Out of My Mind (14 page)

Tom Brokaw is the remarkable exception. He has all his marbles and most of his muscles. He is as good or better in retirement as he ever was as an anchorman and reporter. Seven years ago, I was sitting at my desk, fiddling with an idea when Brokaw called and explained that he was writing a book to be titled
The Greatest Generation
. He had read the book I wrote called
My War
and wanted some comments on his proposition that mine was a generation superior in character to previous or subsequent generations because we fought and won World War II.

Because my role in life seems to be as a critic and naysayer, I said “nay” and thus became a chapter in Tom's book. I told him I was proud of how members of my generation fought WWII but did not believe that it was a sign that we were in any way “greater.” I pointed out that the present generation has not distinguished itself with bravery in winning World War III because they have not fought it. If the present generation had been faced with Adolf Hitler, it would have pulled itself together, risen to the occasion and fought the war as mine did.

The rise of Greek civilization was unique. There had been civilization in Egypt but nothing like what developed in ancient Greece in art, literature and mathematics. The Greeks who lived around 500 B.C. were their country's “Greatest Generation.”

But then what happened? Future generations did not build on the great start those early Greeks gave them. There were centuries when things fell apart and civilization deteriorated.

The question of human progress—or lack of progress—has occurred to me 10,000 times over the years. Are we better people than people were one hundred, one thousand or even ten thousand years ago? I always think of the Romans who fed Christians to the lions. Are we better to each other than they were? If we are, how did Abu Ghraib happen? Does accomplishing more and making more of the good things of life contribute to the betterment of the human race? Are we better or just happier because we have cars, airplanes, television, computers? I can't decide. We have more mechanical aids to help us do things so we get more done and go more places than generations past but are we better people because of them?

There's a terrible and inexplicable disparity in the state of civilization in different parts of the world. The people of many countries are living in the Dark Ages by our standards. They have none of the appurtenances of modern civilization in the United States, Europe, the Far East or even much of the Middle East. They need a greatest generation of their own.

I'd like to ask Tom Brokaw one question. If my generation was greater than yours and greater than this present generation and also greater than past generations, how do you account for the fluctuation in quality? If you said mine was simply better than past generations, we could conclude that progress had been made, but if you argue that my generation was superior to past generations and also superior to the present generation, you suggest that civilization has regressed.

The Greatest Generation
was a good title. But I question your proposition that mine was a greater generation than either my dad's or your own.

I will not be writing about the Pope. More than half of you don't want to hear another word about him. I can't say what Catholics, who can't get enough about the Pope, want to read. I will say that as a matter of writing style, I believe the word “Pope” should be capitalized when it is referring to the one man who has the job but all the newspapers spell it “pope.”

About 75 percent of Americans call themselves Christian. About 25 percent of them are Catholic. That's the largest number of Americans belonging to one church. Protestants still outnumber Catholics by three to one, but Protestants are divided into a lot of different denominations, each of which is smaller than the unified body of Catholics.

After Catholics, the most Americans are Baptists. There are a lot of Baptists but they're divided among half a dozen different church bodies. Baptists ought to get together and choose one leader like a Pope. Methodists are the third largest Christian group. There are dozens of others like Lutherans, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Jehovah's Witnesses and members of the United Church of Christ and the Church of God. They could all use a Pope.

If three Americans were stranded on a desert island, it seems likely the one thing they wouldn't agree on is religion. They'd each believe something different. Even within one church, individual members usually hold their own beliefs. Church members are often very loyal to their denomination. However, a loyal Baptist would have a hard time explaining the difference between what he believes and what the Presbyterians, Methodists and Episcopalians in town believe.

Worldwide, there are something like 2 billion Christians and more than 1 billion Muslims. There are almost 800 million Hindus and 325 million Buddhists. After those big four, the numbers drop off sharply. For example, there are about 20 million Sikhs and 14 million Jews.

The percentage of people in the United States who say they are Protestant has dropped in the last twenty years from about 63 percent to
51 percent. Statisticians say the drop has more to do with people who no longer claim they are affiliated with any religion than because of the influx of Catholic immigrants. Islam is the fastest growing major faith in the U.S., but Muslims still make up only about 4 percent of our population. It will be interesting when the Muslim population in a big city reaches the level that adherents want to put up a plaque in a public school with excerpts from the Koran.

Most Americans know that Muslims accept the Koran as the word of God the way Christians accept the Bible. They know nothing at all about any Buddhist, Sikh or Confucian holy books. I certainly don't.

Over the years, religions have adapted themselves to the people who believe in them more than people have changed their lives to conform to their churches' rules. When I was young, the Catholic boys I played with wouldn't eat a hamburger on Friday, and the Jewish kids in school wouldn't eat a ham sandwich on any day of the week. Things change. These days Catholics who practice birth control, get divorced, and eat meat on Friday no longer worry about going to hell.

Any time the subject is religion, there's a good chance that anything anyone says will offend someone.

They closed 300 Catholic churches in Ireland in 2006 because of the number of priests who've been accused of molesting young boys, but I'm going to ignore the issue of young boys and Catholic priests and say something else that might be offensive to most churchgoers. There are too many churches.

I think it might strengthen all churches if they closed half of them, tore down the buildings and sold the property for money they could use for other purposes. They might sell the property to someone who would put up a useful residential or business building on the site.

There are about 300,000 houses of worship in the United States. Many occupy huge pieces of real estate in prime locations in every major city in the country. They pay no taxes. On many Sundays, even during the main service, the pews at thousands of churches are at far below capacity.

Many of the clergy, ministers or priests address their prayers and remarks Sunday after Sunday to a few dozen people in buildings that could hold several hundred. For the rest of Sunday, and for all twenty-four hours of the other six days of the week, many churches are deserted. It seems like such a waste, and while we don't think of it when we see empty churches, they cost every one of us a lot of money over the years.

There are some beautiful churches in every city that should be preserved, but there are even more ugly, empty churches that should be torn down. You don't have to be an atheist to believe that.

I'm not knowledgeable enough about the differences in the beliefs of a Southern Baptist and a Presbyterian to know for sure, but it seems to me the various Christian sects have enough in common that they could worship as well together in one building as apart in several.

Even if they didn't want to convene at the same hour, there would be plenty of time for each group to meet separately with just its members. Is there something members of one of these churches believe that would offend members of any of the others? Why can't they pray together in one building?

I grew up in a city with a population of 125,000. I still visit there occasionally, and the population is about the same. In the phone book, there are 775 listings for churches.

This excludes a lot of church-related listings.

If these figures are accurate, my old hometown has one church for every 167 people. If half the population went to church, it would be one church for every 84 people. If one quarter of the 125,000 attended services, which seems like a more realistic number, there would be one church for every 42 people.

When I lived in town, there was a Baptist church across the street, a Catholic church on the corner, and my mother sent me to the Presbyterian church a block and a half away.

We were never short of churches.

Today, I live in New York City within a block of a church that's doing what all churches should be doing. It's called a United Methodist Church, but the building is also home to Congregation B'nai Jeshurun and the Iglesia Cristo Vivo.

On Sunday morning, the Methodist pastor speaks to about 200 of the church's 400 members in a room that holds 1,100.

On most week nights, the room is used for meetings by a wide variety of neighborhood groups for (or against) an equally wide variety of issues.

The church has a huge kitchen in its basement that provides meals for hundreds of homeless people who come there from all over the city. It is an unusual church.

There are estimates that about a hundred million Americans attend church regularly.

That figure seems high and was probably made by some church organization but even if the figure is true it means there are 333 churchgoers for each of the 300,000 churches.

The fact of the matter is, very few churches in America have 300 parishioners who attend regularly and most churches are less than 25 percent occupied on Sundays.

They could all use business managers to work out their problems, which would almost certainly involve some real estate deals and consolidation.

I've been reading the Koran. The word “Koran,” or “Qur'an,” is from an Arabic word meaning “reading” or “recitation.” Most Americans do not
readily accept any religion other than Christianity, but there are more than 1 billion Muslims in the world and they take Islam so seriously that we should get to know more about their religion.

Muslims believe the Koran contains the words given or revealed to Muhammad by God, Allah. Muhammad was born in 570 A.D. and had a difficult early life because both his parents and grandparents died when he was young. His life improved when he went to work for a wealthy widow named Khadijah. She was impressed with how well he was handling her affairs and, although she was fifteen years older than Muhammad, they were married and lived happily together for many years. They had seven children.

Muslims believe that Muhammad was a contemplative man who often went off alone to meditate in a cave. It was there that he said he heard the voice of Allah telling him that he, Muhammad, was the messenger, or Apostle of God. The voice of Allah is said to have given Muhammad words of wisdom. It told him to spread those words. Muhammad passed these sayings on to others and developed a following. Their beliefs formed the religion Islam.

In case you've never read the Koran, I've chosen a few samples to give you an idea of its style and content. There are 114 sections called “surahs.” The first ones in the Koran are short and they become gradually longer. Like the Bible, every translation of the Koran is different and, also like the Bible, some of the Koran is not readily comprehensible to an ordinary person.

Serious Muslims say the only legitimate Koran is the Koran written and read in its original Arabic. Its rhythmic beauty cannot be replicated in any other language. These excerpts I've chosen are from three versions I have:

There are some similarities between Christianity and Islam but many differences. The Koran, for example, says:

“Never has God begotten a son nor is there any God beside him.”

The Koran has its own ideas about marriage and divorce:

“If a man divorces his wife, he cannot remarry her until she has married another man and been divorced by him; in which case it will be no
offense for either of them to return to the other if they think they can keep within the bounds set by God.”

The Koran is hard on those who don't believe in it, condemning them to burn eternally in hell. It speaks of unbelievers frequently. For example:

“The unbelievers say, ‘Pay no heed to this Koran. Cut short its recital with booing and laughter so that you may gain the upper hand.' ”

In another translation of the Koran, that same paragraph reads, “Those who disbelieve say, ‘Heed not this Koran and drown the hearing of it; haply ye may conquer.'”

Allah is all-knowing to Muslims. Of those who pretend to believe but don't really, he is quoted as saying, “They utter with their mouths a thing which is not in their hearts. Allah is best aware of what they hide.”

There are many passages that explain the willingness of Muslims to touch off bombs tied to their backs if they believe they are dying for Allah.

“If you are slain in the way of Allah or you die, certainly forgiveness and mercy from Allah is better than the worldly goods they amass.”

Muslims, like the worshippers of any faith, are not open-minded about religion. The Koran admonishes: “Believers in Islam, take neither Jews nor Christians for your friends. They are friends with one another.”