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An Open Letter to Tom White by Glen Allport “I
believe that it is a clash of religions, not of civilizations, and I
don’t mean Christian against Islamist but God-fearer
against Unbeliever. The latter, by definition is always in the service
of the Anti-Christ. And I further fear that our awful regime, while
flying the false flag of Christianity and conservatism, is in fact a
Mammonite show from top to bottom and as about as Christian as Nero –
worse than Nero, in fact, because at least Nero wasn’t a hypocrite
calling himself a Christian.” (Bold
added) -- One
of 300 Million Takes a Stand by Tom White
Dear
Mr. White: I
have enjoyed your writing at LewRockwell.com
in the past and was certainly with you through most of your “300
Million” column. How any sane or compassionate person could be opposed
to Cindy Sheehan and her message of peace is beyond me, and I
appreciated your speaking out on the issue. But
then, in your final paragraph, you lost me when you suggested that I was
somehow working for the Anti-Christ. I beg to differ: plenty of us who
do not fear your god are, in fact, decent human beings working for love,
compassion, and freedom. More
than my feelings are at issue here, Mr. White. To end evil and tyranny
in this world, the two of us will need some help. So far, thousands of
years of work by members of numerous religions, philosophies, and
movements have failed in this regard. In the Twentieth Century,
government regimes – with and without the claimed blessing of your god
– murdered perhaps 180 million people, in addition to killing millions
more in war. Dr. R. J. Rummel at the University of Hawaii was able to
find “only” about 133 million government murders (plus war, of
course) in all of previous human history, so our approach has not worked
well so far – the pace of government murder, at least, has increased
dramatically. (Death
by Government, 1997). Given
the size of the problem, alienating your natural allies seems
counterproductive. You seem genuine in your desire for a better world,
and I ask you to consider that “Unbelievers” may in fact be decent
human beings who are no more likely to support evil or tyranny than are
members of your own church. Perhaps
we are using different definitions for “Unbeliever.” It is true that
I do not believe in the supernatural, which makes it impossible for me
to believe in a supernatural deity; I am a complete Doubting Thomas on
that score. As a teen and as a young adult, I had a chip on my shoulder
about this because I grew up in the American Midwest, surrounded by
professed Christians who were, in many cases, racists or bullies. Others
were merely cynical or vaguely mean-spirited. In all, not many of the
Christians I knew seemed to follow Christ’s teachings, which –
according to Jesus, at least – come down to this (from The Gospel According to Saint John, quoting Jesus): Having
spent years going to Sunday School and sitting through sermons at
various Methodist churches, I knew that Jesus taught other things as
well – followers would live forever in some fashion after death, for
example, which never sounded possible or even appealing to me, and which
I thought of as among the symbolic, non-literal parts of the Bible. It
did seem clear, and not only from John It
is that core belief, Mr. White, that I find of value in Jesus’
teaching and in other religions as well. Surely, whether a supernatural
heaven and an afterlife exist or not, much of Jesus’ teaching was
aimed at bringing more love to the everyday world of the here-and-now.
Indeed, some of Jesus’ teaching suggests that one way to see the
“kingdom of heaven” is as an emotionally healthy world, here on Earth. Jesus makes this point very directly (to me, anyway)
in a well known passage in Luke: While
I cannot believe in the supernatural, I am a “believer” in the
brotherhood of man. I can expand on that a bit with a favorite quotation
from “All
men are brothers and each man is free.” --
The
Discovery of Freedom,, 1943 Lane’s
comment acknowledges one of the most
important dualities in human life. Love comes from our sense of
connection with others (fostered in the earliest months and years of
life), while our need for freedom reflects the truth that we are
individuals. If
we were rocks, “freedom” would involve only being left alone;
because we are all brothers and sisters, it must also involve
compassion. It
is that last bit which confuses coercive socialists of all types: they
believe, wrongly, that compassion can be imposed at gunpoint -- but that
is another discussion. Back to whether I am a potential ally for you or
a tool of the Anti-Christ: The
sentiments I have expressed about love and freedom seem, to me,
perfectly deserving of the term “belief.” I do not begrudge others a
belief in a supernatural god or an afterlife, but I cannot see why such
things are necessary in order to believe in love and freedom. We
feel compassion and respect for others when
we are emotionally healthy enough to do so, not because of any philosophical
or religious teaching we may have had. This is why so many
Christians behave in un-Christian fashion, and why others who have never
been formally taught to “love their neighbor” do so anyway: loving
one’s neighbor is natural and healthy, not something which must be
taught. My dog loves
everyone he meets, and he’s never once been to church; humans are the
same way (in a much expanded fashion, of course) if
given the love and respect they need early in life. Those
who need formal teaching on this score are unlikely to learn the lesson
well – which, I believe, is why Christian and other religious
exhortations to “love one another” have not had more effect. In
other words: If you need to be told
to love others, you probably can’t. This
understanding put Jesus’ teachings in a new light for me; it isn’t
that the message of love is wrong – it certainly isn’t – but
rather that telling adults to change how they feel
about others can only have so much effect. Helping newborns,
infants, and children to get the love and respect they need will, I
believe, be far more useful in the long run. This
factor explains much of what you talk about and allude to in your “300
Million” column. In particular, it explains how millions of Christians
can support the church-going George Bush and his occupation of Alice
Miller, especially in For
Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence,
has shown that much of the evil in this world is largely caused,
abetted, and enabled by widespread cruelty and abuse to children, who
then grow up angry and hateful, all too eager to inflict abuse upon
others. This includes epic examples, as with the Nazi holocaust, the
multi-nation Marxist holocaust, or the (far smaller in scope) Spanish
Inquisition. Yet even in the worst of these episodes, some people are
willing to risk their lives to help the victims. These are not always
self-professed Christians or members of other religions – many of whom
are, instead, collaborating with the oppressors. Indeed, one can find
heroes and villains in both
camps, among believers and among those who do not believe in the
supernatural. Here is what Miller has to say about this phenomenon: We
admire people who oppose the regime in a totalitarian country and think
they have courage or a “strong moral sense” or have remained “true
to their principles” or the like. We may also smile at their naiveté,
thinking, “Don’t they realize that their words are of no use at all
against this oppressive power? That they will have to pay dearly for
their protest?” Yet
it is possible that both those who admire and those who scorn these
protesters are missing the real point: individuals who refuse to adapt
to a totalitarian regime are not doing so out of a sense of duty or
because of naiveté but because they cannot help but be true to
themselves. The longer I wrestle with these questions, the more I am
inclined to see courage, integrity, and a capacity for love not as
“virtues,” not as moral categories, but as the consequences of a
benign fate. (pp. 84 – 85) The
“benign fate” Miller is talking about is simply a warm, loving early
life, which strengthens one’s sense of compassion and connection to
others. It makes almost no difference whether someone “fears god” or is
otherwise a believer in the supernatural. What counts, if you are
interested in love and freedom, is whether people were raised with love and respect -- starting from birth and even before. With
enough of that, we will have a
loving and respectful world – a world of compassion and freedom. Without
enough love and respect early in each new life, our efforts will
continue to fail. I
can support your efforts to bring more compassion and freedom into the
world, despite not sharing your belief in a supernatural god. I hope you
can support mine. We will need as many freedom-minded and compassionate
allies as possible, working together, to bring about the change needed
to save this world. Sincerely, Glen Allport
discuss this column in the forum Glen Allport maintains http://paradise-paradigm.org
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