Allan Kurzberg And The Paradox Of Organized Religion, Part 2.

“I stepped into the abyss and felt something in my chest.  Stars were on the left and right, above and below.  I was among the stars, and I understood that I was a small part of this giant world, where the human was just a grain of sand.”–Alexei Leonov, Russian cosmonaut 



In the last post, we proved the Paradox of Organized Religion by using certain parts of Allan Kurzberg’s system.  In this post, we will try to define religion as opposed to organized religion.  However, before we do that, we might examine a more vivid example of the Paradox of Organized Religion, the Example of the Knife.    Briefly, it states that a visitor has come into our home brandishing a knife.  S/he then tells us we have nothing to fear since s/he is a member of a specific OR.  Does that statement ensure our safety?  Of course, the person could be lying, but we will assume the person is telling the truth.  Does the stranger’s belonging to an OR give us definite assurance that no harm will come to us?  And the answer is: certainly not.  The proof lies in the definition of an OR and the application of a few of Allan’s postulates.  I leave the proof to the reader.

As we have stated in previous posts, Kurzberg was quite disturbed by misleading or, as in the case of a human being, downright false definitions.  He attributed the falseness of definition to P 2, that lying is a major part of a human’s existence.  And this is not surprising, because wherever we look, we see the perpetuation of lies.  And with new technology, lies can spread at a faster rate than ever before.  They not only come from the mouths of demagogues, but often from scientists and mathematicians, supposedly paradigms of rational thought.  Indeed, Allan reminded us that a mathematician and mathematics are two different entities.  A mathematician, according to our new definition of human being is an irrational being that is mostly capable of rational thought, while mathematics is a purely rational creation, constructed of precise definitions, postulates, theorems, corollaries, and lemmas.  And with each discovery brought on by the above, mathematics moves forward along a rational axis, using pure reason to achieve truths.  In a similar manner, Kurzberg felt there was an essential difference between organized religion, steeped in the human world of unpredictable motivational forces, creating “Others”, steeped in complex, misleading symbols, and manifesting hierarchy by P 4, often resulting in the torturing and wholesale slaughter of human beings. ORs, according to Allan, have perpetrated meaningless distinctions such as “secularity” and “religious fanaticism”.  Allan would insist that all ORs are secular, and that it is this fact that is the most disturbing.  If God exists and is pure reason, it should be the function of all ORs to strive for pure reason.  In that way, they would be a more accurate reflection of the grandeur of God, rather than holding on to outmoded and sometimes completely wrong ideas of the universe.  “Religious fanaticism” would then be a contradiction in terms, because religion would be an emanation of pure reason and fanaticism is just the opposite.

Allan Kurzberg often said that what bothered him was not that a human being was made in God’s image(whatever importance that has, because all things in the universe have been made by God.  Although, Allan admitted that such a concept needed explanation).  But what disturbed him was the idea that God is being made in a human being’s image.  That is, God is a projection of all of the human being’s failings listed above.  Kurzberg sought to clarify the difference between an OR and pure religion or just religion.  He said that first you need to know that all ORs are fundamentally unstable and this led him to the Bifurcation Principle of Organized Religion:  At some point in time, any organized religion will split up into at least one other branch of the original OR.  Kurzberg thought this was not surprising since by P 3, humans are “Other” creating beings and by P 4, create inclusive and exclusive relationships.  But, he said, a pure religion is a manifestation or reflection of a permanent system of order that does not accept any fragmentation or rupture.  Therefore, an OR is the more true the more it minimizes OE-, and, in particular, the creation of the “Other”, and seeks for an all-inclusive relationship, eliminating the barrier created by P 4.

Allan felt he needed to elucidate the differences between organized religion and religion further through the stories of The Three Children : Laura, Robert, and Bill.  Subsequent posts will contain excerpts from these three stories, followed by a discussion of the principles they represent.

Allan Kurzberg And The Paradox Of Organized Religion, Part 1.

“…the Chinese had a good idea of their origins, related in a creation myth concerning one Pangu, the first(almost human) being, who spent 18,000 years chiseling out the universe from chaos.  When he died, the vermin on his body became the human race.”–Richard Gunde




Before we try to examine Allan Kurzberg’s approach to organized religion, we would do well to review his entire system and think about each part carefully.


New Definition of human being:  A Human being is an irrational being that is mostly capable of rational thought.

Postulate 1.  The ability of humans to think rationally developed late in human history.

Postulate 2.  No perceivable living creature on Earth lies, prevaricates, or pretends more than a human being.

Postulate 3.  All human beings are “Other” creating biological entities.

Postulate 4.  All human interactive behavior is the result of the dynamics between inclusive and exclusive relationships.

The Corollary of Human Existence or The Five Motivational Forces:  The five motivational forces that govern all human behavior are:  E+, E-, OE+, OE-, and r.

The Corollary of Instability:  The five motivational forces are unstable and at any point in time one force may change into any of the other forces.


It is important to note that although Allan believed the above definition, corollaries and postulates were necessary and sufficient to analyze all forms of human interactive behavior, he admitted that additional postulates and corollaries might be discovered in the future.  He also believed that the language he used in the above parts might be altered or refined to make the concepts even clearer.

We shall now look at one of the areas of human interactive behavior that Allan had a particular interest in:  organized religion.  To take all emotions away that might hamper an objective analysis of organized religion, Kurzberg reverted to symbols OR-1, OR-2,,,  OR-n, where n is finite since the number of human beings is finite. Allan thought that the naming of individual ORs was the main reason studies of ORs have not been objective, since they conjure up emotions that necessarily interfere with rational thought.  An OR is required to have at least two or more members (by definition of “organized”.  Each OR contains elements  that are common to every other OR.  Fundamentally, all ORs contain a finite set of beliefs whose purpose is to link each member of an OR’s life with the universe and to endow it with meaning..  Let us now state the paradox of ORs that Allan examined and pondered over.


The Paradox of Organized Religion:  Although every organized religion purports to make people more moral, no organized religion can ensure the moral behavior of any of it’s members at any point in time.


By the Corollary of Human Existence, we know that OE- must be present in each member(they are all humans), and by the Corollary of Instability, we know that any of the five motivational forces can change into any of the other motivational forces at any point in time.  OE- by definition is the state where rational thought is overwhelmed by destructive emotions.  Therefore, we have proved The Paradox of Organized Religion.

Kurzberg’s query was how do we try to undo the paradox?  What must each member of an OR do to ensure moral behavior?  It’s clear that the task of every OR would be to find ways to limit OE-, especially that described by P 3.  To avoid “Otherness”, each OR would have to find ways not to judge or create inclusive and exclusive relationships by P 4.  A difficult if not impossible task to be sure.  But without a conscientious effort on the part of an OR to do the above, the paradox displays a contradiction as to what each OR purports to do and what it actually can do.


Some Thoughts And Reflections During The Jewish New Year

“God gave us the gift of life.  We don’t need any more.”–Allan Sherman from The Rape of APE

Another year has passed.  To the Jews, the coming of the harvest during the closest new moon marks the beginning of another year.  It is not surprising that the festival, Rosh Hashanah(literally, the head of the year) is one of the most sacred to the Jews, and, indeed, has implications for all.  The Jewish New Year is more than the turning of the calendar, it is a time to reflect on what has been and to recognize one’s actions.  For me the previous year was truly “laden with happiness and tears”.  I lost my Mom on June 21, one week after her 90th birthday.  But, in the loss, my Dad and I formed a stronger bond.  “We will get through this together”.  Nevertheless, I was forced to face a new emptiness:   For the first time, I went to Oregon without either of my parents, surrounded by family portraits.  It wasn’t easy.  Towards the end of summer, I lost my dear friend, Don Donegan, who had been Chair of the Board of Directors of Medford Education International and had taught me much of what I know about business.  His home was Black Oaks, located on a beautiful stretch of the Rogue River.  I made many a trip to visit him on Pine Gate Way amid a crowd of llamas.  Those visits are over.  However, there were also joys.   I made new friends through the Eagle Point Writer’s Critique Group.  I saw Warm Springs Falls for the first time and walked down the re-named T’lomikh Falls on the Rogue River.  Another year.

What follows are some miscellaneous and scattered thoughts that come from a troubled mind:

The term “religious” fanaticism is a strange one.  When we think about a Lewis Carroll fanatic, do we mean someone that takes joy in ripping up editions of Alice in Wonderland?  Hardly.  Does a Beethoven fanatic spend time recklessly destroying CDs of Beethoven’s symphonies?  Absolutely not.  Yet, the people we often call “religious” fanatics, go about gleefully destroying God’s creations.  Does that make any sense?  Wouldn’t a religious fanatic weep when a new child was born,  kiss the trees,  or bless the stars, rejoicing in God’s creations, not destroying them?  I think so.  My belief is that there is a fanatically-oriented personality that grasps “religion”, which is often a dark mask for the groping hands of power.  By calling such charlatans “religious'” fanatics, we are often elevating criminals to a higher level.  We are, in some sense, giving validation to their nefarious deeds.  We know the power of words.  Human history has choked on them.  “Words are no shoddier than what they peddle.”  Beckett.  But when I witness the current atrocities in the Middle East, I am reminded of lines from Waiting from Godot:

Pozzo:  I am Pozzo!  Pozzo!  Does that name mean nothing to you?  I said does that name mean nothing to you?

Estragon:  I once knew a family called Gozzo.  The mother had “the clap”.

I will finish this post with lines from my dear friend, Sarah Seff Rolfe, taken from her poem, Quasars at Dacca:  “Earth, a tiny bead spinning in space, and still learning.”

May all of you enjoy a year of discovery, peace, understanding, and joy.