One of the beguiling aspects of living in Korea and Japan, as a person who went to live in those places — for among other reasons — the rationality of Zen, is seeing some of the people there embrace theism and try to spread it — to detrimental results, such as we see in the extremes — here in America, the Middle East, Africa, Europe and elsewhere. Intimately and historically knowing the dangers of these religions, I had been compelled to discuss the dangers of such ideologies with people, personally, person-to-person, in those places — sometimes taking Mormons and other evangelists who had sought me out for their proselytizing — for a cup of coffee, to shed some light in their direction. Below is a missive version of this, perhaps not organized or as thorough as could be — but which I sent to a school in Japan, which was advertising on Craig’s List for an English teacher at a Sunday school. For this forum, the ideas have been expanded and the word-count lengthened.

Dear Friends in Humanity:

I say this humbly — but as one who has studied the issues as an American and as a person philosophically and scientifically literate:

You are going to ruin Japan by Christianizing it. If you look at America, you can see what this religion does to people. Do not think there is a divide between irrationality —prejudice, irrational conspiracy, neurosis, science-denial, alternative facts and the politics of fascism — and theism. Look at the Middle East: A full-blown genocide is now playing out in Palestine, enabled by a religious movement and the exploitation of religion in Israel (which when originally devised was actually atheist, under Theodore Herzl) and paid for by Christian and Hebrew America.

The terrorism in the Middle East, The Muslim and Christian Crusades, slavery, the witch burnings in America, the ills of the Republican party, religious violence in the world today — all of this is the result of theism — Christianity and Judaism together — and Islam — all stemming from the ancient Jewish religion and what these mythologies and their irrational-ism do to the mind and politics.

I lived in Korea 15 years and in Japan 5; the prejudice in modern Korea — which I felt first-hand, witnessing the religious and nationalist xenophobia that helped end a special relationship for me and broke my heart — evident publicly in Korean Christians fighting against LGBT rights, against Buddhists (they used to burn down Buddhist temples)—all of this is the result of the religion you are inculcating children with — which is child abuse. You may think that the differences in your cultures and those of others who have adopted Christianity — will shield you from the extremism that eventually grows out of this and al theisms, but are you willing to bet on that, take that chance, imagine your people are so much better educated via Japanese tradition and Confucian ethics — that you will not wind up like every other theistic culture: dealing with the viruses of religious meddling that begins to tamper with electoral politics, education, science and day-to-day peace? You already have the Nichiren Buddhists, starry-eyed, ignorant of science and history, brainwashed, knocking on doors and denouncing other religions. I never spoke to a more programmed group of people. They are scarier in their blind non-apprehension of words spoken to them than the Jehovah Witnesses — the butt of jokes in America for their annoying door-knocking. The Christians will be far worse, eventually. When you think that your mythology is the only valid one, and you think that not following it leaves people prey to demons, devils, the fires of hell — you eventually wind up with those among your adherents who take this to extremes (as if those thoughts are not extreme already), affecting relationships, business and the nation adversely, with annoyance first, neurosis next, unduly influenced and unfair laws (which we are experiencing in the United States now, crippling the rights of women) — followed eventually by violence. And is it not violence when a raped woman or a woman with a still birth inside her cannot get the medical attention she needs? Is it not violence when gay, lesbian and bisexual people cannot live as freely as you and I? This religion stands against science and facts. That’s violence. Teaching that men can walk on water, change bread to living creatures, raise the dead to walk around like zombies, be in several places at once — these ideas were perhaps excusable in the ancient world, but we know them to be fantasy and science fiction now. How can young people be expected to understand the facts and realities of the real universe when you want to infuse them with contradictions about it; how will that affect the weakest among them?

Children should not be fed mythology as fact. That’s wrong. They are young people, actually — not “children” in the pejorative sense we often detect in the expression of the word. They are young geniuses, hungry for truth — objective truth, not fantasy — which they have a diet of in their dreams and games, but should not have in the body of facts they need to understand the world and universe; and so, the imparting religion to them before they can discern sense from nonsense, physics from fantasy, truth from mis-truth and history from mythology — this is the corrupting of their minds — filling them with false hope, entitlement, prejudice and insane & unnecessary fears.

You think Christianity, with its talk of love, is better than Zen. It isn’t. I was raised Christian and took the love from it, adopted Zen — and am better for it. I also study the ancient Greek and Roman stoics, the enlightenment and all honest explorers of wisdom. This is all that is needed. Theism is dependent on bronze- and iron-age superstitions. If you read Dr. Bart Ehrman — -or listen to his podcasts, lectures, debates and interviews (he is a New York Times best-selling author and the world’s foremost authority on the Bible) — a professor of New Testament Studies at Chapel Hill University, a scholar who was an evangelical and a born-again Christian — a minister, even — a man who speaks and/or reads Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Syriac, Coptic, French and German — a textual critic who understands the culture and the writing of the times in which the manuscripts were written which became the Bible, you will learn there are more errors in the Bible than there are words.

If you read and listen to Dr. Sam Harris, the late Christopher Hitchens, Dr. Richard Dawkins, the late Dr. Bertrand Russell, Dr. Matt Dilahunty, Dr. Brian Cox, Dr. Erich Fromm, Dr. Sean Carroll, Dr. Neil De Grasse Tysen, the Late Dr. Carl Sagan, Dr. Robert Sapolsky and many other philosophers and scientists — historians… such as Elaine Pagels and… Karen Armstrong’s History of God — you will realize that you are not teaching love to your students; you are corrupting their minds and the mind of Japan — to become bicameral, so the Japanese — like Americans and other religionists in the world — will be confused, as many Americans are — with fiat, magic, superstition, un-reason… alternative facts, fake news. It can only hurt Japan, now, which is still, a rational, tolerant and peaceful country. A better understanding of the human mind and the environment, which evolved us, is so much more important a lesson to impart to young minds — rather than a dark-age, pre-Enlightenment religion meant for ignorant desert dwellers who could not read or even fathom the universe — which philosophers in Greece, Rome and Mesopotamia were already beginning to understand.

If you want to teach love, do so — minus the detritus holding back the world: the lies of gods, which have one purpose — to control people. Love is never control. Love is truth, only truth and always truth. When you control people you are not in love; you are in a transaction, using someone.

Mindfulness meditation shows someone his or her mind. You can achieve this in Zazen — or simple mindfulness meditation. Minus the blessings and the prayers for test-taking, marriage and child-rearing success, true, naked, simple meditation with no magic attached, plus love — is all you need to raise virtuous young people.

I am 57 years old. Check in with me in 40 years; if I am still alive then, you will be telling me about the mistake you made brainwashing the youth with the violent religions of the Middle East.

Have you actually read the error- discrepancy- and forgery- ridden book you pretend is more virtuous than the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? Remember: the first treaty made with Nazi Germany was with the Vatican.

If prejudice is what you want, keep going; teach that nonsense to your children — but then you are responsible for what happens to their minds. I tried to help you, today. Take heed, embrace courage and stop what you are doing. And you should act — not pray — to influence anyone you know in the United States — to vote against Donald Trump; for if he wins the next election, your way of life will unravel, because American democracy and rational government is the underpinning of the free world — not Christianity, especially Christian nationalism, the natural result of Christian education — because you cannot guarantee all Christians will not follow the book to the letter, like you cannot guarantee all gun owners will be peace-loving. And that is what theism is — a gun.

Sincerely,

Carl Atteniese