Religion and racism are fabrications born of the same cloth. Nor should the observation cause the slightest doubt for it is but an assimilation of every human characteristic united with power and wealth; namely, control and cupidity. Certainly there those kind-hearted and well-intentioned clergy and parishioners who are conspicuously driven by the more digestible features of religion bearing upon benevolence and some dissolving view of eternity. Likewise there are those politicians and electors whose legislative objectives are spirited by equality. But for the most part religion and racism – like any other sustainable corporate undertaking or successful candidacy – are dependent upon business acumen not mystical entertainment or vaporous allusions to unsubstantiated and unproductive egalitarianism.
Nor did this stuff evolve from somewhere in outer space; they (religion and racism) are both creations of mankind, complete with all the inescapable vulgarity and visceral excuses of the body that houses the mind and heart. In short, the productions are to be expected. The miracle and legal purity derive however from mere fabrication. Those admonishments are required to preserve the unwitting masses without whom the enterprises are superfluous.
It is a common trait of the most successful businesses that they limit or confine those who challenge their position. This is idolized as the true retail cycle; it is the economic equivalent of Darwin’s theory of survival.
Darwinism is a theory of biological evolution developed by the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and others, stating that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations that increase the individual’s ability to compete, survive, and reproduce. Also called Darwinian theory, it originally included the broad concepts of transmutation of species or of evolution which gained general scientific acceptance after Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859, including concepts which predated Darwin’s theories. English biologist Thomas Henry Huxley coined the term Darwinism in April 1860.
Anyone who pretends to view the ostentation of the Vatican or the complascency of the Church of England as enjoying a worthy “religious” foundation is simply quelling their own chosen prejudices. The same condemnation applies to the support of many politicians who are mere puppets for service of personal gain of select electors. And once again I remind you, in case you do not already agree, that there is nothing suspcious about this conduct. It’s normal and human. But it’s just fake and unequal. For those who insist upon sustaining the pretence surrounding religion or racism, it is perfectly justifiable as Karl Marx suggested as “an opiate of the masses” or as scientific superiority of bloodline. These assertions can be very compelling. In many respects they are analgesics to what are feared to be larger social issues involving general optimism and communal quietude. What however is developing is just the opposite. The opiate of the masses has become a bludgeon. The once tranquillized masses have become instead embroiled in controversy having national and international repercussions. Inveterate contradiction now pervades the once moralized evangelicals. And time and again we are all reminded of the success and contribution of people whatever their colour or whatever other character of distinction they have naturally inherited. To unite the absurdities of religion with any particular race – especially when religion and race are routinely of alternate projections on different parts of the globe – is nothing short of logical impossibility much less disgust. Unless of course we assume only North Americans got it right.
As usual the first step is to acknowledge the facts. Or at least the problem. For until we do so we’ll only continue in Pierre Burton’s “comfortable pew” with the same gang of idiots. When politics has reduced itself to a board game of competion; and religion is an antiquated circus of local talent only, the possibility of changing the game or the act is slim. It’s just too intelligent for popular consumption. There are so many other THINGS to do.
Many authors – including Thomas Babington Macaulay, Thomas Paine and Voltaire – have attempted to make the same point more convincingly though perhaps with less adversity. Abraham Lincoln and Dr. Martin Luther King exemplified by their prosecution of racial equality the political repugnance of it.
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Penn, William | pen | (1644–1718), English Quaker, founder of Pennsylvania. Having been imprisoned in 1668 for his Quaker writings, he was granted a charter to land in North America by Charles II. He founded the colony of Pennsylvania as a sanctuary for Quakers and other Nonconformists in 1682.
“The Quakers had a powerful and zealous advocate at court. Though, as a class, they mixed little with the world, and shunned politics as a pursuit dangerous to their spiritual interests, one of them, widely distinguished from the rest by station and fortune, lived in the highest circles, and had constant access to the royal ear. This was the celebrated William Penn. His father had held great naval commands, had been a Commissioner of the Admiralty, had sate in Parliament, had received the honour of knighthood, and had been encouraged to expect a peerage. The son had been liberally educated, and had been designed for the profession of arms, but had, while still young, injured his prospects and disgusted his friends by joining what was then generally considered as a gang of crazy heretics. He had been sent sometimes to the Tower, and sometimes to Newgate. He had been tried at the Old Bailey for preaching in defiance of the law. After a time, however, he had been reconciled to his family, and had succeeded in obtaining such powerful protection that, while all the gaols of England were filled with his brethren, he was permitted, during many years, to profess his opinions without molestation. Towards the close of the late reign he had obtained, in satisfaction of an old debt due to him from the crown, the grant of an immense region in North America. In this tract, then peopled only by Indian hunters, he had invited his persecuted friends to settle. His colony was still in its infancy when James mounted the throne.”
“To speak the whole truth concerning Penn is a task which requires some courage; for he is rather a mythical than a historical person. Rival nations and hostile sects have agreed in canonising him. England is proud of his name. A great commonwealth beyond the Atlantic regards him with a reverence similar to that which the Athenians felt for Theseus, and the Romans for Quirinus. The respectable society of which he was a member honours him as an apostle. By pious men of other persuasions he is generally regarded as a bright pattern of Christian virtue. Meanwhile admirers of a very different sort have sounded his praises. The French philosophers of the eighteenth century pardoned what they regarded as his superstitious fancies in consideration of his contempt for priests, and of his cosmopolitan benevolence, impartially extended to all races and to all creeds. His name has thus become, throughout all civilised countries, a synonyme for probity and philanthropy.”
“Nor is this high reputation altogether unmerited. Penn was without doubt a man of eminent virtues. He had a strong sense of religious duty and a fervent desire to promote the happiness of mankind. On one or two points of high importance, he had notions more correct than were, in his day, common even among men of enlarged minds: and as the proprietor and legislator of a province which, being almost uninhabited when it came into his possession, afforded a clear field for moral experiments, he had the rare good fortune of being able to carry his theories into practice without any compromise, and yet without any shock to existing institutions. He will always be mentioned with honour as a founder of a colony, who did not, in his dealings with a savage people, abuse the strength derived from civilisation, and as a lawgiver who, in an age of persecution, made religious liberty the cornerstone of a polity. But his writings and his life furnish abundant proofs that he was not a man of strong sense. He had no skill in reading the characters of others. His confidence in persons less virtuous than himself led him into great errors and misfortunes. His enthusiasm for one great principle sometimes impelled him to violate other great principles which he ought to have held sacred. Nor was his rectitude altogether proof against the temptations to which it was exposed in that splendid and polite, but deeply corrupted society, with which he now mingled. The whole court was in a ferment with intrigues of gallantry and intrigues of ambition. The traffic in honours, places, and pardons was incessant. It was natural that a man who was daily seen at the palace, and who was known to have free access to majesty, should be frequently importuned to use his influence for purposes which a rigid morality must condemn. The integrity of Penn had stood firm against obloquy and persecution. But now, attacked by royal smiles, by female blandishments, by the insinuating eloquence and delicate flattery of veteran diplomatists and courtiers, his resolution began to give way. Titles and phrases against which he had often borne his testimony dropped occasionally from his lips and his pen. It would be well if he had been guilty of nothing worse than such compliances with the fashions of the world. Unhappily it cannot be concealed that he bore a chief part in some transactions condemned, not merely by the rigid code of the society to which he belonged, but by the general sense of all honest men. He afterwards solemnly protested that his hands were pure from illicit gain, and that he had never received any gratuity from those whom he had obliged, though he might easily, while his influence at court lasted, have made a hundred and twenty thousand pounds. 299 To this assertion full credit is due. But bribes may be offered to vanity as well as to cupidity; and it is impossible to deny that Penn was cajoled into bearing a part in some unjustifiable transactions of which others enjoyed the profits.”
“The first use which he made of his credit was highly commendable. He strongly represented the sufferings of his brethren to the new King, who saw with pleasure that it was possible to grant indulgence to these quiet sectaries and to the Roman Catholics, without showing similar favour to other classes which were then under persecution. A list was framed of prisoners against whom proceedings had been instituted for not taking the oaths, or for not going to church, and of whose loyalty certificates had been produced to the government. These persons were discharged, and orders were given that no similar proceeding should be instituted till the royal pleasure should be further signified. In this way about fifteen hundred Quakers, and a still greater number of Roman Catholics, regained their liberty. ”
“The zealous churchmen who formed the majority of the House seem to have been of opinion that the promptitude with which they had met the wish of James, touching the revenue, entitled them to expect some concession on his part. They said that much had been done to gratify him, and that they must now do something to gratify the nation. The House, therefore, resolved itself into a Grand Committee of Religion, in order to consider the best means of providing for the security of the ecclesiastical establishment. In that Committee two resolutions were unanimously adopted. The first expressed fervent attachment to the Church of England. The second called on the King to put in execution the penal laws against all persons who were not members of that Church.”
Excerpt From
The History of England, from the Accession of James II — Volume 1
Thomas Babington Macaulay
The Test Acts were a series of penal laws originating in Restoration England, passed by the Parliament of England, that served as a religious test for public office and imposed various civil disabilities on Catholics and nonconformist Protestants.
The underlying principle was that only people taking communion in the established Church of England were eligible for public employment, and the severe penalties pronounced against recusants, whether Catholic or nonconformist, were affirmations of this principle.
Although theoretically encompassing all who refuse to comply with Anglicanism in a dragnet approach, in practice the nonconformist Protestants had many defenders in Parliament and were often exempted from some of these laws through the regular passage of Acts of Indemnity: in particular, the Indemnity Act 1727 relieved Nonconformists from the requirements in the Test Act 1673 and the Corporation Act 1661 that public office holders must have taken the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper in an Anglican church.
An exception was at Oxbridge, where nonconformists and Catholics could not matriculate (Oxford) or graduate (Cambridge) until 1871.
Similar laws were introduced in Scotland with respect to the Presbyterian Church of Scotland and also in Ireland, where the minority Anglican Church of Ireland had penal laws set up in its favour to allow the Anglo-Irish minority to maintain control of land, law and politics as part of the Protestant Ascendancy.
The Exclusion Crisis ran from 1679 until 1681 in the reign of King Charles II of England, Scotland and Ireland. Three Exclusion Bills sought to exclude the King’s brother and heir presumptive, James, Duke of York, from the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland because he was Catholic. None became law. Two new parties formed. The Tories were opposed to this exclusion while the “Country Party”, who were soon to be called the Whigs, supported it. While the matter of James’s exclusion was not decided in Parliament during Charles’s reign, it would come to a head only three years after James took the throne, when he was deposed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Finally, the Act of Settlement 1701 decided definitively that Catholics were to be excluded from the English, Scottish and Irish thrones, now the British throne.