TABLEOF CONTAINS

Introduction

I amnot Harper Lee or Charles Dickens

Inthe Beginning was the Word

FromChristianity toward Communism and backwards

Thepoor philosophy…

AboutCommunication

Post-ChristianEpoch

Whereto?

INTRODUCTION

Between the extreme egoism and extremealtruism, the real man finds himself his own way, depending on his personality,environment, education and many others. From those two, the egoism is natural.The Bergson’s “Free Will”, the “Inner Will” as source of life at Schopenhauerand many other similar ideas reflect what nature makes in every moment,starting with the smallest cell and finishing with the biggest and complexbiologic systems: want to develop himself to the detriment of environment. Thealtruism, instead, even if it exists naturally, it does not reach high values. Lifeteaches man to keep account of the others, becoming in this way altruist in abigger or smaller measure. “The enemy helpsyou, because he limits you, gives you form and founds you” (Antoine deSaint-Exupéry, The Citadel).

The struggle for existence is the maincondition for any being, human or animal equally. From the smallest cell to themost complex organism, life is an endless endeavour for an individual'sbetterment based on his environment. It stops only when he exhausts hisresources, or meets with a similar individual with whom he has to share thesame resources ("My freedom stopswhere others' freedom begins"). An individual's ideal is a selfishone. It is so obvious that the previous phrase seems a truism. Nature isinterested in our existence, not in our happiness. Even Jesus said “Love your neighbour as yourself!” Heconfesses here that egocentrism is foremost. Accepting the other issubsequently; it comes from the contact with the environment and man learns it,while egocentrism is genetic. There is no use for us to pretend that it doesnot exist. We can put it under the control of the reason, which is somethingmuch different.

Realizing the limits of his aspirations, limitsthat bring his unhappiness, man has built an ideal opposed to the egoism, onethat is altruistic until the abandonment of oneself. In this way, religionappears. It wants to make us better, impeccable people, but just here the faultlies, because such a thing is impossible. Why does it still do it? Because itwants to counterbalance our malefic tendencies. However, being an ideal, thisis not really followed by anyone, and, remaining a theoretical idea, thereligion that preaches it becomes obsolete in time. The real man adopts anintermediate attitude, between the unscrupulous selfishness and the absolutealtruism (if it really exists), in accordance with his personality. Contrary toexpectations, the wit of choice does not belong to the theory - in this case toreligion - but to the common person. The question we ask almost naturally is “whydoes not the theory achieve it by itself, suggesting a clever way, between thetwo absolute ideals?”

“Beingswithout reason live in harmony… What about the good understanding existing justbetween the wildest animals? The cruelty of lions does not manifest amonglions… The snake does not swoop upon other snake, and good understandingbetween wolves has become even proverbial. Only on men the education does notjoin.” I quoted a whole paragraph from Erasmus, in order to show that thisdilemma existed in all epochs.

The same attitude is to be found in politics aswell, especially when we talk about democracy. An audacious propaganda makes usto believe that the political system in which we live is the closest toperfection, or at least approaches it. Democracy is an ideal, and the pretension of achieving it is similar toignorance. Why cannot we find a political system in which the leading principleis a rational way, and not an ideal one? I said a rational way, but meanreasonable, not the Rationalism, because it last appeared as a philosophicalcurrent in opposition to theology, destined to take Europe out of the darknessof the Middle Age, dominated by religion, but the consequences of which led toexaggerations too, among which is communism. (I will develop this idea later.)

Logically, through education, we should learnthe correct, reasonable way, avoiding the errors due to the exaggerations ofone or the other extremes. Unfortunately, in most cases, we are misdirectedtoward that extreme opposite of the natural one, hoping that we will find thecorrect way. Christianity speaks about the good man, the one who offers theother cheek when someone slaps him. In politics, even if ownership is thesource of progress, we pretend to have a democratic society, where people areequal to each other. A greater hypocrisy does not exist, I think. Naturally,any young man will conclude that this sort of education is of no use for hislife, especially because this conclusion comes after he has just learned thatit is not the stork that brings the children in the world, Santa Claus does notcome with reindeers from far away and so on. Consequently, he shall find hisway by himself, which he will do, but no-one says with what results, because,meanwhile, he has lost his trust in educators.

I retook here some ideas dispersed in otherbooks, articles, Internet, etc., for upholding the main idea of this essay.

I amnot Harper Lee or Charles Dickens

The only aim of the happenings related here isto retrace the condition in which some questions appeared to me and, consequently,how I tried to formulate some answers, even provisional, partial or wrong. Theydo not have autobiographical intentions.

Here is one: Toward the end of the Second WorldWar, my family was obliged to move temporarily to a small village, far awayfrom the town where I used to spend my childhood. The cause was the professionof my father. He was an officer and, for their peace of mind, the authoritiesput officers’ families safe from the front fury. It happened in Romania. Several years later, I fully learnedthe disaster that happened under the Soviet Army and the new regime imposed byit. Now, I wonder how it is that the peasants from that small village knewbetter our future than some educated persons from my town, persons who tookwrong decisions for themselves.

“AnimalFarm” by George Orwell is a pertinent description of what occurred in theformer USSR and was to follow us. He knew it in 1945, whenhis book was published, but our intellectuals were hoping for somethingdifferent. A naivety!

Immediately following that period, I remember theslogan “The Americans come!”Certainly, it might be a hope for some people, but a new query for me. Whywould they do it, if they did not do it until now? Is a new war ready to start,this time between the USA and USSR? Is someone interested in it? The question was beyond my understanding.Still, something was telling me that the answer was negative. Today, we knowthe hearsay was false. The Martians would come sooner.  Europe had been divided into zones of influence, wewere – unfortunately – under the Soviet one, and nothing would change for along time. Clearly, the Americans and Occidental Europe abandoned us. The onlypreoccupation was survivorship. It remains the question: why did they launchthat rumour, because of which people died or destroyed their careers? I stilldo not know. Surely not the communists! I remember, because I knew some personspropagating the hearsay, and they were intellectuals with pro-occidentalorientations. The single conclusion is they were not realistic persons at all.Again, the same question: how is it that educated people could fall in sucherrors?

Some years later, I knew a very interestinggentleman, who was important to me. He taught me English language in a timewhen this idea was at least odd, as eccentric as dangerous. Before the war, hehad been cultural attaché of Romanian Embassy in Paris and London. Someone said, “in major political events, man oscillatesbetween heroism and cowardice”. He chose the first variant and, immediatelyafter the war, came to Bucharest, thinking that he must be here, notabroad. In the following fifteen years, he experienced was imprisoned and underhouse arrest in a very small village, surviving thanks to people’s charity. Imet him just when they had set him free. As nobody wanted to give him a job, Ihelped him and, as recompense, he offered to teach me English.  Again the same question, “how is it that hedid not know what the Russians are able to do?” He used to be, not only aneducated person, but also an expert of politics. Very odd!

A particular happening remained in my mind forits evocative power. I was about eight or nine years old, when, one evening, Iwas to go toward one of my aunt’s home, only a few blocks away. Another aunt ofmine was visiting us. Before leaving, she asked me, “You are not afraid ofwalking alone in the dark?” I had never thought of it before. It was not justdark, but some trees with large crowns made the street even darker. In thequiet of the evening, I could hear faint noises caused by birds, falling leafs,twigs etc. That was when I realized that fear is an induced sentiment. Ofcourse, my aunt’s question to a child was stupid. Yes, fear is a sentimentsubjective and inoculated. Even as reflex, it is acquired and not innate. Achild first burns his fingers, and then learns to keep himself away. Why do weneed to be afraid? Who invented fear, and why? Religion uses it at the highestlevel. The politics do it too, obviously for manipulating people! Fear of evildivinities, fear of the Inquisition, fear of political police during thecommunist regime in Eastern Europe, or of the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 50’s years andso on.

From my childhood too, I remember a scene in themiddle of the street: a gipsy woman showed her back to a gentlemen who hadcriticized her for I-do-not-know what. I remarked then the helplessness of a civilizedperson face to an uncivilized one. So then, what is the use of the education?

These were some questions from a child’s mind. Arethey important? The questions no, but the answers yes, because they will formhim as citizen.

Inthe Beginning was the Word

It is the Bible from where we learn that, “In the beginning was the word, and Word waswith God, and the Word was God”. There was not a language, yet, because itwould be absurd to think that God first invented a language and, only afterward,he created light, earth and water, plants, animals, all the others and finallyAdam and nobody to talk with. Here, the meaning of “word” is “project”. We maysuppose that God had in mind a project. It is interesting that, in otherlanguages, instead of word, they use something similar with the English for “verb”.They suggest the idea of action. However, before any action, it must be anintention, which I named here “project”. Any project, we know, needs some amendments,as it could not be perfect, not even God conceived it. The proof is to be foundin the Bible as well, where one describes more situations when God himselfobserved that, either his project might be improved, or something is not allright with it and he must operate some modifications. Thus, even since thebeginning, we learn that “God saw thelight, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness”.There are many phrases like this. Even after he created Adam, thinking, “it is not good that the man should be alone”,God gave him a woman, albeit he must break his best work for extracting a ribfrom it. The Deluge, sending his son on the earth, are “manoeuvre forrectifying the trajectory”, as well. After the Deluge, he rebuilt the wholehumanity in a new tree. Therefore, he went forward step by step with hisproject, not having a complete imagine of the finished product for thebeginning.

A first conclusion ensuing here is the lack ofany finality. The initial project is to be improved ceaseless, probably stilltoday.

A second conclusion is that such revisions willoccur in the future and they will be even more radical.

This is why, the church is wrong every time itclings to some anachronistic ideas or situations.

I started from the idea that, at the beginning,it was the Word. Is it important? It is! Not the Word as it is and not becauseit was at the beginning, but because the Bible says it is so. The Bible is ourfundamental book, which has led us during the last years (several thousands),no matter if we are or not believers. We cannot neglect this book, because itmeans we would neglect ourselves. We are the product of our history and ourhistory was dependent on religion, no matter whether we like it or not. Couldit be different? Certainly, not! With another fundamental book, we shouldbecome somebody different. Why? Let us see!

People act, in a great measure, based onhabitudes acquired early their childhood and it depends on their education. By education,I do not mean the knowledge about Shakespeare or the structure of the atoms,but those activities with which they are accustom to, because they were taughtin this way, especially by parents. A man does not think every time what wouldbe the sagest proceeding. He acts as he has gotten use to it, and it come fromthe tradition. Therefore, he is a product of tradition. In the past, religionwas that what had the most important role in setting up the tradition. The greatmajority of people keep up the rules of cohabitation, because religion taught themso, because any believer proceeds in this way. Dead persons are entombed,because it is Christianly to do that way, a Christian will say, even if theyare buried throughout the world, no matter of religion, from sanitarianreasons.

We must not expect that priests think in allreligious dogmas, but we expect that they be good educators in the idea ofkeeping common persons with the most useful traditions, according to thatepoch. We could say they are even good pedagogues, particularly if we have inview that first schools came into existence beside the churches andmonasteries.

I mentioned the Deluge. It exists in allreligions, no matter if they recognize God or not. It is true, between them,there are small differences of interpretation. Well, just these “small”differences make the distinction between different life philosophies staying atthe base of every social construction. And not only between religions, but alsoinside of the same religion. The difference may go from the assertion of oneidea to the assertion of the opposite one, which unfortunately is valuable eveninside Christianity. Which were initial principles of Christianity and whichwere those practised by Catholic Church during Middle Ages and even after it?For analysing them, we should set up what we understand Christianity is,obviously beyond the level of stories. This is not my objective at this momentand, supposing the reader understands to what I refer, I will point out severalmain ideas, for getting beyond this phase. The Deluge was an example.

The question is “how was it possible to have somany differences?” A little history, even just a little, would be necessary forunderstanding the evolution, but not here. For the moment, we shall observethat, in order to attain its aims, the church used a huge propagandistic machinery.During the Middle Age, one almost confuses it with what we name today as culture.Painting, philosophy, architecture, everything has religious subjects and aimthe parishioners’ indoctrination toward obedient, sheepish high prelates’servant.

Not keeping account by the evolution of thesociety, by the development of knowledge, in time, any sheep realizes more andmore that aims are false. Strong people took their fortune in their own mains.The Faustic European culture arose in this way. Weak-willed ones still needreligion. For both of them, a turning point is around the corner. Let us hopethat it will not be as radical as a deluge. Anyway, the amplitude of change isin our hands, because a small correction made in time is more efficient than agreat forced one, after a catastrophe.

In fact, at the beginning, the Chaos was,namely something without form, therefore without limits, something in whicheverything was possible and in which – just because it – nothing importantoccurs. But, God came! He first divided the light from the darkness. Therefore,he traced a limit between them. Up till here, he did not create, butdelimitate. And so, he did with earth, waters and so on. They do not say in theBible or anywhere else that someone would create the Chaos. (It seems that weare going to create it.) In all religions, Chaos existed before anything. The All-creatoris improperly named so, as he did not create, but separated. Maybe more correctwould be to say he organized, if this word would not be almost compromised bytoo many human activities wrongly organized. Tracing a line of demarcationbetween earth and heaven, the divinity created two restrictions: the earthcould not be heaven and heaven could not be earth, any longer. And he did notstop here. Going on, he imposed limits after limits, restrictions afterrestrictions, organized materiel in entities odder and odder, making smallmonsters, among which we are, human beings, obliged to fight with everythingaround us, even between us, because the limits imposed by the creator becamemore and more stifling.

At this point, an interesting virus appeared; wedo not want to dissolve our limits. On the contrary, as the limits give ouridentity, we love them and want to push them as far as we can, over theneighbour’s ones, and in his detriment. As this idea belongs to him too, ourfacing is ready. 

In primitive societies, the link man–divinitywas one of a mercantile sort, something like if you give to me, I will give to you.“Make to rain and I make an oblation”. Morality did not have a religiouscharacter. It belongs to people, as a summation of behaviour rules, imposed by cohabitationbetween people first and less by their rapport with the divinity. The shamansappeared just for acting as go-between between people and divinities. They didnot belong to divinities, but pretended to be able to communicate with them.

In Christian religion, divinity has theinitiative and send messages to people, messages from which they learn how tocomport in order to please the divinity. The relationship between man-divinityis no longer one of small-agreement, you give to me – I give to you, but anauthoritarian one. The moral rule comes from God, who pretend and does nothaggle in bargain. The mediator is no longer a shaman, but the priest.

In oriental religions, the individual comesfrom an unchangeable Universe and, after a smaller or greater number of reincarnationscomes back to the Universe. Humanity is only a summation of solitaryindividuals, incidentally living together. In Judaism and Christianity,humanity has a history, beginning with the conversation between Eve and deviland finishing with the Last Judgement. Here, the individual does not matter,but the humanity, in finality will happen simultaneously for all the people,because we inherited Eve’s sin.

As regards Christianity, we observed that itdid not appear as suddenly and unexpectedly as bigots like to think. Mostphilosophers, even some theologians, beginning with St. Augustine, recognize in Plato a precursor ofChristianity. M. Louis considers Plato as “thefirst systematic theologians”. Still, he says: “Plato’s theology is not the same with nowadays theology. Plato makesonly dialectical speculations with phenomena and people’s way of life. If, fromtime to time, his philosophical syllogisms know the divinity, it is only aresult of the thinking system and not a precise aim. Plato analyzes the idea ofGod. Also, he deal with the relations between an earth-born and God. But Plato,when speaks about divinity, as peak of the idea, he does not refer to God asbeing of creed, and often confound it with all-embracing idea of Well. Plato’sreligion is not just a belief, but an invitation toward the worship… For Plato,it was more an invitation to dialog, a talk on a topic of high elevationbetween educated Greeks, a searching of truth about the unknown, when the mindhas to choose between metaphysics and materialism… From here, probably, forsome searchers one created the confusion that Plato deals with divinity.”

Greek mythology, full of contradictory ideas,proving Geeks’ pleasure of philosophizing, contains many Christian ideas,including that of democracy. Yes, democracy is a Christian idea as well: if allpeople are God’s children, they are equal in his face, then they are equal witheach other. Whether the equality cannot be implemented immediately on theearth, then we must be content with the idea that, at least in Paradise, it exists and, maybe, sometime itwill come on the earth.

Anyway, the idea of democracy certainlybelonged to Greeks, first. They did not create a history, yet, in the sense ofsomething with beginning and necessary end. To them, the Eternal Returning Mythwas in the centre of their philosophy. For them, the substance is finite, whiletime is infinite. Consequently, the same forms will be reproduced after a time,no matter how long it takes. Natural cycles as if day-night, winter-summer etc.emphasized this philosophy. Nietzsche realized this idea too. Amusing enough isthat he thought this discovery belonged to him.

Because we entered a little mythology, I allowa small comparison between those two variants of the Deluge: mythological oneand biblical one. In mythological variant, the survivors of the Deluge wereDeucalion and his wife, Pyrrha. After water's withdrawal, the goddess Themisadvised him that, while they will go down from the mountain, to throw back intheir trace all the stones they found in the way, as stones symbolize the bonesof their great grandmother, Gaea, who is the earth itself.  From every stone, immediately, a man or awoman rose. Consequently, there are two categories of people: the natural heirsof Deucalion and those born from the stones. It was natural to think so in aslave society, where democracy is only for the first category. Deucalion’sfirst son was Hellen and he is considered Greeks’ ancestor (Hellenes)

In the biblical version, the Deluge has not suchinterpretations; instead, Noah’s descendants, organized in familial clans, wantto overrule the world. The idea of ownership is fundamental, and hereditarymonarchy became the characteristic type of social organization for EuropeanMiddle Eve. Of course, not the Deluge induced the theory, but inversely, thetheory invoked the Deluge as doctrinal justification. (By the way, as anywherea deluge appears as a solution for purification of the society, what wouldtoday’s society look like after a new deluge?)

Prometheus, the one who is so much eulogisedtoday, did not have the same resonance in the old Greek world, and was not seenmerely as a positive hero, but only as a subject for discussions, hisindiscipline face to Zeus being his characteristic feature. Here is what Zeussays to Prometheus: “You gave to the people only the ecstasy of victory. Dothey know what to do with fire until you teach them? Some will, but those arefew. And they will become despots for those who do not know and will becomeunaware slaves. You have given the fire to several for enlightening the others.I would want to give it to all the people. Of course, you wanted it too, butyour impetuous and unabated temper did not let you to do the work withmoderation and embroiled me.”  Zeus is adeity of progress, not one of the revolutions. “People did not receive progressfrom you, but protest instead. They have not the disquietude of tomorrow. Theirmind was filled only with hatred for the boss”. (How well would have been ifthe hanger-on of communism had read a little mythology!) Along with Prometheusa kernel of revolt appears against too stern rules and despotic lord. The wish forchange is obvious, and the merciful and righteous God is the expected solution.And he has come! We realize now that the later apocalyptic God was the reactionof some priests for which the old doctrine of a punitive divinity, maybe justidols, was better. They wanted only the power. What would be the use of a wiseone?

Christianity began as a religion of poorpeople. It is clear that it was embezzled later by politicians associated withpriests. Now, people want the religion returned, but it must be cleaned up ofthe impurities. I do not plead for returning to biblical precepts and not atleast for a certain religion, but for a reasonable one; and I do not pled, butonly think that it will come naturally.

Christianity brings an innovation. Unlikeoriental faiths, where the Universe is stable and life is conceived in anendless cycle, in Christianity, mankind has a beginning and, of course, an end.The idea of singleness has great moral implications. All people will go infront of the God in the Day of Judgement. In this way, people’s lives have asense of togetherness. They are no longer expected to have a miserable lifeforever. From some passive, apathetic persons, they have become active people.It could explain the progress of Europe in the good sense but their bad deeds too(wars, colonial conquest, etc.). Is the Christian morale a good one? We candiscuss it.

In oriental faith, the salvation is individual. Consequently, a good believerinsulates himself from the society; he lives in seclusion. The religion tellshim not to make bad acts, but not to make good ones. Christianity did it. Fromthis reason, Christian believers live together, as one could not be good tohimself. He needs a receiver for his kindness.

Judaism and Christianity introduced thehistory: there was a beginning, and will be an end. Everything we do happenswithin this period, and we do it together. We are not some individuals livingtemporary in an infinite Universe, like in Hinduism. We live together in alimited period. Maybe we should think more about it. Man becomes man but by thecommunity's virtues (Socrates).

Pray or meditation? The word 'meditation' doesnot have sense in Christian doctrine. It is peculiar for oriental faiths wherepeople meditate to purifying himself for a future life. A Christian does notmeditate but prays. During his prayer, he implores God to help him. Peoplewithout much will, lazybones, or dishearten implore more often God's help.Trustworthy people, instead, usually forget God, thinking that they succeed bythemselves. They remember him only before an important but uncertain trial.Then, they ask God’s help to overcome the moment, or to conquer an enemy, evenif this battle is contrary to the Christian doctrine. It makes me to think thatour emotional mood needs the faith. But is it just what God asks us to do? Ofcourse, not! This is only priests’ desire.

A large part of the Old Testament is history:the history of Jewish people. The modern historians and archaeological diggingshave come to light that many facts reported in the book were true. As a matterof fact, most part of the Old Testament, particularly its beginning, waswritten during the exile of Jewish in Babylon, when - feeling that they are lost- thought that it would be a pity if nobody learns about their history andlife.  Many times, authors exaggeratedfacts, embellished or described them in the form of fiction, as they, theauthors, were writers and mostly priests. The Bible is a book of wisdom aswell. Wisdom, what a great word! The all of us want to be wise persons, butnobody knows whether he really is. Whatever their opinion about themselveswould have been, the authors of the Bible were some scholars of those times,and involved themselves as spiritual leaders. Some paragraphs were entirelywritten in a metaphoric style, just for sending a message. These made thefreest interpretations possible.

The Bible itself is not homogenous. Some ideasare in contradiction with other ideas, if you read different chapters. We mayhave understanding for its authors. They had to change some old ideas withother new ones. As it usually happens, they could not do it quickly and withaccuracy. Even we can not do it. Some reminiscences from older mentalityremain. Besides, the Bible was written by more than one author, in different periods.We can recognize the way in which some ideas progressed in the authors'conception.

This idea is true even if you want to believethat the Bible was written under the divine inspiration. You may accept thatGod changed his ideas, or he has a plan and, from time to time, gives uslessons accordingly to our evolution or, even better, both of them.

As all religions have a cosmogony, the prieststried to persuade us that Bible has one as well. I suppose that it was notconceived as a cosmogony, but a metaphor full of teachings, of moralconsequences, in this way being a useful educational guide. Metaphor of what?Of an early period from their history! From it, the priests made a cosmogony,which - due to its naivety - has compromised the Christian religion entirely.Of course, God could not be like us. He should help us more if he is almighty.Then who was he for the Jewish people? Let us read the Bible!

In Genesis 2.7, it is said that "And the Lord God formed man of the dust ofthe ground...". Not from mud, clay, or simple earth? It is notmentioned that he would use water. I think it had to be difficult to mould indust. Is this a mistake, or an accidental expression? Not at all! From the nextparagraph we learn that "And theLord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put theman whom he had formed." Therefore, Eden has points of the compass. Interesting!From the paragraphs 10 to 14, we learn that "a river went out of Eden to water the garden;and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads". Their names are Pison,Gihon, Hiddekel (Tigris) and Euphrates. We cannot help thinking that Eden is the old Sumer and what the Sumerian civilisationmeans for old times. Yes, Summer used to be a pleasing and charming place incomparison with the surrounding areas, namely exact what this word means intheir language. God probably was a Sumerian king, who accepted a Jewish tribeon his territory for different works. This one seems to have been the bestperiod from the Jews history. It was that king was God for them, their father,because he made them men. They were like dust and became like the Sumerians.This is the correct meaning when one says that God made man like him, and notthat a divinity could look like us.  Asthe Jews did not keep the arrangement and aimed higher than it had been allowedto them (testing from the tree of knowledge), the king expulsed them. More thanthat, God observing the sin committed by Adam and Eve, declared "… the man is become as one of us . . ."(Genesis 322). Consequently, God was not alone. He did not speak that man wouldbe “like me”, but “like us”. He spoke in the name of the leadership of Sumer and accuses the Jews that exceededtheir rights as employees, infiltrating themselves among the employers. We seenow why in the whole history recorded in Bible, with all its details, Sumer does not appear at all. That's sobecause it was the beginning. It was the heaven. In the whole of their history,the Jews do nothing else but beg God's pardon, hoping to be accepted again in Eden's garden.

The idea of an ancestral sin is an ancestralone itself. Most old religions contain it. The abandonment of this idea is justone of the most important idea that Christianity brought. Jesus died for it,consequently the problem is solved, and the topic is closed. To insist on thispoint means not to understand what Christianity really is. We are not forced tomake sacrifice for imaginary reasons. Instead, we are responsible for ourmistakes. Peter says: "... your sinsmay be forgiven" (Acts 2:38). Yours and not some ancestralones!  Following Christ's way, we tellourselves not to make other mistakes. Jesus Christ gave us the dignity to standright, be responsible.

Yes, God is forgiving; he always gives us asecond chance, but, for it, we must repent and promise (to ourselves firstly)not to fall again in the mistakes, but to follow God's way. How well we did itis another question.

One day, an American friend asked me whether Ibelieve that Jesus is alive. I avoided the answer then, because the questionmust be analysed before answering. We first need to know if he imagines a Jesuslike a man who lives somewhere and looks at us, or Jesus as a symbol for theentire Christian theology. In the first hypothesis, I am not the man to chatover this subject, but, in the second one, the subject is quite inciting. Forthose who look at religion as a myth - true or false - the question is anessential one, maybe the most. It is not my case. I remember some years ago, itwas in fashion to question whether Shakespeare was a man, or an enterprise,dealing with books, a publishing house in our terms. As I am not a historian,the question is not interesting from my point of view. I am interested inShakespeare's works and not in his life. It was Schumann who wrote that onlystupid musical critics speak about the composer, instead of his works. Anotherexample, maybe just clearer, is Marxism. It is not important at all if Marx wasa great scholar, a tiny one. Just that he existed at all. Instead, Marxismmarked the social and political life almost the entire XX century. It is thesame with writers and, generally, with the creators from any other field,including Christianity. Yes, I am interested in Christianity, but not whetherJesus is alive or not.

Maybe he is alive, or maybe not. Anyway, whatis important is what he said to us. His message matters! Speaking about hislife, it counts as a message too, because he used it as an example, as a way toconvey his message to us.

Consequently, the question of the mostimportance is: what is Christianity? Or, more exactly, what is the Christiantheology? It is difficult to answer at this question seriously, and probablypeople will never write enough books on this topic. Instead, they wrote lots ofbooks with propagandistic purposes, to provide the common people a convenientbehaviour, accordingly to priests' interests. The Bible was used intensely andmisinterpreted, which makes things more complicated, because any different ideais immediately rejected, just because it is different. Any religion isconservative.

Many times, maybe most times, the prieststhemselves did not understand the Christian message, or more probably did notwant to understand. Why? Because their interest was not to guide people, toteach them, but to keep them at their disposal! That's why their recommendationssometimes were just in opposition to those of the Christian teaching. Oftenthey embraced the older ideas, the pre-Christian ones, because such ideas aremore useful and according to priest's interests. Fear and humility are amongtheir spurs. They changed the word 'idols' with 'God' but kept the sameattitude.

Christianity gave us the humanism and thedignity, not the lack of them. As for the Apocalypse, this is a monument ofnon-Christianity.

Also, you must view that people from throughoutthe world are God's children, and - if they are of different religions - thisis so because God wants it so. Consequently, there are not bad or rightreligions, but different God's projects.

If we are as we are, there are two variants:

• This is God's will. (Consequently, we do not worry; if he wants us nitwits, we are on the right way.)
• We are out of God's control. (It would be dangerous. No matter what or who God would be, if we perceive our world as a part of a whole organism, any part does not exist independently; it rapidly decays.

Anyway, if God has put a curtain between he andus, we should respect his will, and not try to imagine all kind of thingsoccurring beyond the curtain. God shows himself to every one of us according toour imagination and understanding.

Coming back to the Bible, for me, it is animportant book, maybe the most important, but I always read it wondering myselfwhat was the genuine message of the authors, either under the divineinspiration or not.

But, what is Christianity? To understand it, wehave to look around, especially in the past. Thinking to the past, we mustbegin with the Old Testament, whence we learn about God in opposition withidols. It was a good step, but it was not the first at all. Before it, Jewishpeople conceived a God only for their nation, and made from Judaism a nationalreligion. This was good for them, but not for the others. Why they did this wayit is accountable. We can talk about it, but this is their problem, and maybetheir mistake.  Christianity extended theconcept of a God for all the nations and turned their beliefs to divinity fromfear to love. The idols used to be pitiless and pretending immolation in orderto gain their goodwill, while God is benevolent, a benefactor and does not wantimmolation. He wants for us only to have decent behaviour, because we are hischildren, and he is the Father.

But changing the God of Israel people into auniversal divinity, the Christians turned the God into a new idol. The onlydifference is that God is not materialised into an object or a being. As forGod's kindliness, even if it is frequently asserted, the Bible contains manymore paragraphs destined to terrify man, to implant in his soul the fear of amerciless final judgement of God. The priests are guilty for all these. It isunderstandable too, because they preferred the old and verified method of fearin order to keep the people under their control. That's why we must discernbetween the genuine good intentions and the result, marked by some people'ssubsequent interest.

But the priests are not guilty only for these.Their mistakes provoked all kind of schisms, ending with all the sects thatappeared in our time like the mushrooms after the rain. Almost all the people Italked with - belonging to no matter which sect - used to be ignorant enoughnot only concerning the religion, but also in history and all-round education,generally.

Is Jesus alive or not? The question comes againin my mind, even if I said that it is not so important. Some people ask ifJesus really existed as a human being. Roman documents do not mention him atall, or we know that in Roman Empire they used to record in official reports every remarkable event. Eventhis question is not so important, because what followed was what reallymatters - namely Christianity – and with its priests as well. Jesus was not theMessiah expected by Jesus people (although Christos means messiah in Greeklanguage) but surely he was the prophet of Christianity, which begins with himand found in his life its philosophy and morale. What really matters is justthis philosophy and morale.

The idea of a good divinity was not just new.The Greeks advanced it a long time ago, and it would have been impossible for theJewish to not knowing about it. The Apostle Paul himself was a Jew from Greece at that time (Tars in nowadays Turkey), and it was he who first madegreat efforts in his epistles to the Romans in showing that God is for all thepeople, not only for Jews. As for a good-hearted divinity, the Greekphilosophers prepared people for it. If we study attentively the Mythology,beyond the stories, we shall find a humanist doctrine. Gods used to be likepeople, with human qualities and defects. They were only more powerful. In themeantime, some Greek philosophers had risen against the gods' exaggerate power,wanting a more kind-hearted divinity. So was Aeschylus in his "Prometheus (Bound, Unbound and Fire-Bringer"and "Oresteia", and manyothers, long before Jesus Christ. The idea of a loving-people divinity used tobe already present. "For the Jewsrequire a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom". It is not me whosay this. It is written in 1 Corinthians 1:22.

Jesus was a prophet because he conveyed ideasfrom the philosophers to the common people. For this purpose he gave his life.This is generally a prophet: someone able to understand philosophy, and able aswell to communicate with people, which common philosophers cannot. Socrates hadalready made the supreme sacrifice for his ideas. He was aware that onlythrough his death, his ideas would survive; and he accepted to drink the cupwith hemlock.

It is true, Jesus Christ was a Jew from Palestine, but he was only the spark that litthe fire. Christianity appears as a religion of poor people giving them a hope.Not far from the Palestine, Greece used to be under the Romansoccupation too. It is not accidental that the apostle Paul was from Greece. Later on, the Jews kept the Judaicfaith, while the Greeks adopted Christ's religion immediately. After Jesus,Christianity developed world wide, firstly in Roman Empire.

Maybe a part of the Bible was written under thedivine inspirations, but surely not entirely. It is full of priests' wishes andideas - some of them belonging to the Jews'. There were also many otherwritings. What was accepted to be "The Bible" is a selection of whatsome priests considered being opportune. As any human deed, it could benon-perfect. This is one more reason to read the Bible in an intelligent way.

Children know a lot about the Bible. But, intime, as they grow up, their faith diminishes. First, a child learns thatFather Christmas, he who - after a thrilling waiting - gives him presents, andfills his soul with joy, he, Father Christmas himself was not a fabulouspersonage, but a well-known individual, and everything was only a littletheatre, specially staged for children. After such a deception, it is almost alogical consequence to come to the conclusion that the whole religion is astory for children, in which he stops to believe when he no longer consider tobe a child. Later on, when he learns at school that, in the name ofChristianity, people made the greatest atrocities (Inquisition, crusades,etc.), and when he find by himself that some priests are not the most educatedpersons to be his masters, his faith is completely wiped out. The endeavour topreach the Bible to a grown-up, only with some biblical stories and some threats,has no more chances.

For all that, religion is still necessary.Where is the mistake? I think it is in the weak quality of the priests. They doonly their duty of keeping the religious service. They ceased to be people'sconfessors, and most times have not the necessary intellectual level. They arenot able to respond to the matters of the real life. The parishionersfrequently are more educated.

Coming back to the children, the priests do notknow how to preserve the contact with children when they learn that FatherChristmas is not real, and explain that any story has morale, and the morale isthat which matters.  "God has established a moral code, which hewishes his children to adopt." It is Aeschylus who wrote this, fivecenturies before Jesus.

If Judaism is a national religion, it was theapostle Paul, who removed this limit and who found a universal religion. Thisis why he may be considered the ideologist of Christianity. A belief in agood-hearted, people-loving God has appeared, a belief of poor people for whichlife after death is the single solace. It took about 400 years for the politiciansto realize that the tolerance preached by Christian doctrine could be used formanipulating people. It was not hard at all, as the Bible is full ofcontradictions, which is understandable keeping in mind that it was written indifferent periods by many authors. Beside a forgiving God, we findreminiscences of a vindictive one, and the Apocalypse destroys everything thatthey had built till then. It is clear that such capitols are no longer of adivine inspiration, but of one very secular, not religious, namely priestly. Itis no wonder that, 1000 years later, Inquisition, Crusades, etc. appeared inOccidental Europe. They inverted the sense of the Christian doctrine. God hasbecome a tyrant, and the king is his representative on the earth, to whom peoplehad to raise hymns and prayers.

Nowadays European civilisation is considered tobe a result of the Christian doctrine. Is this assertion just so true? Yes, andno! In the Roman Empire,Christianity had spread slowly, particularly among the poor people (because itis a religion of poor people), starting from the east toward west. Few peoplewere Christians in its western part before the collapse. Besides, there was nota specified leader of Christian churches at that time. Like the pope becamelater; every bishop used to be independent. Instead, thanks to Wulfila, whoinvented an alphabet and translated Christian writings, the Goths have spreadChristianity in western occupied territories; it is true by sword more than byconviction.

After the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, the barbarian tribes, generally ofGerman origin, invaded its former territory. In that vacuum of power, themilitary chiefs built small fortresses, from where they dominated the area. Intime, the fortresses became citadels and castles, and the successors of formermilitary chiefs considered themselves owners of the surrounding lands. Theywere in full feudal epoch. For several centuries, there were not great dangersfor them, because, toward the west, the ocean was a natural border and, as faras the eastern barbarians, there was a large distance. There were a lot ofother people to fight against the barbarians. Of course, small fights existed everywhere,but they looked more like disputes inside of families than real wars.

The feudal lords did not feel the need ofwearing the title of king. It was Pepin the Short, who had the idea of crowninghimself as King of the Franks. Why? Because the first real danger appeared, inthe form of Arabian expansion. Hhis father, Charles Martel, succeeded inpersuading his neighbouring lords to fight together against a common threat, whichbrought about the battles of Poitiers and Tours (732). Thanks to his father'smerits, the son thought he deserves to wear the title of king. Nobody paid attentionto him then. Some years later, the Martel's nephew, no one else butCharlemagne, wanted to be emperor.

Shaking hands with the bishop of Rome, Charlemagne reached two goals: hewas recognised as emperor by the church, and the bishop, as Pope and chief ofoccidental church. Charlemagne was illiterate, but this is another story.Anyway, the empire disintegrated after his death. What remained was the idea. Thechurch went even farther by making Charlemagne a saint, a great emperor, etc.Soon, the occidental church separated itself with the name of Catholic Church,and the Pope became in this way the single chief of the occidental church, andthe one who anointed kings. As for the kings, they were considered to be ofdivine origin. As a matter of fact, under the name of Christianity, they broughtagain the ancient faith, which was more profitable for leaders, even if Jesus'doctrine was quite opposite, proclaiming the equality of every person in faceof God. But the real Christian doctrine could not be pleasant for kings and ahierarchical church. Their wish for power was greater and greater. At the otherend of Europe, the Eastern Roman Empire used to be alive under the name of Byzantine Empire, but weaker and weaker, while theoccidental Europe became more and more powerful.

Where the mistake lies? From the beginning, wemust discern between the two ways of the propagation of Christianity:

• Step by step, by conviction, among the poor people, starting with the apostles and the following missionaries. This was the characteristic way in the first four centuries, inside the Roman Empire. The biblical message used to be optimistic: there is a future life, therefore a hope. It depends by our will to make it happy. God is kind and forgiving. (In Byzantine churches Jesus Christ is featured during the Ascension, giving an optimist message, as he promised to come again in a happy kingdom.) This was the genuine message of Christianity.
• With sword, by imposing and constraints, starting with Goths' invasions and, afterwards, by Catholic Church. Besides sword, their arguments were by frightening and intimidation. God ceased to be kind hearted. On the contrary, people were threatened by the Apocalypse and all kinds of punishments. Because kings were considered to be God's representatives on the earth, people had to glorify God, but also the kings too, who obliged them to raise hymns. (In Catholic churches, Jesus is shown mostly during his passions. The only message is that, if he suffered, we have to suffer too. The penitence would be the only way.) The priests lost the main Christian ideas, lost Jesus' message of love, and the religion became a means for the politician's hands. Priests no longer served the religion, but instead use religion for their own interests.

It is easy to imagine how convincing themissionaries could be with the sword in their right hand. The effects of such endeavourscan be seen today in South America, where all indigenous are considered to be Catholics due to Spanishconquistadores, but they still keep their old beliefs. That’s why they needInquisition. The great inquisitors were not even priests, but jurists in thestructure of the Department of Justice.

Still, the clergy had some moments ofhesitation. Unfortunately, they did not try to re-appraise the doctrine, butonly to better justify the existing one. The Occident particularly, wanting todetach himself from the Byzantine Empire, sought for own doctrinaires. One of them was Saint Augustine of Hippo(354-430) Do not confuse him with Saint Augustine of Canterbury. I have all theconsideration for him, but he was first of all a philosopher, Plato’s adept andgreat admirer of Cicero. At 19 years old he was attracted to Manichaeism, with its orientalodour. Both platonic philosophy and Manichaeism will mark him for the rest ofhis life, even after his conversion to the Christianity in 386, after his son’sdeath, which had a profound effect to him, from the psychological point ofview. As expected, he approached Christianity from the angle of a philosopher,being adept of Stoicism with its many different influences, sooner than adogmatic theologian. The various currents coming together in his intellectualformation allowed later theologians to quote him in the most differentsituation, according to their pursuits. He was contemporary with greattheologians of the first millennium like Basil the Great (330-379), Gregory of Nysa(335-395), John Chrysostom (349-407) and many others, kept by Orthodox Churchand almost forgot by the Catholic one, more interested in building its ownpatristic than searching a wiser way. In fact, both of them blundered: theOrthodox for excess of traditionalism and the Catholic for the wish ofseparation with any price. Saint Augustine lived much before the Great Schismin 1054. Still, he is less invoked by Orthodox Church just because of that partof his philosophy that is not just Christian, but is frequently invocated byCatholic ones, which consider him to be an inspirer for Thomas Aquinas, andfinding later some apologists among the Jansenism’s adepts fromPort-Royal-des-Champs. Among the precepts preached by Saint Augustine, acceptedby Catholic Church  and  declined by the Orthodox one, is that of thepredestination and – as a consequence of it – that of the grace. Here is aquote from “Epistula ad Sixtum”: Cum Deus coronat merita nostra, nihil aliudcoronat quam numera sua. Omne bonum meritum nostrum in nobis faciat nisi gratia.(AsGod guerdons our merits, he does not guerdons nothing else but his merits. Itis not our merit that achieves in us our well, but only the merit.) Even if allpeople are God’s children, Saint Augustine sustains that some are predestinatedat everlasting happiness, while most of us (massa damnationis) are fated to condemnation.Besides. God is not obliged to justify to anybody. Obviously, this idea hasnothing in common with Christianity, with a people-loving God, where everyoneis equal. I cannot remark that this theory is profound non-Christian. Jesusimpels us to seek God, which would not make sense, if everything had beenpredestined, as Saint Augustine thought.

If the diversity of Saint Augustine’s preoccupations explains hisconceptions (pagan philosopher, adept of Manichaeism and finally convertedtoward Christianity), for the Catholic Church, the explanation lies in itspolitical interests. It was the priests who wanted the stability of a societyalready hierarchical organized, in which the leaders’ position must not bethreatened, because it had been obtained thanks to the “merits received fromGod”, isn’t it?  This tendency is visiblein ecclesiastic art: the Catholic one is centred on Jesus’ Calvary, while theOrthodox – more optimistic -  point outthe Resurrection and Ascension, which gives a logic Jesus’ work on the earthand a sense people’s lives. While the Catholic Church wants man indebted tosuffer and implore the mercy, the Orthodox sees in Christianity a hopeemphasised just by Jesus’ Resurrection and Ascension.

From the moral point of view, the idea ofpredestination is disastrous, because man is deprived of any hope, his effortsare vain, as God – like the idols – is capricious and malevolent with themajority of people. (What seems to me an anachronism is that the idea ofpredestination was assimilated by J. Calvin and restarted in the circuit ofEuropean religious ideas by neo-protestant churches.)

What Catholic Church fructified – maybespeculated is better said – from Saint Augustine’s work was his dispute withPelagius. It comes from the wish of the church of reconciling belief with reasoning,just after it abandoned the reasoning. But, only after he kneeled hisadversary, Saint Augustine realized that he used to have his justness,and the topic remains as open as before.

Another principle for which Christian churchescontradict each other is that of Holy Spirit: Does it come only from the Fatheror from the Son as well? Much time I did not understand why priests warm uparound this topic. I figured out only when I realized the politicalimplications of this principle. In Orthodox religion, under the influence ofGreek philosophy, there is the conception that the Holy Spirit can come down oncommunity of persons, not only on a single individual. At the beginning, the ChristianChurch did not have a rigorous hierarchy, as the Catholic Church becomes later,with a single leader on top, the Pope. Since the year 800, after the handshakebetween Charlemagne and Pope, there was a single earthborn able to communicate directlywith God: the Pope. The threat from God as far as the smallest being must be asprecise as possible, in order for the church to keep autocratically his hand onthe whole society. God sends the Holy Spirit only toward the Pope, and the Popesends his will when and to whom he wants, exactly like God. The King is the Pope’sfavourite, the monarchy supports the church and church supports the monarchy.The smallest failure would weaken the whole setup. That’s why the rigidity ofthe hierarchy of the church became not only organizational, but doctrinal too.The explanation is not religious, but political and economical.

The next on the list of Catholic doctrinariansis Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274). Unlike Saint Augustine, this one was an authentictheologian. Aware that religion became more and more out of touch withphilosophic thought, he tried joining with Aristotle’s philosophy, namely aconnection between reasoning and religion, in other words, to mix water withfire (acquam igni miscere).Canonized, raised to the rank of founder in philosophy, he did not succeeded tobuild the impossible, but wrote enormous. Later, he was retook in the form ofneo-Thomism, To be a little malicious, I can say that Thomas Aquinas, named and“Doctor angelicus”, became from doct(learnt) in angels a doctor of angels, as they need to be treated, He issanctified in 1323, under the pope John XXII. He laid out his doctrine inseveral works, from which the most representative is Summa Theologica. The pope Leon XIII, in the encyclical Aeterni Patris (to the endless Father)from 4 August 1789, adopts him as official philosopherof Catholic Church.

A later and desperate attempt to answer at moreand more pronounced development of Rationalism was Pascal’s cooptation. Still,Pascal, mathematician and physicist, realized that one could not use reason forfighting against reason. What would be his fundamental book, Apologie de la religion Chrétienne(Apology of the Christian Religion), he never wrote. “Pensées” was published posthumously and it is gathering selectedand truncated by those from Port Royal, according with their interests. Why heaccepted to work for them? Pascal’s inner unrest, the complexity of hisconcerns are equal with the whole Christian problems. A book would be necessaryonly for this topic. Pascal, a scientist, devoted himself to the church. Itdoes not mean that the capacity of his mind diminished – as materialistphilosophers want to think – or, on the contrary, that he only then became aclever man – as the priests like to think. His works prove that he was clevererenough as before as after. Besides, he was never alien of religion. He grew upin a religious environment and religion was one of his preoccupation during thewhole of his life. It was not any conversion, but only a change of the “job”,based on the consideration that, together with those from Port Royal, he could be more efficient, atleast as concern the communication with people. We have not forgotten hisstatement: “I spent many days studying abstract sciences, but the rather smallnumber of people with which I can communicate in scientific field disgustedme”. So, his problem was one of communication. Finally, Pascal left us in fulldilemma: if you do not submit yourself to the reason, you are a fool; instead,if you do not submit yourself to God, you are unhappy. Happy and fool, orclever and unhappy; here are the offered alternatives, the first toward thereligion, the second one toward the reason. Does not another variant exist?

Even Luther did not stay away from thedistorted interpretations of the Catholic Church, as its priests, headed by thePope, he become a sort of more advanced shamans, and forgot Jesus’ messageentirely. Luther’s question shook the Christian world: “Could you think he is kind-hearted the one who save so few souls andwho condemn so many? Could you think he is righteous the one that through hiswill make us necessary condemnably, as he seems to enjoy by wretch’sanguishes….. He sooner is worthy by hatred then love. Oh, if I could understandhow could be kind-hearted and righteous this God proving so much rage andinjustice!” Theoretically, Pelagius had been annihilated more than athousand years ago, while Saint Augustine used to be considered one theparents of Catholic Church. Still, people could not put up with this thought.Why? Because Pelagius was right! “What reasonproves could be vindicated by divinity (faith)”. And still, man needssalvation, and salvation could not come but from God. Which God? The kind-heartedone or the malicious one? He who promises Heaven or who threaten with theApocalypse? The first one, who rightfully judges the facts, or the capriciousone, who forgives the malefactors and afflicts the believers? And if he is socapricious, what should our behaviour be like to humour him? This last question– evident rhetorical – is it enough to find out the church adopted a wrong way,and not be able to point out a moral way. At the moment, there is not a cleardirection offering to people a minimum of ethic. It ceases its role, it lostits credit The simple exhortation of glorifying hymns and imploring God’s helpis only a recrudescence of the faith in idols, where priests are similar withshamans.

There is still a lack of respect for historicaltruth according to occidentals today. Now, they begin to recognize a moreevident: the role of Greeks in the nascence of Renaissance, role amplified bytheir massive emigration from Constantinople, threatened by Turkish expansion.In occidental expression, it sounds like this: “Italy benefited by the booksbrought by Greek immigrants, books from which they rediscovered the values ofantiquity”, as if Greeks were some imbeciles carrying books not having any ideaof what is written in them. The jealousy of the barbarians for the civilizedpart of Europe during the first millennium – the Byzantine Empire – still lingers.

That reason finally proves the fall intodisgrace of the Catholic Church together with the monarchy. Today only somepoliticians speak about religion, demagogically of course, and writing “In God we trust” on every banknote is atrivial blasphemy.

Maybe I sometime am a little hard, but aboutsuch believers, Sartre was even worse: “Theykill in working days and confess with modesty in Sundays”. 

Every society has its scholars, and if they arenot just clever, at least they philosophise (philo + sophos), namely theyappreciate wisdom. Maybe all people philosophise (I have some doubts about thepoliticians), with the exception of the bigots. Some of them do it better,other less well, some accidental, other more perseverant, but they do it. Aphilosophic current grows up in this way usually in the opposition with theofficial one.  Yes, authenticphilosophers appear all the time. Some of them have great knowledge understand,power and a large scholarly knowledge,. They build a new paradigm.Unfortunately, such persons don’t have abilities in communication. For ignorantpeople, they seem to be odd people. Then, the prophets appear. They are personsthat, on the contrary, are particularly gifted regarding communication and, atthe same time, are clever enough to understand what philosophers say. In myopinion, the majority of the creators of great religions were from thiscategory. Interesting to observe is that, in their life, almost always therewas a period of meditation, in which it is to suppose that the prophetestablished the strategy by which he hoped to persuade the populace with thephilosophic ideas that he has just assimilated. One must speak to the peopleaccording to their understanding. They need miracle, parables and especiallystories.

In this way, a new religion appears, in orderto implement among the population philosophical paradigm. Through somemetaphors, counsels etc., the traditions are set down. The simple man keeps thetradition. He does not act from rational reasons, but because he was taught inthis way. Even the sagest ones do not think every step, but go habitually, fromroutine. Only the important steps we should think, if possible.

So far, everything is perfect. Bothphilosophers and prophets have the best intentions. But, along with religion,the priest appears. They are common people, who see a job in the church. Notwithout reason, someone observed, “The Jesuits made from the belief abusiness”. They dilute the original idea, pollute it with personal interests,and finally they arrive at the opposed idea. That is so, because „Les aveugles nous apprennent à voir” asJules Renard said.

Not long after, the politicians found waysthrough which they could use the new religion in their interest. It becomes thebase for political propaganda. From this moment on, there is nothing to do, butto invent a new religion. This does not mean the new one will be better thatthe previous one. History proves it has not occurred. On the contrary, the mostgenerous idea, through deformation, gives birth to disastrous politics.

Let us follow the evolution of main religion:

• The old oriental faiths are merely peaceful. Too quiet! As placid as their effect is people’s inhibition.
• In Greek Mythology, war appears aleatory, because of small quarrels, and is limited to tiny fights. Nobody searches for it by any means.
• The Jews promote the idea of nation. Hence, the war became an indispensable instrument to achieve the divine mission: chosen nation have to dominate the others. As a domination could not be imposed by force, the war is as divine as imminent. And, because the war is carried by men and they must be educated adequately. Old Testament says:
• “And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, had for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, would for wound, stripe for stripe.” (Exodus 21;23-25)
• “And if a man cause a blemish in his neighbour; as he hath done, so shall it be done to him; brach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; as he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be done to him again.” (Leviticus 24;19-20)
• “And thine eye shall not pity; but life shall go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, had for hand, foot for foot.” (Deuteronomy 19;21)
• Christianity comes from a more noble idea. From the New Testament, we learn:
• “Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the saw, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. And whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow o thee turn not thou away.” (St. Matthew 5;38-42)
• And also “Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” (St Matthew 5;43-44)

The Christians eliminated the obsession of“chosen nation”, but maintained those of nation and war, as a means forimposing political will of a nation against the others. The idea with cheekoffered for another slap, instead, was obsolete, anyway. The good-hearted Godgoes in crusades, which were as a matter of fact robbery expeditions, and soon. In the XVI-th century, Erasmus Desiderius (from Rotterdam) wrote, “Misfortunes join even the evil men, says a proverb. Neither well norevil join the Christians. And what a shame! The Christians fight moremercilessly than the Jews, than pagans and than beasts. The Jews had disputesonly with strangers, while the Christians, in alliance with Turkish, struggleeach other.” Or, also, “What infamouspriests’ tongue is, which impel to war, incite to even facts, hasten todisasters! In England, they incite against the Frenchmen, In France against theEnglishmen”. Andall this in the name of the same God. One could think that Erasmus wasfaithlessness. On the contrary! Just because of his faith, he revolts himselfagainst the priests, traitors of the faith. Unfortunately, his solution is anaïve one, proving once again that he remains without change in the same dogma.“To you I make an appeal, foremost peopleand high officials, as your good will to come in help of kings’ wise and popes’piety.”

I took the Greeks out of the equation; theywere too clever, even for us, without talking about the epoch in which theyproduced basic values still actual. Through their myth of Endless Re-entry, wesee the link with oriental religion. (“Manis nothing more than the shadow of a smoke” – Aeschylus in “Man is only a happening”, “World never die, as the beginning joins withthe end, like a snake biting its tail”, “Man is a God lapsed, who bethinking by the heaven” etc. But “Man is a joy made by gods” bring us infull biblical genesis. Through Plato, we catch a glimpse of Christianity. Asfor Democritus and Leucippus, we find them to be some creators of atomisttheory of Universe. Almost for every discovery, even the most modern, we learnthat at least an embryo existed in Greek thought. The Greek enthusiasm was forthe joy of living and not for vanquishing an imaginary enemy (enthusiasm =en-theon-siasmos = the state in which God dwells inside you). But with measure!Even the Stoicism has its roots in Greek moral too, which is, pointedly, anascetic and pacificator moral, which does not create the well in us, but cleansthe well that, naturally, there is in us (so they thought) by the evil laidover him from outside. (We can see that even the Greeks were wrong sometimes.)And, Greeks’ gods were used to lose the divine sense when their eyes fell on apretty woman, because the Greeks are so: love life, and the religions arewritten by people according with their aspirations.

The absence of a sacerdotal hierarchical classsalved both the Orientals and the Greeks and made them wiser. We must concludethat, meanwhile, the world became less and less rational, in spite of the Rationalismby which we make such a great fuss about, today.

Religion takes part from the history ofcivilizations, with its good and evil. Religion is what sets up traditions andrituals. The whole philosophy of an epoch is to be found concretized inpeople’s behaviour and this is materialized in people’s tradition and –important – in legends and story-tales for children. It is normal, becausepeople want to educate their children as they think to be the best, to convey tothem what they feel is wise. For this reason, an intelligent analysis of storytales could be richer in senses than it seems. Philosophers’ writings from oneepoch will enter people’s conscience slowly, over a period of time, while thementality of a epoch is given by previous philosophic thought, which need timeto form mentalities at people’s level.

Speaking about story tales, according to theoriental ones, a young man becomes a hero as a result of a brave act. After ashort pastime in the imperial court, he finds a wife and retires in an isolatesite, where he lives quietly for the rest of his life. The essential idea ofthe isolation is to be away from the high society with its fights andintrigues. This sort of behaviour is according with oriental conception;congenial with man is a part of a unique Universe, in which he will come backsometime. He is only an individual. Mankind is only an incidental crowd ofindividuals and is not interested in its whole. Instead, according to Frenchlegends, we find the hero giving his life for his country, like Roland, becausethe Frenchmen was just preparing to become a nationalist nation. ArthurianLegends, on the other hand, form a knight’s character to fight his whole hislife for an ideal. As for Greek mythology, it maybe is the amplest reflectionof a people. Gods used to be like men, with qualities and especially flaws,because, if something is allowed by gods, why would it not be allowed to peopleas well? And, of course, the powerful ones afford more than the poor ones.

But, all of these depend on the quality ofthose who convey the mentalities from one generation to the next. And if werefer to the past, they depended mostly on the priests, as they had thegreatest influence, with its goods and evils. Let us not forget that evenschools existed thanks to the church. It is difficult for us to learn howfaithful a priest is. Most of them chose priesthood as a job as anything elsefrom practical reasons and not from a special grace or gift. At the best, thepriest is a pedagogue, a confessor offering to people moral support andnecessary teachings for a decent life. In most cases, he is only a functionarywho performs rituals.

Anyway, we should see religion in a largercontext and judge it through its historical prospective, like humancivilisation, with which it is tightly connected.

Almost all pre-Christianity religions and thepresent oriental ones, have in view a static, unchanging Universe. Accordingwith such doctrines, individuals are some accidental configurations from thesame eternal matrix, into which they are to return after a while. The fateplays the essential role in their life. People have nothing to do except theirown individual preparation for returning as soon as possible into thatuniversal matrix. There is nothing between individuals and the Universe.Instead, in the Christian doctrine, there is a beginning - God has created theworld - and an end is to come, because any beginning must have an end. Thedestiny of every person is in his own hands. He is no longer dependent on fate.The world, at least our world, is changeable. Besides, we are not alone. Allpeople are God's creatures. He equally loves them, and asks us to love eachother as well. People are no longer indifferent to others. Fate plays a smallerrole. That's why Christianity moulded another sort of people. Atheists orChristians, we all are the result of this doctrine as part of our culture andcivilization, both concerning our good deeds and our evil ones as well.Christianity has made us active and enterprising people, sometimes tooenterprising.

And still, the word 'meditation' does not havesense in Christian doctrine. It is peculiar only for oriental faiths wherepeople meditate to purify themselves for a future life. A Christian does notmeditate but prays. During his prayer, he implores God to help him. Peoplewithout much will, lazybones or the dishearten ones implore more often God'shelp. Trustworthy people instead usually forget the God, thinking that theysucceed by themselves. They remember him only before an important but uncertaintrial. Then, they ask for God's help to overcome the moment or to conquer anenemy, even if this battle is contrary to the Christian doctrine. It makes meto think that our emotional mood needs the faith.

FromChristianity toward Communism and backwards

A traveller in the U.S.A. may ask for a ticket for Santa Fe, the capital of the state of New Mexico. Nothing extraordinary, if they donot translate “Santa Fe”, as in the Spanish language it means “theSaint Faith”. “A ticket return - eventually, half-price – toward the SaintFaith” sounds just amusing. But, as “In Godwe trust” is written on all American banknote, we must remain patient,because we have not found the God, as he will come to us, if necessary.Really??

It seems that, in philosophy, as in religion(which is nothing else but an applied philosophy under metaphor form), all waysare “round-trip”, as the same ideas re-appear periodically under differentforms. As for the price, no one estimates it before; we will see how much itscost was post factum.

The Bible teaches us that all people are equalin God’s eye. Well, this means they are equal with each other. From here untilthe idea of democracy is no more than a step, just a very small one. Greeks’democracy, forgotten in the meantime, comes again, timid at the beginning, butstronger and stronger as time passes. It was natural for the leaders not toreceive it with pleasure; but - aware that they could not hinder it – theyconcluded it would be wiser to use it, with some adjustments, instead ofinterfering with it. The solution was so good that it allowed the coalitionchurch-politics to dominate for more than a thousand years. As any exaggerationleads to self-destruction, what inevitably occurred and culminated with thesocial explosion, best symbolized by French Revolution in 1789. From then on,democracy had a free way. But, such a transformation like this could not beaccomplished quickly. As for the perfection, this remains an ideal. Occidental Europe did as much as it could. Of course,the complainers appeared soon, which is only natural. Un-naturally was thefollowing exaggeration: “Your democracy is not good. We will do a perfect one”– said Marx and his flunkeys. This is how the communism appeared. What followedis known. The occidentals, with some experience, observed the mistake andremained in a compromise, where the idea of democracy circulates yet, but, infact, the whole society is organized as an oligarchic model, with the estatewarranted. The model is not so important as it. The capacity of the society tokeep the equilibrium between opposite tendencies is what matters, which ispossible as time as the exaggerations are tempered in time. In fact, nothingnew happened, as Aristotle taught us a long time ago. He identified in thechapter V, book III, of his “Politics” three theoretical types of governing:

• royalty, when a single man rules the country;
• aristocracy, when a minority of people, supposed to be the best, governs;
• republic, when the majority of people governs.

We recognize democracy in the third type. Anytype has its deviant forms:

• tyranny for royalty;
• oligarchy for aristocracy;
• demagoguery for republic.

All types have their qualities and flaws, so,inevitably, it turns into other types when the discontentment of people exceedsan acceptable threshold. Aristotle had in view all kind of countries, includingthose very small ones, sometimes limited at a single citadel, and theslave-owning system, where only the ‘citizens’ might go to the polls. In thefirst chapter of the same book, Aristotle specifies who has the right to be acitizen. In such small towns-state, like Sparta, or Athena, a government of the majorityof citizens would be theoretically possible, even if Aristotle himself isdoubtful (a state could not be governed by the majority, because the majorityis formed by poor people, he says). In today’s world, with large states, aleadership made by the majority is impossible. What remains is demagoguery, notas a type of government, but as adjective for the two others.

Democracy needed a period of oppression forthis nowadays-triumphant explosion to occur. This period was Middle Age, whichput an end to antique democracies and started the blackest epoch, comparablewith that of soviet communism, in which Christianity was replaced with theMarxism. It seems that the church was afraid of Christian-leveling principlesand then took possession of its name, but only after turning its principlesinto some false ones, according with the interests of the monarchy.

After Renaissance, monarchy and church totteredtogether, due to the exaggerations they had done together. (The monarchyformally survived in several countries like England, as the dissociation produced thereearlier, avoiding mistakes as serious as the Inquisition was.)

As the monarchy needed to be replaced withsomething, they wanted it to be democracy. But, as I have already shown, a realdemocracy, namely a governing by the majority, would not be possible in modernstates, too large and with problems much too complex for being understandableby all the people. They maintain democracy only at the propagandistic level. Wehave democracy through our representatives (stupid mob elect its clever men).And, because a religion is necessary (religion, not church), democracy playedthis role of social ideal, particularly because the rabble liked it, and themain political chances in Europe were revolutionary, therefore theparticipation of the mob. That’s why, no matter what form of government, anycountry can call itself a democrat one. “Give to people bread and circus”, theRomans used to say. The circus is to be found today in electioneering. 

In reality, the majority of modern states areelitist, aristocratic or oligarchic, according to the way in which the eliteare recruited and their education.

How the enlistment is made, we may emit allkind of theories, but it is clear that any parent will try to promote his childand any politician will try to surround himself with men loyal to himself. Thisis just the main mistake made by the communist leaders, a mistake that led tothe collapse of the system. For doing the recruitment by promoting the realvalues, some other criterions must exist, other interests. Property is one ofthem.  In this regard, the capitalistsystem proved to be better, because – in spite of some monstrous mistakes – itrecovered itself every time. The communist one, instead, failed after its firstgeneration. The explanation is that, while the capitalist system is a naturalone, in which the feedback works – even if with some delay – the communistsystem was artificial and collapsed when the combustible (enthusiasm) wasexhausted, the energy of the initiators finished.

Also, there are no real royalties in our days,so that we may speak only about aristocracies or oligarchies. All moderncountries are governed by a group of people, sometimes better, sometimes worse.Demagoguery is their adjective and the first deceit.

As liberation of intellect undermonarchic-religious doctrinal stress of the Middle Ages unbridled to democracy,it seems unusual the first book about communism as social ideal, “Utopia”, was written by Thomas More inthe other part of Europe, in England. The mother of Renaissance was Italy, and its father the Byzantineintellectuals banished by the Turkish from Constantinople, but nowadays neither Italians northe Greeks have a particular appetite for great social problems. From democracyto tyranny, they knew glory and collapse not one time, but many times and, now,sole satisfaction attracts them more than political ambitions. They are tirednations. Why did democratic ideals revived as far away as the North? Thequestion may be interesting, because it was not only Thomas More. The majorityof later communist doctrinaires were from the North. Also, the firstimplementation was in Russia. Would the cerebralvessel-constriction provoked by cold be guilty? Leaving the joke aside, we canfind an explanation in their inexperience of democratic practice that allowedthem to give free scope to their imagination. The Greeks would not do suchthings, not only because they had the practice of democracy – either slave-owningor not – but they also knew the relation creator-man is not a reciprocal one.And also they have had several philosophers who taught them the rationalismmuch before Descartes, among the others that any idea must be verifiedexperimentally before advancing another one, which results from the first. Communismis the product of imagination out of control. Thomas More had at least thecommon sense to entitle his book Utopia, promoting thus the idea that what herecommended exists nowhere (u-topos = without place). Only Marx believed thatit would be possible, and Lenin found even a place for it.

Utopian literature appeared from a compensatornecessity, followed after the disparagement of the religion. The hope in lifeafter life must be replaced with something. And so, the Utopia appeared asanother hope, this time as a social solution. At a more attentive look,Christianity itself is a social utopia as well, because it appeared as areligion for poor and or fallen people.

As for Marx, he was a shifter Jew wishing to bea prophet. Living during the period of industrial boom (and of democracy too),he thought that proletariat will be the most numerous and will form the mostpowerful political party. He prophesied what seems to be inevitable. Lenin,more impulsive and ambitious, wanted to be the one that realizes what anywayhad to occur. Both of them were wrong, as the proletariat is not so numerouseven today. On the contrary, the number of manual workers is smaller andsmaller. Besides, they did not understand the essence of the democracy, its limitsand possibilities. What they had in mind was a dictatorial society too:“dictatorship of the proletariat”.

I found some time ago a talking-group the topicof which was “Why Marxism did not die?”. As it was expected, a few messageswere interesting, some amusing and some annoying. Of course, the hardest“arguments” come from those who do not know much what they are talking about. Iwill not say that I should know, but I can add one more opinion, namely theopinion of someone that knew the effects of one of the Marxism’simplementation. We, the Romanians, experienced a sort of Marxism imposed bySoviet Army, so that – except few traitors and stupid people – Marxism,communism, socialism, etc., are something coming from the East, with a smack ofUrals-Altaic invasion. Things were different in the former USSR. While we were like a colony, the USSR was the colonist. Even inside ofthe USSSR, things were different in Russia in comparison with the other sovietrepublics, generally occupied countries. China and Cuba are other examples of Marxisminstalled by themselves, but I will not enter the details. Surprising for me iswhy the fans of the Marxism do not speak about Cambodia? This was the purist implementationof Marxism, because its leaders had been high educated in France and imposed their doctrine byforce, which was exactly as Marx recommended. Everywhere, the results weredisastrous. And still, Marxism did not die. Why? Because it is an idea, andideas do not die. People – some people – made from it an ideal, a Utopia ofcourse, and the politicians take advantages using it in their propaganda. It isnothing more than a propagandistic doctrine for manipulating stupid (but many)people, important thanks to their votes. Of course, its upholders will say thatall the experiments of the Marxism were not perfect, and so the idea resists,as the perfection is not possible. The politicians always were sly enough forpersuading credulous people, and they will try to gain their votes, no matterhow stupid is their stubbornness in maintaining the same idea after so manyfailures.

Now, if you want to talk seriously aboutMarxism as a theoretical idea, you have to adopt a scientific method. First,one must define what Marxism is. In this order, we should read Marx’s writings,to learn what he said in addition to his predecessors. One of his predecessorswas Hegel, as Marx himself referred to him. Consequently, we should read Hegeltoo, and so on. I do not want to dishearten you, but Aristotle did an analysisof political systems and how they turn from one form into another in aperpetual circular motion, A few modern writers added something reallyimportant. Marx was not among them.

I cannot consider Marx as a philosopher and atheologian he was not at all. He did not complicate his existence but entereddirectly into propaganda, giving it a philosophic make-up for naïve people.From three gases, nitrogen, hydrogen and chlorine, therefore apparently fromnothing, one makes ammonia, which can be liquid, solid or gas, but particular malodorous.Lenin did something similar: from people’s dissatisfactions in face ofinjustice, his personal hatred of Christianity and the wish of Ural-Altaicpeople to kneel down Europe, he imagined a utopia that became an ideal for some, a nightmare forothers that smells ugly, yet.

Those who know even a little abut Marxismrealize that it is a theory of violence. From the beginning, it instigated onepart of the society against the other. Violence, crime, terror are notaccidental in the history of former or actual communist countries. They arepart of its arsenal. “Class struggle” means for communist leadersextermination. And it was not only Marx. He provided only the ideologue basefor political propagandists. To Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Voltaire wrote: “Ireceived, sir, your new book directed against the human race…..  Reading your work, I feel like walking on allfours”. A Romanian thinker, Petre Tutea, said: “The one who until 28-30 years old is not of the left (in politics) hasnot heart. But if over 30 years old, after reaching the maturity, remain withthe same conceptions, it means that he is cretin”. And he again: “Democracy is like distemper of dogs; getsout of it only the strong ones”. He was right; the strong ones know how tomanipulate the weak ones, because democracy only bamboozles them. As a matterof fact, Aristotle said: “A state inwhich everything is in common cannot prosper”.

Here is a simple scheme: parents say to thechildren all kinds of tale stories in order to teach them useful things. If themethod proved to be efficient in children, why not try it with some credulousgrown up? They tried and it works. And so, the religion appeared and togetherwith it the politics, because the ones that succeeded became leaders. Religionand politics appeared together and develop themselves together. They areinseparable and immanent of the society. Who says he is not interested inpolitics or religion is either ignorant or demagogue. Max Weber says approximatelythe same, but with incomparable more words in “Sociology of Religion”. For thesame reason, the religions cannot be analyzed only through their doctrine, buttogether with people that adopted them and historic context in which theydeveloped. It would be equally wrong to speak about religion in absolute terms,as something isolated, independent, as it would be to ignore religion in historicalresearches, because every religion is born in order to answer at somenecessities. Of course, later, it will influence people’s mentality and thecourse of events, and so on.

Mircea Eliade, in “The Myth of the Eternal Return”, relates the finding of aresearcher while he was recording a popular ballad. The text was a very nicefairytale with goddesses and love. Soon, he learned the story was real andrelative recent (40 years ago), found the heroine, she confirmed the facts, butthe peasants refused to accept them, preferring the ballad. The myth had becomemore true than reality.

Nothing is more adequate to lead the mob than superstition.Without superstitions, it is violent, cruel, changeable. Once seduced by thevanities of a religion, the mob listens better to the wizard as the leaders.Man must keep the tradition, namely the religion.

From history textbooks we learn about the mostimportant personalities and events, and particularly when they occurred. Two thoughtsare to be observed here:

• A historical event marks the end of a period and, of course, the beginning of the next one. A person can represent a historical period in our minds, but not being representative for it, because he did not generate it, is not characteristic for it, maybe he only finished it.
• The works of many personalities were misinterpreted in the following centuries, and used for different purposes, usually propagandistic.

The relativism of our appreciations might beillustrated with numerous names and events.

The emperor Constantine the Great, for example,is named also Saint Constantine, because through the Edict of Milan (313) he mandated toleration of Christians in the Roman Empire, putting an end to theirpersecutions. All right, but he was not Christian. His initiative was apolitical act, a military decision. The empire was divided, every part wasfighting with the others and he, as leader of one of the parts, was interestedto have quiet inside his territory and attract as many people as possible. Onlyhis mother, Helena, was Christian. One says that Constantine adhered to Christianity just beforehis death, but there is no proof demonstrating this. Instead, there are manyevidences that in the whole of his life, he was a solar henotheist, believingin the Sun god. Among them, there are lots of coin effigies figuring himtogether with Sun god. The question is: “How may they declare someone a saintwho never was Christian? Besides, from the historical point of view, documentsdid not attest any edict from Milan with Constantine’s signature. There is only an ordinancetoward the governor of Bithynia, which mandated toleration ofChristians in the Roman Empire, but it is signed by Licinius, a Constantine’s ally in their common disputeagainst Maxentius. Still, we suppose that he was not outside of the subject. Onthe other hand, “Constantine intervened in ecclesiastical affairs to achieve unity; he presided overthe first ecumenical council of the Church at Nicaea in 325. He also beganthe building of Constantinople in 326 on the site of ancient Greek Byzantium. The city wascompleted in 330 (later expanded), given Roman institutions, and beautified byancient Greek works of art. In addition, Constantine built churches in theHoly Land, where his mother (also a Christian) supposedly found the True Cross onwhich Jesus was crucified. The emperor was baptized shortly before his death,on May 22, 337.”(Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia)

Another example is King Henry VIII of England, the founder of Church of England. Theproblem is that he did not do it from religious convictions, but fromexcessively proud and paltry personal interests: he wanted to marry against thewill of the pope Clement VII. Still, Henry VIII was never declared a saint.Instead Thomas More was, because he was decapitated, but not from religiousconvictions, but because he confronted the king and Henry was not the man toaccept it. Thomas More is more known to the world as the author of “Utopia”,the first book about communism. What is surprising is that his canonization wasin 1935, 400 years after his death, when the effects of the communism werealready known in the U.S.S.R. The gesture of the Pope Pius XI was not at leasta political one. It was used for nothing, being only a proof of politicalignorance. To canonize the one who wrote the first book about communism in fulldevelopment of the horribleness of communism is something inconceivable.

One may continue with Charlemagne’s example. Togetherwith Pope Leo III, he assembled the base for the most monstrous coalition,which lasted over centuries, the effects of which were the moral degradation bothof the church and of monarchy.

In religion, the relativism is at its home.Here, it is not the divinity what matters, but the rapport between man anddivinity. Divinity itself is conceived on the base of this rapport.

No matter how faithful or unfaithful we wouldbe, no matter our religion, the divinity remain un-cognoscible. It is notconceived according with our philosophy of life, and reciprocally.

Why did the founders of communism want to wipeout religion? Time proved that it was one of the greatest errors. Not only theydid not succeed, but they estranged people instead of attracting them. It wouldbe understandable to eliminate the priests, as they pushed away theintellectuals, because they showed the propagandists’ lies and the errors ofthe communist doctrine. But why the religion? The explanation consists in thefact that they wanted to replace religion with Marxist doctrine. They saw inMarxism a new religion. Maybe Lenin even thought it. But why mix asocial-politic doctrine with religion? It is true, there were some antecedentsand they did some associations of ideas, some correct, but others erroneous. Religion,hand in hand with politics, used both to manipulate people easier. The mosteloquent period was that of the Middle Ages, during which the Catholic Churchwas something like the unique political party in totalitarian systems andreligion like the political doctrine. The Inquisition is the best proof. Thecommunists wished to replace Christianity with Marxism. The idea was tempting.Unfortunately, in the meantime, the Occident abandoned the church as far backas the French Revolution, in 1789, so that the model became obsolete. Maybethis is why they thought not to set up the communism in occident, but in Russia, a country less developed, frozenin a past time, with people still religious, almost bigots. Here they makeanother mistake, one more grave: the occidental Christianity is a radicallydifferent face to the east European one, so different that I do not know ifthey deserve to bear the same name! But, for this we need to do some history.Of course, not now!

Firstly, the attempt of removing the religion!I think that only hate for Christianity dazzled Lenin, making him to think thata thing like this is possible. A faith is necessary. Some people need it.Besides, through religion they set up habits, traditions, creating a unwrittenbut respected ethic. As a social being, any person keeps local customs, and anyEuropean is, by definition, Christian, even when he declares himself to beatheist. (Sometime, it is amusing to observe these people as they invoke Godwhen they are in a deadlock.) Besides, the religion was so deeply implicated inhistory, in our becoming, that ignoring it is inconceivable. To do it wouldmean to deny ourselves. Of course, we could modify it, but not remove it. Asfor the Bible, it is the first reference book. We could not understand theevolution of European civilisation without it.

A cardinal mistake of the founders of thecommunism regarding Christianity was that they did not keep account of thedifference between Catholic and Orthodox churches. If, at its beginning,Christianity gradually developed, step by step, as a poor people’s faith, lateron, the situation changed itself. The turning point was the fall of the Western Roman Empire, in the year 476. At that time, apart of the East European population was already Christian, while thequasi-totality of the Occidental one was pagan. Later, people from Eastern Europe had to fight with barbarians, allof them pagans. In this way, defending their goods, they defended their faithas well. The faith was an additional reason to fight the invaders. For them, thebarbarian, invader, etc. meant unfaith people, non-Christian. For ChristianOrthodox people of that time, faith meant civilisation. The removing of faithwas equivalent with falling in barbarism. Occidental Europe had no such problems. For them,Christianity was imposed from top to bottom and changing it would not be sodifficult. This difference still exists, but Marx and Lenin did not apprehendit.

The similarity between Inquisition, RussianNKVD and Romanian Secret Policy is almost perfect. It gives us an idea whyLenin wanted to remove religion: to replace it with Marxism. He wanted asociety like that of Occidental Middle Age with Marx’s “Capital” instead of theBible.

And something more: the communists addressedthe masses. But masses are composed of individuals. For attracting them, onemust keep account by the particularities of their personality. Not every personthinks about religion in the same way. On the contrary, it is the field inwhich our opinions are, maybe, the most different, even when we utter the samewords.

Communist propagandists made a mistake even intheir methodology of teaching Marxist doctrine: there were no references to thepast. Any philosopher builds his discourse starting from a predecessor, face towhom he adds something, or corrects him. Evidently, in this approach, onesupposes the reader knows the predecessor’s theses, who has, at his turn,another predecessor and so on. Consequently, philosophy must begin with thebeginning. There is a history of philosophy more than a science of philosophylike chemistry, physics, etc. From modern philosophers, only Kant, “with his talent to deceive himself”, asSchopenhauer characterized him, had the naivety of thinking that he could builda complete philosophic system starting from zero. Against the eulogies thatmade from Kant a monument of Philosophy, his system has more holes thanSwiss cheese and almost lacking of content. Only the propaganda of a Germany in full expansion, which needed tomake famous his glory, could make him a top of philosophy. Coming back tocommunist propagandists, they used to mention only Hegel, saying about him thathe was wrong – no one knows why – but we are lucky with Marx, the man whodiscovered everything. The effect was inversely: the lack of reference pointsto the past provoked us to read secretly just these philosophers. Otherwise, itwould be dangerous for our security. As a matter of fact, the propagandistthemselves did not read any philosopher, not even Marx. They were only recitingready-prepared texts. From this reason, they were not admitting any deviationfrom these texts, afraid not to change its meaning, a meaning that used toremain obscure for themselves, anyway.

Thepoor philosophy…

It seems that philosophy remains the only wayto solve our dilemmas. Unfortunately, it went down a long time ago. AfterVoltaire, some philosophers that “inventsystems about the esoteric embodiment of Universe” are “like those travellers that go inConstantinople and speak about seraglio; they seen it only from outside and saythat know what sultan does with his favourites”.

From modern philosophers, it is almostunanimously recognised that the top was Kant, thanks to the monumentality ofhis work. Germany used to have a greater need of himthan philosophy. In its impetuous evolution, German people wanted to have whatevery great nation has and they did not have yet: a great philosopher. How isthat that the tribe of philosophers accepted him? We find the answer in theincapability of understanding real philosophical problems by some allegedphilosophers, but who prefer to declare themselves as Kant’s disciples,supposing that nobody is patient enough to read all his works. People will thinkthat at least you would read and understand him. Nobody could contradict you.Besides, maybe German government will give you a prize.

As someone observed, “for Kant, the obsessionof the hierarchization makes him to put the music on last place, below thegardening, giving as reason the fact that music disturbs the neighbours”. Whatinterests me is not to establish a hierarchy, a prizing dais, but the influenceof philosophy in real life. Kant did not enter the life of anyone, and, on thethreat of the evolution of German philosophy, it went hand in hand with Germanmentality. I find Nietzsche being on the top, not because he discoveredsomething, but because he indicated a way on which German nation followed,being on its taste. German philosophy, Germans’ mentality and German politicswent together toward German apogee, marked by Hitler – the superman invocatedwith so much pathos by Nietzsche. About Nietzsche, Giovanni Papini says that hewas “the most Anglo-Frenchman Germanphilosopher. Even if he had learnt from Frenchmen how to love fine and subtlethings and from Englishmen the practical and clear ones, he did not succeededto make free his mind by the Teutonic nebulosity”.  Giovanni Papini bantered almost all philosophersand “Teutonic nebulosity” is an expression created in his enthusiasm aspamphleteer. We must recognize Nietzsche was only a doctrinal support forNazism, as Marx was for communism. “Hitlerhas the endorsement, even the active support of Martin Heidegger, RichardStrauss, Gottfried Benn, Carl Schmitt, Konrad Lorenz, Heisenberg and otherGerman Nobel prizemen. … A cultivate barbarity that knew to recuperate Germancultural tradition in own aims. The deification of German culture makes the“intelligentia” to underestimate Hitler’s importance. One cannot conceive thata man who did not finished primary school to close by Stein, Bismarck…. Nothingbut the vainglory of their culture made them not to see in Hitler a threatening”– Pascal Bruckner, “The Melancholy ofDemocracy”.

Criticizing Nietzsche, now I feel needing torehabilitate him at least a little. Au fond, he was well intentioned. Even hissuperman was only an attempt to encourage people to get beyond the actual stageand rise a step more. People generally, not a certain person! He underwent likeJesus, who tried to amend the behaviour of Jewish people and not to provoke thebirth of a new religion, but, because German people are contented with themselves,entrusted Hitler with the mission to be their superman. The essence ofNietzsche’s philosophy could be found in this paragraph from “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”: “God is a representation (fiction); I wantyour vision not to go farther than your creative will. … you would shape theSuperman”. Which were the consequences of his philosophy? A first effectwas the immediate and known one, even if Nietzsche himself adverts to thedanger in following paragraph: “This onemaybe will not among you, my brothers! But you could be some Superman’sancestors. Let it to be the best faith of yours”. As it was expect theGermans thought they could bring the future to the present, becoming in thisway their own ancestors. What should be a faith became the will of immediatelycarrying it out. Nietzsche himself suggested this idea by that “maybe”,inadmissible for a philosopher but which denote an inner hidden aspiration. Wefind out here the same wrong idea: man wants to become his own God. It is adement answer to another misplaced question: “Who made the world?” with all itsderivates: “Who made man?”, “How did man came on the Earth?” and many othersimilar ones. Could we really live without such stupid questions? Stupid,because we will never learn the answers to them and, inventing answers each andall more fantasist, one created equally much life philosophies, along withtheir religions, as far as that of the Superman in Hitler’s version, communistones and … I would go on, but it is not the case.

And, because I mentioned Kant, here is a quoterehabilitating him in a certain measure for his sincerity: “Its partisans (of philosophy) lessen, sincethose gifted enough to make themselves respected in other sciences do not seemto agree to compromise their reputation in a discipline in which anyone, evenif he is unknowing in all the other fields, ventures to utter a definitivejudgement”. Yes, here he is right! In old times, philosophy wasall-embracing; now we might ask ourselves: what remained of it? As for people“unknowing in the other fields”, let us remind Schopenhauer saying, “A philosopher should study a serious sciencefirstly”, of course for proving his intellectual abilities, or Plato, whoput on the frontispiece of his Academy the slogan “Who is not a geometrician does not enter here”.

I remember myself that, when I started to readmore seriously philosophy (I avoid the word “study”, as it seems to me to berather “precious”) for my simple curiosity of seeing what the “scholars” dealwith, I approached it as any science: I procured myself some basic books and satdown with a pencil in hand. With the pencil, I did not want to do so much.Instead, piles of dictionaries and encyclopaedias agglomerated my desk soon,because I was reading like from a foreign language. I said to myself that,maybe my intellect is not so good. This thought ambitioned me more and Iinsisted. In time, I did get even a little fervour. Fortunately, my fancy wasgone and I realized that the most part of such text are only a parade of wordsproduced by people who have nothing to say. Still, there was a captivatingphase as well, when, almost systematically, after the ravishment achieves by anauthor’s genial glitter, the following one brings off a disillusion, showingthe flaws from the predecessor’s theory, followed by a new theory, more attractive,but which will be proved latter to have its weaknesses too, and so on, maybefor adverting us that in the world there is dialectics, not only binary logic,there is penumbra, not only light and dark. Close to our years, things seem torush themselves like a race in a bobsled, where, because of the speed, thebobsled goes from a wall to the other faster and faster. Then, all smallproblems disappear and only two chief questions remain: “could we keep thebobsled on the toboggan?” and “how long until we reach the end is?”. Thesequestions are in sport. In life we should know the axis face to which we needto keep the equilibrium. As for the end, it is without sense here. Still, thereis only a moral: let us not haste toward a catastrophic one and, if possible,to make life as agreeable we can in existing conditions.

The purpose of any philosophy is to find outthe means through which man can get the happiness or at least a modus vivendi in which he feels well.For this, a first task is to know the world inside of which he lives and toidentify the sources of unhappiness, in order to eliminate them. Along thecenturies, he did it in many different ways.

As an integral knowledge of the universe isimpossible, man imagined every time a cosmogony according with the ethic of thesociety of that time, cosmogony that served as base for respective religion,through which people apply in their life the principle of that ethic. From thisreason, it is without sense to search for logical explanations beyond the levelfor which a certain cosmogony was created. So, in Christianity, everythingbegins with the idea that god created the world, our universe. Nobody asks whatoccurs at the God’s level. Has he brothers, sisters, parents? Such questionswould be considered real blasphemies by every Christian believer. InChristianity, our world, the single interesting us, had a beginning and,consequently, will have an end, which will be a collective one. Thereafter, theindividual’s happiness cannot be found but in the middle of the collectivityinside of which he lives. Extreme-Oriental religions start from a more generalconcept: Universe is immutable and infinite in time and space. Every individualhas fallen off from there by an accident and he will come back after severalreincarnations. His unhappiness and the getting of his happiness are personalaffairs without any link with the others. Both for oriental and occidentalbelievers, absolute happiness is intangible in real life, but it is promise inafter-life. Till then, man must keep the moral principles of the society wherehe lives, principles established by the religion for which that cosmogony wasimagined. Only keeping the general-accepted ethic, the extreme-oriental manmight come back in the original universe and the Christian one to reach inHeaven and not in Hell.

The Greeks imagined a mythology specific for asociety composed of slaves and free men, where the position of everyone ispredetermined, anterior established, but the interval between deities and menis populated with semi-deities, heroes, etc, so that there is a chance foranyone to build his own future.

From these three categories above-mentioned,result three very different types of human behaviours.

Today, most people admit neither a cosmogony orreligion and want to feel free of any constraint, ready to do everything crosstheir mind. From homosexuality to toxico-mania, everything – if is notadmissible yet – it must become free as soon as possible. Although there is notyet an adequate cosmogony, the absence of any ethic criterions tends to becomea new religion. If it will be so, surely it will be the last one.

Fortunately, nothing from these will happen andthe humanity will go on in his oscillations between the two extremes –dictatorship and democracy – as he always did when he did not succeeded inkeeping a rational equilibrium between them. It is expected thatnowadays-oratorical excesses for democracy, destined to disguise the trendtoward the dictatorship, to disappear in one way or another. „History repeats itself in the large schemeof things because human nature changes with geological leisureliness” sayus an English maxim.

But, the Catholics did not give up to coquettewith philosophy and probably still strive for inscribing famous names on theirfrontispiece. One of the latest found was Henry Bergson. He is an appreciatedphilosopher, and the Catholics’ joy was wondrous when converted him fromJudaism to Christianity. Unfortunately for them, Bergson, along with his convert,entered politics and produced nothing new on philosophic or religious field,and what he had written before is not useful for Catholic doctrine.  “TheTwo Sources of Morality and Religion” (1932) really is a quintessence ofhis thought, but it synthesizes his older ideas, even if it was written later.He insists a lot on the élan vital, or vital force, but the idea is neithervery new (Schopenhauer did it much better) nor convincing. What he strives toexplain very well is the complementarity of religion and reason, looked asnatural, human, tendencies. He does not speak explicitly about a certainreligion, but about religion generally, the role of which is to establish sometraditions with final effect in ethics. Bergson is not at all a theologian.Excepting some declarations of complaisance, he remains a philosopher, a verygood analyst, which gives me the possibility to agree with him, at leastpartially. I like especially his comparison with the pendulum, which, afterevery deviation, comes back to the normal position, even if only for an instant,in his way toward the opposite position. It happens the same in nature, for theclosed societies, as he named them. Still, humanity is an open society, becauseit evolves thanks to men’s innovative character. Unfortunately, so far, hisevolution was unidirectional, with a catastrophic end, because the pendulumdoes not give signs to come back.

Bergson also relates with stupor about two “foreignnobles, came from far, but dressed like us (French), walking among us, amiableand affable, but which, after a little time, turned in their country andaffiliated at two different parties, one of them sent the other to the hanging,only for getting rid of an uncomfortable adversary”. Bergson did not havetime to know Pol Pot and his team massacring the Cambodians. I do not know howaccidentally they had been “educated” in Paris, learning from Sartre his theory of“necessary violence” (“Genuine freedomcan only be gained by collective revolutionary action”).

I am not a philosopher but in etymologicalsense of the word: love (philo) for wisdom (sophia), especially when wisdombelongs to others. This position offers to me the advantage that I may expressmy opinions more freely than a professional one. Even Ortega y Gasset encouragesme, saying that "philosophy keepsits virginity in spite of its repeated violations". So, if it resistedto Nietzsche or Kant, how much of what someone like me says could count.Surely, philosophy so philosophy is not in danger.

It is clear: we need salvation. If it comesonly from God, the question is “which God? The benevolent or the punishing one?”I would dare a puerile answer: if God is our father, then maybe he treats uslike a parent. As a sage one, who prepares his children for life, or as a stupidone, who only coddle them?

As a parent, God teaches us lessons accordingto our age. If sometimes his indications seem to be contradictory, it does notmean that he is inconsequent, but that we are in another stage of ourevolution. Consequently, the Bible could not be a unique document. In themeantime, we grew up a little, don’t we? Maybe we overpass the age ofabecedary. A thing is sure: God did not give the Bible to Adam when he banishedhim from the Garden of Eden to have it as an orientation guide. He gave it laterto humanity. And, even later, he sent Jesus for conveying a message to us,completing the Bible in this way with several chapters. Do we have reasons tothink that he did not go on sending to us other messages? If he went on givingus messages - and it would be normal to do so - then our problem is to pick upthese messages, to interpret and apply them. As long as we confine ourselves tointerpret – mostly wrong – the same book, written several thousands of years agosurely we are no longer under God’s leading.

In the other part of the world, independent ofthe Christianity, there live people of an older faith, whom we prefer toignore. Still, political games of the 20th century were made by Mao. If foreach Chinese, one would require 100 grams more of rice – like the German model– then world’s economy would be messed up. Mao was the one who governed them. Asa communist country, if he would cooperate with the USSR, the world supremacy would belongto them. Stalinist or Nazi decisions in China would be catastrophic for wideworld. Still, Mao discerned the weaknesses of Soviet system and repudiated theoffer. In this way, the balance of power remained equal.

And Mao had another quality as well: he did notprohibit any religion. As a matter of fact, he would not have the possibilityto do it, as oriental religion are not hierarchic organized, like the Europeanones, so he did not have what to dissolve. In the Orient, religion and wisdom,sometime, are confounded each other and I do not see how could someone toforbid the wisdom. With all his mistakes, and there were a lot, we mustrecognize that few occidental political leaders were at his level. From classicGerman philosophy to Hitler, from French revolution, with it equalizerexcitations, to the Soviet communism, the road of our stupidity always waspaved with good intentions, but with what effects? One thing is certain: wemust rethink our philosophy or, more exactly, to think it, as what we love to callrational, logical, proved to be only the product of our desires. Logics canbring forth paradoxes.

We may speak about two currents in philosophy:one that regards it as any science that has its field and the other, whichconsider that only a history of philosophy is interesting, that a philosophy asit does not exist, but only people philosophising. Kant is a supporter of thefirst current. He thinks that philosophy must be approached frontal, as anyscience, and not through the prism of the evolution of our knowledge about it,as the real world does not change it laws according with our knowledge. He isobstinate in thinking that a field of philosophy even exists and build somethingthat seemed to be the most solid system philosophic. It was not long and his“formidable” system, in spite of its rigour – which really is remarkable –proved to have even more flaws than other older systems. It seems that the sorepoint of Philosophy is just the inconsistence of its field. If in the pastphilosophy included all thinking fields, in time, every science delimited andextract its particular field. Finally, we ask ourselves: what remains forphilosophy? It remains just the history of them, but not exposed pedant, withaffectation, for showing author’s glitter, but a part of the history ofcivilisation, because, it shows us – together with the other sciences – the wayin which our civilisation developed itself. In fact, history itself would be ahistory of human thought and not of some events or personalities. Louis XIV,for example, known as the Son King, is shown as the most representativeexponent of the monarchy, was in reality the one who – by his exaggerations andthe futility of his intellect – contributed to the destruction of the monarchy.

Sometimes, we speak about happiness, even if wecould not imagine it. Dante reaches only as far as the doorway of Paradise, without entering inside, justbecause Virgil cannot imagine happiness. As for the biblical Heaven, probablywe will bore ourselves after a short time. Instead, we cannot only imagine verywell Hell, but we are able to improve it with our imagination. If we endeavourwith the same diligence to improve the conditions from our earthy purgatory,surely we feel much better.

There are persons thinking that happinessconsists in doing nothing. It is obvious that it is not true, as persons thatsucceed in doing nothing are not happy. Theoretically, there are more threepossibilities besides the one that I have just discussed:

• to want to do nothing and, still, to do something;
• to want to do something, but not to do;
• to want to do something and to do it.

The first one seems to be absurd: how not towant, and still to do and be happy for it. The second is a sure way toward thediscontent because you did not attain to do what you have proposed, so theopposite of the happiness. The third one, even if it seems odd, is identicalwith the initial hypothesis. To do nothing, to do almost nothing, to dosomething, to do very much etc., are stairs both for wish and for act. Whatcounts for happiness is not the level on which they are, but the rapportbetween their postures. In other words, our mood depends on their posture ontwo different stairs.

It remains the second variant, initialconsidered absurd and over which it seems we pass too fast. Is it possible thisone to be the true one? To do something that I had not proposed really seemsabsurd. It is true that I can enjoy for a thing already done and for it I mustno longer take great pains, not even to think about it. But how to do somethingwithout thinking to do it?

An example is crossing my mind. Many men thinkthe shaving as plague and – if they allow – do it as rare as they can. Ithought so until I learnt that it is easier to do it daily than aleatory. Sincethen I shave myself in every morning, immediately after getting up from the bedand before waking completely. I do not have think about it, because it alreadyis a reflex action. The fact that during the day I always am fresh gives me a sentiment– if not of happiness – at least of normality. Otherwise, I should feel morethen unhappy. (I do not insist!)

My example is a very small one. The question isif this logic works in other serious cases too. If yes, then how could we dounconsciously something that could bring us some satisfactions?

Here is another example. While I was reading abook, an idea crossed my mind. It came alone. I did not know that it wouldcome, so I could not want it. Of course, I enjoyed. Still, the idea did notcome just by itself. The lecture of the book suggested it to me. So, I wasdoing something, but not a hard work. I was revelling in it. Here, maybe I am alittle wrong. Someone, sometime, made me not only to read, but to learn thealphabet as well. Later, like the shave, it became a reflex action and now Ican enjoy of its advantage, because I forgot its disadvantages, although achild learns many things by playing and does them with pleasure. Moreunpleasant was when, during the play, I was hurting at my knees. I remember itbecause they were aching.

But, what I was speaking about? Ah, yes, abouthappiness. No, it does not come from the knees. The tradition might have arole.

I read now, after I wrote so much aboutreligion, what I should have read first: Kant’s “Religion Within the Boundaries of Reason Alone“.It begins well! Iremark that his starting position confirms my intuition. Kant first askshimself if man is naturally good or evil. He ascertains that man is evil, buthas a tendency to become good. In other words, he would want to do well, butdid not succeed. Hereinafter, I observe that Kant’s approach is based on arelative reference point: morale. Besides, for Kant, the morale means the law.But law is a consequence, a synthesis of a way of life, of a society, of oursociety, of our philosophy. To search the fundamental truth starting from itslast consequences in a society that evaluated itself at random, means to putthe cart before the horses, with the observation that a team like this couldgo, even more difficult, unlike Kant’s logic, which does not work at all. Agreat scholar said: “Give me a fulcrum and I overturn the earth”. He refers theprinciple of levers. Well, just the fulcrum is not stable at Kant’s theory, asa mater of fact, it does not exist, because the moral law is a consequence andnot a cause. And then, the whole philosophic building is aerial, artificial.After some divagations, Kant finally affirms firmly: “Man is evil naturally” (chapter II). Besides, he tries to identify“the origin of Evil in human nature”(chapter IV). Then, like in any well-written novel, the hope appears: there isin man “a genuine predisposition towardthe Well”. Namely, man is naturally evil, but inclined toward the Well.Reading these pages, I imagined man on a pedestal of Evil, looking down, wherethe Well used to be and toward which he was inclined, and I was afraid for himnot to become dizzy, knowing about a sure predisposition of him, the vertigo,which is natural. Less fearful, Kant still identified a danger of man’sinclination toward the Well: if we leave it at the will of hazard and developsitself irresponsible. Of course, Kant does not note it without purpose.Immediately he offers us his solution: the religion. Finally, he adverts us tothe “bad ministration” of religion by the priests, so that after we whirledlike a cat around his tail, we ask ourselves: what is the use of this talkabout Well and Evil? Now, Kant seems to be a sincere believer, which explains ina certain measure his logic (or its lack). I recognize that, after this remark,the man Kant seems to me almost tolerable, more human, if I may express thisway. But, he become again a philosopher, needs to get us out from the circlewithin we endlessly circumrotate and gives us the final solution: Pure Reason.Theoretically, it is perfect, at least in his imagination, but practically heoffers nothing. Kant stops here, and I think the he does very well. His wholebuilding seems a simple philosophic exercise, unfortunately with the sameobsession: Pure Reason. The idea of a pure reason could be agreeable, but – asreligion was “badly ministered” by the priests (when their reason disappeared),the reason as well could lead toward negative consequences. We already knewsome. In conclusion, any exaggeration is looser.

Now, the true philosophers make more and moreliterature. In other words, they express the ideas in a way accessible for alleducated readers. Sometimes it is difficult what to call them: philosophers orwriters? On the other hand, scholars from other fields need at old age to conveytheir personal meditations. In this way, the philosophy comes again in the areaof love (philo) of wise (sophia), not through the contribution of its „professionals”but through that of the real thinkers, if this term is not rather pretentious.

AboutCommunication

The man’s efficiency in the face of nature, hisdetachment face to the other animals, lies in organization. As individual, manis weak; organized is the most powerful

Human society, like those of bees, ants,monkeys etc. has a natural structure of organization, with leaders andsubordinates, handlers and handled mass. The complexity of the hierarchy ofhuman societies must not make us to lose sight of the fact its naturalcharacter. There are natural laws that we ought to know and keep. Consequently,any attempt to modify its natural structure is doomed to failure or a source oferrors.

It results that one of first problems is thatof the selection of the leaders. I do not know how is in bees or ants. Inprimates, and generally in big animals, the dominant male imposes himself byforce. In men, the leaders need arguments to persuade their fellows to followthen and not the others.

From the political point of view, we cataloguethe societies just based on the way in which the leaders are selected: how theyreach at power and how they keep the power. The classics of the antiquityidentified three basic types of organisations, through which the societiescross cyclically, because no one of them is perfect, and people’sdissatisfactions make them think that the other one would be better. They aremonarchy, democracy and oligarchy. Aristotle named them royalty, a republic andaristocracy, with their derived forms: tyranny, oligarchy and demagogy (“Politika”, book III, chapter V). In myopinion, oligarchy is the fitted word for the natural organization, towardwhich one comes back repeatedly, and monarchy and democracy are the two oppositeeach other, toward any society oscillates like a pendulum. At any passing froma form to the other, only a change of personages occurs, with some smaller orgreater disorders, after which the society comes back to its naturalorganization, unfortunately only transiently toward the opposite position. Whythey behave this way is people’s bustle and the wish of some to leaders insteadof the others. (If bustle is a word less imposing, replace it with Bergson’s “élan vital”, Schopenhauer’s “will” or other consecrated terms. Iwould introduce the term “vital instinct”or better “expansionist instinct”,something like a personal “Big Bang”.

Every change must be prepared, justified, makearguable. Ample scenarios are built in this order, in which besidessocial-political arguments, engrafted on permanent  people’s dissatisfactions, religiousarguments appear, sometime even a new religion, necessary for giving people ahope. In the last analyze, monarchy, democracy and anything else, are only scenarios,or – to be more modern - screen plays.

But the organization supposes communication andhere there is the key of humanity’s success: man invented the languageespecially for communicating. Organization and language developed themselvestogether in order to coordinate people’s actions, beginning with the hunting ofprimitive man until the most complex activities of our days.

Along with the society, language developeditself as well. So it always happened and so it does now. If someone deludeshimself with the fancy that the evolution of language is due to somebody sayingmonologues in face of an admiring audience, it means that he suffered aprofessional disease, out of touch with the reality. In the communicationprocess, if the source did not receive a proper answer from the receiver, itmeans either this one did not understand the message or there was a dysfunctionon the channels of communication, so that the communication did not occur. Some“precious” artists ought to think such questions, arts being a process ofcommunication as well, of course with specific means. The means could notmodify the essence of the process, which suppose a purpose, as without purposewe drift away from the reality.

I made a small parenthesize, hoping not withoutprofit. I am coming back to organisation. Its highest form in modern epoch isthe state. Due to its complexity, the society structures itself from thereasons of functionality. In this way, leaders and subordinates appear and –along with them – politics and political fights. Those who want to be leadershave to identify, point out and infer an aim, a purpose toward which thesociety should direct its steps and to persuade their fellow that they are thefitted men to be their guides. And so, the propaganda comes into being. Theidentification of the aim is a psychological art. The leaders must speculatethe deepest people’s sentiments and wishes, which is not just easy, becausethese change themselves in the course of time. Today the democracy is infashion, generated by people’s wish to be equal each other. It is theself-pride at the highest level. Man wants to be his own God. In the past,instead of this insatiate self-pride, its opposite was: the fear. The fear of thunderbolts,of more powerful animals, of drought or flooding, the fear of anything, butalso and the hope that nothing bad would occur to him, or, maybe, on the contrary,they will be lucky, deities will be benevolent and – why not? – they will reachin Heaven. And so, the religion was born. Is there any difference betweenpolitical propaganda recognised as it and the religion used in the same purpose?Evidently, not! Both speculate people’s sentiments. I said that it is not justeasy, because between the two ones, and especially inside of them – there is aninfinity of nuances and the politician just identify and fructify in hisinterest. Even if it is an art, we do not deal with it now.

The most advanced form of languages is inliterature, namely in books. Along with the generalization of literacy, moreand more people want to turn their statute of readers in that of the writer, ifhe appreciates that he has something to say toward the world. On the otherhand, in a less or greater measure, any person is tented to philosophise or atleast to meditate. We have all reasons to suppose that man always did it. Andif he philosophise, he want to communicate his thoughts to his fellows. Theexpression „his fellow” must be interpreted adliteram, as people can communicate only inside of the same culture and attheir level of understanding.

The dream of communication has become possiblein a greater and greater measure thanks to the evolution of technology. This iswhy, from the past,  there was kept onlysavant thought  recorded in all kind ofwritings on stone, skin, papyrus, paper etc., today more and more people wantto see their thinking recorded and distributed on areas as large as possible,which is very good even if it raises new questions, creates new institutionsand mentalities. About books under the form of leafs bound on a size (codex) wemay speak only since the Romans had this idea and offered us the possibility ofskipping over uninteresting pages. Till then, the ceramic platens, papyrusscroll and the others were unhandy enough. Today, the Internet is the championof communication. This is why the idiosyncrasy of some people to the Internetis similar with an affirmation like: <I like literature less the lettersbetween ‘f’ and ‘m’>. And still, the book continue to remain the mark of perennialwritings, reason for which very many people want to publish books, and some ofthem make it even with their money. It seems that the wish and proud to leave atrace of his thoughts toward his followers is a fruit of democracy. No onesigns the Bible. Socrates did not endeavour to write anything. Information usedto be conveyed by word of mouth, not only horizontally, but vertically as wellfrom a generation to the other. Today, there are millions of authors with toofew messages. Here is a difference!

As I said, the development of technologyallowed the access to books of a greater and greater number of readers andpotential writers. Literature exceeded the borders of savant though,diversified and adapted itself to requirements and tastes all socialcategories, which does not mean that anyone may address to everyone. In acertain measure, this idea seems possible in leisure literature, though evenhere people’s different level of culture impose different levels of literature.

Barnaby Rich wrote in 1613: “One the maladies of this century is thequantity of books; people are as much overload with them they are not able todigest the abundance of useless stuff daily produced and word-wide-spread”.What else happened since then? As it was expected, more and more booksappeared. The “malady” has become pandemic dimensions. As a matter of fact, theauthor himself wrote other books, to show us that not their number disturbedhim but the concurrency of the others authors. Today, after the appearance ofthe Internet, like then, after the appearance of the printing press, someauthors have the same fear: “what the humanity will do with such an abundanceof information?”. The answer is simple” what they did so far. The real questionis another. Not because we would need a new one, but because the old one waswrong. How to get through the multitude of all kinds of information – writtenor non-written – how to filter the useful and protect ourselves from theuseless one, were our problem forever.

For the beginning, as printing presses wereonly a few, they needed a filter of works admitted for publishing, a skilfulstaff. They were intellectuals of authentic value. In the meantime, it hasbecome a profession as whichever else, opened to anybody and the criterions ofselection changed according with the desires of the “sleeping partner”, let hebe a politician, great priest, etc.

From the reader’s point of view, there are somedifferent criterions of selection, according with his requirements. In order tohelp him, a new profession, that of literary criticism, appeared. Even if,theoretically, its role is to orientate the readers, the relativism of theevaluations allows the critics to serve some particular interests. Today,literary criticism has become futile. As this assertion seems too severe, I amgiving an example from a different domain: sports. Here, there are threedifferent categories of professionals: sportsmen, journalists and admirers. Those three categories do notinterfere with each other but accidentally and in a little measure. The mostimportant is the journalists are not sportsmen. In literature, instead, thejournalists and literary critics want to be writers as well, and sometimes theyeven are. Of course, they cannot be non-partisan, their objectivity is low. Inspite of their ambitions, the reader feel their intentions pro domo andrenounce to read such publications.

Besides, literary critics do not delimitatetheir domain. It is not possible today for anyone to cover all fields, evenmore in culture. Such pretensions denote only ignorance and not an authenticculture.

A proof of critics’ inefficiency is the factthat most bought books are those with great publicity and not those recommendedby the literary critics. In marketing, the most convincing publicity is thatbased on the recommendation of some professionals in that field. They willbetter sell a pair of skis, for example, if a famous skier recommends thatbrand. It is not the same in literature. The buyers ignore critics’ opinions.Why? Why people reckon skier’s authority and do not that of the literarycritics? Simple! Because the skier proved his competence!

Besides critics, some specialists appeared too,“connoisseurs” of the recipes of how to write. They teach us how to makeliterature, as if would be a kind of food. They judge others’ works according totheir recipe book, not thinking if they understood author’s message, theauthors usually being with many intellectual levels above the judgers.

Although some dictionaries consider literatureas the totality of writings, there is also the acceptation of artisticcreation. Where it begins and where it finishes is difficult to specify. In thepast, even scientific works were  writtenin verses. Today, our pragmatism would make ridicule such pretensions. Thestyle of a business letter is much different from that of an artistic creation,even if nobody forbids us from composing nice letters.

The arts destined to satisfy our aestheticpleasures have as objective not only the audio-video or gastronomic pleasures,but mostly the intellectual ones, particularly those that reach our conscience.Some distinctions are necessary and I will do it through some examples:

• Level 1: “A wolf ate a sheep”. In an official report, they will relate the happening in such terms: “The special commission came on the scene and found that ….” Finally, he will conclude the accountants will record in registers the necessary records and so on. Nothing remarkable! Nothing to impress us! A writer, instead, will begin with some phrases like this: “Over the bed of golden dry leafs, the first snow flakes laid themselves, brought by the cold wind from the peaks of the mountains already whiten. The old shepherd, anguished by transcendental insomnia, was thinking to ….” Finally, the reader, with his eyes wet by tears, is ready to take a gun for kill all the wolf from the world. I was ironical, but it is not what matters now.  
• Level 2: “Wolfs eat sheep”. It is an equally banal finding as well, but a small quotient of generalization. Together with some statistical data, this can be the subject of a report toward an international forum, destined to advert public opinion and politicians upon the danger that wolf eat sheep. The poet, instead, by the means of several verses, realizes what tens of international forums do not succeed, especially if he turns the sheep in deer.
• Level 3 would be an idea more abstract, at 4 maybe just a philosophic one and so on.

Common for all levels is the necessity of thecontent, a chiefly idea. As for the clarity of the narration, it is not only acondition, but also an ideal of every authentic intellectual. As much the ideais more complex, profound or abstract, the more the clarity of exposition isnecessary. A confuse narration denotes either the confusion in author’s mind oran attempt of masking the lack of any idea. Do not be let deceive yourself bydifficult texts. Probably they belong to some deceivers. If the narration hasartistic valences, touches our conscience, only then we pertain to a literarycreation. The measure of artistic fulfilment consists in the persistence of theidea induced in reader’s mind, the way in which it stimulates the meditation ofthe topic. An unclear exposition does not make the message more artistic.

As the social pyramid has its base at bottomand the top up, it is natural that most writers operate at inferior levels,those of simple ideas. This situation should not bother us. It is the realityand we must accept it if we accept the democracy. Hiding it would be useless.The readers will choose books according to their level and he could not bedeceived. Writing some confusing phrases, they do not become more academic, donot change the level and make the author more scholar, on the contrary. Anyreader will reject an abstruse text and every clever man will identify in thewriter an impostor.

I said that the society looks like a pyramid.This is not quite exact. In statistics, its shape looks more like a pear. As wedo not pay much attention to its lower part, the pyramid may remain as a symbolof the idea that most people are at the bottom and only a few at the top.

Coming back to books, I know a person absoluteremarkable by her ignorance. Because of the lack of elementary information andthe ridicule of the association of ideas crossing her mind, any talk with her isimpossible, especially if you have not enough sense of humour or you are in amood less ludic. And still, this person has read almost as many books as anyauthentic scholar, maybe even more. Unfortunately for her, only romance.Evidently, not a learned person could want to consider her his fellowship. Aquestion is inevitable: where begins and where finishes the lectures of alearned person? Judging about some “men of letters” – the lectures of whichstop where their understanding is more difficult – it results that the slice isvery thin, mostly limited at “what I know is culture; what I do not know arefarthings.

Post-ChristianEpoch

Do not be afraid, I have not the intention torelate or to imagine what will happen after us. I want to speak just about ourepoch, the one in which we live. I nicknamed it “Post-Christian” from tworeasons.

First, besides the Christians, on Terra thereare people belonging to other religions, as well many unfaithful ones. This isso, without speaking about the fact that Christian churches, particularly theCatholic one, formally enlist the ones forced Christianized in differenthistorical moments, like the Native Americans, but which still keep theirfaiths up to now. At a census of those who really are Christians, we wouldnumber much less, so that, from this point of view, the actual period may becalled Buddhist, Islamist or even atheist, although I think the fittest nameshould be one of religious disputes.

Secondly, we call ourselves Christians,although we forgot long time ago the values of the Christianity, as they werethought initially. Today, the Christians are faithful people in the samemeasure as communist were the communists from the former USSR. As regarding the doctrine, theIslamic one has the same base with the Christian one, as proof theinterpretation is more important. The stupidity of nowadays-American politic sowingdissension between Europeans and Americans on the one hand and Muslims on theother hand, may lead to the allegation of a fight for religious convictions. Itis a new lay destined to manipulate masses. In reality, there always wereeconomic and politic interests, masked under different forms.

In fact, the main condition of any religiousdoctrine is to be unverifiable. In other words, only the unverifiable ideascould be religious paradigms.

We could call this epoch “democratic”, but itis as democratic as Christian was the previous one. Maybe it will be calledpost-democratic when the humanity will abandon democracy as propagandisticslogan and will invent anything else. We are not able to understand how that forthcoming“anything else” will be, but this does not mean that it will not come. It willcome undoubtedly. For the moment, let us stop a little on the present andanalyse is “pathophysiology”.

Every society is developing ceaselessly; thetraditions as well, adapt themselves to the technology of time. The church,although it should adapt its message, did not. Today, the priests’ message isno longer credible and religion felt in desuetude. People’s cultural level hasgrown up, so that many priests are less informed than most of theirparishioners. The paradigms of democracy exacerbate the libertinism in thedetriment of good traditions. In the absence of a general recognizedinstitution, able to discern between good and evil, actively participating tothe building of those traditions that are useful for the society, common peoplechoose what seems for them to be favourable for the moment, establishing inthis way fallacious traditions, because what is facile and/or pleasant usuallyis not equally wise. If in the past the church assumed this role, today thedemocracy put nothing instead, there is not a similar institution. People’selected are, if not ignorant, interested only in businesses, politicalstruggles or anything else except education. If common people cease to actaccording with tradition and base only on his own judgement, then we ought tosee which are his criterions of judgement. At least these could be influenced,if not through religion, maybe through literature or arts, even if their poweris smaller. Inward, people want someone to guide them, so there is a hope thatthey will stimulate the development of the education. Of course, then we willdeal with a different kind of literature from the present day one.

In the Second World War Stalin and Hitlerconfronted each other. Today, for us the both are negative personages; still,for their time, each of them used to have, besides adversaries, lots of loyalfollower. The question which of them was worse or better is useless. Forwhichever from nowadays politicians the same question will be useless after onegeneration? Are we now able to discern their real characteristics in a usefultime? Niggardly interests make us, common people and politicians as well, tochoose the compromise that seems favourable for the moment, without care forthe future. Let us not forget that Hitler reached power by free elections.

I do not to enter politics now, but followingthat of the United States after they remained withoutadversary, and especially under Bush’s team, we find in it a monument ofcatastrophic mistakes. For what? Because apparently small arguments link withone another, amplify tiny disputes up till world conflagrations. Theaggravation of the conflict between Muslims and Christians will have graveconsequences for long time, and the terrorism will not disappear. On thecontrary, it will take more and more dangerous forms. After a long period ofprosperity, naturally, the economy of the USA was to have a small decline. Thedevelopment of any economy could be linear ad infinitum. It is oscillatory.What counts is the general trend and not some momentary variations. But, thefavourable period belonged to a democrat administration, and the republicanthat followed seemed to be disadvantaged, because common people judge on veryshort terms and they would conclude the democrats are better. The simplestsolution always was the war. By war the equipments produced in excess areconsumed, orders for new equipments appear, people have jobs and so on. Thecountry is in an excitation mood and people no longer see the real problems,but only those artificially created. The administration is saved. This wasBush’s schema. Terrorism was only a pretext, unfortunately uninspired, justcatastrophic, not as much for Bush’s team as for the humanity.

I used rather many words for a politic topiconly for showing that man behaves according with some schemas acquired bytradition. Maybe it was not necessary, as Bergson already made thedemonstration much better than I could do. He wrote an entire book about thistopic so I might be forgiven for a poor paragraph. “The intelligence will advisefirst the egoism. Endowed with intelligence, wakened up to reflection, man willcome back to himself and no longer think but to make his days pleasant.Primitive religion was a precaution against the danger skulking us from themoment in which man begins to think: the danger of thinking only to himself,for himself. It is a defensive reaction of the nature against theintelligence.” It could be true for very small societies of the primitive man. Thenowadays-great societies got out man from his natural condition. He operates ata level of which effects he can neither control nor understand, sometime. Also,we have to note that our society is conducted by politicians, the singleprofession for which does not exist a previous school house. Consequently, asbig is a society, as much his leaders wander from the true social liabilities.

The cause of many mistakes is the lack of somecorrect guiding marks. From a utopia to another, we only drift. Thepreoccupation of our so-called social leaders is their profit and not themanagement of the society. They are like a farmer who only wants to milk thecow without herding it to graze or feed it. We speak a lot about the progressof our civilisation, but it is not sure at all that it was in a positivedirection. Many arguments prove the contrary.

If by civilisation we understand the technique,including the technique of fight, then we must recognize that we civilized toomuch. Odd enough is that even some encyclopaedic dictionaries associatecivilisation with technologic level. I prefer to see in civilisation people’sbehaviour inside of their community, their intercourse etc. This is why thereare more adjectives for civilisation, like Egyptian, rural, mountain, Malagasy,European and so on, and there is no one for civilisation pure and simple. Asfor the adjective “civilized”, it may be assigned to anyone that keeps therules existing in his community. The Greek equivalent (politicos) is morecorrect. The one who disturbs the quiet of his neighbours with his musicexaggerate amplified is not more civilised because he use a more advancedtechnology; on the contrary. When a country uses more sophisticated weaponsagainst an under-developed country, it is not more civilized, but only moredeveloped from military point of view. Again politics! It seems that we cannotget rid of it. But it is natural to not escape of politics, as man is a socialanimal, and the society, as any organism is structured, has leaders, sopoliticians. They seem to be an unavoidable evil.

Democracy? Let’s be serious! The politiciansare not angels. On the contrary, they are the worst among the awful. Theirsingle goal is the personal interest. As teamwork is more efficient than asingle individual, political party appears, which are nothing else but a cliqueof people supporting each other. The prosperity of society does not base onpoliticians’ honesty, but in open dispute between the parties. This is the keyof the democracy: the public and open dispute between political parties andpoliticians.

Does it happen now? Partially, yes, but …. Hereis a contrary example: George W. Bush represented a party of right orientation,while Tony Blair one of the left. And still, they allied on a common interest,even if their parties have different doctrines. Instead, in the conflict Clinton vs. Monica Lewinsky, the members ofthe parliament supported one or the other according with their political affiliationand not by token of their personal opinion about the truth.

Speaking about “right” and “left” as politicaldoctrine, we observe that they are relative. In the politics of any countrythere are right and left. Still, the countries are different. What is right fora country may be left for another. Let us imagine a scale on which the valuesare five for one and eight for another. For the first, six means right, whilefor the second it means a strong left. That’s why in conversations, we mustkeep account of such relative values.

As for the conflict Clinton vs. Monica Lewinsky, the benefit ofthe republicans that accused him was extremely tiny. Instead, for the democracythe loss was enormous. The American elector found out that his elected leadersare not just ok, and the mechanism of elections produced errors. Consequently,their democratic system is wrong. Of course, they will support it thenceforthas well, not from conviction, but from a nasty mercantilism: the Americanprosperity is that which attract people from anywhere and not political faiths.

In 2005’s spring, France rejected by referendum the projectof European Constitution, even if the majority of countries accepted it withthe simple approbation of their parliaments. What is important here is not thepoltroonery of Jacques Chirac administration, which is a problem of Frenchpeople, but the flaw of democracy. This is what this failure relieved.Immediately after the Second World War, the idea of a union of French andGerman people would be labelled as a stupid joke. Evidently, nobody thoughtthen to organize a referendum on this topic. And still, the idea was fulfilled.Not by consulting the masses, but by the sapience of a few politicians (thereare exceptions). One speaks today about some economic goals, the European Coaland Steel Community being an economic one. The mistake consists in theconfusion between goal and means, and the proof is the fact that its initiatorswere politicians and not businessmen. The first on the list is Robert Schuman, France’s foreign minister at that moment,who never remarked himself as a businessman, but as a fighter in Frenchrésistance. He realized that a future war between those two states could beavoided by replacing the old divergences with common interests centred on thesame resources. A little sapience – as rare it is among the politicians – leadsto the nowadays European Unionand, especially, to avoiding other military conflicts, at least in OccidentalEurope.

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I showed in the previous chapter the importanceof the language and literature of any people. Of course, there are many cleverauthors and good books. Unfortunately, there are also many more bad ones. Inaddition, from the educative point of view, television has even a more importantrole than books. If in the past, scholars do not write books for money,printing houses and television have turned their creation into a business. Ofcourse, a pseudo-creations! The danger consists in the losing of the direction.People are no longer able to discern between good and bad. There are books forall tastes, which is very well, because only in this way people might beattracted to the literature. Besides, anyone can write books now. The evilcomes from the publicity, which is not oriented on the quality. In this way,the demo-cracy, namely the leadership by the people risks to become true. It isnot clear who wants the people to conduct and a pyramid will never stay withits top at bottom. The ones that should guide the readers are the literarycritics. This is the second critic point. I already spoke about it.

And there is not only democracy. Yes, it isonly a politic slogan. Unfortunately, there are many others: religion, moral,education, and what not.

Whereto?

It seems that our fate is to be permanently inturmoil, seeking answers between two extreme ideals, trying every time thelimits of each one of them, without being able to find the reasonable way. Why?Because, the more the seas are 'troubled', the more fish can be caught. And theselucky fishermen are the ones who lead the world. But can we find a differentway forward? Maybe yes, maybe not! I do not know, and do not expect me to givean answer, but this is what I like to discuss about.

For the moment, let me notice a short remark:we often observe that many old people are dissatisfied with a lot of things.The cause is evidently: they did not reach their long-term ideals. It is notdifficult to find out why: the ideals were not appropriate for theirpossibilities. If these discontent persons had been only a few, we could havesaid that it was their fault. But too many old persons are in this position. Itmeans a general cause must be the reason. Certainly it is nothing else but oureducation. Our wrong education! Not only that from schools. The education ofall our days: from cradle, from the street, from everywhere. Besides, itcontinuously changes itself, imperceptibly. It means that we should analyze itsway and see if it is what we want or not. If men have to search for an equilibriumbetween two intangible ideals, they will find a realist way, according withtheir desires, desires that are a result of their education. Not only that fromschools! The education of all days: from cradle, streets, everywhere. And it ischanging already. Imperceptibly, slowly, without informing the “scholarly men”.And, if they must find a balanced position between two intangible ideals,people search for a more realistic aim. So, speaking about democracy, an ideathat the Greeks invented and they repudiate as well, then the demos will findthe solution too. Not as a form of government, which proved to be a vision, anillusion, but as a new philosophic concept, with a new ethic.

It result – I hope – from all I said so farthat the arguments in favour of a type of society or another are deceitful andthis seems to me to be our fundamental error: THE LIE. Instead to focus ourattention on searching for some natural solutions, we build faithlessscenarios. I wrote at the beginning that we oscillate between opposite ideals.I would have nothing against the oscillations, as they give life to the systemand assured its progress, but the amplitudes of the last oscillations havebecome so great, that the whole mechanism is in danger to destroy itself. Theleaders have become more and more sly and their capacity to manipulatescenarios greater and greater, so that the only real progress was the growingof the organizational capacity. I first wrote “to imagine scenarios” instead of“to manipulate scenarios”. Meanwhile I realized that not their imagination isso productive but their capacity of manipulation. Look at Christianity, forexample: from a religion of poor people, it became during the Inquisition aninstrument of tyranny, namely the opposite of the original idea. In the sameway it happens with every political paradigm. The modern paradigm, appeared asan alternative of monarchy, the most perfidious propaganda was developed, inorder to persuade people that their country is not simple democratic, but just asymbol of it, or at least a model for the others. And if it is still not aperfect one, people must be quiet, because, anyway, a better one does notexist, betting in this way their indulgence.

Surely is that, if we emit less fantasisttheories and philosophical systems (sometime not understandable for theirauthor himself), and if we renounce to think that man is the final aim, butwatch more attentively the nature, then we will find more useful principles oflife and will help people to make less mistakes. The fact that man is today themost powerful of all beings is not a greater advantage than that of thedinosaurs of old times. It is not at all useful if our theory is ananthropomorphist one, in style of vital energies or of the souls haunting thespace in searching of an unhappy body

I will not approach essential topics like theuniversal suffrage – by which the stupid people elect his “scholars” – as I donot want to provoke polemics. I will exemplify the idea only by several reasonsin order to underline the weakness of some current customs, on the one hand,and the possibility of their correction, on the other hand, under the conditionwe want. Many times, small problems helps us to understand clearer the greatones. As for me, I sometimes use an indirect way: for avoiding the subjectivismand preconceived ideas, change the domain with a different one in which I amnot skilled at all or at the very least. I try to identify there someprinciples, after which come back in the first domain and verify theirveracity. In most cases I noticed that, mutatismudandis, they are valid. It is not a piece of news the fact that,sometimes, some experts in a field „do not see the wood for the trees” and,either do not catch sight of new solutions or their solutions act against theirown system. The classical example is that of the militaries, who should be thelatst called when two countries want to maintain peaceful relations. I mentionthese because the following examples are picked up from relative tiny problems.Their role here is only to bring into relief the wrong way in which we resolvethem, with the mention that great problems are exactly in the same situation.

Here is a very concrete example: the tax forthe profit. The one who works pays; the one who avoids work and shirks responsibilitiesreceives. This principle is not only revolting, but it denotes a societyinversely settled. The cause is to be found in the past. There was a time whenit had a logic, but it occurred long time ago, into a society radicallydifferent from that of nowadays. I am remembering a book – Citadel, I think -by an English woman, the name of which I forgot. Her surname as „romantic” thatperiod. At that time, those entering politics did not do it in order to enrichthemselves, as they already were so, and neither to thieve from the proprietyof state, as the state was just their group, usually fighting against a commonenemy. They were entering the parliament or something similar in order todefend their common interests and were doing it with responsibilities. It wasnatural they would see about state’s affaires and not the mob; and it wasnaturally as well they had to subsidize general outgoings of the state. Theywere to ones who product, collect and expend. The idea that rich men pay thetaxes has its origin from those times. But it happened then. It is not only ananachronistic one, but it is in contradiction with the principles of democracy.People are equal to each other in rights, they are equal in obligations aswell. As for the politicians, do you see today any of them responsible foranything?

Now, I think of William the Conqueror. Notbeing a native-born chief, immediately after the conquest of the island, heorganized a census, in order to know what he could obtain in case of war orpeace, calamities etc. He imposed in this way a taxing according witheveryone’s estate. He was not the single one doing it. In the Roman Empire, they used to do a census at every14 years, and something similar organized every true civilizations. In thisway, the first institutions appeared, and together with them, the modern state.As a matter of fact, the first characteristic feature of modern states is justthe fact that they have institutions for every important activity. It is nolonger a person – king, shah, emperor etc. – the arbiter in all questions,because the state has specialized institutions for it. It is true theinstitutions generate bureaucracy, corruption, etc., but that it is.

Coming back to the idea of taxes on profit, evenif it is anachronistic, we still use it today, in spite of its prejudices,among of which the moral ones being not at all for neglecting. It gives areason for avoidance from payment, lie, appropriation etc.

One says that theft is as old as the world exists.Which world? The world of religious man, namely after the appearing of the lie?Here is a proof proving that the spirit of equitableness was not only older,but natural. There is a species of very communicative monkeys, greatly fond ofcucumbers and, especially bananas. A group of such monkeys was obliged to dosome works, after which they received as recompense either cucumbers orbananas, all equally. At a given moment, for the same work, some of monkeysreceived cucumbers and the others bananas. The first ones refused to eat, evenif cucumbers were good enough for them in normal conditions. Not only theirspirit of equitation is obvious, but their power of sacrifice, fordemonstrating their desire for keeping up a principle. Here that equitation isnot our product. On the contrary, civilization brought in the inequity.

As for the taxes that every person ought to paytoward the state, we certainly are able to find solutions that are morereasonable. This is one, for the first example:

• One base tax for every mature person for state’s expenses due to the fact that he simply exists;
• One tax upon the estate of a land surface, differentiated according with its position: field of different qualities, village, town in downtown or peripheral, etc.

In this way, every person should pay accordingwith what the society consumes for him, and people should not lie any longer.The tax on the land surface, and not on the building, obliges the owner torender it profitable, according with its position. It will be in his interestto build high and/or pretentious buildings on the grounds with high taxes. Asfor the payment, the state need not an army of bureaucrats, but should offerjobs to those unable to find one by themselves. Therefore, it will be inpeople’s interest to work in order to produce profit and not to enter thatcategory of people working at the state for a minimal income. Unfortunately, itis evident that our society is not able to do this simple thing now, so we mayask: what it will first happen? The society will be able to change the taxingsystem or the wrong taxing system will be one of the arguments motivating thechange of the society?

I write about the tax for profit not because itcould solve all the problems of the society, but only as an example. The our wholeway of thinking social-political problems is troubled by ideas more or lessfixed and worn-out. We are in the situation of the producers of manual addingmachines, striving for improving their products, while the computers appeared.

In politics – where we are all experts, aren’tit? – they adopt as principle that a country could not be governed but aparliamentarian majority formed by a party or an alliance of parties. I thinkthe contrary: a party that obtains more than 50% would be automaticallydissolved, because it is no longer a part and could assume the whole and isable to impose its will. This is totalitarianism. A law, if it is really good,will be approved by all parties, because the one, which does not do it, willlose its credibility. Instead, a bad law should not pass through parliamentonly because it put in advantage the members of the party at power. In thisway, the parliament would be truly democratic, a forum of debates, and the lawsreally useful.

In moral, they exaggerate with the example ofgood man, hoping in this way to counterbalance the acts of evil, unpolishedman. However, the real man apprehends the exaggerations and abandons the moral entirely.Besides, in the struggle for life, the polished man is offhanded and loses inevery case. One arrives at the paradoxical conclusion that education would bedetrimental. Of course, education is good, but a realistic one.

All people speak about ecology and the dangersin case we do not keep account of it. But the USA is the greatest polluter and – toreach a climax – it is the first opponent for all important solutions. Agreater proof of hypocrisy would be difficult to find.

It is clear that, among the fundamental errorsof the society, one of the most important is education. I think it is the mostimportant. The educators, whosoever they would be, think they inoculatemorality inside of children, but when later the experience gives to children alesson completely different, these find out the teachers deceived them. Such adiscovery could bring more prejudices.

The desire to be an important person is inbornin everybody. And if he has not even one aptitude, what he does? And if atschool he realizes there is not a single chance for him that teachers willpraise him, what does he? Among the first alternatives at hand, he may chose tobecome a brawler, thief something similar. But even for that some qualities arenecessary: a brawler must be strong; a thief must be bold and so on. And if he hasnone of them, what does he do? Probably he becomes a politician.

The whippersnappers have a quality, yet: theyknow to join in doing evil. And thus appears clans, cliques, coteries, groupsof interests, political parties appears.

We have just found out a first consequence ofthe wrong way in which the education is organized. It would be of no use toidentify all of them, as they are too many.

The school, long time ago, was an attribute ofthe church. If the church proposed to itself to be the representative of goodextreme - even if there is not an official institution representing the badextreme, maybe except the political ones, but they do not recognize to playthis role - then, laic education would be preoccupied in seeking for thereasoning way.

Here is a solution, even if it seems to be autopia, which show us that we could think the system much better. It startsfrom the assertion that grandparents are excellent pedagogues for children.Some of them! As for adults, at the courses for specialization, refreshercourses etc. the lecturers are some elder work fellows with more experienceand/or more qualified, because at the adult age the professional training iswhat counts and not the pedagogic talent. Only the schoolchildren are left tothe hand of some supposed professional in pedagogy. Error! Pedagogy is a talentthat you have or not. One could not learn it. Some ability might be acquired intime, but only if the person loves children. This is why some grandparentssucceed in it. We may develop this idea and look the right of grandparents inthe education of their grandchildren as a prize, recompense, as they really wonit on merit. Those close to the retiring age could be reward with the right ofteaching children. The elder ones could deal with small pupils and relativeyounger ones – but not under 50 years - with the elder schoolchildren. Ofcourse, not everyone might become a teacher, but only those that prove that theyhave the necessary pedagogic calm and culture according. Only in this way, theeducation would fall into the good hands and would have a positive role.Otherwise, with small retributions, education will be populated with teacherswho have chosen this profession not being able to do something more profitable.

In many respects, the human society, at leastthe European or American one, is laid inversely. This is probably why everyinnovative idea seems to be better than the existed ones. Unfortunately, as wecannot modify the position of a working machine modifying, by turns, all piecesone by one, we cannot modify a social system with small changes. The onlyeffect would be to affect the functionality of the system. Unlike the socialsystem, a machine could be stopped. This is why the revolutions seem to solvethe problem, but the history proved this is the worst solution. All revolutionsbrought much more disasters than improvements. And still, something must bedone. What? We have to change the important principles, by putting them inaccording with what we really want, honestly and not demagogically. Universal suffrage,for example, does not belong to a democratic society, but to an oligarchic one,which use it for manipulating the mob. A truly democratic society would findsome more intelligent modalities to elect its leaders.

That religion is necessary I already showed. Iam rewording. The religion is indispensable. The priests cannot say to theirparishioners to be faithful only half-dose. They claim the whole, hoping thatpeople will keep at least a half. Wrong! When people realised the error, theyabandon it entirely. The target of the religion is to give to people a hope.For this, the religion must show a way, not a lie. All of them invented somecosmogonies. Do we really need them? If yes, I imagined not even one, but atleast a starting point.

When thinking of micro-cosmos, we have in viewtiny lifeless particles having certain characteristic physical features. Inmacro-cosmos, the only difference is that the tiny particles become very largecosmic bodies. We wonder ourselves if life exists on other planets but anyplanet strictly speaking is conceived as something without life. Into thisinanimate and simple medium, between micro and macro cosmos, life does exist atleast on our planet on which we live with all of our faiths and fights. Odd,isn't it? The culprit is our imagination, or more specifically, our lack ofimagination. We understand what occurs around us but our knowledge decreasessubstantially as our thinking moves farther away. In both micro-cosmos as wellas macro-cosmos, our mind imagines simple particles whirling unceasingly aroundeach other. Really? Is the world senseless? Unlikely! What would be the senseof a world without sense? We will never be able to provide answers to thesequestions but this does not prevent us from imagining other cosmogonies. Butwhy? The reason for any cosmogony ever conceived was to make sense of our lifeand to serve as support of morality. Any religion does offer some moral normsbased upon a particular cosmogony. The science, on the other hand, destroys anycosmogony, and implicitly the moral norms that had used that cosmogony assupport, offering nothing as a replacement. If you are not a religious personat all, consider the following proposition. As science accepts the infinite asmathematical notion, then we may accept that Earth is a particle in themicro-cosmos of another superior system which, in turn, is a particle in othersystems and so on. Perhaps we are somewhere in an infinite flight of stairs.Can Earth be a particle of the liver of an upper being? It seems we must acceptthat life could exist both in small and large infinite. There is a god for usand we are gods for our some smaller ones. But, how could I tell to thosesmaller beings (part of my body) what I want them to do? How could I address tothem? They do not know Romanian language, not even English. It must be anotherway, not to make them to understand me, but to oblige them to work properly. Unless,the inflicting punishment will be drastic and then... what, for example, asection of the liver becomes out of the body? A decaying material! Of course,it would be naive to think that God looks like us and he watches our individualexistence. Is there a moral? From an individual point of view the answer is NO,but - from a collective one - it is YES. For example to keep Earth alive;otherwise the vital functions of the upper being will surely remove us as adecayed corpuscle! In which way? This would be the topic of the religion. Thisis not just a cosmogony but it deserves to think on it.

As God could not address us in a direct way, itis supposed that he do it indirectly. Consequently, we only have to bereceptive for his signs and interpret them correctly.

Those several ideas that I yarned up to here,some of them maybe eccentric, will not change the system. Probably not evenother ones like them would. Still, that does not mean that it is nothing to do.On the contrary, the system changes itself permanently and it will be better orworst, depending on us, if we succeed in seeing where we are wrong and have thecourage to put the finger on the sore place – even a sterilized dressing.Before any solution, we need to know ourselves better.

I do not know what the future society will belike. What I know is it will be different from the current one, because nothingstands unstirred. We could imagine something, because social changes depend onpeople’s wish of banishing what they found to be evil. We only have to identifythe existing evils. At first sight, we may say that the lie is that. But liewill exist for ever, because the society must directed, the leaders needarguments, the truth is often disliked and a lie nicely spoken is preferable.So, what will be? A new lie!

Still, let us see what people identify as wrongin the society and should be removed. The first is the lie about democracy, butthe politicians know best about this and try to cover it up, saying that,anyway, a better one does not exist. Here, they are right. The mistake consistsin placing the discussion at a rather general level. There need some moreconcrete arguments.

“Manbegun as a worm”, Geoffroy said, in an optimist-evolutionist vision. Thereciprocally would be to arrive there, having in view that we started fromCreator’s hands. Personally, prefer a static variant: to remain if possiblemen!

Oswald Spengler - after he demonstrates niceand convincing where we start from and where we arrived - feels the need of afinal for the humanity. I thought this was his aim. Unfortunately, the futurein his opinion is as romantic as demoralizing. It is true the artistry ispresent. Instead of characterizing his conception, it is easier for me to citethe last paragraph from “Man and LifePhilosophy”: “We are born in thistime and have to cross courageously the road destined to us up till its end.There is not the other one. Let us resist on the lost redoubt without hope,without rescue, here is our duty. Let us resist like that Roman soldier thebones of which were found in face of a gate from Pompeii, and which diedbecause during the eruption of Vesuvius they forgot to revoke the command. Thisis the greatness, this means to have first-rate. This honest end is the singlething, which can be taken from the man.”

All right, it is grandiose, nothing to say, butit is non-lucrative and in contradiction with his demonstration so far that – Irepeat – is very reasoning. Maybe just this uninspired final attracted thecritics of his adversaries. It is of no use for us to do the same. Spengler isa philosopher. From his wish to finish nicely the book, he did not realize thathe went down at the level of common literature, and lost. His analysis isperfect. The prolongation of the trend has not justification. Any mathematicsimulation based only on the broadening of the trend is negative. In life,instead, new elements always appear, elements we cannot prefigure. This is why,a correct simulation must have in view the apparition of some surprises, evenif we cannot determine them a priori.Besides, as life has priority, we may suppose the apparition of news where, intheir lake, an irremediable catastrophe should occur, which Spengler did notdo. It is true, he was only an analyst, even if a very good one. His main ideastarts from the assertion that man tries not only to defeat the nature, butwant to make it to work in man’s service. “Civilizationitself became a machine”. Now, “itscreation rises up against the creator”, “the team (of animals and the vehicle harnessed to them) out of control drags the fell conqueror.

There were catastrophes in the past and somewill be in the future as well. Surely, one will come: the nuclear one. But menare not dinosaurs. They will not disappear in the same way, as humanity built aculture, and this one does not perish so easily.

If we look in the past, we may notice that, inthe history of humanity, cultural catastrophes had negative effects just morepowerful than some nuclear bombs would produce. If we think of the morality ofsome antique civilisations, we may come to the conclusion that our so calledmodern civilisation represented a greater catastrophe due to downfall ofmorality. (It seems I begin to step in Spengler’s traces!) Surely, new solutionwill appear. A first proof is the fact that more and more people search fornaïve solution in all kind of fields, including some occult ones, only, andonly, for getting away from the actual “philosophy”, which reflect theconviction that it is wrong. Do you want to  be assured of it? Enter a good bookstore,where the owner knows to sell his goods, and you will find how large the standswith occult books are. Besides, there are even specialized bookstores. Whatexactly the readers searching for I do not know, probably neither they, butsurely they will find something, even if not there. For the moment, I onlynoticed that an intense preoccupation already exists, sign that people want achange.

An eventual nuclear catastrophe will not be asbig to make Terra blow to pieces. A smaller one will be sufficient to wake thepeople. What we know is that the whole propagandistic arsenal used today,starting with Christianity and ending with democracy, will fall lamentably, butnot before putting something else instead.

I discuss a little about goodness. Some peopleare good-hearted, others are not, according with their nature. Still, all ofthem change their point of view toward the end of life. Here is an argument.Apparently, most young people want to have money. Either they do not have any,or have not enough, spend almost whole their life trying to earn money. Moreand more money! In order to earn/gain money people often fight against eachother with all the means more or less admissible. The goodness is forgotten.Becoming old-aged persons, they come to the conclusion that money is not soimportant. Why? At the beginning of this paragraph, I said that people'apparently' want money. Actually, they have in view other objectives and needmoney in order to buy them (objects, services, etc). The objectives are not thesame; as a young man he maybe wants a motorbike, later on  a car, another car, a house, a larger house,and so on. As an old man, he has other criterions for evaluation and otherthings are in his area of interest. He wonders: what was the use of his effortsto obtain all those objects or services? They are useless now! In that momenthe comes to the conclusion that the goodness deserves a greater appreciation.Sometimes it is too late. The education helps us to understand this truthsooner.

We saw how educated people made wrong decisionsor were incapable of reacting correctly in face of less educated ones. It isclear that education did not help them. On the contrary, it hampered them,because of an inefficient scheme. One could give an examples in almost everyfield, not only some small ones from the personal life. It is clear that wehave to change some principles and not some cosmetic measures.

I discussed mainly two fields, apparentlyopposite: religion and politics. I would choose some others as well, but theseseemed to me to be the most actual. Solutions? It is exactly what I do not want to do.I am anything else except a utopian. Maybe people are full up of the utopias. Aprofound analysis of what we really are, where we arrived, in what way wearrived here, etc. is all we have to do. With one condition: SINCERITY. Let usno longer cheat our time with illusions!