Silk: Another take on the bible & religion. Perhaps, true or false we need it?
Perhaps, though equally perhaps, this book, like so many others like it, the Koran, the Torah, etc. is only an attempt by a one time small nation to define it's place in a world of enemies. It is not alone in giving rules and warnings, enemies and friends, angels and demons. This is the standard fare of all human religious experience, and humans without religion are not either human or humane for long, indeed, humans WILL make a religion out of anything, so great is our need to have a belief structure which transcends this world. The first writers of the Bible, the Jews, wrote the Torah as a way of doing just that, defining themselves in a world of enemies and strangers. They wrote the history of their people as they saw it. Then, the Jewish prophets wrote out dreams of greatness, when they would be without fear or want. Quite frankly, if it had not been for Christianity, the rest of the world would know nothing about the bible, or Jewish teachings, indeed monotheism in
general might never have emerged as a dominant religious tenate in the west. Would that have been a good thing or not? Who's to say, maybe yes, maybe no, we can now choose, as we always could, to take the best, make do with most, and we humans, with or without such religious texts as the bible, have always managed to create enough fear and loathing in each other to have an excuse to kill. 'Primitive' people everywhere, in all climes and times have managed that quite well. Don't blame the bible for something we do just as well without it! The bible taught us nothing about hating anyone else that we didn't already know how to do, all the faults you blame on the bible were already in us. Look at those cultures which did or do not have the bible, do they not kill each other over the same things as we do? Yes! Are they perfected beings, free of vice, or supersition, do they tolerate others of varying opinions and practices? No! They are the same as ourselves, perhaps better in
some ways and worse in others, or just plain different, but the same. The Bible, like the other “great” scriptures of the world, tries to restrain humankinds passions and fears, rather than encouraging them, it guides them and directs them, granted not always successfuly, to a more humane life.
It very well could be that without religion, humans would be even more isolated, more stupid, more fearful then they are now! In fact, so long as there are humans, there will be religion! It is a part of them, they make a religion out of everything and anything that they do! Humankind WILL have a god, one way or another, they will continue to reach above themselves and wonder and believe in the great Other. This is the core of all religion, biblical or otherwise. Perhaps no other book, save the Koran which it gave birth to, or the writings of,
Gautama Buddha have served so well to draw humans together and propel our race forward? Perhaps the pagan philosophers and wise people were lacking something to draw them together, we shall never know the world of 'might have been' we can only shape our own world with the blocks around us. The first mark of barbarism is to attack anothers culture, it is also the hall mark of humanity. Don't call treason which is within ourselves a genetic flaw.
Humans are and will be both wise and stupid at the same time, and always have been.
Is the bible completely correct, probably no more than anything else humans do is that correct.
Chao/Silk
---------------------------------
Got a little couch potato?
Check out fun summer activities for kids.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
.
