Doesn’t that sound great? How could you ask for anything better? There’s devotion and dedication for you. We are doing this for God and Country! It has everything that you would want for a cause. It means we believe deeply in our country and are religious moral people. It carries with it the connotation that virtually no sacrifice is too much, for this is a just cause. It is not just a matter of being a patriot, of supporting this country which has given us so many advantages. Each of us has been given an education, freedoms and opportunities, for which we are truly grateful. We feel proud to pay our country back for what our country has given us, and are particularly proud to do so for a just cause. Our religions teach us to give freely to a just cause. If this is a cause that our religion tells us is right, and one which will benefit our country, it becomes imperative that we support it with fervor. This is indeed a phrase which we hear with regularity and deep emotion. It makes us feel good. It makes everything right.
Or does it? Is there a flaw in any plan of action which has to invoke the will of God to make it right? Even if there isn’t a flaw in what we are doing, how come those other countries we are fighting are also killing, bombing and destroying for “God and Country?” Wait a minute. Something is not right here. Just how many Gods are there that are right? How can so many different countries have so many Gods, each of which is right, when they are directly opposed to each other? This isn’t adding up. “It is the will of Allah!” “With God’s help, we will win!” “In God We trust.” “The Gods will now be happy!” “Those who do not believe in our God are infidels, and deserve to die!” Whoa. Back off, my friends. There is not only trouble in Paradise, there is a mass schizo-phrenia.
What this means is that each of us, in our own little country, with our own little god, is able to condone murder, rape, plunder, looting, killing, massacres, bombing, destruction and greed because our own little god declares this is what we should do. We should be deeply ashamed. Yes, everyone should have the right to any religious belief which is dear to them and helps them construct their lives in a more orderly and moral fashion. There is no god, however, who orders us to be evil to our fellow humans. If there is such a god, it is indeed a cruel and evil god. Such a god should be abandoned.
There is, in fact, no god who favors any country. Humans use god as a justification for being inhumane to other humans, for being disrespectful of our earth home, for acts which are immoral. There is, in fact, no personal god of any kind for any single mineral, plant, animal, human, town, city, state, country or federation. There is only one God: The Laws of Chance and Chaos. That God is universal for all matter and beings everywhere in our universe. That God does not favor any single piece of matter or conglomeration over any other. He, She and It doesn’t care. If you do something evil, my friends, don’t blame some malleable god: YOU are the one who is responsible. We are all in this together, not nation against nation.
“Question with boldness the existence of God; because, if there be one, he will more approve of reason, than of blindfolded fear.”
– Thomas Jefferson
“And today (1984-1985), in the formerly charming city of Beirut, the contending Zealots of three different inflections even of the same idea of a single paternal ‘God’ are loading bombs on each other…”
“One cannot but ask: what can such tribal literalism possibly contribute but agony to such a world of intercultural global prospects as that of our present century?”
“Do I hear, coming as from somewhere that is nowhere, the frightening sound of an Olympian laugh?”
– Joseph Campbell
“As viewed by astronauts from the moon, the earth lacks those lines of socioeconomic division that are so prominent on maps. And as recognized here below, the web of interlacing socioeconomic dependencies that now enfolds the planet is of one life.”
– Joseph Campbell