The Drowning Anabaptist and the Slave

Last week I talked about the first scientists and the Renaissance, which led to the Enlightenment. That was a beautiful time in the 18th century when the great thinkers of the day started to promote reason and individualism over tradition. People began to question the control of the Catholic church and the absolute powers of the monarchy. In fact, people began to question EVERYTHING, which led to good things like the toppling of slavery, free speech, and religious and political tolerance.

You are likely thinking, "Yeah, so what?" Well, the Enlightenment had a major impact on a new nation on the other side of the pond and it greatly influenced the U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence.

People have acted surprised at me for being a liberal and still being patriotic. I love my country because it was founded on idealism and the person I love most is Thomas Jefferson. Yeah, he had his faults but he represents the values and ideals that make me a proud American. I proudly fly a U.S. flag in my front yard, in honor of Jefferson and the other founding fathers.

But what happened to America? The answer is the same old crap that was going on in 17th and 18th century France. The people were poor, the people were taxed, and the aristocrats and Roman Catholic Church paid no taxes, and held all the power. And like in this country now, the church and nobility were in bed together, and as a team they screwed over the peasants. That was at least until the French Revolution began and the guillotine went into action.

In Comes Voltaire

Voltaire is my fourth favorite person in history, after Daniel Quinn, Teddy Roosevelt, and Jesus. If I need a role model it would have to be him. He is the most famous writer of the Age of Enlightenment and he taught me that it's not only okay to stand up against institutionalized religion and the 1 percenters, but it's essential that I do. Voltaire opposed the decaying institutions of his day and for that he was physically beaten, imprisoned, and exiled. I especially love the guy because like me, he loved satire and wit, and those were his primary weapons.

Voltaire also set the standard because he loved science and was a fan of Sir Isaac Newton, and even became sort of like his PR person. You know the story about the apple falling on Newton's head? Yep, Voltaire came up with that. The idea was to present science in a way people could understand. Voltaire was also anti-war.

Candide

The most famous book from the most famous author of the Enlightenment is Candide, a satirical novel that gives European society a hard bitch slap. The book is dark and edgy and in a weird sort of way it describes my life. It starts out with Candide, the main character, living a sheltered life in a castle. He falls for his cousin Cunégonde and is caught kissing her, which leads to his eviction from the castle. He then travels around the world and has a series of adventures, where he sees the dark side of humanity and the apparent indifference of God.

To me, the most chilling scene in the book is when he is in South America and comes across a black sugar plantation slave. He is wondering why the slave has no hand or leg, and the slave replies, "When we work at the sugar-canes, and the mill snatches hold of a finger, they cut off the hand; and when we attempt to run away, they cut off the leg; both cases have happened to me." And that, he said, is the price he must pay so that Europeans can eat sugar.

In today's situation, where the coronavirus has completely shaken our delicate society, I see how the wealthy are doing just fine while millions of working class people are now facing eviction or foreclosure.  Something is terribly wrong.

The main theme of Candide is to challenge the "optimism" movement promoted by Voltaire's contemporaries, most notably Gottfried Wilhem von Leibniz.

In the book, Candide's tutor, Dr. Pangloss, repeatedly says that all is for the best in this "best of all possible worlds." In one section of the book Lisbon is wiped out by a terrible earthquake, which also causes a tsunami and great fire. This event really happened in 1755 and Voltaire put it in his novel. It makes one wonder why God is so indifferent and even cruel to humanity. During the Lisbon disaster, a generous and virtuous Anabaptist man dies, while a wicked sailor, who steals money, gets drunk, and buys a hooker, gets to live. Where is the justice in that?

I would say that the book and the characters were not pessimistic, but in the end they definitely become realists and get a sobering reality check, which is NOT "the best of all possible worlds."

Solutions

One thing that troubles me about my two favorite authors — Daniel Quinn and Voltaire — is that they point out the problems but don't offer solutions. Perhaps the answer is that there is NO solution for society's ills. The only thing I see that works is to create a highly educated citizenry and to encourage young people to think critically, which is what Napoleon actually did. It's strange that we are losing this idea in the United States, but, you see, the wealthy people who are in control WANT a dumbed down population that provides cheap labor and doesn't question.

If there is any hope for our civilization it's in the people who have socially mutated and have decided to break out of the cultural cages that they are placed into at birth. In my personal experience I received all the religious and cultural indoctrination from my parents, church, and influential people in my life. But I realized something was horribly wrong and I began to question.

In reading through Candide I looked for the magic bullet that would solve all the world's ills and maybe Voltaire, in his incredible brilliance, DID put the answer in his book. You see, in the end, Candide marries Cunégonde and, along with his friends, they settle on a small farm and become co-op farmers. So, BOOM, the lightbulb went on in my head today and I believe that's one solution to our broken and sick society. We could live together in small groups, farm together, and lead a more simplistic life. This also ties in with Daniel Quinn's idea of the "Leavers," who are people outside the dominant culture, and who are living sustainably.

I now see this as a dream for myself and the world, where we turn our yards into gardens and focus on relationships and outdoor activities instead of the hell-world that we have created for ourselves. You know, the world that puts us on antidepressants, alcohol, and makes us obese, or even makes us commit suicide. Candide got to see that the world isn't so pretty outside the castle walls.

Religion

So, where was God during the Lisbon earthquake or when the sugar plantation slave was getting his hand and leg chopped off? Voltaire was a deist, who believed that God set the world in motion and then left us to our fate. And despite the Christian Right's efforts to rewrite history, several of our main founding fathers were deists too, including John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Ben Franklin. It's even believed that George Washington was more of a deist than an Anglican, based on his refusal to receive communion during his adult life.

Now, here we are today and the religious leaders can't seem to make up their minds about the coronavirus. I've heard some religious people say it's punishment for pornography and fornication, and another pastor said God is using it to teach us about community. Still other religious folks say that it's "pestilence" and a sign of the Tribulation. If it is a warning sign about the end times, why couldn't God have just called the Pope instead? Rather, he is primarily allowing the elderly to die, and these are some of his biggest supporters. It doesn't make a lick of sense to me and I don't buy the "God works in mysterious ways" crap. The sad thing is that after the "shelter in place" order is lifted, people will return to their churches and continue singing about how wonderful God is.

According to Barna, a research group that studies religious and cultural trends, about 3,500 people in the U.S. leave their church every day, and nine churches close down per day. This doesn't make me happy; it makes me somber. If American churches could reinvent themselves and actually follow the teachings of Christ for once, they could have a future role in our society.

Voltaire did take some serious jabs at Christianity, Islam, and Judaism during his lifetime, but he was a staunch defender of religious tolerance. He also believed that religion was necessary to maintain social order, since many people are incapable of reasoning and incapable of self-knowledge and self-control. So, from this perspective, religion fills the gap for those who are unable to think critically.

I know that Soviet Collectivism didn't go well after the Russian Revolution but maybe there is a better way to do it. Maybe Jesus and his disciples provided the model on how to do it right all along. I hope that during the virus lockdown time we all have time to reflect on how we really want to live because the way we were doing it before Covid 19 was a social and ecological disaster. Maybe it's time for the Second Enlightenment.

Note:
Other key figures in the Enlightenment include Jean-Jacques Rousseau and John Locke. I encourage you to read up on these great thinkers.

Sources:
The Founding Fathers' Religious Wisdom, by Nicholas Rathod, Center for American Progress
The Founding Fathers, Deism, and Christianity, by David L. Holmes, Encyclopedia Britannica
Why People Walk Away From Church, by Dan Foster, Medium.com
Voltaire, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Photo: Dee Kay

I

Two million years ago I was living in the open grasslands of Kenya, making stone tools and eating zebras. Then, the next thing I know I'm a Druid priest living in Wales in 57 AD. and the Romans say they are disgusted by me. Okay, the magic and soothsaying are bad enough, but they are horrified about us sacrificing criminals and war prisoners. Okay, I get it. Our women served in the military, which really freaked the Roman soldiers out as well. We stood there, in the Menai Straits, ready to defend our country, and we were promptly massacred. Yes, I know, bad ending.

At 210 million years ago I was a morganucodon, and most people would insist I was a shrew. Little did I know that one day my ancestors would be humans, and fighting over parking spaces at a mall. My life was good. I just sat around and ate beetles all day, and had no idea that one day they'd be bringing drugs and long hair to America.

Now, the year is 2020 and I've reincarnated again to a 59-year-old American male with a weird sense of humor. The virus has come to reteach us the meaning of life and the Christians scream, "God answers prayers," when people recover. But the people piled high in refrigerated trucks, outside New York hospitals, are the examples of unanswered prayers. For I did pray for them, uttering deep into the night, and all alone.

Who Are You?

I want to poke holes in the bubbles, where everyone lives. I want to tear down the walls that divide us, but I can't. Sooner or later, something has to give. We can't go on like this. There are minds out there that won't open. I'm suppose to talk about life, and all I see is death and strife.

I look into the eyes of people who cannot see and I listen to their cries. But they don't listen to what I have to say. I only ask how we can keep living in a constant state of crises and conflict. If something doesn't change we will crack.

The ignorance betrays the weakness and the pride covers up the sickness. I see a world of zombies who cry into the night. We won't be here forever, and I try to be the voice of reason and I scream, "How can we end this?" But it just goes on and on.

The pride needs to go, and so do the weapons and defenses. We must be humble, like the example set by Jesus. We must learn to listen to see the other side, for once. No one owns "the one right way." We must relearn how we think.

The Transformation

Maybe the "school of hard knocks" is the only way we can learn, but the Spanish Flu and Black Death taught us little, other than to avoid the sick and dying. So, we leave them to die alone, lest we join them.

It all may seen unfair, but life is all about struggle. The idea is to climb Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. But I am stuck at level one and stay in basic survival mode. My greatest concerns are food, shelter, and heat. There was a time when I was near the top of Maslow's pyramid, which is self-actualization. That's the level of enlightened maturity where we have reached our goals, accept ourselves, and are able to self-assess in a realistic and positive way. But life had different things in mind, and I went back to the bottom. But at the bottom I am grateful for every meal I have and I'm thankful every time the furnace turns on because if it breaks I can't afford to fix it.

So, you're telling me I'm suppose to learn something from this? I'm a shrew, an East African plains ape, and a Druid priest, all rolled into one. What am I suppose to learn? I have only learned that we are a part of this world and not above it. I learned that to live a good life is to respect nature, wildlife, and each other. If you save the life of an insect that means far more to me than the value of your car. Those who do harm to this world are my enemies. Trump has rolled back protections on the environment and wildlife so that rich corporations can get richer. He is my greatest enemy of all, and when people say Trump is "anointed by God" I question that. And I question the people who say it.

If there is a "transformation" in my life, I can only say that it's a renewed appreciation for the little things — the taste of food, the smells of nature, flowers, and trees. I won't spend any more time listening to a pastor give their "do more, give more" sermons. I am now free.

I have fallen in love enough times to know that love is vain. It's an illusion because what we love is what we want to love, and not who the other person is. And we mirror who we are and what we want on others, until we become lost in our own delusions.

Humanity should have booted religion when we invented science in the 1450s. But we were too much in love with the things we thought gave us comfort. We went through the Renaissance and then the Enlightenment while still clinging to the imaginary voices in our heads. The great thinkers of the Enlightenment taught us about deism, where God exists, but doesn't actually interact supernaturally with the universe. So what's the point?

When I was doing landscaping yesterday I came across a perfectly smooth and oval rock. Now, if God were to have made the entire world in a day He would have had to consciously plan for that one little rock to be in that one patch of ground, and in that shape. He would have had to think out every rock before doing his famous genie blink. The Real Christians believe that God put the rock there, and for denying that I am an apostate, heretic, and scoffer. But I know that the rock became smooth from hundreds of years of sitting in a creek bed, and years of water running over it, to make it smooth. And how it ended up hundreds of feet from the nearest creek, I do not know. I will guess that some boys found it in the 1930s while playing in the creek, and they dropped it there. And that is it.

What's Next From Here

I wake up every morning in a daze. Am I depressed, scared, or just trying to suppress rage? My insurance company provides free video counseling, and the Indian woman on the screen tells me I'm okay. But the demons inside me disagree, and they constantly obliterate me, disintegrate me, and annihilate me. I want to break down, but there's no one around to care. Falling in love now means falling apart.

So, I get out of bed and join the rat race. Obviously I must change things because there's something I must be missing. I tell everyone I'm "great," because I know no one really cares. It's my last sardonic sarcasm as I pilot my sinking ship. I want to feel pain just so that I can feel again.

You tell me to pray to a God that even you don't believe in because if you did you would actually follow his teachings. You tell me to find truth in the lost and found. And as the bodies pile up I can only ask, where is your God now?

Inspired by the songs "Right Now," from Fire from the Gods, with lyric writers Erik Ron, Richard Markus Wicander, and Akil Jelani Channer; and from the song "Popular Monster," from Falling in Reverse, and lyric writer Ronald Radke.

Source:
The Death of the Druids, Phil Carradice, BBC


  Photo: Jakob Owens