Now, I'm a great fan of believing six impossible things before breakfast, but this thought experiment doesn't usually take too long to stop at something very hard to swallow. For some it may be that George W Bush and John Howard are God's chosen men in government, and apres eux le deluge. For others I can understand that it would be very hard to accept that of all the many religions who KNOW theirs is the one true way, the real one is a little group of self-obsessed separatists. Sorry folks, this great cosmic truth really was well concealed.
But for me, the sticking point is science.
The world was created in six days, just as it is now, six thousand years ago. Before that was a waste and empty period when all kinds of other things might have happened, but it was nothing to do with anything around now. If physics says that it wasn't that way, then Physics is wrong, and those sad people who presume to know better than God have been frittering away their lives. If Biology says that life was more primitive in the past, and tends to improve with the passage of time, then Biology is not only wrong, but evil for suggesting that God couldn't get life right first time.
What's more, everything that is wrong with the world is your fault because you won't stop sinning, but you mustn't try to fix it because that would be working against divine plans.
Enough. You get the idea.
All this has always puzzled me and done more than anything else to undermine the brethren's other less disprovable claims. I know the bible says that God created the heavens and the Earth, but why that gives anyone the right to decree the methods He used, I do not know.
It's not as though the brethren aren't used to reading the scriptures metaphorically. If leprosy always means sin, then why should the six days be literal instead of being figurative of a certain moral order? And I don't see why God shouldn't have chosen to use evolution, either. Everyone knows God moves in mysterious ways, even those who think He's a metaphor Himself.
I think all this is sad. There's plenty of wonder in how the world really is, and that wonder can lead to worship for those so inclined. I do not understand the urge to strip the reality away.
3 comments:
A challenging and intriguing exercise. Maybe some things are "right" for some people and "wrong" for others. And perhaps crutches are right for the person with the broken leg, but wrong when it has healed.
Thanks for the stimulating thoughts Survivor.
You may not be ready for this but what if you apply the same mental exercise to the notion of the Holy Scriptures being God's word? Isn't it the case that the likelihood of the EB's being the only ones to correctly interpret the Bible is about the same as the particular set of documents which go to make it up being God's only authentic written communication?
Thank you both for the comments.
I do actually agree, Robert, but for the purposes of the exercise I prefer to work within the parameters of what no member of the exclusive brthren could doubt. And the scriptures come top of that list.
Christianity is eminently challengeable, should one choose to do so. Here and now is not the place, with respect. I may say more another time.
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