We have the bias of only ever seeing history through the lens of how events played out. We look at the American Revolution and subsequent Civil War, for example, blinded by a bias that things played out according to God's divine plan, even though both conflicts were fought for largely the same reasons, yet with opposite conclusions.
For the Southern states that sought to free themselves from the tyranny of a monarchical Abraham Lincoln, the Civil War was no different than colonialists attempts to free themselves from the tyranny of old King George. Yet the Christian sees the conclusion of both of these conflicts as conforming to some moral plan designed by God, even though victory in the Revolution allowed wealthy colonialists to maintain the very same system of slavery the Southern States were fighting to preserve in the Civil War.
As such, the Southern States believed just as vehemently as the Northern States that "God" was 100% on their side of the conflict, for any immutable God that rightly supported the Colonialists could only be expected to support the Confederacy as well. In fact, victory by the Union only lead the Confederacy to conclude not that they had been wrong to support slavery or to think that God was on their side, but that they were indeed right, for they had been defeated by superior powers much like Christ had been. And in the same way Christ's death changed the world, so to their own defeat at the hands of the North convinced the Confederate states that they were truly following in the footsteps of Christ.
And there's the rub.
Religion claims that it is an idea that is essential and necessary to discerning morality in general, and the will of God more specifically. But why, then, is discerning God's "truth" always and everywhere such an ambiguous task?
Not only did preachers and churches on all sides of both wars invoke the scriptures and their God as supportive of both their perspectives and the justness of their causes, for example, those churches also added fuel to the hellfire furnace of war itself by convincing everyone involved that their "beliefs" were both certain and moral enough to kill and die for. And so everyone rushed off to do just that, thanks be to God.
Where then, is the insight that religion everywhere claims to better reveal to human hearts of the true "will of God," when it so blindly leads everyone into the meat grinder of war after war after war, and all for a many colored coat of morality steeped in Christian theology?
Christians further assume that one of the sides must have been right and the other wrong. In this sense, every war is seen by the Christian as simply a trail by combat, that legal measure used to determine if a person is guilty or innocent by allowing them to fight to the death, trusting that God will surely defend the innocent and punish the guilty.
That this same mentality was used by both Christian and later Protestant persecutions of witches and heretics, and almost always with the innocent being handed over to the horrors of the religiously righteous as Christ himself had been handed over to the Sanhedrin, is of course devoutly to be ignored.
Instead, the Christian simply chooses to believe that every victory of the American nation always proves that God is on our side, even when we are at each others throats about which side that may actually be. In truth, however, the military victory of either side is always and only ever the surest failure of religion, since it not only seems to NEVER clear up such confusions, but only ever encourages the clearing up of those confusions by following in the footsteps of Christ, picking up our crosses, and visiting upon each other as much suffering and carnage as we have the faith and fortitude to endure and bestow.
All hail the God king, who's blood lust only began with his son, and for whom humanity has been working with all of its might and moral rectitude to slake ever since, even though it is so clearly an appetite that only grows by what it feeds on.
For the Southern states that sought to free themselves from the tyranny of a monarchical Abraham Lincoln, the Civil War was no different than colonialists attempts to free themselves from the tyranny of old King George. Yet the Christian sees the conclusion of both of these conflicts as conforming to some moral plan designed by God, even though victory in the Revolution allowed wealthy colonialists to maintain the very same system of slavery the Southern States were fighting to preserve in the Civil War.
As such, the Southern States believed just as vehemently as the Northern States that "God" was 100% on their side of the conflict, for any immutable God that rightly supported the Colonialists could only be expected to support the Confederacy as well. In fact, victory by the Union only lead the Confederacy to conclude not that they had been wrong to support slavery or to think that God was on their side, but that they were indeed right, for they had been defeated by superior powers much like Christ had been. And in the same way Christ's death changed the world, so to their own defeat at the hands of the North convinced the Confederate states that they were truly following in the footsteps of Christ.
And there's the rub.
Religion claims that it is an idea that is essential and necessary to discerning morality in general, and the will of God more specifically. But why, then, is discerning God's "truth" always and everywhere such an ambiguous task?
Not only did preachers and churches on all sides of both wars invoke the scriptures and their God as supportive of both their perspectives and the justness of their causes, for example, those churches also added fuel to the hellfire furnace of war itself by convincing everyone involved that their "beliefs" were both certain and moral enough to kill and die for. And so everyone rushed off to do just that, thanks be to God.
Where then, is the insight that religion everywhere claims to better reveal to human hearts of the true "will of God," when it so blindly leads everyone into the meat grinder of war after war after war, and all for a many colored coat of morality steeped in Christian theology?
Christians further assume that one of the sides must have been right and the other wrong. In this sense, every war is seen by the Christian as simply a trail by combat, that legal measure used to determine if a person is guilty or innocent by allowing them to fight to the death, trusting that God will surely defend the innocent and punish the guilty.
That this same mentality was used by both Christian and later Protestant persecutions of witches and heretics, and almost always with the innocent being handed over to the horrors of the religiously righteous as Christ himself had been handed over to the Sanhedrin, is of course devoutly to be ignored.
Instead, the Christian simply chooses to believe that every victory of the American nation always proves that God is on our side, even when we are at each others throats about which side that may actually be. In truth, however, the military victory of either side is always and only ever the surest failure of religion, since it not only seems to NEVER clear up such confusions, but only ever encourages the clearing up of those confusions by following in the footsteps of Christ, picking up our crosses, and visiting upon each other as much suffering and carnage as we have the faith and fortitude to endure and bestow.
All hail the God king, who's blood lust only began with his son, and for whom humanity has been working with all of its might and moral rectitude to slake ever since, even though it is so clearly an appetite that only grows by what it feeds on.
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