{"id":108556,"date":"2020-11-11T17:09:36","date_gmt":"2020-11-12T00:09:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=108556"},"modified":"2020-11-11T17:09:36","modified_gmt":"2020-11-12T00:09:36","slug":"truth-and-science-has-won-the-us-presidential-election-will-america-win-the-world-through-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/11\/11\/truth-and-science-has-won-the-us-presidential-election-will-america-win-the-world-through-it\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Truth and Science\u2019 has won the US presidential election; will America win the world through it?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Rohana R. Wasala<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

America\nis the most religious and the most nationalistic country in the world, in\naddition to being the only global superpower. When the Democrats who fought the\nelection on a platform of \u2018Truth and Science\u2019 defeated the Republicans who were\nguided or misguided by a person\/a cult figure (instead of a coherent policy)\nwhom many popular polls described as mendacious and ignorant on top of being an\nindecent narcissistic exemplar of religious and nationalistic extremism, racism\nand misogyny, it is natural for a world, persecuted by America\u2019s hegemonic\npolitical economic and military power, to breathe a sigh of relief. Democratic\nParty\u2019s Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have been declared President and\nVice-President elects respectively, beating Republican Party\u2019s Donald Trump,\nincumbent President, and his Vice-President and running mate Mike Pence. Sri\nLanka is, no doubt, currently sharing that universal sense of consolation.\nThough some anti-national, NGO-dominated social media are trying in vain to\nturn that hopeful feeling to gloomy apprehension by drumming up a certain\nunfounded \u2018Kamala Harris\u2019 phobia, signs are that, probably, average Sri Lankans\ncannot wish a better person to be in that post to channel America\u2019s influence\nin their region in a universally beneficent direction. My purpose here is to\ntake a look at hypocritical religiosity and nationalism-turned-racism (versions\nof fundamentalist religion and racist jingoism, respectively), both at the\nservice of despicable value-free politics, that Truth and Science successfully\nchallenged at the recent US presidential election. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Religion\nis about human \u2018spirituality\u2019. Spirituality is \u2018the quality of being concerned with the human\nspirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things\u2019, in other words, with\nthe mind as distinct from the body. So it is appropriate to approach the\nphenomenon of religious fundamentalism from a psychological point of view. Some psychologists assume\nreligious fundamentalism to be \u2018a collection of infallible beliefs or principles that\nprovide guidance regarding how to obtain salvation. Religious fundamentalists\nbelieve in the superiority of their religious teachings, and in a strict\ndivision between righteous people and evildoers\u2026… This belief system\nregulates religious thoughts, but also all conceptions regarding the self,\nothers, and the world\u2019 (frontiers.org<\/a>).\nIsn\u2019t every religion fundamentalist by nature in this sense? But there are two\nkinds of religious fundamentalism in my opinion, harmless and harmful. What\nshould concern us is the latter. The more a religion tends towards harmful\nreligious fundamentalism, the more it resembles a cult that thrives on unhinged\nminds. A cult, we know, is \u2018a system of religious veneration and devotion directed towards a\nparticular figure or object\u2019. (Both dictionary definitions given in this\nparagraph are from google.com<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nrise of Christian fundamentalism in America in the 19th century as a Protestant\nmovement to counter theological liberalism and cultural modernism can be\ndescribed as the advocacy of a return to the basic \u2018infallible beliefs or\nprinciples\u2026..\u2019 of the Christian faith. That was harmless fundamentalism and was\nviewed as something positive. Actually, the term fundamentalism as originally\napplied to Christianity in America had non-violent, \u2018you mind your own\nbusiness, we mind ours\u2019 connotations; the word acquired the current pejorative\nmeaning in the media when it began to be connected with violent Islamic\nmovements in the Middle East in the 1970s decade, a most conspicuous event\namong which was the 1979 Iran Revolution, that toppled the US-backed Shah of\nIran, Mohamed Reza Pahlavi, during President Jimmy Carter\u2019s last year in\noffice. The latter, now 96, congratulated president elect Joe Biden and\nvice-president elect Kamala Harris as the media reported November\n8.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Religious\nfundamentalism becomes a problem when any religion claims monopoly\nover  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Truth\n(whatever that is), superiority over other faiths regardless of whether they\nalso make similar claims about themselves, seeks to rescue the \u2018misguided\u2019\nadherents of those faiths from allegedly false and evil beliefs and practices\nthrough coercion where conversion through conviction doesn\u2019t work, or even\nresorts to violence to have its way with people, evoking divine authority to\njustify it. Religions are intrinsically political, but rarely democratically\nso. Religion and politics make a violently explosive mixture. (\u2018Politics has\nkilled its thousands, but religion has slain its tens of thousands\u2019. – Irish\ndramatist Sean O\u2019Casey, \u2018Religion kills\u2019 \u2018Religion poisons everything\u2019 –\nBritish intellectual and socio-cultural and political critic Christopher\nHitchens) The Founding Fathers of the USA including Thomas Jefferson sought to\nestablish a \u2018wall of separation between the State and the Church\u2019 in order to\nkeep civil government free from the interferences of the Catholic clergy. The\nconcept was termed \u2018secularism\u2019 only in the 19th century by British reformer\nGeorge Jacob Holyoake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Religious\ninterference in what should come within exclusive state purview, for example\npublic education, has persisted even into the third millennium, in America. A\nsurvey conducted in 2006 by Zogby International for the Discovery Institute\nfound that approximately 70% of Americans approved of the view that biology\nteachers should teach Darwin\u2019s theory of evolution, but also \u2018the scientific\nevidence against it\u2019 in contrast to 21% who held the opinion that only\nevolution and the scientific evidence that supports it must be taught in\nschools. This is the result of benighted ignorance – inexcusable in those who\nclaim to be the greatest democracy and the only superpower in the world – that\nis at the root of religious fundamentalism. Evolutionary biologist Richard\nDawkins says that \u2018the theory of evolution is actually a fact – as\nincontrovertible a fact as any in science\u2019. There isn\u2019t any scientific evidence\nagainst it. Prof. Dawkins makes \u2018a personal summary of the evidence\u2019 available\nto support this factual reality in his fascinating  book \u2018The Greatest\nShow on Earth\u2019, Bantam Press, GB, 2009. The plain but profound final sentence\nof the book is worth quoting: \u2018We are surrounded by endless forms, most\nbeautiful and most wonderful, and it is no accident, but the direct consequence\nof evolution by non-random natural selection – the only game in town, the\ngreatest show on Earth\u2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nhis book \u2018Against Religion\u2019 (Scribe Publications, Brunswick, VIC, Australia,\n2007), Dr Tamas Pataki of the University of Melbourne makes a philosophical\ncritique of religion, which goes beyond the neighbourhood of what, according to\nhim, may be called psychology of religion. Pataki adopts religious scholar and\nphilosopher John Haldane\u2019s brief characterization of religion: \u2018religion is\nbest characterised as a system of beliefs and practices directed towards a\ntranscendent reality in relation to which persons seek solutions to the\nobserved facts of moral and physical evil, limitation and vulnerability,\nparticularly and especially death.\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scottish\nphilosopher and academic John Haldane was a papal advisor to the Vatican.\nObviously, he is not anti-religion; he is pro-religion. He believes in the\nnecessity of religion as a foundational political principle that fosters values\nlike respect for others\u2019 rights, and support for their well-being in\nmulticultural multi-religious societies which are the global norm today for\nmost countries; religion, according to him, is the best, and indeed, the only\nsource of such ideas. Critics of religion argue that religions differ on what\nthey consider to be moral and good, and instead of promoting goodwill and\ncompassion towards people of other religions, sow feelings of mutual\nalienation, suspicion, and disunity, and egoistic self-absorption. Religious\nfundamentalism of both the benign and the malign kinds aggravate such\nattitudes.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According\nto Pataki, criticising religion is a complicated matter because there is so\nmuch diversity within religions. He writes: \u2018The historical denominational\ndifferences are bad enough, but recent developments have completely erased any\nhope of perspicuous demarcation. Today the ineluctable longing for group\nidentity drives even those who divest religion of its defining doctrinal\ncontent to religious affiliation. The denial of the Resurrection and the Deity\nis no bar to identifying as a Christian. Iris Murdoch (Irish British novelist\nand philosopher deeply concerned about good and evil) enjoined a Christianity\nwithout God or divine Jesus, a kind of Christian Buddhism. Unbelief has become\nbelief.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pataki\u2019s\ncritical discussion is predicated on people that he describes as \u2018religiose\u2019,\nwho include most of the groups currently identified as fundamentalist, among\nothers. Another factor that forms an obstacle to criticism of religion is that\nit, like politics, cuts across a range of absolutely different fields:\nideology\/doctrine, practices, rituals, institutions, movements, attitudes,\nvotaries, and priests. The evils of religion examined in the book are\nconspicuous in the three well known Abrahamic monotheisms, according to\nPataki\u2019s thinking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Religion\nis not all bad, though, as already suggested. To many people religion is\ninvaluable as the deepest expression of human worth and moral well-being. It is\nalso an inexhaustible source of consolation for them in personally and socially\ndistressful, emotionally draining situations such as bereavement and natural\ncatastrophes. However, Pataki adds reservations to this: \u2018There is no metric\nfor religion at its best, but it is not hard to measure it at its worst, in the\ntenebrous collapse of reason and in corpses. Besides, it is obviously more\nimportant today to confront religion at its worst and most dangerous. The good\ntakes care of itself.\u2019 The further a religion is from blind irrationality and\nintrinsic violence, the greater is its potential as a socio-cultural institution\nfor the general good of the community concerned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pataki\ndescribes ten characteristics of religious fundamentalism, which I will set\ndown here – with my own elaborations given in parentheses, in some cases, as I\nunderstand them (Some of these were accidentally revealed during the US\nelection): Religious fundamentalists are counter-modernists; they advocate\nreligious, cultural and political isolationism; they are assertive, clamorous,\nand often violent, (but they play the victim card when confronted); fundamentalists\nbelieve that they are the Elect of their god, the Chosen people, the Saved,\netc; they display public marks of distinction, which they think are necessary\nto maintain their superiority and distinctive identity (so, they may wear\nspecial body marks, adopt a special dress code, and use names that reveal their\nspecific religious identity); religious fundamentalists believe that (as theirs\nis the one true religion and the one exclusively blameless way of life) these\nmust not allow any inroads to be made into their domain from other religions\n(or secularist institutions, religious pluralism is unthinkable for them). A\nsixth characteristic belief that fundamentalists commonly share is that there\nis only one inerrant holy book, and one inerrant prophet or charismatic leader\n(both of which they have been divinely favoured with). They also believe that\nlaw and authority come from God and that God\u2019s law surpasses human law. Yet\nanother fundamentalist characteristic is the preoccupation with controlling female\nsexuality; unbreachable segregation must be established between men and women.\nPataki identifies the ninth characteristic of fundamentalists as their major\nconcern with the sexual behaviour of individuals; the fear of and opposition to\nhomosexuality. The tenth characteristic of fundamentalists is that their\nreligious fundamentalism is inseparable from their nationalism (nationalism of\nthe evil kind, racism, the \u2018all for ourselves and nothing for other people\u2019\ndoctrine usually adopted by Americans that Noam Chomsky criticises in in his\nbook \u2018Who Rules the World\u2019, 2016).  Most of these characteristics are\nclose to the conspicuous symptoms of persons suffering from what is known as\nnarcissistic personality disorder (NPD). Quite unexpectedly, we have a well\nknown Buddhist monk who displays these qualities in abundance these days. The\nmorbidity of religious fundamentalism need hardly be stressed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For\nme, evidence for the last point mentioned came from the tail end of Donald\nTrump\u2019s election campaign. The nationalism slogan was loudly chanted on the\nstages of both camps, Democratic and Republican. There is nothing wrong with\nthat. Good nationalism should be commended. Racism that passes for nationalism\nis what is bad. On the Republican side, the identity between the wrong kind of\nnationalism (white racism) and what can be described as religious\nfundamentalism in terms of the characteristics given above, was particularly\nconspicuous. Paula White, Trump\u2019s spiritual adviser, held a number of prayer\nservices invoking divine blessings for his victory even as his defeat had\nbecome a certainty by the final stages of the counting process which was still\nin progress in the wake of the just concluded presidential election. She,\napparently, engaged in battle with the \u2018demonic confederacies\u2019 that were\nallegedly trying to steal Trump\u2019s victory (cf. \u2018a strict division between\nrighteous people and evildoers\u2019 in the second paragraph from the beginning of\nthis essay). She loudly chanted: \u2018Strike Strike\u2026. I Strike the ground\u2026\u2026..until\nyou have Victory\u2026..I hear a sound of Victory…I hear an overabundance of Rain\nand Victory in the Quarters of Heaven\u2026..I hear Shouting and Singing\u2026. Angels\nare being released\u2026…are being despatched\u2026\u2019 etc. Then she broke into speaking\nin tongues (directly communicating with God), something with profound religious\nsignificance for the faithful: \u2018Amanda, Atha, Rasa, Baka, Ambo, Rike, Eka,\nAnda, Anda, Manda\u2026 I hear the sound of Victory, etc\u2019.  Trump lost in spite\nof all this. The Democrat Joe Biden, who, on his part, presumably, made as\npassionate a supplication for divine intervention for his victory, won the\nelection. But his no nonsense main campaign slogan \u2018Battle for\nthe Soul of the Nation Our Best Days Still Lie Ahead No Malarkey! Build Back\nBetter Unite for a Better America\u2019 had little to do with religion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When\nall is said and done, it is upto the American people, as Americans, to choose\ntheir ruler\/s for the next four years; they are doing that now. On the face of\nit, especially to us outsiders, the winning margin of four million votes\naccording to estimates at the time of writing (Biden\u2019s 74 to Trump\u2019s 70\nmillion) is a bit disappointing; the gap should have been wider, we feel, given\nthe  unpopularity of the latter, deepened by the anti-Trump stance of the\nmedia and Trump\u2019s own apparent personal perverseness, his unconcealed white\nsupremacist bravado and his sexist prejudice displayed against his own near and\ndear ones. However, only his 70 million or more supporters know what endeared\nhim to them. Outsiders cannot decide for Americans. The best we may expect from\nthe incoming US administration is that they appreciate this reality in respect\nof Sri Lanka when considering whether or not to continue or modify the\nestablished tradition of intervention and interference in its affairs in\npursuit of their geopolitical ends in our region as an essential part of their\ngrand scheme of serving their own national interest back home. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Rohana R. Wasala America is the most religious and the most nationalistic country in the world, in addition to being the only global superpower. When the Democrats who fought the election on a platform of \u2018Truth and Science\u2019 defeated the Republicans who were guided or misguided by a person\/a cult figure (instead of a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-108556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rohana-r-wasala"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108556\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}