I loved Boy Scout camp. That was the highlight of every summer, once a member of the scouts. We would head down to the Ozark Mountains and spend two weeks having great fun. In the morning we would learn various crafts, making lariats, bracelets, headdresses, moccasins. We were granted two swim sessions a day, which we entered exuberantly. In the afternoon we took hikes in the woods, learning about trees, birds, insects, bushes, and how all life fit together. For every meal there was, at the end of the meal, a songfest, the biggest feature of which was “rounds.” The mess hall was divided into three different sections, and we each sang our part while other sections gradually joined in, creating three part harmony. We were particularly pleased when we had visiting dignitaries lead us in the singing. When Roe Bartle, who was then the mayor of Kansas City, came down, he displayed a rich baritone voice, causing us all to sing at the top of our lungs to follow his lead. Evenings were relaxation time, then delightful stories around the campfire. We all got caught by the games that older campers play on tenderfeet. We would, for example, be asked to stand in the middle of the campfire area while we were taught how to be obedient to the King of Siam. “Now say these words as you bow down, for each word: Owha, Tagoo, Siam.” “Now say them faster and faster.” It did not take too long for us to realize that what we were saying was: “Oh what a goose I am.” Toward the end of those camping years, we were encouraged to become Indian braves, and went through the ceremony of camping out overnight, by ourselves, as we chose our Indian names. Mine was “Flashing Spark.” Then we were led to the sacred late campfire ceremony. We padded in moccasins and loincloths down the trail to a council site on a bluff overlooking the Osage River. There were solemn vows, there was a roaring fire, and then we were startled by whooping, dancing Braves, who loudly recited various oaths as they pranced and gyrated. Then they picked up dirt from the ground, add a foaming liquid, and ordered us to drink that fizzing dirt; we all did. After that sacred ceremony, we wore a leather pouch at all times, which held the sacred symbol of our tribe. We were deeply impressed, and believed that we had become young men, instead of boys.
As we got through grade school years and into high school years, however, church camp became much more important to us. These were the years of intense ephemeral friendships, sudden bonds that developed as life-long partnerships, but soon dissolved within a few weeks, to be replaced by other “life-long” partnerships. These were quite volatile relationships. For example, one time when my red-haired best friend and I were walking along the mess hall, proudly displaying our pet salamanders, which we had attached to us by strings around our necks and the salamander’s necks, he said something that displeased me. I jumped him and we fought like mad for a while in the dirt by the trail. Then we got up, dusted ourselves off, and went on our way, becoming best friends again. We had to give up the salamanders shortly after that. These creatures kept falling off, with our wild gyrations, and threatened to choke. We had to turn them loose, and become uncool. In the next year, we were no longer friends, because we discovered girls. Louise Hoffman took music lessons from the same teacher as I, in Independence, Missouri, Miss Cammie Johnson. When Louise attended church camp during the same weeks that summer, I fell madly in love. We used to take long walks, holding hands, and knew that we would never be separated. Reality did not settle in until she went off to William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri, and I went off to Central College in Fayette, Missouri. I saw her once after that, at a college basketball game. She told me she had a steady boyfriend. I went back to my lonely dorm room feeling very isolated in life, and did not develop another steady girlfriend until after college.
We had religious training each morning at church camp. We had what were basically Sunday School sessions each day during the week. We had playful swimming sessions in the afternoon. We had great songfests at each meal, often using religious songs which included nature themes. We did not have campfire sessions at the end of each day, but we certainly had a spectacular campfire meeting at the end of the camp session. At dusk, we would all gather together at the mess hall and have hand held candles lit, then gradually wend our way down the trail to the campfire area while softly singing, and contemplating the week’s ending, the life ahead, the plans that we were making, while watching this string of lights weaving its way to a place where we would gather and decide our futures. The campfire would be high. The speaker of the evening would be calm, understanding, inspirational, devoted to his cause, and would, at the end of this rather stirring oral, visual, and emotional interlude in life, say, “Now, which one of you is willing to commit the rest of his or her life to Christ? If you are, please come forward, and stand by the fire in front of all the rest of us. Join me in this noble cause.” The speaker would be supplicant, kind, but also pleading, as if to lead us to this place where we should all be, but had as yet just not realized this is where we should be. He kept repeating this message until members of our assembled group finally disengaged themselves and stood in front of us. I remember being sorely tempted. My father was a minister. My second brother was going to be a minister. I believed that those creeds the church was teaching were mostly correct. Everything fit together for me to step forward and say, “I devote myself to Christ and the church.” I just could not do it. If I am going to commit myself to some cause for the rest of my life, I will have to understand just exactly what that cause is, and what all the implications of that commitment are, before I am willing to take it. Something was fishy. I knew that those who were asking for that commitment were sincere, and truly felt that they were doing what would give these young men and women a better life. I also knew that there were far too many questions about those religious beliefs to make a lifelong commitment to an institution, the church, which seemed more interested in increasing its members than in emphasizing its values.
Ah, the schizophrenic bipolarity of our religions. Each of our religions contains magnificent morals. The Buddha taught us that each of us should contemplate life until we are able to rise above it, are able to eschew all pleasure and personal gain, and reach a plateau of peace, as well as reach a singular oneness with the universe. After we have achieved that lofty goal, says the Buddha, we must return to the marketplace in order to teach other humans how to give up selfishness. The Hindu, the religion which contains all other religions, teaches us that we are all part of this ongoing cycle of life, and that each of us must do what we can to improve life before we pass on to the next cycle of life. The Jewish faithful teach us that there is only one God of all things that exist, and that all members of that faith should take care of all others who share that faith. The Jesus of Christians gives us that magnificent adage: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Allah tells all Muslims they must take care of the orphan, the lame, the widow, the needy, the hungry, the traveler in need of rest, or they will not be admitted to Muslim Heaven.
Wow. Could it get any better? It certainly could, because each of these religions also fosters violence toward other humans and other life. Buddhist sects battle each other for the rights to claim which of them is the true Buddhist sect. Hindu sects bomb and destroy in an effort to promote their mythology as the most correct. They own the dubious distinction of having created the suicide bomb vest. Israelites invade foreign lands, usurp property which does not belong to them, and then create violence against anyone else who protests their grotesque thievery. Christians, whose hero is Jesus, appear eager to follow his teachings that all who do not believe in him should burn in Hell. They use their religion as an excuse to invade foreign lands, in order to protect American business interests. Muslims, who are otherwise so caring of their own, react with violent anger against all these foreign invaders who invade their lands to control their oil and other resources. Their prophet, Muhammad, tells them that all those who do not believe in Islam should be tortured and die violent deaths. So Muslims do exactly that, to all who do not share their faith. All of these religions, which preach the most magnificent of morals, also preach the most violent expressions of immorality.
So then it becomes a big question: what part of your religions do you wish to emphasize? What we have, in our political arena at this time, is a conflagration of the totally immoral parts of our religions. Although Hindus and Buddhists are not immune to their own particular forms of brutality, the majority of those immoral acts humans are committing on other humans at the present time come from the Jewish, Christian and Muslim faiths. These religious faithful are all brothers and sisters, coming from the same common source. That they are so close is perhaps one of the reasons that the fighting amongst them has been even more fierce. Each of them is competing to be the one and true religion. The struggle between Israel and Palestine is intense. It is the Muslim versus the Jew, in an angry confrontation. The Jewish nation does not see the immense hypocrisy in their seizing land which did not belong to them, in opposing the right of Palestine to their own nation, of building homes on land which does not belong to them, of using and threatening violence against any nation which challenges their immoral usurpation. The Muslim nation, rightfully so, is incensed at this immoral land grab by an egotistical religion. Instead of, however, just raising their voices in violent oral protest, they have chosen to also raise their weapons in physical protest. They bomb embassies, ships, trade towers, market places, and roadsides, spewing hatred toward all those outside the Muslim Nation. The Christian faith, believing themselves to be simply reacting to the violence affected against their nations, invades foreign lands, bombs, kills, imprisons without just cause, and usurps power, in order to protect their own egotism and their own business interests. Each of these religions uses their own mythology to justify, in their own minds, these immoral acts.
We are all such great prisoners of our own selfishness, greed, and hormones, are we not? I remember those juvenile days well. I fought off all others who challenged my education, my talent, my decisions, and felt beleaguered at every step. When I felt cornered, I struck back in angry response. It was an intense struggle: me against the rest of the world. That same personal equation, defending our personal want and needs, is also fully expressed in the decisions of our nations and our religions. There is Israeli anger, Muslim anger, Christian anger, Hindu anger, Tutsi anger, Sikh anger, Iraqi anger, Iranian anger, Afghanistanian anger, all of them using some sort of religious justification for the violent acts they perpetrate against each other. It is interesting that we think of national decisions as being based on some great large group decision making process which supersedes, by leaps and bounds, any personal interest the participants may have in that decision making. The exact opposite is true. National decisions are based on the particular needs, wants, aspirations, and perceived slights requiring correction, that exist in the mind of the most influential leader. We went to war in Iraq because George W. Bush, in his anguish over 9/11, reached out to his religion as the most reliable source of what is right to do. His religion told him that transgressors should be punished. So, by his decision, the United States of America invaded Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of innocent lives have now been lost because of that erroneous decision, based on personal belief. When I wrote to President George W. Bush, to tell him that this would be a terrible mistake, he wrote me back to tell me that he was right and I was wrong. I stand by my dire admonishment to our former president; let’s let history decide who was right and who was wrong. I remain convinced that I was right, and that he was terribly wrong
That is the misfortune. We reach for some reason to justify our decisions to kill other humans. It is all too often about finding a way to obtain and exert power, to further the selfish interests of a person or nation. It seems all about finding ways to establish and maintain control, whether that is for guns, or oil, or land, or male sexual domination. The Catholic Church has made a great career over promoting their mythology in order to gain immense power for their church, immense land holdings, immense treasures gained through inquisitions and intense torture, immense control over governments. The Christian nations justify their invasion of foreign lands and protection of their business interests in the name of providing a more correct religion, and a better way of life. The Hebrew faithful justify their arrogance and suppression of all other faiths in the name of their particular egotistical mythology. The Muslim nation justifies its use of violence, killing, bombing and torture, because their prophet, Muhammad, told them that they should do so. This is a given: any humans, driven by selfishness, greed, or hormones, will use their religion as an excuse for the horrible acts that they commit on other humans. Any nation will use their religious mythology to drive its public toward its own goal, whether it is a worthy goal or a highly immoral goal.
What is the bottom line? It is pure and simple. All of our religions, on the face of the earth today, as they exist at this time, are highly immoral. They are schizophrenic, with good and evil poles. None are ethical. Ethics demands we demonstrate profound respect for all other life, at all times. None of our religions does that.
In order to understand our value systems, and reach a clear definition of ethics that will serve as an exact direction for our proper behavior on this planet, we have to leave at least that immoral half of all our religions behind us. We can revel in the fabulous mythology of our religions, but must discard that half or more of our religions that contains personal vengeful Gods, and violent intolerance for all others of different faith. More than that, we have to understand that this universe has no Intrinsic Good. We have to understand that morals are individual value systems, which are as variable as there are individual forms of life. We have to know that animals have morals just as much as humans. We have to fully accept that all of life is interdependent. Once these imperatives of enlightenment are reached, we then know that all life has the unalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Our religions, currently, greatly subvert all of that understanding.
If there are any among you who can also accept these position statements concerning our religions, and our value systems, then we have no trouble making a very clear definition of ethics. Ethics should be that value system which provides the greatest opportunity for all forms of life to exist, in equilibrium, and the greatest opportunity for all those life forms to achieve fulfillment.
If any of you can accept this definition, and follow it, then you have, in my opinion, placed an immense treasure in your soul: an unerring guide to every decision you make, as you deal with all other life.