most capable of leading this God-inspired majority? Of course only those who are the greatest of sociopaths willing to tell the Group the severest of lies upon which they can feed.

And these lies are always about race—the mathematics of blood relation. The demagogues feed the hungry herd with untruths that speak to the depths of their Unconscious. The demagogues say: eschew people who do not look like you, for they are not family and not fit to be part of this nation. In short, they say: do not waste your charity on the man who is not your brother.

It is always the same rhetoric—because other Men are the thing that scare Men the most.