Garvey's Ghost: Black Talk

Religion as Mind and body Control

This evening while reading the NY Times online I stumbled across an article entitled:Afghan Court Gives Editor 2-Year Term for Blasphemy. The general point was that the "conservatives" of that country wanted to follow Sharia and put the man to death for writing an article about Apostacy. In his article he claimed that Apostacy was taboo but not against Sharia. To be honest I have no idea whether or not Apostacy is against Sharia but I'll take the claim at face value. But this commentary is not really about the event but rather the idea that a person should be put to death for either questioning a religious tenet or for abandoning the "faith" of a particular society.

What purpose does killing a person for renouncing Islam serve? Really? Is God threatened by one of it's creations deciding not to believe in the particular path that his or her society laid out to deal with it? Or is it really that the society or the religion is actually serving the wishes of the weak minded and weak willed of that society? Surely if apostacy was such a threat to God or it's created material world, God would, being omnipotent, eliminate that person from existance. But that does not happen. There are any number of Islamic apostates that are walking around with God's full knowledge and the universe as we know it has not collapsed.

Therefore, if God is not so threatened by these Apostates, then it means that some other being is threatened. That being is man. And I mean man as in the male species. It is clear that the killing of the Apostate individual is an act of social control meant to keep the rest of society in line. After all, if someone can renounce the religion and live, then what would stop him or her from challenging the authority of so called religious leaders? Of course this is exactly what is feared. Thus the idea that the apostate must be killed is not a rule that serves God but rather the egos and thirst for power of the Apostate's executioner.

It is interesting that in other religions such as Buddhhism and my own, Ifa, does not attempt to stifle the questioning individual. The individual is free to believe or not believe. In Ifa it is the individual that threatens him or herself by not observing the religious obligations. The Orisa, agents of God (Olodumare) are their to aid the individual to achieve and maintain Iwa Pele (good character). It is recognized that even "believers" can be mistaken. The Ifa Corpus has many examples of characters doing good or ill by following or not following the advice of Ifa. Therefore it is not that the age of the religions are the cause of the apparent egoism and power trips of "conservatives" it is that there are deeply flawed outgrowths from Islam's roots that have allowed men to do nothing but oppress women (while having sex with boys as is done in Afghanistan)and do nothing to move their societies forward.

Ultimately a religion that stoops to violence and killing in order to maintain control of it's members is a religion in serious need of reformation.