THE FUNDAMENTALIST'S LAST HURRAH

     The three major monotheistic religions - Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - held sway over much of the world until the middle of the last millennium. After that time, people began to rely upon their own thoughts and observations, upon reason and the empirical method of science. Thus began the Age of Reason.

     The fundamentalists who had, until then, ruled the hearts and minds of much of the world began to lose their power. They slowly faded into a sort of quaint, old-fashioned background to most of our lives. Instead, Secular Humanism began to hold sway, using science and rational thought to understand and to control reality.


     However, these same old-fashioned religious fundamentalists are today staging a comeback. They are attempting to regain the spiritual and secular power that they had enjoyed in earlier times. Today, they are again using their age old and powerful myths to defeat their avowed enemy - the secular humanist.

     The right-wing Christian fundamentalists in the United States, headed by Bush and his gang, are even now ignoring tested and proven scientific evidence, especially evidence regarding the environment. This is in defiance of all rational thought. They have closed their minds to the rationality of the present and have brought their old myths back into play. (See "Scientists: Administration Stifles Inquiry" in "BeHereNow.")

     Today, in addition to warring upon Secular Humanism, these monolithic and monotheistic religions are warring upon each other incessently, each convinced that it has the whole truth and the only truth. In truth, they each have only a small piece of the truth. And with it, they are attempting to bring the rest of us into their unconscious and dangerous acting out upon the world stage.


     Today, each of these three religions has become the antithesis of its own founder's teaching. Poor President Bush isn't at all like Christ. Instead he has unwittingly caused hate-filled divisions within his own country as well as in the rest of the world. And he has indirectly caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent folks in his wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Jews and the Muslims are no better, hating and killing each other daily.

     No longer do the leaders of any of these three religions teach us to love one another. No longer do they teach us to turn the other cheek and to forgive. No longer do they teach us that the holy law is sacred. No longer do they teach us that community must include everyone and that no one shall be placed above another. Instead they all teach war and hatred and revenge. And the worst, of course, is that they all project their own shadows upon their enemy. They all judge their enemy as if they somehow really believed that they themselves were innocent of the faults they saw in him.

     These fundamentalists, knowing that their way is passing - and even eager for it to pass - are trying to bring the rest of us down along with them. And if they continue to have their way, if the rest of us allow this, they will destroy Mother Earth's fragile environment as well as our human civilization through the effects of global warming and their incessant wars.


     What can we do? We can use all nonviolent means possible to remove those like Bush from positions of power and influence. We can spread the word, educating others. We can focus our energies upon the very real and present danger of global warming that is being ignored by Bush and his oil cronies. And we must begin this now - before they lead us over the abyss.

     We can join together, those of us who are spiritually inclined, into Spiritual families and Communities. We can become Fellowships of Light. We can become spiritual examples. We can become Holy ones.

     The only reason that the fundamentalists have even been able to stage a comeback was because Secular Humanism itself did not satisfy our collective need for a spiritual dimension to our lives. That is why we must not reject Secular Humanism with its powerful science and its love of all humanity. This is why we must instead build upon its work by adding to it the Light of consciousness and compassion - the same Light that these misguided fundamentalists foolishly believe they alone can see.

Eugene Marks