I’ve often stated that when it comes to religion, I am a Buddhist student of Christian theology who has been blessed by Muslims, Jains and Hindus. Someone on Tremertitus described my situation as messed up and a few people have suggested to me that my I’m destined for hell and that my lack of material success is down to my inability to devote myself exclusively to a single God.
I think of this as a blessing. My experiences with people of
different creeds has made me understand that there is yet to be a single faith
with a monopoly on virtuous people and no religion has a monopoly of arseholes.
I’ve often said that the best and worst paymasters I’ve had were both Tamil and
Catholic. I’ve noticed that the Almighty tends to come to us in different forms.
For me, while I will bow to Hindu, Buddhist and Taoist statues as much as I
cross myself every time, I pass a church, I tend to see the presence of the
almighty as a guidance rather than an active player. Prayer is an act to
assurance.
It’s not the same for everyone else. For the entrepreneur I
married, prayer is the seeking of blessings in business. For others, God is a
doctor and a banker. I’ve heard that people experience cures from things that
the doctors had described as incurable. The Old Rogue used to say, “We are more
than just a collection of atoms,” and you can’t write off everything as
mumbo-jumbo.
Having said that, I do believe that there are professions
where God should not enter. I’ve stated previously and I’ll never tire of saying
it, God should not be in real estate. Just look at the insolvable issue between
Israel and Palestine. Two groups of people which share so many similarities have
been unable to settle a land dispute for nearly a century because they were
under the impression that God was a real estate broker for certain parts of the
desert.
The second profession where God should not enter is of
course, politics. If you look at human history, you will notice that God does
not exactly have the best of records when it comes to politics. OK, I’m saying
that I think that politician should be without faith. I do believe that faith
can help make a person better and as having good people in politics is imperative.
What I do object do is you have people coming into office on
the grounds that they are God’s exclusive agents on earth. The problem with
that is that the people who usually come in on the ground of being “God’s
Exclusive,” have a way of ensuring that they do everything else except what you’d
imagine God would want them to do.
Take the world’s most prominent theocracy as an example. Iran
has a dual system of government where there is an elected president and
parliament. However, the elected portion of government is subordinate to the
guys who are nominally chosen by God. Iran’s presidents are all limited by term
limits. The Supreme Leader stays for life and pretty much nothing gets done in
Iran without the permission of the Supreme leader. So, despite being filled
with highly educated and rational people, Iran remains unable to interact with
the wider world because, well God’s agents don’t see the need to.
Once again, arseholes are not limited to a single religion.
Buddhist Burma has been involved one of the worst human rights abuses of all
times with massacre of the Rohingya population. In Israel, the Sha’s party of
extreme Orthodox Jews prevents any form of intelligent settlement with the
Palestinians.
One of my favourite examples of why we need to keep God of politics
is in America, where the current President has chosen to have a rather
interesting spiritual advisor. This is woman is called Paula White..
To be fair to Paula White, she has a nice rag to riches story.
She is in her own words “trailer-park trash” and somehow, she found God, wealth
and the ear of the most powerful man in the world. The other thing that you can
say about Paula White is that she’s pretty in a “trashy” sort of way (eye-candy
might be the politically correct term) and looks presentable in a dress:
However, that’s probably as far as it should go. If you listen to this woman with a rational mind and consider the fact that the world’s most powerful man takes spiritual guidance from her, you’d end up rushing to cave and hiding in the hope that the end of the world will happen soon and swiftly.
This woman tells people that the ground she steps on makes
things Holy. She, has, apparently been given the authority by God himself to
make the grounds she walks on Holy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5hWPfJTz38
When the election results were called against the Donald, Ms. White proceeded to launch a sermon accusing demonic forces of rigging the election and summoned angels from Africa and South America to sort things out (theologically wrong – summoning angels is God’s job not an individuals and angels live in heaven not in Africa or South America – though an African pastor in another video did suggest that she needed African angels because the American ones ate too many hamburgers and were too sluggish to do anything).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4daeEacIVI
I’m not against people having faith or a relationship with
God and politicians can choose who they pray to. However, when you’re talking
about someone who has the ear of the most powerful man on the planet, it’s a different
story, particularly when the world is in the midst of a pandemic and the
country in question has by far and away the world’s worst number of cases. It’s
a situation that requires rational and scientific solutions rather than someone’s
conversation with angels and demons.
It’s like the Malaysian Bomoh (witch doctor) who went on TV to
declare that elves and demonic spirits made MH370 vanish. Sure, what this guy is
saying is funny in a dark humour sort of way but it was totally unhelpful and
it doesn’t help that there are people who listen and believe this stuff. The
only benefit that the world had at the time was that the aviation authorities
did not hire him to be a consultant.
I’m all for politicians being believers. However, we need to
remember that we live on the material plane where things like facts matter. Ironically
enough, it was another so called “theocracy” that understood this. When
Covid-19 struck, Saudi Arabia took steps to suspend Umrah and Haj Pilgrimages
despite the economic benefits to Saudi Arabia (second largest revenue after
oil) and political implications for the ruling family. Can you imagine how much
worse the situation would have been if the millions who normally attend the Haj
had been allowed to mingle and spread the virus because they thought God would
protect them from the virus?
In the middle of a pandemic, you do not need a snake oil
version of God trying to convince people that they have magic powers. This is how
you undo God’s work of making life on earth better for all mankind.
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