In 2008, a controversy erupted
between Pastor John Hagee of the 19,000-member Cornerstone
Evangelical Church
in San Antonio, Texas, and William Donohue, the head of the
Catholic League for Civil and Religious Rights. Hagee had made claims about
Catholicism spawning a theology of hate toward Jews. Donahue said that these
remarks were insulting to Catholicism.   The
spat was patched up (at least temporarily).   But there has been a history of harsh words
between Protestant and Catholic officials. It goes all the way back to Martin
Luther’s excommunication (1521.) Look back over 2,500 years of Western History.   Before verbal spats, there were riots,
occasionally deadly. Before that, extreme violence: there were massacres, persecutions,
expulsions, inquisitions, and wars between religions. The young Mormon Church
was violently expelled from eastern states where it was founded. But once it
got control of Utah,
its members were prominently involved in at least one massacre of non-Mormons
(Mountain Meadows, 1857.) In May 1844, there was a riot in Philadelphia over whether only the Protestant
Bible, or also the Catholic Bible, could be read in public schools. Thirteen
people were killed. Even today, sporadic war between religious groups,
frequently evangelical Christians versus Muslims, goes on literally around the
world along the Tenth Parallel north of the equator (see the book The Tenth Parallel.) Here in the U.S.
controversy occasionally erupts about the practice of some Mormons baptizing
the dead. Some people of other faiths object that it’s “attempted soul
stealing.”   Recently Maureen Dowd, (New
York Times, “Is Elvis a Mormon?” 3.18.12) noted that Romney admitted to
Newsweek in 2007 that he had engaged in that practice. He said he had done this
sometime in the past, but not recently. Romney is a bishop of the Mormon Church.
Rick Santorum claimed that President Barack Obama’s agenda is ” about ”
some phony theology” not a theology based on the Bible…” Now that he’s out of
the race, some evangelical pastors are urging support for Ron Paul.

Why are religious differences
such durable sources of division among humans?  
A religion is a group of humans, larger than a cult, which has a church,
a creed, and a code of morals. The creed is the dogma, sentences such as “I
believe in one God”" etc. Or is it three Gods in one? Sentences of dogma do not
claim anything that could be checked by observation with our senses. And
history reveals that they are not subject to major revision or withdrawal from
within the religion. The same non-verifiability is true of non-behavior
implying claims about another person’s pure states of mind, e.g., beliefs.
There is no way, e.g., to verify or falsify claims that “X is not a Christian”
or “X is a Christian,” in his mind, in his secret heart of hearts. Unless of
course, the claimant is a mind reader!  
Religions emerged before nations. But their sheer size, in number of
adherents and territory of prevalence, is so large that their church leaders must contend with others for domination
of people, their labor, and resources to support their church personnel (land,
water, crops, craft goods, trade, and temple offerings, i.e., pre-taxes.) That
conflict is the source of their nation — like characteristics. It further sustains
all forms of intolerance: bigotry, racism, sexism, nativism and hyper
patriotism.

Religions are inherently
political. They are proto-nations, nascent governments. Their personnel
(whatever called) direct, judge and police their member’s behavior.
Proselytizing, seeking converts, sometimes by Evangelism, spreading their “good
news,” is their form of expansion. It may appear to relatives and friends of
converts, if not as alienation of affection, at least like relational
aggression, a deliberate weakening of social ties. The Supreme Court’s decision
enabling “Good News” clubs to allow “child evangelists” to recruit other
children in school buildings may seem especially aggressive. Explicit nations
continue this expansionary trend by economic and military means, now called
“imperialism.”   Like nations, religions
have had coercing forces, often explicit armies. Dominionism is Evangelism’s
“Great Commission, its’ “imperialism. Rule over all people is its’ Manifest
Destiny. Martyrdom is honored among Dominionists as is extreme valor in a
national military cause. After all, it is refusal to switch loyalties, even
under torture or death threat. “Onward Christian (Jewish, Muslim, etc.)
Soldiers!”   Prohibitions on masturbation
and homophobia: well, they won’t produce cannon fodder, will they?

Creeds function like pledges of
allegiance. That’s a reason the most powerful atheist writers and science-based
debaters can’t faze religious witnesses by challenging them with any facts.
They may affect audience members, but it’s really at cross purposes to answer
“I believe in”" with “Your belief is false, and here’s why”"   In western societies (European),
disagreements in creeds between religions often arose out of exegesis, interpretations
of basically “the same” scripture.  
But no factual inquiry can progress to settlement. When such
disagreements became acute, schism, persecutions, inquisitions, even wars have
occurred. Church rulers arrogated to their own authority not only dogma, but
notions they develop about how congregants should behave, such as the 613
commandments of the Torah. These often go far beyond what creeds explicitly
imply. Many of these in all religions eventually appear to laity as
inconvenient, restrictive, irrational, exploitative of money, without survival
value, anti-scientific, and sometimes even harmful.   How inconvenient and restrictive are some of
these religious dictates? Here’s an example: “Sickness is the Will of God, to
be treated only by prayer.”   Another is:
“No one should ever have or perform an abortion under any circumstances.” For a
scientifically-minded person, to cite a fact, such as that 50% — 70% of
fertilized eggs never implant,” is simply not relevant to contradicting people
who hold such a religious allegiance. A recent paper by Joe Keohane, titled
“How Facts Backfire,” available online, summarizes political behavior research
which shows that once people believe a political falsehood, after presenting
them with contradicting facts, they continue to believe the falsehood and do so
more vigorously!   Thus in a secular
democracy, all one can do is persuade less committed minds, beat the dogmatists
at the polls, have reality – based candidates elected and make law that hacks
out compromise like Roe v. Wade.

Dictionaries define “bigotry” as
a stubborn devotion to a church, or creed, and intolerance of any that differs.
The word itself may even have originated in emphatic religious swearing, “By
God!” Similar devotion to and intolerance of other races, nations, or sexual
orientations gets other names: racism, jingoism, nativism, homophobia,
etc.   Partisans, even extreme, just take
the part of some cause. Bigotry is more virulent. Bigotry deforms one’s
intellectual character and damages one’s potential moral character. Bigots have
trouble with reality. They commit to un-provable dogma, and so can’t
acknowledge some facts. Bigotry stupefies people, substituting their strong
emotions for reason and reality. Thus it impairs capacity for citizenship in a
tolerant civil democracy. Bigots pridefully think: “I’m theologically
correct; others are perverse in belief and morals, e.g., they sanction outright
murder!” [meaning abortion.]

Statistics prove that middle
income and poorer Americans have done significantly better in income gains over
4-year periods of Democratic majorities than over periods of Republican
majorities. However, Republicans have learned to promise tax cuts that provide
the middle class and poorer people some increase in the first year of
Republican administrations. Also, since the Democratic Party passed the civil
rights bill, the southern states turned from mostly Democratic to mostly
Republican in voting patterns. These factors, in addition to the money power
behind Republican candidates, have enabled Republicans to maintain rough parity
with the Democrats in national Presidential elections (See Unequal Democracy,
Larry Bartels, and Winner Take All Politics, Joseph Hacker and Paul Pierson.)
This near equality in voting strength is why bigotry may play a large role in
defeat of any Republican candidate in 2012.   People who claim others are “not real
Christians,” have “phony theologies” or demonstrate irrelevantly at funerals
like the homophobic Westboro Baptists, or burn Korans, as well as Mormon dead
soul baptizers, are ” playing the religion card.”   In motivating violent behavior, the religion
card may trump even the race card. Our founders wisely wrote, “No religious
Test shall ever be required as a qualification to any Office or public Trust
under the United States”
(Constitution, Art. 6 Sec. 3.)  For presidential candidates to make such
theological, or mind-reader claims, publicly sets a divisive example. It opens
the lid of Pandora’s Box to a past fetid with insults and, earlier, riots, mass
murder, inquisitorial torture, and genuine war.

It’s possible that some of the
remarks of candidates were meant for other purposes than to win nominations.
American politics is also bad theater “entertainment.” Masses of Americans freely
contribute small sums of money to candidates, failing to realize that many
small donations add up to a lot of influence, even money power. A lucrative
career may await anyone, like Santorum, who gains such support. The career is
that of being an avatar for the contributors’ religious — political views. Look
at the salaries of Fox newscasters, or better, the contracts of “hatertainers”
Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh. But since it’s divisive, bigotry ought to divide
people and be politically vincible. Maybe many Mormons won’t come out and vote,
if Republicans eventually nominate two non-Mormons. Perhaps many Catholics
won’t vote for Republicans, if no Catholic like Santorum gets either
nomination. Possibly a lot of Evangelicals will be unmotivated to vote by a
ticket with a Mormon like “flip flopper” Romney at the top and a Catholic like
Santorum for Vice President. We’ll see.

Originally published in Vol. 2 No. 8 of the Erie
Reader on 5/1/12