Holy Moly!

Gore Vidal once said that " The great failure of western man was the adoption of the belief in the sky god." I have often wondered if we would not be better served had we continued to worship earth as mother,trees,water and stone? These are tangible things directly related to our success as a species in their ecological contribution as well as our exploitation of them and certainly worthy of our deepest attention if not worship. When these elements are translated into a more modern understanding of them they are of no less significance. They are the very things that we have built our civilization on and with. They are the essentials for the existence of life as we know it. So why did western man adopt the eastern mystic religions? Why did we adopt a religion that said god was unknowable? I must admit that having no eastern blood, so to speak, I am some what prejudice, but for a culture that with some pride claims the ancient Greeks as our heritage, why were we so ready to adopt a cultural belief not our own. I know some much more studied than I can sight social,economic and political reasons, the influence of a Roman army integrated with soldiers from the provinces, enough to fill volumes, some will say that it is because it is the true religion, you can take you're choice of the three that survived, Christianity,Judaism and Mohamedism, but I will dare to tread on the subjective and sight human nature. To me the mystic religions tenant of an unknowable god is much like the political philosophy of "no government is good government." It is not without appeal. But what it says is that "we can't govern so we won't govern." If one were to look back across the history of the mystic religions one will find a consistent failure in their assumptions about the world and the universe in which it resides. I will make an assumption of my own and say the failure rate is near 100%. Now it may be that religion is like a brokerage firm in that past performance does not predict future results, and in the end they are right, but the odds are not in its favor at least not favorable enough for me to stake my life on it, nor any one else's.
I know that I will tread on sacred ground and will be labeled,but I am not debating the existence of god that would be a personal matter. What I am commenting on is the organized systems of belief. As these are in the public domain they are subject to the same scrutiny as this essay. We seem to dance around peoples beliefs even when they are forced down our throat. I try to respect peoples personal beliefs as much as anyone, but the price of denial of can have consequence. We tolerate the far fetched ideas of many as long as it does no one harm, and there in lies the catch. At this moment the world has been effected by a single man who acting upon the strength of his conviction, his belief that he has been chosen by god and by gods grace must wage war and sacrifice human life innocent as well as guilty in what he feels is gods will. I will let the reader chose which man he wants to fit into that description. It fits several candidates I can think of off hand, it only depends on which side of the fence you happen to be standing on. Only time will tell which is more a man of conviction and so the more righteous. I am reminded of Curtis Lemay's comments on the air campaign against Japan. He said that if you look at the fire bombing of Tokyo and the subsequent strikes at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, if we had lost the war we would be the ones being tried as war criminals. It would seem that not only do the spoils go to the victor but righteousness to.
Religion on any but the most personal level is just vague enough to cover any situation not unlike astrology, the I Ching, or any other antiquated attempt to get a leg up on things out of our control. It looks a lot like situational ethics wrapped in ceremonial robes, despite the claims of a higher aspirations.
What is it then? What is the appeal of the unknowable god? Is it just the easy way out when trying to answer the unknown? Is it a form of self justification? I will assume that it has as many meanings as there are individuals and that is a large part of its success.
For me the mystic religions unknowable god is a self defeating philosophy. If I can not know god then I can not know what is god, what is gods handy work or if god has anything to do with me or not, and so if I can not know than it has no use because if it did have an affect I would not be aware of it anyway. Ah yes faith my brother it's all about faith. Well faith may move mountains, but I can't seem to remember the last time I saw that happen, however explosives do it every day and boy you know it when it happens, and airplanes fly into buildings, men feel the touch of god and send other people off to die, and soldiers kill for control of the holy land. I just wish some would worry less about who died for our sins and more about who dies because of them. Thats a bit high and mighty of me! I guess we all have some of the "god head" about us.