Heresy and the looming danger of ultraviolence
I just read an article in Medium with some interest, largely because of its reference to agnosticism (https://eduardfischer.medium.com/toward-a-spiritual-agnosticism-caa1740028e9), a word I have certainly heard before but never bothered to properly research because the topic of religion seldom enters my mind. However, “the time has come,” the Walrus said (Alice in Wonderland) “to speak of other things.” Including agnosticism and its evil twin called heresy.
The new travel book I am supposed to be writing (Italia! The Agony and the Ecstasy; A heretic’s tour of Rome, Venice, Florence and Assisi) contains the word “heresy” right there in the sub-title, an eye-catcher for those of religious bent. It behooved me to look the word up. To date, depending on the source (dictionaries and religious sites) I have found several different definitions. Perhaps the one that suits the purposes of my upcoming book is “someone who believes or teaches something that goes against accepted or official beliefs.”
You may note this definition does not apply only to religious institutions but also to a wider range of organizations, like political parties. In my own life, organized religion does not concern me or even exist. Of the perhaps 50 people I might encounter in my social circles, only one that I can think of goes to a church, an East Indian lady raised as a Catholic in India. Go figure. Her husband, my brother-in-law, is a devout atheist. Politics, however, is a different kettle of fish.
I started my investigations into religion at the age of three in Montreal, Canada. My mother went to an Anglican church and dropped me off at Sunday school in the basement where they had these nifty comic books about the heroic early Christians dodging the nasty depraved Romans. At the age of six I graduated upstairs to attend regular church lessons. I also studied the New and Old Testiments in regular grade and high schools. I promised my mother I would attend church until I was “confirmed,” whatever that means, which happened at age 12 and I have never been to a church service again except for that time in Oklahoma City when I decided to travel the world at age 16 and found myself short of cash and had to sing for my supper at the Sally Ann. Even as young as age six I recognized mumbo-jumbo when I heard it.
No doubt I should do some more research on the definitions of atheist and agnostic, which I will do for my upcoming book about Italy. Its easy to ignore religion in the secular community in which I exist, but not so easy when you have recently visited dozens if not hundreds of churches with their teachings painted on the walls and ceilings. Especially the ceilings. I am tempted to say that those medieval artists “viewed the world upside down,” lying on their backs 100 feet in the air with paint thinner in their eyes and drifting down their lungs, or perhaps they were just lying through their teeth for fear of the consequences from their rich and powerful patrons.
It has been explained to me that these paintings were a way for the clergy in the middle ages to educate the illiterate masses. You see, only the Roman Catholic clergy had any form of education. On the other hand, they also had all the money, having usurped it from the poor in order to expand their vast real estate empire while at the same espousing a philosophy that kept them rich and powerful and the poor cowering at their feet.
In addition to Italy, on my previous three trips to Mexico I also visited Catholic churches in every town and village I toured, all containing some form of propaganda to boost the power of the clergy. One church in a little town in the valley east of Oaxaca was a real eye opener. Our guide was part Latino, part black and part Indigenous, with the emphasis on the latter. She pointed out that the paintings and sculptures in the church were unique; they were all about torture and the suffering that the Indigenous people experienced from the Spanish Inquisition if the local folk didn’t comprehend or verbally repeat the Catholic psychobabble that they were being forced to learn at the hands of their vicious invaders.
The punishment for not understanding the psychobabble was to have your head cut off in the square in front of the church, which is bad for your health, or the alternative option of being thrown off the top of the roof, neither an attractive proposition so best to memorize the strange and bizarre foreign mumbo-jumbo you are being forced to learn, even if you don’t understand a word of the nonsense you are being force fed. It was a choice of either pie in the sky or strawberry jam on the ground, so to speak.
Its important to remember that such ultra-violence is still happening all over the world as we speak, even if it may be missing in your own cultural circles. In the Excited States, for instance, deep violence is lurking just underneath the surface of politics, and certainly not just with evangelical religion fanatics. Perhaps its time to repeat the definition of heretic I shared at the top of this page; “Someone who believes or teaches something that goes against accepted or official beliefs.” We have been warned. Onward to November and the US general election. God help us all.