{"id":2087,"date":"2009-06-03T06:00:49","date_gmt":"2009-06-03T14:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/wordpress\/?p=2087"},"modified":"2009-06-03T06:00:49","modified_gmt":"2009-06-03T14:00:49","slug":"north-koreas-new-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/north-koreas-new-god\/","title":{"rendered":"North Korea’s new god"},"content":{"rendered":"

North Korea\u2019s dictator Kim Jong-il is reported <\/a>to have picked his youngest son as a successor, and the mandatory worship has already begun:<\/p>\n

In recent weeks, North Korean diplomats abroad have been told to begin to pay homage to Kim Jong-un and some schoolchildren have reportedly been including his name in their songs.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Many believers might argue that such misplaced devotion is a likely consequence of suppressing the true religious instinct.\u00a0 It\u2019s not immediately obvious to me, however, why it\u2019s better to worship a non-existent, or, to put the most optimistic spin on it, an invisible entity about whom we know nothing, than a concrete human being.\u00a0 It is not the case that worshipping an absent deity is less prone to producing fanatical and murderous excess.\u00a0 At least with a living being we know what we\u2019re getting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Maybe it\u2019s worship itself that is a little anachronistic in this strenuously democratic age.\u00a0\u00a0 The attributes of, and requisite attitudes towards, God appear to me to be a holdover from ages when emperors and tribal chieftains held absolute power.\u00a0 I myself am not as fervently hostile to the European monarchies and aristocracies as I know I, as the beneficiary of American dynamism, should be.\u00a0 I feel too much in debt to the artistic legacy that those alleged parasites supported and bequeathed to us.\u00a0 But most Americans have nothing good to say about the power of lords and kings.\u00a0 Several conservative commentators, such as Curtis Sliwa, called President Obama a toady for complying with royal etiquette while visiting the Queen of England.\u00a0 But why then genuflect to the King of Kings in heaven, or kiss the ring of his lordlings on earth?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Could we conceive of a democratic god or divine assembly?\u00a0 Or is prostration before an imaginary supreme being wired into us, regardless of the evolution of our political forms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

North Korea\u2019s dictator Kim Jong-il is reported to have picked his youngest son as a successor, and the mandatory worship has already begun: In recent weeks, North Korean diplomats abroad have been told to begin to pay homage to Kim … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[258,257],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2087"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2087"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2087\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2090,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2087\/revisions\/2090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}