By Deauwand Myers
I say that which I have said before: Religion, I'm sorry, is not good. It's never been good. True believers will point to the myriad of good deeds the religious have done throughout history: law, order, charity, kindness, justice and peace.
Indeed, religions have nurtured some of the great achievements in recent memory. The American Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s has its roots and foundations in churches and synagogues, for example.
Yet, white Christians initiated and perpetuated the genocidal land theft of the Americas and Oceania, and the Atlantic slave trade thereafter. White Christians had afternoon church picnics to view live lynchings of black people with their children watching. I say again, with their children watching.
White Christians bombed black Christians, killing four small girls at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Christians perpetuated the misery that people of color in America have endured for centuries.
Most of my black friends are Christian, so are my parents, so am I (albeit by tradition; I'm Presbyterian). In fact, most black Americans are Christian. I have always found this fact exceedingly disturbing.
If the God black folks believe in so fervently was omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent and all-loving, explain the material conditions of black people in America since before its inception.
It seems to me centuries of slavery, torture, lynching, mass murder, discrimination and sociopolitical, socioeconomic disenfranchisement experienced by blacks would prove, at the very least, this God is not all-loving.
Enumerate the many evils of this world to a true believer: wars, the Holocaust and the casual brutality humans visit upon other humans on a daily basis, and you'll get the usual, insufficient reply: God works in mysterious ways.
The vast majority of Muslim countries are shod through with rank misogyny, homophobia and anti-Semitism. Majority-Jewish Israel's apartheid-like occupation leaves most Palestinians in poverty and squalor. Buddhist-majority Myanmar has committed genocide against the Muslim minority Rohingya population.
Now, the true believer will point to fascism and communism (atheist-oriented ideologies) as responsible for all sorts of bloodshed. True, the body counts of the Stalinist purges, Nazi Germany, Maoism and the Kim regime of North Korea are very high indeed.
But religion, in its truest sense, is the ascribing of mystical, magical powers to inanimate objects, intangible deities, ideas and living and deceased people. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and the Kim family all cultivated a cult of personality around themselves and/or the state.
Repudiation of empirical evidence and rationality is the hallmarks of this cultivation, as with the aforementioned religions. We call this faith.
Succinctly, political ideologies can be tribal and religious.
Your American conservative is a perfect example.
Once, I explained to a conservative acquaintance of mine all the merits of universal medical coverage, and the problems with the American healthcare system: how Americans pay twice and more for healthcare and get far less for it than its counterparts; how American healthcare access and outcomes on every metric lags far behind other wealthy democracies because America has a for-profit healthcare system.
His reply was shocking and illustrative: "You're right. But I just don't think the government should be in the business of healthcare." When one's political point of view remains unmoved after being confronted with empirical evidence refuting said view, you have a religion.
The Korean conservative, though less recalcitrant, has some of these religious-political traits. The recent presidential election elucidates this nicely.
Hong Joon-pyo, chairman of the conservative opposition Liberty Korea Party and chief opponent of President Moon Jae-in, held that family-run conglomerates like Samsung and Hyundai deserve a wide berth, and that labor unions should be weakened.
This, in spite of the long, long list of corruption scandals within these chaebol going back decades, including one of the most recent and glaring examples, that of Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong and his company's alleged involvement in graft with the impeached Park and her ill-fated administration.
Add to this the rampant wage theft, denial of overtime pay, physical, sexual and psychological abuse occurring in all sectors of Korean employment, but particularly for hourly wage employees, and Hong still believes companies know best and workers' rights are secondary. Most of his conservative peers believe the same.
Supply-side, trickle-down economics, a chief tenet of conservatives, is another religious doctrine they hold as sacrosanct. America tried this in the 1980s and again in the early 21st century, and in both cases, it didn't help the poor and working classes.
Religions, political or spiritual in orientation, served an important social and psychological function for early human civilization. I get that.
But we now know why the sun rises and sets, the causes of most diseases, and the age and scope of our universe. It's far, far past time for humanity to put the religion crack pipe down. Pick up a book. Read. And confess, God was never great.
Deauwand Myers (deauwand@hotmail.com) holds a master's degree in English literature and literary theory, and is an English professor outside Seoul. The views expressed in the above article are the author's own and do not reflect the editorial policy of The Korea Times.
I say that which I have said before: Religion, I'm sorry, is not good. It's never been good. True believers will point to the myriad of good deeds the religious have done throughout history: law, order, charity, kindness, justice and peace.
Indeed, religions have nurtured some of the great achievements in recent memory. The American Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s has its roots and foundations in churches and synagogues, for example.
Yet, white Christians initiated and perpetuated the genocidal land theft of the Americas and Oceania, and the Atlantic slave trade thereafter. White Christians had afternoon church picnics to view live lynchings of black people with their children watching. I say again, with their children watching.
White Christians bombed black Christians, killing four small girls at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Christians perpetuated the misery that people of color in America have endured for centuries.
Most of my black friends are Christian, so are my parents, so am I (albeit by tradition; I'm Presbyterian). In fact, most black Americans are Christian. I have always found this fact exceedingly disturbing.
If the God black folks believe in so fervently was omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent and all-loving, explain the material conditions of black people in America since before its inception.
It seems to me centuries of slavery, torture, lynching, mass murder, discrimination and sociopolitical, socioeconomic disenfranchisement experienced by blacks would prove, at the very least, this God is not all-loving.
Enumerate the many evils of this world to a true believer: wars, the Holocaust and the casual brutality humans visit upon other humans on a daily basis, and you'll get the usual, insufficient reply: God works in mysterious ways.
The vast majority of Muslim countries are shod through with rank misogyny, homophobia and anti-Semitism. Majority-Jewish Israel's apartheid-like occupation leaves most Palestinians in poverty and squalor. Buddhist-majority Myanmar has committed genocide against the Muslim minority Rohingya population.
Now, the true believer will point to fascism and communism (atheist-oriented ideologies) as responsible for all sorts of bloodshed. True, the body counts of the Stalinist purges, Nazi Germany, Maoism and the Kim regime of North Korea are very high indeed.
But religion, in its truest sense, is the ascribing of mystical, magical powers to inanimate objects, intangible deities, ideas and living and deceased people. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and the Kim family all cultivated a cult of personality around themselves and/or the state.
Repudiation of empirical evidence and rationality is the hallmarks of this cultivation, as with the aforementioned religions. We call this faith.
Succinctly, political ideologies can be tribal and religious.
Your American conservative is a perfect example.
Once, I explained to a conservative acquaintance of mine all the merits of universal medical coverage, and the problems with the American healthcare system: how Americans pay twice and more for healthcare and get far less for it than its counterparts; how American healthcare access and outcomes on every metric lags far behind other wealthy democracies because America has a for-profit healthcare system.
His reply was shocking and illustrative: "You're right. But I just don't think the government should be in the business of healthcare." When one's political point of view remains unmoved after being confronted with empirical evidence refuting said view, you have a religion.
The Korean conservative, though less recalcitrant, has some of these religious-political traits. The recent presidential election elucidates this nicely.
Hong Joon-pyo, chairman of the conservative opposition Liberty Korea Party and chief opponent of President Moon Jae-in, held that family-run conglomerates like Samsung and Hyundai deserve a wide berth, and that labor unions should be weakened.
This, in spite of the long, long list of corruption scandals within these chaebol going back decades, including one of the most recent and glaring examples, that of Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong and his company's alleged involvement in graft with the impeached Park and her ill-fated administration.
Add to this the rampant wage theft, denial of overtime pay, physical, sexual and psychological abuse occurring in all sectors of Korean employment, but particularly for hourly wage employees, and Hong still believes companies know best and workers' rights are secondary. Most of his conservative peers believe the same.
Supply-side, trickle-down economics, a chief tenet of conservatives, is another religious doctrine they hold as sacrosanct. America tried this in the 1980s and again in the early 21st century, and in both cases, it didn't help the poor and working classes.
Religions, political or spiritual in orientation, served an important social and psychological function for early human civilization. I get that.
But we now know why the sun rises and sets, the causes of most diseases, and the age and scope of our universe. It's far, far past time for humanity to put the religion crack pipe down. Pick up a book. Read. And confess, God was never great.
Deauwand Myers (deauwand@hotmail.com) holds a master's degree in English literature and literary theory, and is an English professor outside Seoul. The views expressed in the above article are the author's own and do not reflect the editorial policy of The Korea Times.
![[ANALYSIS] Pandemic awakens demand for data-driven automation](https://img.koreatimes.co.kr/upload/thumbnailV2/2b05d621a193420abef7ee24b95eab3d.jpg/dims/resize/178/optimize)
