By David R. Graham
31 March 2001

Unity and
   the Condition of Man

On the Importance of Understanding
Tom Jefferson, the anti-Religionist   

The nation isn't going to abide the "wall of separation" concept -- which isn't constitutional, merely Jeffersonian -- because it violates the unity principle, which is the spirit of the age and for centuries to come. So we need an articulation well in advance of Mr. Jefferson's, which is conditioned historically to the point of irrelevance.

We can't tell people to be united in race and not in social structures (government, church). We're accused of picking and choosing, of being not thoroughgoing. And the charge is deserved. The articulation has to be of that in which unity consists. Suggest bringing some Bahai articulation into play, also Augustinian. It is bathetic for churchmen to let themselves be defined by Jefferson's articulation. Tail wagging dog, shows lack of self-respect. Jefferson hated the church.

The same is generally the case for the faith/belief area. Reason is a loaded word, if we really use its basis -- Logos -- and the several types of reason, all operational, that Logos indicates. Let's define the situation instead of reacting to it. Again, Augustine, for starters, epistemology by participation and assuming thoroughgoing unity in and between seer, seen and sight. We really have to not let others define either terms or situations for us. We are the theologians, we do the defining. It can be no other way.

There are many with human bodies but relatively few with human birth. We are not all seeking God or even to be good. Many of us are seeking quite otherwise and not from misspent youth or disadvantaged background but from the nature of our birth and therefore our heart.

The fact that not all who appear human are allows fanaticism, the bane of the age, to emerge. The only way to suppress that bane is to face the fact which can allow it and articulate that fact. We will not accept that thugs in any guise are human. They are thugs, a race, an evolutionary sheaf. In Bharathyia literature they are called rakshasas, demonic creatures, and they are treated as a genetic phenomenon, a society of demons.

The hallmark of humanity is compassion. When that is not present, we know we are not in the presence of humanity. When it is, we know we are.

All men are not created equal because all are not created men. This phenomenon has to be articulated realistically to fend off the really dangerous attitude of fanaticism.

So, thanks to President Bush and his selfish team for making us cope with these matters!     :-)