It’s human nature. I get it.
My car is newer than your car and my house is bigger and nicer, too. My job is better than yours, my clothes are more fashionable, I’m better looking than you and my partner is sexier and more successful.
Recognize yourself in any of those? I wouldn’t be surprised. We all share that need to feel better than other people. It permeates everything in our lives, right from the shoes we wear down below to the gods we worship up above. It’s hard wired, I think.
Personally, I find it tiresome when it manifests itself in things, consumer goods and so on, but it’s a whole other matter when this need for dominance appears in the arena of belief. When it comes to our gods, that’s when it gets dangerous.
You see it all the time; people of Major Religion A being slaughtered by fundamentalist members of Major Religion B, who need their god — or sometimes even their version of the same god — recognized and worshiped as the one, true way.
I don’t know about you, but whenever I see mobs of hysterical fanatics screaming and yelling and waving their arms about some sleight to their belief system, I want to tell them, “Look, just sit down and shut up. Humanity can’t afford your blood-soaked doctrinal warfare any longer, so zip it.”
Of course I don’t say that. Freedom of speech issues aside, we all know prohibition doesn’t work against something we’re hard wired to do, like drinking alcohol, say, or being a religious bigot. The best we can hope for is to reduce the harm to society.
So how could a harm reduction model work for religious intolerance? Well, if the major religions need to have their god lord over other gods, they don’t have to go after the big five. There’s no shortage of old, used up gods they can target instead — sort of like spiritual methadone — that would allow their fundamentalist factions to do their thing without all the blood and social upheaval.
How about Belenus? No, not the high school, the Celtic sun god. Lots of people worshiped him at one point and no less than Julius Caesar himself compared him to the Roman Apollo. That’s about all that’s known about him though. Sounds like a pretty safe bet.
Okay, here we go. Keep your head down.
“That Belenus, what a jerk! Nobody even cares about him any more. What is he, God of Losers?”
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You stay here behind the couch. I’m going to take a look around.
…
All clear! No mobs of arm-waving Belenus worshipers bladladladling or whatever noise it is they make when they’re angry. I think it’s safe to put him on the list.
Maybe another group of fundamentalists can hate Bubi. You know, Germanic ancestor of the gods, father of Odin, who was freed from the ice by the primeval cow after three days of steady licking? Yeah, him.
I’ve never been to Germany, but I’m guessing if there was a major cow-licking-the-frozen-guy-out-of-the-ice riot lately I would have heard about it.
How about Ra, from Egypt — the first god to say “I am the way, the truth and the light and none may come to the father except through me?”
Nah, too controversial. Let’s go with Maai, the Egyptian goddess of truth, justice and harmony. Things have been pretty quiet on that front lately, so we can probably add her to the list of safe gods to hate.
Personally, I think Erlik, the king of the dead in southern Siberia, would fit in nicely, what with his constant battling against the supreme god Ulgan and all.
Another candidate for otherworldly punching bag might be Cronos, the Greek son of the sky god and the earth mother, who killed his father and ate his own children. I don’t know much about the guy, but I hate him already!
And Pan? Oh please. That can’t be real.
Neil Horner is the assistant editor of the Parksville Qualicum Beach News
