The sad events on Orlando where at least 50 people were slaughtered by a person impelled by murderous hatred at least reinforced by religious zeal will be used by many people, especially on the political right, as more evidence that Muslim Americans cannot be trusted to be peaceable citizens.  Unmentioned by these same people will be the similar, if smaller scale, killings in Colorado Springs last November by a Christian who said his deeds were in service to his God.

The most militant atheists will argue these killings point to the destructive role of religion in America. Left unmentioned by them will be the millions killed by atheistic regimes in the past century and the important role of men and women of religious faith in some of the greatest achievements of our society. Let us not forget Martin Luther King, Jr. was the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

We Pagans, as people for whom our religion plays an important role, like religious people everywhere, find these crimes in Orlando and Colorado Springs (and many earlier examples, some far worse, going back nearly 2000 years) a time to reflect on religion’s relationship to violence.

Early religious violence

Violence is scarcely unknown in Pagan history.  The Aztecs certainly and the Carthaginians very probably practiced human sacrifice on a large scale. Many Pagan societies did so on a much smaller one.  Within the Western Pagan tradition Iphigenia’s sacrifice has been immortalized in the work of Aeschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles.  Though there is debate as to whether human sacrifice ever played a large role in Hellenic culture, it was certainly known of. Significantly, most Pagan societies known to have practiced it eventually abandoned it, based on their own internal development.

Lest followers of Biblical religions feel superior, the story of Jepthah and his daughter should give them pause.  (Judges 11:30-9) Many talk of Abraham and Isaac, few discuss this incident with a different outcome.  While interpretations of this story are many, all the early ones seem to have considered it a clear case of human sacrifice and only argued about what it meant.  That it should have been so widely understood in those terms tells me such practices were not unknown in Israel, especially since Jepthah was a king doing his deity's work. 

In time, among most Pagans and all monotheists, human sacrifice died out as an offering of thanks and was rejected.

However, the relation of religion with violence does not end with a discussion of human sacrifice.  Or even, as with the Aztecs, war to acquire sacrificial offerings.  There are also religious wars between members of different religions, or even of practitioners of what they think is the same religion, but each considers the other heretics.  Here the record of killing is overwhelmingly in the monotheistic direction. It is also the kind of violence the world is experiencing today.

The record starts with the genocide reports in the Old Testament. The Old Testament God is reported as commanding "The people of Samaria must bear their guilt, because they have rebelled against their God. They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed to the ground, their pregnant women ripped open.” (Hosea 13:16)

Later the prophet Samuel says the Lord commanded

“I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. [many generations earlier] Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.” (1 Samuel 15:2-3)  When Saul does not kill quite all of them, their God rejects him as King of Israel. 

The record of killing people with the wrong religion, or practicing the ‘same’ religion incorrectly is continuing among some monotheists to the present day. While I see no point in creating a list, historically the death toll dwarfs what happened in any Pagan society, even the Aztecs. Without considering the death tolls arising from Christian and Muslim violence, and sticking only to deaths explicitly recorded in the Bible as ordered by or caused by God, the total is 2,821,364.

Contemporary violence

For mostly historical reasons, most religious violence today is by those claiming to be Muslims.  But Islam has no monopoly on violence here.  Christianity has spilled plenty of blood in its past and until quite recently in Bosnia. The end of its worst violence did not come as a result of any advances in Christian morality or spiritual understanding. Relative peace arose from mutual exhaustion, when the various factions realized they could never kill all the other side.

True religious tolerance considered as a matter of principle had to wait the coming of the Enlightenment, the rise of deism, and the triumph of the American Revolution. Deism is not monotheism, which is why so many Christian leaders of that time called them atheists.

And yet there is a puzzle here. Profoundly beautiful and loving teachings are at the core of many teachers in all these monotheistic traditions. Those who have read Rūmī or Martin Buber can attest to an emphasis on kindness and care second to none.  Jesus was not alone in this respect.

Kindness and Care in actions as well as words

Many of humankind’s finest moments arose within a monotheistic cultural context and in its name.  I think the greatest ethical step forward ever made by human beings was the abolition of slavery. Ultimately successful opposition to a practice many thousands of years old was often led by Quakers. Northern clergymen demonstrating against segregation were among those murdered by Southern racists.  And of course, as I mentioned, there is Rev. King.

Nor are such noble acts a Christian monopoly.  Far too few Americans appreciate how Iran reacted to the crimes of 9-11.  Tens of thousands spontaneously engaged in candle light vigils on behalf of the men, women, and children murdered by the terrorists. 

Albania is the only majority Muslim European nation. During WWII it was invaded by the Nazis, who sought to round up every Albanian Jew, plus thousands of Jews who had fled there from the Germans, to deport them to death camps.  The Albanians saved every Jew. Most Christian nations did not come close to this record - where an entire nation risked their lives to save people of a different religion who were in many cases strangers.

Monotheism seems to have an innate proclivity to violence and it has inspired some of the most noble people in human history.

Why?

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This is a complicated issue, but one deeply impacting every American, particularly those of us who are non monotheists. Therefore this is the first of a three part piece exploring why the real issue is not Christianity or Islam or even Monotheism, but rather a particular demonic degeneration that all forms of monotheism are especially prone to, and which is again leaving a bloody trail of death and destruction wherever its followers believe they have the opportunity to act in the name of their deity.