Nationalism and religion

I am a Canadian and being one I’m aware of the many blessings found living here. Residing here means residing in a democratic, free and compassionate country. Our Canadian nationalism here seeks to promote that unity, independence, and well-being of Canada for Canadians.

 

Way back in history beyond and before there was a Canada came the emergence of Homo sapiens in East Africa. The continues developments afterward lead to the worlds diverse and politically developing nation states.

 

This record of history of our earlies civilization arose in the Kingdom of Kush and later in Ancient Egypt, the Sahel, the Maghreb and the Horn of Africa. According to this history “By 4 million years ago, several australopithecine hominid species had developed throughout Southern, Eastern and Central Africa.” They were tool users, and makers of tools. They scavenged for meat and were omnivores.

 

Aapproximately 3.3 million years ago, primitive stone tools were first used to scavenge kills made by other predators and to harvest carrion and marrow from their bones.

1.5 million years ago we developing human beings still had fairly small-brains and yet still used primitive stone tools. These brains later grew in size “when H. erectus eventually developed a more complex stone tool technology called the Acheulean.” According to this history they were possibly the first hunters, the first to master the art of making fire, and were the first hominid to leave Africa.

Now the fossil record shows Homo sapiens living in Southern and Eastern Africa at least 200,000 to 150,000 years ago.

Around 40,000 years ago, the species' expansion out of Africa launched the colonization of the planet by modern human beings.

By 10,000 BC, Homo Sapiens had spread to most corners of Afro-Eurasia. Their dispersals are traced by linguistic, cultural and genetic evidence. Scholars argue if warfare was absent throughout early human's prehistoric past. They suggest that it emerged after sedentism, farming, and more complex political systems arose.

Stepping back from ancient history again to Canada here in the modern era we Canadians feel proud of who we are. Down south American patriotism creates for the people in the USA a similar pride as ours in their country.

 

Nationalism is a political ideology oriented towards gaining and maintaining self-governance, or full sovereignty, over a territory of historical significance to the group (such as its homeland). This is the territory we modern humans have inhabited if only for a short time. Older inhabitants of the land are of course the First Nations people who have a far lengthier history and tie to the land here..

 

A pride in nation has lead to a belief in exceptionalism. Exceptionalism is a theory or belief that something, especially a nation, does not conform to a pattern or norm. It is a perception that a species, country, society, institution, movement, individual, or time period is exceptional, unusual, or extraordinary in some unique way.

 

My thoughts on this however is that it’s a mistake to divide human beings into exceptional and unexceptional categories.

 

The two nations of Canada and the USA think in this exceptionalist way. This loyalty to country serves a purpose. We have citizens who fought and died defending our way of life. The freedoms that we enjoy didn’t come easy in that way. People paid for those freedoms, obviously, not just in war but in other services to build our nations. Those services are very commendable and valuable. So our loyalty to nationhood is necessary and derives from basic commonsense then but does it necessitate exceptionalism?.

 

The point I’d like to make isn't attempting to destroy those beliefs in nationalism. Those loyalties are important and understandable seen in the light I just described them. There is another way at looking at that loyalty however that does not oppose It but asks another question. Should we miss seeing all of humanity as equal? 

 

Adding another observation to this I’d like to briefly discuss Christianity. Billy Graham is a great evangelist who held religious crusades across North America and the world. Unlike some televangelists many notable thinkers consider Billy Graham to be an honest evangelist. When thousands of people packed auditoriums Billy would invite the thousands in attendance to surrender their lives to Christ. He asked people to get up out of their chairs and walk down unto the field and publicly surrender their lives to Jesus Christ.

 

In his sermons Billy warned  in his message that none of us knows the time or hour when our lives will be over. He advised that we give ourselves to God and be saved by the gift of Gods son who died on the cross for the sins of the world. Accepting that sacrifice then, according to Billy and all Christians in general, is the only hope of finding righteousness in Gods eyes and our only way to find a future with Him. 

 

It should be noted here that I’m a proud citizen of Canada and that I also surrendered my life to Christ publicly at a Franklin Graham (Billy's son) trip during a meeting at a stadium in Halifax. Does my conversion mean that now the world makes complete sense to me? The answer to that question is an emphatic “no!” Life is not totally clear nor is the way the world is organized entirely self-evident to me. I do not consider myself the source of all truth nor in my opinion should any mortal person.

 

One thing I know is I love Canada and another thing I know is that I love and have a real friendship with God. Yet I’m not stuck in a glue that keeps me immovably attached into an ideological pressure for compliance. I am free therefore to voice my uncertainty as opposed to memorizing the talking points of ministers. In the uncertain environment of life, that is a place not entirely self-evident to anyone, truth shouldn’t naively be screamed from the rooftops by mortal minds too recklessly,

 

 I’m free to gauge and theorize about how the world does work. If I was trapped in that glue then instead I’d be forced to except unquestioningly the dogma of these two beliefs.

 

The first belief I’d be forced to except without question, if I was trapped in the glue in this way, would be nationalistic exceptionalism. In that glue  I’d be forced to embrace the notion that Canada is greater and more important unquestioningly then all other people. I’m not talking about being better just because of our good government or dynamic culture but I’m speaking about a belief that we’re just more plain more important then other people of the world. This belief might perhaps look down at the peoples of impoverished nations for instance.

 

I’d also be forced into strict Christian compliance to that norm. I’d have to embrace the taking away of hope of the predominate number of human beings who ever lived in the world. There would be no hope for non believing Christians alive or dead if they did not convert before they died. There would be no hope to anyone who has ever lived who lived without belief in Jesus Christ. Those not compliant to this doctrine, a doctrine often not easy to find or even possible to be discovered, would mean that there would be no hope for them. Those people would have a sealed fate where they were cut off and separated from good forever.

 

Believing my country to be absolutely more important then other countries and having a strict loyalty to a religious doctrine have something in common. What I think they have in common is they each divide the world up by categorizing human beings by “their worth” according to where they are in the world or what they think of as “the truth.”

 

What if, however, I wanted to love the entire world unconditionally? Where might I look for my manual then? Where would I look to find the arguments, doctrine and supporting beliefs to tell me I was on the right track? Nationalistic exceptionalism wouldn’t tell me it was ok to love the entire world. If it spoke to me exceptionalism might say to me strangely if it did talk “Oh well alright I suppose it’s ok for you to love those poor people unconditionally over there in North Korea Donald! They are trapped after all in a restrictive environment of ideological indoctrination. It’s ok to love them and find understanding with them like you have for your own citizens since the way they think isn’t even up to them. Ninety-nine percent of them Donald are schooled in the curriculum of the state which builds a system of belief they can never question or control!”

 

If such consoling words were spoken to me would It allow me to love the people of all these different places “unquestioningly?” Would telling me in a way I could trust that I could consider them “equal as myself” liberate me then freeing my mind to expand how far my love goes?

 

Nationalists might observe that it’s nearly impossible for a person to love the entire world equally anyway. They might say It doesn't make commonsense to love across borders like that. Whether I’m talking about a North Korean citizen,  a Muslim citizen of Saudi Arabia, or Iran, a person with a fierce nationalism in Russia, or anyone anywhere else in the world for that matter, why can’t I think their humanity is absolutely equal to my own? It’s true their thoughts might not be products of the best of ideas. They might not be peaceful or their ideological systems might even be diabolical. Do human beings under bad ideas then deserve ultimate punishment and total discounting of worth? Do they, wherever they are in the world, see those ideas they embrace in the light we “think we do?” If not and they make an honest mistake where is our compassion and understanding? 

 

Whoever among us human beings that is mistaken in their thinking can they still be loved when they are in great error? Isn’t this the thing known as “error” more prevalent in the world then any truth is? Error after all masquerades as truth more often then not doesn’t it? Can a human being then still be loved still when  error, common to all deliberation, wins their elegance in him/her? Isn’t the world built on a foundation that demands right thinking when really error is more prevalently the rule? That seems grossly unfair doesn’t it?

 

What about Christianity then. Can a persons destiny be secured in hope, perhaps hope beyond this world, if in this life that person stumbles awkwardly into the grip of an ugly ideology? That ideology is after all often imposed on that person or he/she simply naively adapts to it.

 

The only thing I know personally that God has to say about this from my religious text is that whoever knows Christ will be saved and whoever doesn't know Christ will be dammed.

 

I do not want to be kept from asking these questions because of my religious belief. You see I desire, while not trapped in glue, for God to be fairer even then the great Evangelist Billy Grahams message. Maybe I’m in real danger here for daring to try and love beyond this standard, but If I want to love, not only others of my own religion and what it teaches, but if I want to love all of humanity, then am I coming closer to God or moving further away from Him when I dare to believe in this understanding of a more inclusive love?

 

Arithmetic is the mathematical calculation which follows a statistical analyses. That calculus can tell us roughly how many Christians there are in the world. The majority of people that have ever lived, or that are now currently alive today, are not Christians. My religion teaches me to love “all” those people “yes!” How do I love them fairly however when the majority of their destinies are dammed? Where is my heart, what kind of shape is it in, when I claim to love them and when I just accept this as true? Have I succumb to an archaic point in an old untested doctrine. Because of that point have I failed to see what it would look like to truly love them all?

 

My love may be unfortunately narrowly conditioned to see life only from a very old source coming from a religious tradition. When I then fail because of that to truly love my neighbor in a complete and honest way then what does that say about my love? What about loving anyone and everyone anywhere in the world? Instead of loving less because of the pride I feel in a national identity what if I accept the entire world and love universally without favoritism? If when in the process of being proud of my country I fail to embrace human kind under this all encompassing umbrella then does this mean my love falls short? Am I understanding this world in how it should wisely be understood here?

 

Torture

I was talking with an old friend about other old friends like I do every time I talk to him. This old friend was experiencing a great deal of pain because of those other old friends. Through his pain his view of them, I soon realized, was greatly diminished. His capability to recognize in those old friends a worth as human beings was obstructed by his badly wounded heart. When I tried to reason with him and build a case for them I argued that despite the veil obscuring his ability to see good in them, because of his pain, there still was good in them, it only made him grow defiant.

 

The longer I listened to him voice his deep contempt for them in how they unfairly treated him the harder it became for me to imagine these people had good qualities. Were they anything other then a cliquish, judgmental, self-superior minded bunch of backstabbers. I don’t believe this about them now but temporarily he lulled me into a hypnotic like momentary trance by his ranting. With him doing all the speaking he didn’t allow me to reflect and respond to any of his words. For a moment I had trouble seeing their good myself.

 

Such problems exist in all of us at different times in this world. In a play by Shakespeare, that I heard talked about in a recent opinion article, the malicious character Iago was discussed. He was an ultimate betrayer of his friend Othello and caused the doom of the sweet Desdemona. The opinion piece suggested that for Shakespeare's audience he may be the villain of all villains who deserves the most the liquid fires of limitless unending punishment. Shakespeare had been talking to an audience in 1604 and the audience of that time understood that he meant torture unto death. “If there be any cunning cruelty / that can torment him much and hold him long, / it shall be his.”

 

Would my old friend, along with those other old friends, have been at Tyburn for the actual torture and death of Robert Southwell if it happened now here? When he was strung up, after being sentenced, disemboweled while still being alive, his corpse ending up quartered before his head was cut off, would they have been part of a large ogling crowd?

 

Our humanity lost sight of Robert Southwells humanity. Did he still have humanity or did he deserve such a gruesome grizzly fate? Others being tormented in the middle ages for perhaps being Catholic or Protestant, one or the other, hung in dungeon cells by their hands eight to nine hours until not only their wits but entire senses failed them. Other horrors included genital mutilation and starvation so severe prisoners would lick the moisture from the walls.

 

If Robert Southwell were on trial here and all my old friends were in attendance would they lose sight of his dignity and worth like they seem to have lost regard for one another's? Queen Elizabeth I said the act was justified in order “to evoke the terror of others.” Shakespeare's audience certainly took satisfaction watching the wicked being tortured without remission.

 

Some have rightfully argued that this behavior degrades us all, I believe God wills us to banish this kind of cruelty from the earth. My friend is trapped in a desire for reckoning and revenge. He misses the most difficult truth about all of the other old friends and that is that they are all still human. Being human means they have inalienable rights. They are a member of a brotherhood of mankind. They are lovable in spite of their coldness to him.

 

What does it do to our humanity when we have such hatred? When we judge others worthless, unredeemable, while no longer deeming them to posses fairness or loving qualities,where has our mind drifted to? When violence in the imagination becomes our source of restitution. When our only path to dignity falsely is believed to be found in the violent fantasy of making the dignity robbers sorry for the pain they cause. How many of us fall into similar demonic traps that lulls people like my old friend to dream about committing the violence that comes from his pain.

 

The worlds biggest ally to the pain and indignity we feel from others is awareness of our Heavenly Father. Forgiveness for our injurers and a self understanding we all matter is paramount in importance. God has numbered every hair of our head and we are more valuable then many sparrows.