RAMANAM
In the Name of The Father, and of The Son and of The Holy Spirit, Amen.

Countrymen,

OUTLINE

 Assumptions

The Principle of Identity and the Functions of Spirit
The Relation of Religion, Culture and Morality

Critical Analysis and Political Creativity

The Reason, Nature and Resolution of Religion Wars
Existential Base of Religious Common Point
The Fight Is Over Secular, Not Religious Principles
Religious Law and Civil Law and Keeping the Peace

Proposal and Description of Religion Parks

Economy, Peace and Security
Religion as Response to Powers of Being, not Imaginings
The Claim of Exclusive and Perpetual Validity for a Religion
The Opportunity of KELO vs. CITY OF NEW LONDON
Generic Description of a Religion Park

Eadem Mutata Resurgo

 

Parmenides (5th century BC): “Where there is being, there is also the logos of being.”

 . Words can grasp being because they are identical with being.

. Words are meaningful because they correspond with reality.

. The rational structure of man is identical with the rational structure of nature, the world and the universe.  Subject and object belong essentially together.

. The principle of identity is the basis of everything we do.

. Without it … well, that is unimaginable.

 

The Honor Code of the United States Corps of Cadets can proscribe lying, cheating and stealing only by presupposing that there is truth that is achievable in word, thought and deed, respectively.

 

Paul Tillich (1886-1965): “Culture is the form of religion and religion is the substance of culture.”

. Culture, religion and morality are mutually immanent.

. They inter-penetrate one another.

. They constitute the dimension of spirit, which is the dimension in which power and meaning are united.

. Culture, religion and morality are distinguishable but not separable.

—

. Culture is a basic function of life involving the polarity of dynamics and form.

. Culture is the self-creation of life in the dimension of spirit.

. Culture is that which takes care of something, keeps it alive and makes it grow.

. Man creates something new from every object he cultivates.

. The new that man creates is first of all the double creation of language and technology, which belong together.

—

. Religion is a basic function of life involving the polarity of freedom and destiny.

. Religion is the self-transcendence of life in the dimension of spirit.

. Religion is the point at which the answer to the quest for the unambiguous is received.

. Religion is man’s response to the power of Grace, effective through the mystery and miracle of revelation, re-binding together (from Latin religare) that which is paralyzed, unbounded, dangling and therefore useless.  Religion is man’s response to the initiative of God reuniting man with his self, his world and Himself.

—

. Morality is a basic function of life involving the polarity of individualization and participation.

. Morality is the self-integration of life in the dimension of spirit.

. Morality is a constitutive act that actualizes the quality of essential centeredness, of individualization or personality, in a community.

. Morality is not an act in which a divine or human law is obeyed.  It is not moralism.

. The moral norm is the universal, unconditional command or imperative (Immanuel Kant, 1724-1804) to acknowledge every centered being in the sublimity of their center.

Eadem Mutata Resurgo

 

 

. Between 1618 and 1648, Europe decimated herself with war over religious principles.  Germany alone lost half her population.

. The battle was over the Protestant Principle of im-mediacy and the Catholic principle of inter-mediacy in the relationship with God.

. Neither side could prevail.  The Reformers could not reform the whole Church and the Vatican could not maintain its claim to universal hegemony.

. This meant that each side represented important truths necessary to the welfare of man and his world.

 

. When the inconclusiveness of the struggle became apparent, secular authorities stopped it.

. Ever since, secular authorities have sought to disallow war over religion within their jurisdictions.

. The time is come to do that again, but this time as a preventative step, learning from our past, BEFORE the chaos of religion war descends upon the towns, cities and countryside of our nation.

 

. In this situation, secular authority, per its mission, must provide stability and order by regulating the conduct of life in the civil realm.

. This means civil authority must regulate religious activity insofar as it occurs in the civil realm, as any activity must.

. The thesis of this briefing is that civil authorities, within their jurisdictions and upon the principle of compelling government interest, must prevent civil conflict going under the name of religion by canalizing religious impulses and activities.

 

. A word on the difference between religious law and civil law.

. All religions have religious law.  What is their significance?

. Religious law expresses man’s essential nature.  It reminds us who we are, of our personhood, of the categorical imperative that is our humanity.  It is a guide but not a rule for navigating the sea of ambiguity called life.  It can be neither accomplished nor enforced.

. Civil law regulates man’s existential condition.  It sets and guides the enforcement of behavior appropriate in and to the changing circumstances of history.  It can be accomplished and enforced.

 

. Sharia, The Sermon on the Mount, the Ten Commandments, the Canons of the Church and the Torah are systems of religious law.

. They express the moral norm, the categorical imperative of personhood.

. They cannot and do not regulate behavior in the daily life.

Esse Qua Esse Bonum Est

 

. The mission of government is to foster economy, peace and security for citizens residing in its jurisdiction.  Government accomplishes this mission by canalizing the personal and communal impulses of citizens toward those conditions.

. Culture is economy, religion is peace and morality is security. Government constantly decides regarding all three functions of the dimension of spirit.

. Economy means building up, internal and external.  It does not mean making money.  Building up is culture.

. Peace means a quiet mind, internal and external. It does not mean absence of conflict.  A quiet mind is religion.

. Security means insouciance, freedom from concern, internal and external.  It does not mean living without threat. Insouciance is morality.

 

. Our intelligentsia (derived by Fabian Communists early in the 20th Century from the Russian intelligentsiya) describe religion in terms of meaningless imagination or subjective psychological projection.  They announce the actualization of human potential through education as the intelligent alternative to religion.

. Friedrich Schelling (1775-1854) described religion in terms of powers of being which grasp the human mind itself, going through man’s psyche, his conscious and unconscious mind – what Plato calls man’s soul – but not deriving from it.  They come from the roots man has in the depth of reality itself.

. The several religions of man illustrate different powers of being by which men are grasped.  The sacrifices, the seriousness, the glory and the cruelty of man’s history of religion are understandable only in view of powers of being man encounters and responds to, not as wishful thinking that education remediates.

 

. The factor in religious history that compels government attention is the claim of exclusive and perpetual validity for a religion.

. This claim causes religion wars.

. In consequence, civil authority, tasked with keeping the peace, must canalize personal and communal impulses to prevent this claim from occurring.  If it occurs, civil authority must remove it.  “An ounce of prevention ….”

 

. In KELO v. CITY OF NEW LONDON, the United States Supreme Court offers civil authority an opportunity to prevent civil disruption driven by a claim of exclusive and perpetual validity for a religion.

. Civil authority has a compelling government interest to prevent religion war by canalizing religious impulses.

. There are no constitutional impediments to this course of action.

 

. Federal, state and local governments can now structure mutual appreciation, acceptance and support among religions by:

(1) co-locating edifices for religious use on dedicated government property,

(2) appropriating great centering sanctuaries as common treasures, and,

(3) designating for development land currently designated for religious use.

. Here by way of example is the concept of a Religion Park:

(1) A government-built/owned/maintained park, comprising 9-18 acres or 1-2 city blocks of walkways, gardens, trees, water and buildings for religious use, underlain by parking, offices, etc., for each area comprising 27,000 citizens.

(2) In the center of the park, a government-built/owned/maintained common hall without fixed furniture and able to accommodate 2700 citizens.

(3) Around the common hall, edifices owned by government but built/maintained by and for each religion recognized by government, each paying monthly dues and able to accommodate no more than 270 citizens.

 

. Here are details:

(4) The dominant character of the Religion Park is quiet.

(5) The entire park, including edifices, is open to all.

(6) The edifice built and maintained by each religion serves all denominations of that religion. They have to work it out amongst themselves.  One edifice each for Christians, Muslims, Hindus, etc.

(7) The common hall may be used by all together for common prayer and meeting – this should be encouraged – or for special event single-religion meetings. It is open to all, protected by government for silent prayer 24/7/365.

 

. Here are more details:

(8) A minimum of 270 serious adherents residing in the 27,000-citizen area served by a Religion Park should be the threshold for government consideration of a group as representing a religion not already recognized.

(9) The government process for recognizing a religion should set clear, firm standards, including as recommended by recognized religions.  The process first should commend the group requesting recognition to leaders of the recognized religion from which they emerged for inclusion in the program of that religion.

(10) Recognition of a religion not integral with a recognized religion should be considered a drastic step requiring unchallengeable justification.  This would aid the discernment process, and this.

. Here are more details:

(11) With government approval, schools of religion could be built in the Religion Park but not to overwhelm the character of the whole as a place of quiet.  These, however should not be encouraged since the educational enterprise, today and forwardly, is carried out in the system of education comprising public, private and government schools.

(12) Better than schools of religion would be small, ecumenical, limited-stay hermitages, study facilities and retreat centers.  Ecumenical means “flourishing of all,” meaning in this case, adherents of all religions.

(13) No playgrounds, above ground parking, competitions, sports, loud activities, loitering, weapons, incitements to hate or violence, accommodating layabouts, cheats and idlers (“the homeless”), etc.

 

. And a final detail:

(14) God is bliss, bliss is beauty and beauty is proportion. Therefore, Religion Parks should embed the proportions that evoke beauty – and its utility – in nature and technology.

The most important of these proportions are 1:1.618 and 4:27.

1:1.618 is The Divine or Golden Proportion widely found in nature and the works of man.  Boeing embedded the Golden Proportion in their 747 Jumbo Jet while Pythagoreans used it to sight the facade of temples.

4:27 is a Pythagorean favorite embedded, along with the Golden Proportion, by Cistercians/Templars at Chartres and other Sanctuaries.

Labora Est Ora

 

Religion Parks will:

. canalize legacy structures and energies of religion,

. center a neighborhood in quiet and beauty,

. encourage the common point of unity of all religions,

. transport us beyond jejune rhetorical clichés, and

. illumine a human values solution to a scary problem.

 

Thank you for reading this work and considering its assumptions, methods, insights, assertions and proposal.

Religion Parks is an “open source concept” that may not be copyrighted.  Specific versions or constructions from the concept may be copyrighted, but the concept itself may not be copyrighted.  It is to continue as an “open source concept.”

This work is complete.

Diligentibus Deum Omnia Cooperantur In Bonum

AUM NAMAH SHIVAYA

Update 1: Randy Barnett and Josh Blackman: The Next [Supreme Court] Justices

Update 2: Sarah Hoyt: Upside Down