my president right or wrong

In an Op-ed today in the NY Times, in relation to Indian democracy Gurcharan Das says: “When you have millions of gods, you cannot afford to be theologically narcissistic.  It also makes you suspect of power”.

I think this can be said about American democracy and about one’s own sense of self.  Those religious fundamentalists who endorse monotheism tend also to endorse conservative politics.  I’ve always been suspicious of the term “Lord” – having a political connotation – being synonymous with “God”.   In using those two terms as in “the Lord thy God”, politics and religion become interchangeable.  The fact that western monotheism has it’s origins in a male dominated, tribal, herding culture gives one pause to wonder which came first, the lord or the god.

In the converse, the idea of religious freedom gives rise to political freedom.  In America, if one can choose his or her own god, one should also be able to choose his or her lord and visa versa.  An infallible leader, a demigod, whether it be the “man of the house” or the man in the Whitehouse can provide one with a sense of comfort in a seemingly unpredictable world.  Yet in this country we embrace the fact that the only constant in Nature is change.   We possess the freedom to reinvent ourselves as well as reinvent our government.  And in doing so, we can adapt to a changing world – which is so much easier than trying to change the world to conform to an ideology.  Clearly, we are not a product of intelligent design obeying the rules of the designer but rather one of many evolving life forms changing with the times.