rlr (03/24/83)
... and seek to impose their beliefs on the freethinkers among us. (THE WORD 'freethinker' SEEMS TO VILIFY FUNDAMENTALIST CHRISTIANS. WHAT'S IN THAT WORD THAT'S SO REPUGNANT?) If the god you envision really exists, a god who allows into his kingdom only those who follow his rules, a god who requires you call him by a particular name and worship him in a particular fashion (kind of tyrannical for something that's supposed to be the all-loving universal spirit that you should be able to call whatever you want), if indeed he/she/it exists, then [***] help us!! I don't know what [***] is, but it sure ain't (what you call) God!!! Now suppose this god didn't care what you called him/her/it. Suppose it was only concerned with the way people treated one other and their world (sounds a bit like what Jesus is supposed to have said, though what is now preached seems far more restrictive). Suppose we are not "born in sin", having to grovel and degrade ourselves to justify our being allowed to continue existing. Suppose we are born with a potential for living life, unhindered by shackles of prescribed morality. Even if your god exists, I'd still want to live THIS way and not his. If we are all a part of god (not so 'Eastern' as it sounds, the Bible does say we were created in God's image), then isn't it /our/ job to formulate a way of living, as a part of god. My view of the Bible is that it was written for children. Not chronologically young people, but spiritually and intellectually immature members of a new evolving (WHOOPS!) species. As we grow older, we can re-read the same book (e.g., Alice in Wonderland) from a more mature point of view, with our eyes open to the newly visible nuances and subtle menaings. Now that as a species we seem to be in the throes of adolescence, racing about the planet in our fast cars with nuclear weapons in the back seat, we should take a second look at what was meant by the "nursery rhymes" of the Bible. Not pouting and shouting "There really is such a thing as Humpty Dumpty!", but investigating what was really meant, from our new vantage point. Looking at the six days of creation as a beautiful parable of the evolution of life and the universe (and everything) as described by scientific study is far more productive than saying "The schools should teach that Humpty Dumpty and Santa Claus really exist!" If our species survives into adulthood, maybe we can glean new meanings from this literary work. If we are all a part of god (or whatever you as an individual choose to call the entity/spirit/whatever that binds the whole universe together), then when PEOPLE wrote the Bible, god was in fact the author. Got it? Rich A little addendum... What if what we call our "souls" is really this all- encompassing spirit that some call God, taking corporeal form in the physical bodies of certain animals of a highly (?) evolved species? Could the moral prescriptions in the Bible (divinely inspired?) be looked upon as warnings to the 'spirits' inhabiting the physical bodies about the dangers of animalistic biological functions/urges/instincts?----Don't do this, even though your body tells you that you want to, it's not good for you (and 'us') in the long run. Just a thought. (I'll bet you think I'm on drugs.)