General Necessities and Particular Contingencies

The Joy of Cooking is now over 75 years old. It was originally written by a widow in her 50's who was reacting to the lack of a pragmatic cookbook on the market. It grew into a large enterprise with historical eccentricities that helped make it unique. This history inspires loyalty.

But if it had never been, there would have been something else that filled its place with different idiosyncrasies. As long as this other possible cookbook was useful, the uniqueness of it would have inspired loyalty.

There are general necessities that could have been filled by any cookbook. The Joy of Cooking happened to be the one to fill that general meme niche with its particular contingencies; but it easily could have been another cookbook to satisfy this general necessity with different particular contingencies.

Holy Books are the same way. There is a general necessity, a meme niche, that is filled by magic books. The particular contingencies, the unique idiosyncrasies, of these books could have been otherwise.

Another example: there is a general need for measuring time, but the particularly weird method we use didn't have to be this way -- we could easily be using a base 10 numbering system for time rather than base 60. We need to measure time (general necessity or meme niche) but we don't have to measure time in this way (particular contingencies).

It is wrong to think that our method of measuring time must be this way. It is wrong to think that a cookbook must have been written this way. It is wrong to think that the Bible must have been written this way. Something else with different particular contingencies could have filled that general necessity just as easily.

Magic Books

Recently a Mormon tried to convince me of the pedigree of their magic book. I was supposed to believe that a 17 year old man found in the wilderness of upstate New York a set of golden tablets written in "reformed Egyptian hieroglyphics" and translated by means of magic translating stones. The solid proof was that others living in that hotbed of religious revivalism and experimentation (historians call it "the burnt over district") claim to have witnessed the event.

Lots of people have magic books and claim excellent pedigrees. Muslims tell great stories about the veracity of theirs. Jews can attest to the veracity of Torah. Protestants and Catholics each tell stories of their versions of the Bible -- often blaming the other for hiding the true version. Hindus have many books they discuss. Buddhists have magic books. Even Confucians. Ba'hai do too.

While we're at it, Scientologists have the magic books of L. Ron Hubbard. Christian Scientists have their own. As did Shakers.

A thousand other groups have magic books and they all tell stories of veracity. Each one believes that the other thousand groups have it wrong, or at least not quite right. Besides, it is logically impossible for them all to be right since they disagree on fundamental issues. Odds are that they are all wrong and the tendency to tell stories about magic books tell us something about being human.

Somewhere Nietzsche writes that perhaps God has a speech impediment, for He is certainly having difficulty getting His Word across.

Christianity is not Democratic

Christians sometimes argue that since Christian values form the basis for democracy, a person cannot be a patriotic atheist. They argue that since God loves everyone equally, this equal value for everyone is the metaphysical basis of the claim that we are all equal before the law in a democracy.

This argument is based upon what Christians would like to believe about their religion rather than what is actually found in the Bible.

The Bible is full of words such as "master," "servant," "lord," "slave," "Caeser," and so on. The entire world-view of the Bible is of royalty and kingship, not of elected representatives and presidents. Jesus tells parables that instruct us to be good servants and obey our master. Churches regularly sing praises of Jesus as the "king of kings" and "lord of lords." There is not a single reference in the Bible to voting for laws, of universal suffrage, or of doing away with royalty. Instead, there is an overwhelming message of obedience to one's superiors.

There is a deeper reason why Christianity is essentially anti-democratic: Christians believe that they have the one true way to live and are eager to ensure that we all believe and live as they do. They divide the world into those who are right and those who are not. This is clear evidence that they really do not believe in the equal value of everyone. A democracy can only flourish when people agree to disagree and then try to develop a system of living together with their disagreements. Christians refuse to agree to disagree since they believe that they and only they have the one true answer.

Obviously Arbitrary Authorities

Heard this morning on a Christian radio station: “The Koran states that God is not a father, has no children, and that you’ll burn in Hell for believing that He is a father who has a son. But John 3:16 says that God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son so that those who believe will have eternal life.”

Two religious texts, both claiming to be the only true word of the only true god, contain completely opposite statements about this basic theological question. How can this be? Here are some possible explanations:

Perhaps God changed His story later and denied ever impregnating a married woman. (Or was she a young virgin? I’m so confused…)

Perhaps both texts are correct – perhaps God transcends our mortal notions of binary Logic (true / false, father / son) and religious texts are like kaleidoscopes that illuminate fragments of the stained glass window that is THE TRUTH.

Or perhaps these are just books written by men with agendas, charisma, issues, problems, and undiagnosed psychological traumas that make them hear voices. Perhaps it is time to realize that none of these books are really what they claim to be.