16 STEALING IN THE NAME OF GOD
Just about every religion teaches that it is universally wrong to steal from your neighbor … except if you do this in the name of God, in which case stealing on a massive scale is not a sin but a glorious feat of religious piety. Even though it is true that not all religions feel this way, this piece of kleptomaniac theology is particularly popular in Western faiths. All the passages in Jewish scriptures prohibiting theft, in fact, clash head on with the many, many references to God giving the thumb up to the taking of wealth and land from non-monotheistic peoples. We go from the tales of Exodus when Moses's boys fled Egypt, but not before stealing everything that wasn't nailed to a wall, to the wars of extermination against those who dared to live on what Jewish tribes believed should be their Promised Land. Truth be told, for most of the following 3,000 years Jews didn't have the power to act on this idea, but Christianity and Islam gladly borrowed this concept and ran with it.
In the 1400s, for example, the pope channeled Jesus's message to love your enemies by … granting Iberian monarchs full permission to “invade, search out, capture, and subjugate the Saracens and pagans and any other unbelievers and enemies of Christ wherever they may be, as well as their kingdoms … and other property … and to reduce their persons into perpetual slavery.” Stealing the pagans’ lands, wealth and their very freedom apparently was not considered a violation of “Thou Shall Not Steal.” God had obviously meant “Thou Shall Not Steal From Other Believers.” Unbelievers were fair game.
Inspired by this idea, Spanish conquistadors hacking and slashing their way through the Americas justified the slaughter of American Indians by arguing that they had brought it upon themselves. After all, the Jesus-loving Spaniards had read to them a proclamation—the Requerimiento—asking them to acknowledge the Catholic Church as ruler of the world, and accept Spanish rule and missionaries. If they stubbornly refused the Church to be their new boss, then they clearly deserved being killed, enslaved and dispossessed of their lands. To put it simply, the Spaniards established a principle that would later be enthusiastically picked up by waves of other European colonists: non-Christians had no title to the territories they lived on, since it was a right and a duty for Christians to constantly expand the kingdom of God all over the earth. Endorsed in the 1800s even by the American Supreme Court under the name of “doctrine of discovery,” this notion gave free license to the colonization of all lands inhabited by non-Christians.
It may appear odd that this brand of Christian morality held that stealing an apple from a store was a mortal sin, but stealing entire continents from their legitimate owners was a religious calling.
Never mind that this belief seems more fitting for the characters from Grand Theft Auto than for pious religious people. Once the debate was framed as a competition for real estate between God and the devil, then stealing was no longer stealing. It was an act of devotion to God. When told that any land that is not in the hands of God's people is in the hands of the devil, what's a good Christian to do? This same concept of Christian entitlement to take the lands of inferior people was still popular in the 1800s under the name of “Manifest Destiny.” By enlisting Jesus as an accomplice, Christian colonists could actually feel good about the takeover of other peoples’ land and property. This—in a nutshell—is how Christianity provided the theory for the stealing of the American continent.
So many Christian examples may have given the impression that Christians were unique in this effort, but this is far from true. Muslim states played the same game with equal skill. Muhammad regularly advocated the pillaging of the enemies of Islam. And violent conquest and forced conversions have been the main dishes served throughout history by Muslim armies wherever they have set foot. As it turns out, it is not a coincidence if Christianity and Islam are the most practiced religions in the world. Conquest (which is a fancy name for armed robbery on a large scale) is the most powerful tool for spreading one's religion. And no one has played this game as successfully as members of these faiths.
17 ORGIES FOR JESUS
What if Christian theology dismissed the virgin birth and other miracles as fairy tales? What if your pastor/priest told you to flush the Ten Commandments down the toilet and instead live life to the fullest? What if Sunday service at your local church consisted in a juicy orgy? All of this could have happened had Carpocrates had his way.
Carpo …who? The lead character in our story was the leader of a second century Christian community based in the Greek islands. Back in those days, early Christians couldn't agree on just about anything. Official Christian doctrine hadn't been fully established yet, so an extremely wide range of opinions and teachings fell under the label of “Christianity.” The only thing they had in common was that they all thought Jesus was a cool guy. Other than that, everything else was up for debate since they couldn't even agree on which books should become official scriptures. Some Christians believed their religion was to remain exclusively for Jewish people. Others wanted to open it to all ethnicities. Some believed Jesus and God were one. Others were far from sold about this. Some were strict ascetics. Others enjoyed a very sensual life. Some promoted women as leaders within their groups. Others felt women were good to cook dinner and make babies, but religious leaders? Ha!
In the midst of this very chaotic beginning, Carpocrates emerged as a particularly charismatic preacher, who soon attracted enough of a following as to give birth to his own branch of Christianity. His ideas were just a tad on the wild side. Jesus—Carpocrates argued—was as human as anyone else. He was a visionary whose brilliance and wisdom put him in touch with God, but was not God himself. This didn't diminish Jesus's status in Carpocrates's eyes, since it set him up as a model of behavior that regular human beings could hope to emulate. The whole story of the virgin birth made Carpocrates laugh. In his view, good old Jesus was conceived in the old fashioned way: through sweaty sex. The depth of Jesus's wisdom was enough for Carpocrates to admire and love him, so he felt no need for any supernatural special effects. Since this beginning was apparently not controversial enough, Carpocrates promptly taught his followers to reject Mosaic Law as well as the prevailing morality of his times as mere human opinions, not divine commandments. A goodie-goodie morality was according to Carpocrates nothing but a cage built by those who were too scared by life's intensity. The soul could only achieve freedom and fulfillment by experiencing all of life, without discriminating too much. Only in this way, it would free itself from the cycle of reincarnation …
Oh, yeah, did I forget to mention that? Carpocrates's followers—like the members of many other early Christian sects—fully believed in reincarnation. And just like several tantric schools found in the history of both Hinduism and Buddhism, they also believed that human beings should explore every emotion without holding back. Sensual pleasure in their eyes was not any less sacred than the most spiritual practices, so good food, sex and every other earthly joy was embraced as a stepping stone toward liberation.
This determination to live life to the fullest went hand in hand with another radical notion. Carp considered differences in wealth and social class as unnatural perversions. Since everyone is born naked and equal in front of God, human attempts to gain status at the expense of others were misguided and ultimately against God's plan. The cure for the very human tendency toward ego aggrandizing was to discourage the evil of private property. Instead, everything—from material possessions to sexual partners—was to be held in common. Coupled with Carp's insistence on indulging in sensual pleasures, this idea led his followers to regularly stage sexual orgies as part of their spiritual practices … which makes you wonder: just how different would the world be had mainstream forms of Christianity decided to embrace Carpocrates rather than stern moralists like Saint Paul and Saint Augustine? I think it's a safe bet that church attendance would be much higher.
18 BEING A JEWISH MESSIAH IS NOT AS FUN AS ADVERTISED
Every so often throughout the history of Ju
daism somebody will steal the spotlight by claiming to be the redeemer that Jewish people have been waiting for. Typically, he gains scores of followers but before long he also meets an early, bloody death. In the course of many centuries, dozens of people have rushed with masochistic enthusiasm to fill the shoes of the expected Messiah. Maybe they really believed they were on a mission from God. Or maybe they just liked the attention. In either case, the point is that there has never been a shortage of volunteers for the job.
Despite dying in the usual gruesome fashion (for the joy of Mel Gibson and S & M fans everywhere), Jesus clearly won the contest for the most famous among the contenders for the Messiah title. What few people know, however, is that Jesus had a serious challenge in the 1600s—a man who set Jewish messianic expectations on fire and looked like he had all the cards to start another new religion that could give Christianity a run for its money. The reason why he didn't is because … well, let's not rush to the end of our story yet.
The man was Sabbatai Zevi, a Kabbalah enthusiast who grew up in the area of modern day Turkey under the shadow of the Ottoman Empire. Among both Christians and Jews, many were those looking for signs of a coming Messiah ushering humanity into a new age and/or the end of the world. After battling for much of his early life some serious manic-depressive tendencies, Sabbatai promptly stepped up to the messianic plate ready to claim the title. In case his proclaiming he was the Messiah wasn't radical enough, Sabbatai also scandalized many fellow Jews by breaking traditional customs by eating nonkosher food and speaking the forbidden name of God. While he was at it, he also took as a wife a beautiful former hooker who in infancy had survived the massacre of Jews in Poland, and who believed she was destined to marry the Messiah. According to his followers (which at the beginning weren't that many), these violations were signs that the old laws no longer applied now that the Messiah had arrived. Many of the higher ups in the Jewish religious hierarchy didn't buy it and opposed him fiercely (which is exactly the same way in which the Jewish religious elite had reacted to Jesus).
Unlike Jesus, however, Sabbatai managed to gain thousands of followers rather quickly from both Europe as well as from the Ottoman Empire. The desperation felt by many Jews because of the extreme anti-Semitism they faced made many ready to embrace this new Messiah, since they felt he couldn't have come at a more opportune time. In 1665, Sabbatai pushed his luck by predicting that within a year he and his right hand man—who, incidentally, was supposed to be a new incarnation of the prophet Elijah—would conquer the world and lead all Jews back to Israel. This bold prediction spurred thousands of Jews to begin selling everything they owned in preparation for their trip back to the Promised Land.
This kind of bravado, however, didn't sit well with the Ottomans, who controlled that part of the world. The grand vizier promptly had him arrested. And this is where Sabbatai found out that being the Messiah was not as fun as advertised. The grand vizier, in fact, told him that the only way he would be freed would be by performing a miracle. First he would be stripped naked, and then the court archers would use him as a target. If his messianic powers could deflect the arrows, then he would be free to go. Faced with the archers, Sabbatai suddenly remembered that his passion for martyrdom had run out, and that he had actually always wanted to convert to Islam. Satisfied with having exposed him as a charlatan, the Ottomans let him live. Some diehards among his followers tried to spin the whole thing as part of a super complicated messianic move to redeem the whole world by sacrificing his convictions—and, by the way, there are a few thousand people who still believe this today—but clearly this was a hard sell. Had Sabbatai been a little crazier or gutsier, it's likely that a fourth major Western religion would have joined Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
19 IF YOU ARE POOR, IT’S BECAUSE GOD HATES YOUR GUTS
The history of Christianity is like a treasure chest for anyone who is fond of contradictions. The Gospels bicker with each other by relating similar tales in very different ways. But even more obviously, Christianity has often so dramatically departed from the words attributed to Jesus as to make you wonder how these glaring contradictions can be justified. Jesus tells you to “Love your enemies” and “Turn the other cheek”? So let's show how much we love Jesus by waging crusades, inquisitions, witch-hunts, and brutal campaigns of repression against anyone who doesn't love Him as much as we do. Jesus's pacifism has drowned in the hyper-violence that has characterized much of Christian history.
But—we may object—most Christians alive today seem to have lost the bloodthirsty enthusiasm of their ancestors, and are no longer inclined to exterminate non-Christians. Even though it is true enough that chopping the unbelievers’ heads off may no longer be a popular pastime, the vast majority of Christians still conveniently forget about another theme that was central to Jesus's ideology, and structure their lives in direct opposition to it. Jesus, in fact, was one of the most anti-capitalist thinkers this side of Karl Marx. Yet, most Christians are capitalists. What gives?
The concept of capitalism may have not existed in its modern forms during Jesus's times, but Jesus's words about accumulation of wealth leave little to the imagination. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke all report Jesus saying: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.”
Damn … does it get any blunter than this?
Just to make sure we are paying attention, Jesus hammers the same point over and over, repeating multiple times his condemnation of accumulation of wealth. We find him telling wannabe followers to sell all their possessions and give the money to the poor (in case you are wondering, this made some decide that following Jesus was not such a hot idea anymore). In another passage, he categorically states that you can't serve God and wealth at the same time. Elsewhere he warns us to focus on spiritual wealth rather than material wealth, and not to “store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy …” In yet a different occasion, he tells “Woe to the rich for you have received your consolation.” And in a series of sentences that are as antithetical to spirit of capitalism as they come, he advises his followers not to make any plans about the future in regards to food and shelter, since God will take care of everyone's basic needs.
Considering how insistent Jesus is on this topic, it is with little surprise that we find out in other parts of the New Testament how his early followers shared everything among each other, and nearly eliminated private property.
In the face of this ultra-radical stance about wealth by their founder, it would be easy to conclude that most Christians live by making vows of poverty and shunning wealth like the plague. But that's not quite the way things play out. God may be cool—most modern Christians think—but so is gold. Why should we have to choose one over the other? Ever since the Protestant Reformation, any qualms any Christian may have had about chasing good, old-fashioned cash began to fade. Many Catholics had maintained a theology frowning on accumulation of wealth, but simply had chosen to ignore it in practice. Plenty of Protestants, instead, decided to feel better about the whole thing and banish hypocrisy by reinventing the economic ideology of Christianity. Step one was to conveniently skip the many, many passages mentioned above. Step two was to focus instead on the biblical passages (mostly in the Old Testament) approving of wealth. Step three was to argue that since nothing in the world happens without God willing it, economic success (or the lack of thereof) is a quantifiable way to judge how much God does or does not favor you.
Voilà! The tables are turned and suddenly the obsession for money making has been recycled as a perfectly acceptable Christian endeavor. In the theology endorsed by some Christians (particularly those espousing the quintessential American “gospel of prosperity”) accumulating wealth is not only justifiable but almost a Christian duty since material prosperity is God's reward for His faithful followers. The obvious corollary is that if you are poor, instead, it is probably because God hates your guts.
; What makes this hijacking of Jesus's message even funnier are the ways in which the God & Gold enthusiasts have tried to claim that Jesus was himself wealthy. Only the rich—they reason—could afford to travel around like he did and not work. But my all time favorite is the argument that Roman soldiers gambled for the right to take Jesus's underwear after he died suggesting he was so rich that even his underwear was made of very expensive materials.
Really? Is that what this theology hangs by? Jesus underwear? Memo to self: if I ever try to justify my beliefs by appealing to a divine pair of underwear, it's time to admit defeat.
20 CRAZY WISDOM, LAKOTA-STYLE
Lakota religion is not for sissies: they shed blood during the sacrifice of the Sun Dance, seek visions in the midst of the wilderness while on prolonged fasts, and cook themselves in the extreme heat of the sweat lodge. As members of an American Indian tribe renowned for their skills as warriors and fighting spirit, the Lakota apply this same mindset to their religious ceremonies. Putting their body on the line is their way of praying. But Lakota spiritual life also includes something less well known and infinitely weirder than some of the macho displays of toughness for which they are famous. It is home to the heyoka—one of the most bizarre figures in all of the world's religions.
50 Things You're Not Supposed To Know: Religion Page 5