DON GOD

While we were driving to sales this morning, our conversation was on the stupidity of religion, as it often is. We both settled on how much like a mafia don, or Middle Eastern warlord the common conception of god and the practice of religion is.

From now on, I think I'll start referring to the commonly worshiped western deity as "don God." I mean, the similarities are glaring. That's because of the society out of which those concepts arose. They were all patriarchal, tribal and authoritarian. The guy at the top lived in pampered luxury and demanded cowering subservience from all those under him. It only took a word from him for someone's life to be summarily snuffed out. Read the story of David if you have any doubts about that. Ancient Israel was just like modern day Afghanistan.

It started out small, with little clans and tribes, then city states, finally nations and empires. It's been a story of political evolution, and democratic ideas have never been all that popular in most of the world until fairly recent times, and they're under siege every day.

Clan law was the beginning and still exists in things like the mafia. You even find it enshrined in Bible statutes such as the haven cities of refuge people who killed someone accidentally could flee to for safety from the avenger of the family. My McCoy ancestors considered it their duty to champion it against the Hatfields in not too distant times right here in the USA.

So, today, we have the "soldiers" of one religion arrayed against the "soldiers" of another religion in what can be likened to gang warfare. It's don God against don Allah and each faction jealously guards its territory and plots to wipe the rival out. Inside those broad factions are separate "families" competing and waring with each other. It's quite a spectacle!

The more things change, the more they stay pretty much the same