( https://youtu.be/8SCOiUs8LM4 ), , and so much more.
Mexico, for the most part agrees with me. Let me say though that I may just be a living contradiction. I feel comfortable with the viscous catholic atmosphere in Mexico,, yet I don't give in to it. Mexican catholicism isn't, at least at this point in its long history, virulent. I know there are many that would take umbrage with that statement. Perhaps they are idealists,, and perhaps they are reformers. A quote from Thomas Carlyle:
To reform a world, to reform a nation, no wise man will undertake; and all but foolish men know, that the only solid, though a far slower reformation, is what each begins and perfects on himself.
Much of the mexican population is relieved of so much of the burden of this life by immersing itself in religious myth. I avoid swimming now,, but I find solace in ceremony and the cool lofty spaces of old churches.
This holy week I have been thinking about a statement that a friend made, who lives in Sweden,, that Sweden is the least
religious country in the world. This is a poll determined fact. Polls always need clarification. My knee jerk reaction at the time was that the US
was really the least religious place on earth. From Bob Dylan's It's Alright Mom:Much of the mexican population is relieved of so much of the burden of this life by immersing itself in religious myth. I avoid swimming now,, but I find solace in ceremony and the cool lofty spaces of old churches.
Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Make everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It’s easy to see without looking too far
That not much is really sacred
Then I thought well possibly prejudice was ruling my thoughts. Usually it does. More questions followed. What do I mean by religious? What is relgion anyway but a human invention like roquefort cheese that seems to taste better with age and even better when the brand has achieved world class status. Then like a dusty wind I thought of all those calvanists, methodists, congregationalists, baptists, anal baptists, catholics, evangelicals, mormons, botulists, ana capitalists, and neo marxists etc. and the myriad religious currents that determine the direction of the US media,, and let's not forget all those churches of stone, but mostly of wood, from Fort Kent, Maine to Bumblefuck, Missouri. It seemed an impenetrable wailing wall of faith. If ordinary people in the US, like, let's say, Ernie "Bip" Parlene in Shitwater, Alabama were polled about what role religion plays in their life a majority would say "of course,, as God is my witness, He is always by my side,,,, also in my house, on the dashboard of my car, encrusted in my soul, like a stalactite, for he fills,, at least some of my Sundays with joy,, and on and on they drone,,, but here the lady doth protest too much methinks. Why do I sense all this religious rap is just a facade?
Where does religion come from anyway? Many know the story. It is natural for humans to group up like drops of oil on water. The first nuclear family, Adan and Eva, ( they were latin of course) grew into a greater clan made up of belly button relations and as time went by that clan turned into a tribe based on broader parameters. Agriculture was invented in the year 9263 BC by Kyle Otsi. Master-slave social relations were formed. Some tribal members with low foreheads were designated to go into the field with a hoe and others, who were clever enough to avoid the shovel, stayed in the lodge to "do the books" so to speak. These bookkeepers had great ambition and a lot of time on their hands, much more than the average schmo. The bookeepers created and then presided over ceremonies that coincided with celestial events. These ceremonies morphed into modes of popular adulation after some bookkeeper's wife in Ninevah, named Griselda La Panza, made him a colorful feathery robe and she mandated that her cousin Raul to carve the bookeeper an elaborate staff. Armed with a robe and a staff the bookkeeper cruised the dusty streets, yet now puffed up with regal pride. People noticed him and looked up from their toil at his impressive sartorial contenance and they listened to what he said, now more than ever. His phrases changed and became seasoned with celestial musings that confused them. After a week he began to call himself Ahitub the First, son of Zadouk the Lesser.
One night indigestion brought on from eating 3 and a half measures of bee larvae caused him to have a strange dream in which his aunt Hulda The Clever, who they had just buried three days ago, was conversing with him as if she were still alive. Ahitub awoke in a state of wonder and during his morning ablutions he invented the completely new concept of two separate worlds, one with material things like rocks and mud and the other ethereal, without substance. At that very moment he began to market the after life, of course without ever crediting Griselda.
Bookeepers evolved and separated into two distinct groups, one group acted like rulers and other like priests. One group controled the army and the other the keys to the afterlife. Meanwhile tribal hiearchies gave way to larger fiefdoms then finally countries with boundries to be defended. The bookkeepers multiplied causing inter-fiefdom strife and persistent wars.
What is religion but a concept born of indigestion and fantasy? How can any particular group be deemed to be more religious than another given the foundation of religion, an imaginative concept that embellished a natural tendency in humans,, that is to form groups. Wow, I thought, I am on to something. Religion is only part of a fanciful human sandwich. The lettuce perhaps?
Humans have re-invented faith over and over but always in a horizontal direction resulting in a similarity in the content and purpose of all religions. Look at the history from Baal to The Islamic State. This discovery, however, did not address my reaction to the question about Sweden being the least religious country on earth. If religion is based on the interpretation of a dream by a clever clan member, Ahitub the First, then Ernie "Bip" Parlene in Shitwater, Alabama is just an unwitting inheritor who posseses some undefined faith handed down through the ages, born of the first formal proclamation by Ahitub which went something like this: "By the grace given me by the Akkad, Amarru, and Elam, I have been shown the true path,,,,, blessed are all those that believe,, and may the rest receive eternal damnation."
Ernie's example isn't the reason I contend that the US is underneath it all an irreligious lot. It's the burgeoning godless middle and upper classes that value "rocks, trees, and me-phones" over anything spiritual. To complicate matters I find the lower classes in Mexico to be truly devout. They exist in a world that is heavily skewed towards the spiritual, and practice rituals each day that the lower classes in the US would deem foolish. Witches are very popular and taken seriously in Mexico and palmists still flourish.
I thought,,then, perhaps this isn't fair. The lower classes in the US express overtly their faith rolling on the floor, speaking in tongues, or praying devoutly with rattlesnakes in hand. There seemed to be similarities with their mexican counterparts. The modern middleclasses, however use religion more to affirm their economic station than to embrace their spiritual side. They are turned off by witches and rattlesnakes as low sport for the scientifically uneducated. What really excites the middleclasses, is not a stirring sermon by Reverend Wrigglesworth about Jonah and the whale but new car smell and saturday bar-b-cues.
Capitalism, however, seems to contradict religious devotion. It seems to demote piety for God to cheapened disloyalty. This theory, however, made me uncomfortable. Perhaps it is my own catholic past that is speaking here. Max Weber, a father of sociology, wrote in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism that the protestants, especially calvanists, were disposed to become capitalists. This seemed to contradict my thoughts about religion and capitalism. Protestants, Weber claimed, possessed a strong work ethic. They devoted themselves to secular professions, acted soberly, and saved their pennies. Calvanists, though, went a step further. They believed that religious salvation was predestined, and consequently they found that profit and material sucess were rewards from God, like benedictions. Hey I must be on the right road to heaven because my pockets jingle. Calvanists already had the protestant methodology in place to build economic success. They just made a short leap from God to capitalism and the rest is history,,, and they still went to church.
Sobriety, hard work, and asceticism combined well with the early development of capitalism. What is different about post WWII capitalist United States is the shedding of the protestant basic manual and using rampant consumerism to satisfy new exotic hungers,, the "gimme two yesterday" mentality that pervades the present day economic powerhouse. It's enough to make a Calvanist vomit. Consumerism is at odds with the ethic that got them there in the first place. Yes, I think the US is most irreligious to the calvanist capitalistic cannon. Consumerism places a great portion of the population in a category indifferent to sobriety and asceticism. Sweden is a small country, only 9 million or so and is certainly not a society of consumers on par with the US. They might claim religion is unimportant to their well being. Swedes may only want to achieve Lagom, read Strindberg, or fall in love, but this may only indicate they have fostered more cultural cohesion than people from the US. Methinks the American Woman doth mouth off too much about their faith. By degrees I'd bet that down deep Swedes are more religious.
It seemed that Max Weber's Protestant Ethic And The Spirit Of Capitalism could be applied to catholic and muslim countries as well. Catholicism, it seemed, had impeded Italy and Ireland,, at least for a while. Look at how Latin America and the muslim world has lagged behind economically in comparison to the west. Catholics, at least european and US catholics have a tradition of hovering between Adam Smith and Karl Marx. Calvanists may understand and be comfortable with the need for inequality between the classes as necessary to promote individual economic creativity. "If you don't work you don't eat." A sloth can never gain heaven." European and US Catholics have paid lip service at the very least to wanting to eliminate that earthly inequality,, yet in the last century european and US catholics by and large have participated with vigor in the capitalistic empire. Islam, however, has not. Islam has a long history at odds with the capitalistic principles of banking and corporations. The Protestant Ethic And The Spirit Of Capitalism, however, does not explain everything. What of poor catholic Latin America? What of economically successful medeval Islam? Where do they fit into the protestant schematic? The severe role colonialsm has played in the underdevelopment of these spheres cannot be ignored.In Latin America there is plenty of economic movement but the model for that movement is not Calvin but the cacique or the politician,, if there is a difference. Islam since medeval times has been hobbled by colonialism and a retreat deeper into itself,, a vicious cycle.
As for religion, I believe any image of God is corrupted by human incapabilities. Who
can even wrap their mind around the Big Bang or a the concept of billion
light years distance,, let alone OUR frail concept of what God might
be? I am however drawn to certain expressions of faith perhaps more since
those expressions are closer to my own catholic upbringing. In Mexico the faith of the
poor,, and there is no shortage of poor here, is personal and stirs my soul. It is used in an attempt to touch the untouchable. In the US expressions of faith rile me. Perhaps in the US faith and tradition are used for other means.
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