Divine Competition

I got to wondering after a friend made a comment last week: Even the Romans tried to kick the Jews out.

Brought up with no religious indoctrination, but in a Jesus-influenced Christian nation, my cultural baseline for acceptance is equality for all and that spiritual pursuits are a private matter, not public policy.

Over the decades, I’ve done a lot of research and observation of people from various perspectives. Psychology, anthropology, philosophy, history, mythology and politics all play their parts in how I construct my worldview. Underneath is an unwavering drive to identify what is true, what is good, what is hypocritical, and what is harmful.

The Roman Empire highlighted inclusivity of spirituality. Unlike the various forms of monotheism which have flourished over the past 2,500 years, the Romans made a point of building religious diversity into the foundation of their empire. This reality is something many today may struggle to understand.

Just imagine, no global war on other religions, no such word as ‘infidel’. No centuries of war such as we’re still experiencing between Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and the various brands within those worldviews. Just an all-inclusive culture of spirituality. The Pantheon embodied this ideal in stone for all to visit.

The various styles of monotheism share a foundation worldview: life is suffering and we behave in certain ways to achieve favour in death.

There are many people who have documented their departure from their religion. Some provide emotional, social, or intellectual insight of their processes. These insights show a theme: exclusivity and competition are inherent to monotheism.

From a biological perspective, monopolising resources to ensure survival is the motivating force. Monotheism is the religious monopolising of people for survival. I’ve concluded that this is the reason Rome rejected monotheistic beliefs. Converting or destroying people of other faiths was anathema to the Roman civilisation.

Monotheism was the existential threat which finally destroyed Rome, converting it to a monoculture of religious worldview.

Is human spirituality actually divined by destroying others?

Really?

The Romans tried to stop the Jews. The Christians destroyed the Romans. Now Islam is coming for the Jews and Christians… but that’s not all of it.

So, now we have three distinct versions of monotheism competing for dominance on our planet. One is struggling for survival while the other two cover about one-third of the planet’s population each. Within both, there are also factions which compete against each other, too. Who is the ‘true’ prophet? Who is the actual spiritual successor? Do we follow the Holy Gourd or the Holy Sandal?

I would like to propose that we disengage spirituality from religion. One is an approach to life which raises our nature, improves the essence of who we are, and promotes human development and evolution. The other is a socio-economic series of organisations with power and domination as their agenda, and coercion and murder as their mechanisms.

We already have brilliant methods for ensuring social harmony: secular law and secular values provide us with exactly what we need to create a safe and stable society. This is what all of us have in common, and this is what we all must protect.

Sectarian violence is on the rise, and has been especially since the late 1970s. Australia is experiencing sectarian violence not seen since the 1840s when Christians were eliminating the last of the Aboriginal nations.

It seems to me that we are facing what the Romans faced: an existential threat to a global multicultural society. Monotheism is once again the threat.

As a species, are we going to step out of this cycle this time?