Friday, February 26, 2010

A Modest Proposal for Preventing Religious Wars and Exterminations

Before Reading it is important to know some background. The following essay is based upon A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift. It is satirical.

A quick look into the history of violence brings the inquirer to a wretched conclusion: the greatest, most terrible violent acts of men are not caused by power, greed, or difference in political ideals, but by conflicting religions. There was the Holy Inquisition, where heretics, Jews, and Muslims were often burned alive, the massacres of Indian Independence in 1947, where over a million Hindus and Muslims were killed and ten to twenty million people were moved from their homes and the separate nations of India and Pakistan were established, the ongoing conflict in Northern Ireland between Protestants and Catholics, and the Crusades between the Christians and Muslims in the Holy Land. These are just the tip of the iceberg. Pages upon pages can be filled with the names, dates, and number of people murdered.

In order to fight a war effectively, each army must be united under a cause. Nothing unites people better than religion. If all people had the same religion, not only would religious wars and exterminations cease to exist, people would be united when solving social, political, and economic problems. However, there are countless barriers to a unified religion. People speak different languages; therefore, when religious doctrines get translated from language to language over and over again, the beliefs and teachings get lost in the translation. People also come from different places, geographically, making the parable of the mustard seed nonsensical to someone who lives in a place without mustard trees. Furthermore, people are firmly rooted in their own belief system, making massive conversion difficult.

Surely, the greatest minds in history have looked upon the idea of conversion to a single religion as complete and total folly, a fool’s errand, a waste of time. This is not so. Total conversion to a single religion would be the greatest accomplishment in the history of mankind. Perhaps it can be done.

First of all, the universal religion must be completely new. If any existing religion were used, the people who believed before the mass conversion would consider themselves superior, thereby creating disharmony, which cannot be allowed. This new religion should be easily adaptable to every culture in the world as well as every language. Ideally, the foundations for the new religion should already exist in every culture and language worldwide. Secondly, the new religion should include beliefs from different existing religions to make conversion easier. However, it should not be too similar to any existing belief, so as to avoid the aforementioned disharmony. People get pompous when they feel they are right and others are wrong. Creating a religious melting pot is easy enough, finding the correct balance of beliefs from different existing religions will prove more difficult.

Thirdly, the religion should be based on reason supplemented by faith. A religion based on reason can be proven, thus eliminating any skeptics or heretics. The presence of faith allows for different people to experience the religion in their own unique way. Speaking of which, the religion should be able to grow and evolve. It is unwise to make a religion too static. Overtime, certain acceptable practices and beliefs become less acceptable, for example, slavery, men’s superiority over women, and religious sacrifices. With these three principles in mind, a universal religion can be contemplated, and even formed. Here, I would like to take the opportunity to offer my own humble creation, a new religion, created with the above principles in mind.

In order to satisfy the first principle, the religion is based upon Mathematics. Mathematics exists in every human culture. The Laws of Mathematics are uniform across oceans, languages, and religions. The value of two is constant whether it is written as two, dos, duex, due, zuei, II, and so on. The angles of a triangle add up to 180 degrees regardless of language, location, and culture. This makes Mathematics the ideal basis of a universal religion.

The toughest part of organizing a new religion is the balance of the second principle. How can existing beliefs be represented in a new religion based upon Mathematics? First of all, most beliefs are two sides of the same coin. Monotheism and polytheism can be combined in pantheism, the belief in one God manifest in everything. This is easily adaptable to Mathematism, a possible name for this suggested universal religion. The laws of nature are written in Mathematics. If God is manifested in everything, then God is the underlying cause of everything. God is every law of nature discovered and undiscovered. Therefore, Mathematics is the way humans interpret the Will of God. The flexibility of Mathematism makes it ideal for balancing the second principle. For instance, Christians believe God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. This is true in Mathematism too. God is all-powerful because His natural laws dictate how the universe functions. God knows all because God is every natural law, whether it has been discovered or not. Lastly, God is everywhere because everything is part of God. However, the way Mathematism says God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent also satisfies philosophers, atheists, trandscentalists, Deists, and Pagans. Mathematism also satisfies the third principle. Mathematics is reason based. Mathematicians do not say the area of a triangle is half the base multiplied by the height because they have faith in the formula. They have proven the formula through logic and reason. However, Mathematism does involve certain amounts of faith too. Mathematicians have faith the digits of pi are endless and will never repeat, but they cannot prove it. Mathematicians have faith in the existence of infinity, even though infinity cannot be measured or counted.

Mathematism is quite a beautiful concept. It satisfies all three principles a universal religion should possess. Its properties in regard to the second principle are especially extraordinary. I strongly recommend complete conversion of the world’s population to Mathematism, or a similar universal religion, to end the hideous problem of religious wars and exterminations.