This has been a fascinating course for me. I think my husband has begun to dread my appearance at his office door, textbook in hand, as I launch into yet another rant about the appalling things done to society in the name of religion. The treatment of women has been something I have found particularly challenging. How is it that humanity has moved so far from the peaceful matriarchal societies and religions of ancient times? I was struck by the similarities between ancient Sparta and the Salem witch hunts and trials. I realized that the similarity might not be immediately apparent, but the textbook readings about ancient Sparta’s vile practices were, for me, an overwhelming example of evil and, particularly, evil that focused on the weak. Spartan women existed only for the sexual whims of Spartan men. Helot women could be raped at any time. Babies could be tossed from cliffs to end an inconvenient life. It was a religion of abuse that seems to have celebrated all that is cruel and barbaric in the worst of the human condition. Likewise, the Salem episode was cruel and barbaric. Yes, the accussers were women, but the accussed were mostly women, and the authorities that carried out the trials and the punishments were men. Men got to strip women naked and examine their bodies. Men got to prick them with pins. Men were duty bound to torture them into confession. Those men, it seems to me, stepped out of Sparta and into Salem. Same attitude, different outfits.
I have also been struck by the attempts of the weak to elevate themselves or separate themselves from oppressive social institutions by creating or adhering to religions that set them apart from the status quo. From the little vissionaries of Marpingen, to the Cathars, or heavy metal hierophany, the alienated and oppressed have so often sought to answer the big questions by developing their own belief systems. Yet the sad part is that those attempts to answer the questions are always crushed by opportunism. Marpingen was crushed by Bismark and the Catholic church, and heavy metal, while still raging, makes millions for its merchandising, record producing elite. It was a good try, but the leeches even got to Ozzy in the end.
If I can be entirely personal in this part of my answer, I would say that this course has given me a great chance to examine the belief systems I was raised in. I was raised Roman Catholic, a faith I rejected long ago, but I’ve never really sat down and thought about the fear that religion caused in me. This course made me do that. I had to answer questions that caused me to remember the horrific bloody portraits on my grandmother’s wall, and the whispered threats of the priests and nuns who taught in my Catholic elementary and high school. I was always afraid. Afraid of the God I had disrespected by not eating fish on a Friday, afraid that I hadn’t fasted long enough before taking communion on a Sunday, and afraid, most of all, that I had unwittingly committed a mortal sin that guaranteed my place in hell. What a terrible thing to do to a child. I’m really glad I’ve had a reason to rethink it all. I think we need to do some health rexamining in order to truly understand the negative impact certain things continue to have in our lives.
I’m also increasingly fascinated by the reality of faith in all its forms. I know that for many religious observance is a habit, and in many parts of the world religious activity is diminishing. However, religion/spirituality is still alive and kicking. Indeed, who could have imagined the place religion would take in the twenty-first century with the polarizing events surrounding militant Isalm and the political activities of the Christian right? As much as society might wish that science had provided all the answers, people are still looking for something else. There is a heartcry in the human condition that seems to say there has to be more. There has to be more to life, and there has to be more after death. Why that is and how that will continue to develop is something that has really challenged me during this course.
Religous opportunism is real and it has had a real impact on my life. I am glad to have escaped its clutches, but I don’t want to think it could never happen to me again. We humans can be terribly gullible.