Document text
0 of 3 Premium Clicks used this month SUBSCRIBE Print + Online Subscriber Activation | Register x Forgot Password | Need an Account? subscribe | newsletter | deals Classifieds Jobs Autos Real Estate FEATURED » NEWS NOW More lightning, high winds possible ... Scientist: We need to learn to live with wildfires ... Weather or Not: June in Redding — er, I mean Ashland ... More lightning, high winds possible ... Scientist: We need to learn to live with wildfires ... Weather or Not: June in Redding — er, I mean Ashland ... COMMENTARY Chris Honoré: The perils of religious hubris Comment By Chris Honoré DailyTidings.com By Chris Honoré Posted Feb. 16, 2015 at 12:01 AM By Chris Honoré Posted Feb. 16, 2015 at 12:01 AM What do you think? --> Have an opinion on this topic? Send a letter to the editor at www.dailytidings.com/sendletter or email ... » Read more X What do you think? Have an opinion on this topic? Send a letter to the editor at www.dailytidings.com/sendletter or email [email protected] . » Social News Who among us has not walked out into the dead of night and looked up at the heavens and pondered those elusive questions of origin and meaning: How did we come to be here? What is our purpose? From such interrogatories, asked by our antecedents while gazing up at a vast expanse of stars, answers were created that eventually formed what today we refer to as religion: a complex scaffolding of rituals, morality, laws and a structure of belief regarding our existence and its eventual outcome. It’s estimated that worldwide there are 4,200 religions possessing billions of adherents. Clearly, as a species, we crave ultimate explanations that allow us to deal not only with our anxieties and our misfortunes but life’s seeming randomness. Earlier this month, President Obama spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast and to the distress of some in the audience reflected on the arrogance of belief referring first to those who commit the most heinous crimes in the name of Islam. But he went on to say, “Lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.” He was, of course, correct. The history of the Inquisitions that swept Europe involved a pathology that is chilling to consider wherein “heretics” were tortured and burned and dismembered in ways that defy imagination. All in the name of Christianity and with the blessing of the Pope. Obama went on to say, “In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often (were) justified in the name of Christ …” Once again, the President was correct. From the pulpits across America religious leaders provided the biblical and moral rationale for the institution known as slavery, and later righteously supported the insidious laws referred to as Jim Crow (exemplified by segregation in all public places and the discriminatory statutes manifested in Plessy v. Ferguson). According to a recent article in the New York Times, based on a recent report by the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Ala., 3,959 blacks were victims of “racial terror and lynchings” in 12 Southern states from 1877 to 1950, absent any organized outrage or protest from the church. And if silence was the response, wasn’t that a form of approbation? In 1922, for example, in the community of Streetman, near Dallas, “George W. Gay was hung from a tree and shot hundreds of times.” And to the south, “three black men, two of them almost certainly innocent, were accused of killing a white woman, and under the gaze of hundreds of soda-drinking spectators, were castrated, stabbed, beaten and tied to a plow and set afire in the spring of 1922.” The report goes on to say, “Lynching and the terror era shaped the geography, politics, economics and social characteristics of being black in America during the 20th century.” President Obama went on to comment, “I believe that the starting point of faith is some doubt — not being so full of yourself and so confident that you are right and that God speaks only to us and doesn’t speak to others, that God only cares about us and doesn’t care about others, that somehow we alone are in possession of the truth.” Of course, the GOP was outraged and took vociferous exception to his words and their implication. But in effect, the president was defining the narrow geography of religious fanaticism, something that is self-evident in the righteous words and monstrous deeds of ISIS and their ilk, but also a phenomenon that grips true believers wherever they are to be found, in whatever century. The presence of religious fanaticism, often expressed by totalitarian edict, is ever with us. No society is exempt. Our founders knew this to true. And it is why a separation between church and state must be upheld no matter all attempts to blur the lines in our own homeland. Gay rights and abortion rights are but two examples. Chris Honoré lives in Ashland. By Chris Honoré DailyTidings.com By Chris Honoré Posted Feb. 16, 2015 at 12:01 AM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... Business Name address Location, ST | website.com Find Southern Oregon Attractions Bars Restaurants Beauty Salons Entertainment Doctors Medical Specialists Contractors Education Lawn Services Lawyers Shopping Travel Tanning Used Cars Wedding Services ▼ Add your business here + Events Calendar Connect with DailyTidings.com Facebook Twitter RSS Back to top Reader Services Reader Services home Subscriptions Subscriber controls Contact us Submissions Photos Events Letters to the editor Corrections Alerts Email alerts RSS feeds Text Alerts Advertise Media Kit Home Products and services Ad rates Advertising contacts Propel Marketing Mail Tribune Daily Tidings The Nickel Shop Our Valley Blogs Mobile Site Stay Informed Email newsletter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Your privacy is important, read our privacy policy. © Copyright 2015 Local Media Group, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms of Service | Local Media Group Publications Original content available for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons license, except where noted. DailyTidings.com | P.O. Box 1108, Medford, OR 97501