THE ETERNAL PERSISTENCE OF THE GOD

                             IDEA

                      BYSY SCHECHTMAN

 

        In the very recent past threebooks with urgent anti Godmessages were publishedby Christopher Hitchens,Sam Harris,andRichard Dawkins, three eminent, respected atheists.Their titles, God Is Not Great---- How Religion Poisons Everything, The End of Faith, and The God Delusion, aptly underscoresthe substance of their message.  And also the exasperation of the rationalist message involved,that humanity, through the continuing progess of scientific knowledge can reason its way to a higher path of enlightenmentthat would at last enable the “lion to lie down with lamb” in the famous pious hope of  the Jewish prophet Isaiah, in an eternalbond of peaceful co-existence.  So far, in the wry wit of the modernliterary satirist Woody Allen, this pious hope,when tried in actual deed has not allowed the lamb to get much sleep.  Science andmodernityhave so far not produced that increased meld of wisdom that allows for a more secure existence.Especially so as we go heisitantly forth on the path of the growing total threat of nuclear proliferation.

       Indeed the blind “faith” in the reality of the cold,             impersonal “oblivion before human birth and the total oblivion after death”in a “God is Dead”world as

have many despairingly pious pundits averred after World War II, did not last long even though the war had caused more total human destruction and despair world wide than ever before.Man is evidently a theocentric individualwho ultimately refuses to believe in the utter randomness and accident of human existenceand that somehow,in Wordsworth’s still immortal words “we come trailing clouds of glory from God, who is our father”or in modern astrophysical poetry, Einstein’s“musicof the spheres”. Einsteinwas not an atheist and in the mathematicalconsonance ofall the major cosmic forces that he observed he divinedthe transcendentharmony and unity of the universe that his E=MC² hypothesis was a major factor in our growing understanding of the the vast seemingly ever expanding cosmos that we inhabit. His threshold understanding of the basic forces that propel the universe, while still beyond human comprehension still left one with a profound reverential feeling.    And that somehow humanity on planet earth was not operatingin a vast,aimless cosmicvoidbut was an integral element in the universal epic of its continuous dynamic evolution.

       Certainly this is the basic thrust of the new book “God Is Back”by Mickelthwait and Wooldridge,editors of that prestigious weekly magazine, the Economist.And they quote very convincing facts to show that the vast majority of people of the world agree.  That most certainly God is not dead.  There are more Bibles and Korans extant than ever before. “Over a hundred million copies of the Bible are sold or givenaway each year…..Annual Bible sales are worth between 425 million and 650 million.   Gideon’s International gives away a Bible every second.The Bible is available in 2,426 languages. Accessible to more than 90 percent of the world’s population.”  The Koran, too, is the most perused book in the Moslem world.  Both holy books, be it noted,are being offered essentiallyin their original rather difficult form;the Bible with all its” begats”   and lengthygeneologies ,and the Koran,which is a much smaller version of Muhammid’s dialogueswith Allah, (God) is constantly recited throughout theMoslem world.   Muhammid was an illiterate,and his conversations with God were dictated to scribes and in the Moslem world daily these most memorable dialogues are continually rehearsed.

       Thus we learn peripherally,dear doting parent,that a good career for your progeny to consider, besides the safe and conventional paths of medicine, dentistry, accounting and law, is being a member of the clergy. The enormous amount of basic religious literature thathas been sold and the innumerable commentaries and explicationsthat many times accompanies the sometimes puzzling meanings of the supposedlybasic word of Godmakes for much expert religious counseling and time spent with the faithful flock.   And as stressful times many times are upon us, such asnow,  wefind many more times the safe snug harbor ofreligious counseling a balm and blessing;that God cares, too.

    More importantly,as Micklethwait and Woolridge stress, is the disestablishment of religiousauthority.The founding fathers, particularly Jefferson and Madison, led the way by statingin theFirst Amendment that “Congress shall make no law regarding theestablishment of religion”.They were well aware of the stagnation of European church life, stultifiedby the rigidityof the official imprimatur of the nation state.With no direct financial aid from a governmental agency American religion remained open and competitive.There are many Protestant sects ranging from strict constuctionist Lutherans to more liberal Episcopalians and Presbyterians with many dynamic Baptists and Methodistsholding more centrist positions.  And the dynamic heart of most of the Christianmovement todayare the Evangelical and Pentecostalsects—the”hot” sects---that have had impressive   growth recently.Strongbelief in the efficacy of prayer and of the “laying on of hands” andeventhe miracle of faith healing are part of theritual ofhope in the prescence of the of the Living God,andinthe world famous Scopes trial
in Tennesee where the Evangelicals scored a Pyrrhic legal victoryenabling them to teach anti evolution theory in the classroom and so become the butt of many“boobs of Tennesee”sneering jokes.Thus Evangelicals and related ardent and perhaps somewhat fanatic sects in Christianitytoday are not the major propelling forces they certainly have great influence in today’s political religious climate.And perhaps an embarrassment to the more sedate older branches mentioned above.    Noteworthy today is the Bob Jones College ofGreenville, South Carolinaa bastion of conservative fundamentalist Christian education.Here George Bush succeeded   in rallyinghis faltering first presidential bid after the Iowa primary ended in defeat.  A crucial week ofinner reflection and politicalstrategy revamping at Bob Jones collegeresulted in a strong reemergence in the primary campaign and dynamicmarch to win the Republican nomination in2000.

       The exact number of Evangelicalsand Pentecoastals in the Christian faith is questionable but not necessarily a worrisome conjecture.  They are certainly a dynamicbut still loyal segment.   Even the Catholic Churchin the open competition for new recruits years ago had priests in welcoming committees at Ellis Island,  the eastern prime portal of entry for European immigrant entry.And when John FitzpatrickKennedy became thefirst Catholic presidenta new level of dynamic country integration  was achieved,, and even transcended now with Barrack Hussein Obama!   Which is to say thatup until now the United States has managed its’ immigrant populations very well--- layering them  like an almost delectable politicalconfection of compatibility, relative cooperation, and nourishing vigor.

       Besides the many “normative” Protestant sects mentioned above the Evangelical and Pentacostal segments make up about another 20 percent of “fringe” Protestants.   The total Catholic populationis somewhat less, and they have severaldivisive views on aspects of the trinity andtheological fundamentals.   The Jews,make up a mere 2 percent of this so called “Judeo Christian culture”----about five to six million people,and the Moslem people,somewhat less.Arab women    world wide, however,are more fecund: culturally and perhaps intellectually, too, many Jewish women prefer higher educationprior to child rearing and hence have less children.  Therefore, soonJewish and Moslem population in the United States will be about equal.But the Moslem total here is stilltoo small to be much of a factor in public policy.  In Israel,however,   Muslims comprise at least 20% of the citizenry nowand in abouttwenty years are expected to be atleast 35% ofthe eligible voters.   This is the worst scenario imaginable for the so called “ Jewish State”.  Toaccommodate a voting bloc so large would be to negate many of the cherished wishes ofthe now diminished Jewish majority.   Most probablythe Moslims will tend to vote as a bloc,  while the fractious Jews already have six viable dissenting segments---Reform, Chassidic, Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructonist.!

The wry joke is that the “Reconservdox” position resulting in a Jewish political compromisewith the burgeoning Moslem minoritywill be very “reform” indeed!  At best the idea of an autonomous Jewish State would be much mired by unacceptable compromise that might make a mockery of the Zionist ideal of anIsrael secure in its borders when still surrounded by enemy states still vowing to “drive the Jews into the sea”.

       In essence MIckelthwaite and   Woolddridgesee Christianity and Islam in competition for world supremacy in the sphere of world spirituality.  Hinduism and Buddhismwhile significant do not strive for such preeminence.  The two western faiths evolved from the original Jewish spiritual template of ethical monotheism,evolving in different ways to attract millions of devoted people beyond their original divine inspiration.  Almost eons ago Islam was a dynamic force,conquering a good part of the civilized world,even into southern and central Europe in the middle ages.  Today it is like a spent force, living mainly on the “dole” of the oil revenues they have by the blessings of fortunate geography.  But despite the blessings of oil the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the ArabLeague, with about three hundred million people is about the same size as that of Spain.Tiny postage stamp neighboring Israel has the 44th GDPin the world,probably 50 times that of the Arab League andhas only 7.5 million people, including its Arab Israeli citizens.

       There are positive forces, however, making the Muslim position more tenable.The large mass of Moslems outside the middle East—mostly more moderate Sunni tribes—about 80% of all Muslims and not the more radical Shia groups of Iran, Lebanon, Syria, and the Levant.   Attempting to face and master modern technology and also the inferior status of women and very poorly educated children.  And over the last century Islam has grown remarkably, keeping pace with the equally rapid growth of Christianity world wide.(Now about two billion Christians to one and half billion Moslems).  But we all aware of the sometimes lethal dregs of extremismthat can distortthe thrust of change and progress and the holistic, positive Idea of God.    The jihad of 9/11/01and the indiscriminate suicide bombings, and   virulent anti Semitismof Iranianmullahs and Ahminedinejad,the president who was just very dubiouslyreelected, continuing to vow to “wipe the Jews from the face of the earth”.    Indeed, besides Israels’ rather measured response, we have now renewed talk of the “clash of civilizations” and   “Islamofacsism” And heightened demands to stop Iran’s bomb development before it is too late, even of encouraging, surreptiously,a repeat of Israel’s solo l981 bomb strike,then roundly condemned.   In some grim, sardonic way the Jews may have been backed into a corner,politically and religiously,and may in desperation have the thought and promise of atomic destruction as their last but worst hope.  

       Their best hope, andhumanity’s,is some sort of messianic age as in the Torah, when we remember the brotherhood of man and that we were all created in the image ofGod.  Failing allthose ultimate pious thoughts  how do we craft a more workablecommunity of nations whichcondones religiousdifference but not at the expense of peaceful dissent?