Machiavellian

Sorry for the delay, had some school work to get through, exams and what not.

Okay, so back to the story.

I want to go back to a specific quote:

There is no surer sign of decay in a country than to see the rites of religion held in contempt.
Niccolo Machiavelli

Now, if we remember from part one, there is a particular theme that comes from the Founding Fathers, the Framers of the Constitution, and the early development of the U.S.  Namely, believe what you would like to believe, but the government is secular.  The fact that freedom of religion exists, Constitutionally, and is worded as:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

This tells us that there are probably a number of ways that this can be viewed.  Respectfully, there should be a number of ways to view it.  Of those views, perspectives, one mostly certainly is that because there is to be no law “respecting an establishment”, those of us, of the godless variety, should feel no pressure from any governmental agency, institution, program, etc., that shows any signs of pushing a particular agenda of religion or religious faith.  Unfortunately, as is noticeable from P1., this isn’t the case.  There are a number of manners for individuals of agenda to influence government involvement, or seemingly, to dissuade government action also.   Under the Constitutional Authority, the behavior in Texas of forcing particular non-academic, faith driven revisions of the U.S. history is a direct violation of the First Amendment.

Naturally, it would follow that non-faith driven people would get a bit sphincter pinched about it.  Not surprising.  The problem though, has become one of continual escalation, and with it, the emotional conflagration on both sides.  Namely, emotion to the point that logic is lost.

The point of religion in society has to be made; and I believe Machiavelli already made it clear in his works.  If you’re interested, here is where you can find the reasoning behind his thoughts.  To any discerning mind, and anyone who hasn’t been a complete plebe and buried their head in the sand, has read history as they should have, it is just rather plain.

To get a more complete picture, we have to go visit that brilliant mind of a friend of mine, Tabula Rasa, and get our heads around some Game Theory.  He says it’s a 101 course, hrmmm, maybe not for everyone, but if you take the time to read it, he’ll illuminate the necessity of religion in society.  We humans, really like to think ourselves overmuch complicated and have an odd tendency to be overwhelmingly amazed with our kind.  Honestly, not so much, no.  Another stop on the journey to understanding is Jonah Lehrer’s book, “How We Decide“.

So in short, here’s the list, a good time to get busy on it was a few yesterdays ago, but if you haven’t, well, no time like the present either:

1. History of major world civilisations
2. Machiavelli, the Discourses of the First Ten Books of Titus Livy
3. Game Theory
4. Basic neurology of human decisions and thought

I can hear the groaning and wailing across the internets; “Why should I read all that shit?  I don’t have time for this, I have a life.”

::ping::

Guess what?  That is exactly the purpose of religion in society.  The majority of the human population doesn’t know, doesn’t want to know, doesn’t care and doesn’t have any desire to expend the energy to understand.  So what does religion do for the masses?  Simple; comfort, cohesion, identity and oversimplification.  All the major players of the human social brain.  There’s no point in my playing it all out, it would take more pages than the blog can afford, and I’ve given you your best starting points.

So what does this mean for the atheist, the godless, the agnostic?  A lot.  Primarily, of the “get over yourself” style.  If you have no beliefs, like myself, then be content with your own world view, cosmic view, hell, just the view of your own backyard.  The beauty of the U.S. Constitution is that we have that ability; to observe and dismiss, observe and take action, observe and whine, whinge and groan while stuffing another bag of high sodium, cholesterol saturated chips down our gullet while swilling in Coke or Pepsi’s latest diabetes inducing swill; all from the comfort of our sofa bought with debt credit payments at 22.9% interest that we have no money to .

Am I saying there aren’t battles to be fought?  No, I’m not.  The Texas example is one such battle that needs to be fought.  But, how about we try a more pragmatic path to the end result.  Don’t attack the people or their foundations, they really don’t know any other way in which to operate.  It is their understanding.  How about we push a movement that not only puts academics at the forefront, but, (wait for it ….. wait for it …..), ::gasp:: leaves room open for the students to decide; or, Holy Shit, forces them to take the time to research on their own and draw their own most reasonable conclusions?  Maybe stop dealing in absolutes, especially where history and beliefs are concerned, pull our collective heads out of our collective social asses and say, “This is what I understand, and we will have to agree to disagree”?

There’s two major points to religion in society; it gives the masses something to hold onto, which gives them the comfort to operate within their in-group that they most desperately need/desire, and in that holding onto, gives society a general overall cohesiveness that we all need, to continue to be a society that is not part of the historical record, yet.

Religion as part of government is not wise, it promotes power struggles based on belief, and if the history of England and the Roman Catholic Church have taught the world nothing else, it is that governing bodies run by holy men, corrupt far too easily, and have the ability to generate too much power.  So we have the Constitution, and should pay a bit more attention to the voices of the past, as well as the few sane voices of today, and realise, religion is for society; not government.  But those same voices will tell you, religion isn’t going anywhere, and wars of belief, well, I’ll let Hitler, Stalin, the Crusaders, and the Muslims finish that off.

Ancient Rome was as confident of the immutability of its world and the continual expansion and improvement of the human lot as we are today.
Arthur Erickson

But, history never repeats.