A friend commented on my last post, asking me to explore the
relationship between religion and hate, and this seemed like a good idea.  The problem is, of course, that the
conversation has been hashed and rehashed over and over, again and again, until
it resembles some little bit of verse that sneaks into the collective mind—such
as Candy is dandy but liquor is quicker. 
So let’s change the dialogue just a little bit, and start with something
objective, as if we were discussing and comparing a still life by Rembrandt and
Van Gogh.  Let’s put a basket of fruit in
the middle of the table and use that as a reference point—something concrete
that we can both see and point to, an anchor dropped in the sea of words and
ideas. 

So how about we begin with a quote from noted biochemist
Candace Pert, something she said while being interviewed by Bill Moyers.  In the process of describing neuropeptides
and receptors, the chemistry of thought and feeling, she began to mention
things that have been discovered that don’t fit the way we like to think of
science and the mind/body.  Then she let
this slip:

…there’s another form
of energy that we have not yet understood. 
For example, there’s a form of energy that appears to leave the body
when the body dies.  If we call that ‘another
energy that hasn’t been discovered yet’, it sounds less frightening to me than
“spirit”.  “Soul” is a four-letter word
in our [scientific] tradition.  The deal
was struck with Descartes.  We don’t
invoke that stuff.  And yet too many
phenomena can’t be explained by thinking of the body in a totally
reductionistic fashion.

What can we know from this—besides the fact that this energy
is just about impossible to isolate and identify, not to mention study—using
scientific method.  It’s gone too fast.  But we know that when a person is alive they
can use the first person pronoun, and when they are dead, and this energy is
gone, they can’t.  Can we call this
energy our first person pronoun, can we call it “I”?  I think we can.

Is it possible that this energy can become damaged?  According to the scriptures, you bet.  But there is a problem when the damage
occurs.  Our thoughts do not necessarily
acknowledge the damage, in the same way someone drinking scotch doesn’t
necessarily admit that they are getting drunk. 
In fact, unless our drunk has just done a face plant, they are likely to
be vehement that they are not drunk.  And
so this damaged soul is likely to feel ‘better than ever’.  Maybe even a little superior, a little
arrogant, more cerebral, it will be less compassionate, less connected to the
world.  Damaged, it will exhibit the
qualities the society values in its leaders. 
And if that isn’t a recipe for trouble, I don’t know trouble.

And therein lies the problem.  The soul, hurt, can not go to a doctor.  It can retreat, and frequently does retreat,
into ideology and religion.  The ideology
cannot help (ideology defined as the things you believe when you don’t want to
take a close, accurate look at the world around you), the religion can—unless the
damaged soul sees religion as a type of ideology, which it usually does.  And in a position of leadership, the damaged
soul changes the religion into a thing that robs us of compassion and leads to
hatred.  It turns religion into the
opposite of what religion truly is, the thing that can heal the soul, the thing
that can enhance our sense of compassion, that can eliminate hatred and racism
in our world in much the same way that Salk helped to eliminate Polio.

And that is part of the task—to liberate religion from
ideology, to experience it as healing, as the thing that enhances our
compassion, that helps us to see the world accurately, the thing that can
eliminate hatred and bring peace.