I ran across this little gem on a mailing list recently. Though written by Mark Twain, I cleaned it up a little bit, and thought I’d share.
The story may not make sense the first time you read it. However, on subsequent readings, it makes all kinds of sense. I love Twain’s works, and am glad i found this one.
Old Man, speaking to Young Man: I will tell you a little story:
Once upon a time an Infidel was guest in the house of a Christian widow whose little boy was ill and near to death. The Infidel often watched by the bedside and entertained the boy with talk, and he used these opportunities to satisfy a strong longing in his nature — that desire which is in us all to better other people’s condition by having them think as we think. He was successful. But the dying boy, in his last moments, reproached him and said:
“I believed, and was happy in it; you have taken my belief away, and my comfort. Now I have nothing left, and I die miserable; for the things which you have told me do not take the place of that which I have lost.”
And the mother, also, reproached the Infidel, and said:
“My child is forever lost, and my heart is broken. How could you do this cruel thing? We have done you no harm, but only kindness; we made our house your home, you were welcome to all we had, and this is our reward.”
The heart of the Infidel was filled with remorse for what he had done, and he said:
“It was wrong — I see it now; but I was only trying to do him good. In my view he was in error; it seemed my duty to teach him the truth.”
Then the mother said:
“I had taught him, all his little life, what I believed to be the truth, and in his believing faith both of us were happy. Now he is dead, — and lost; and I am miserable. Our faith came down to us through centuries of believing ancestors; what right had you, or any one, to disturb it? Where was your honor, where was your shame?”
Young Man: He was a miscreant, and deserved death!
Old Man: He thought so himself, and said so.
Young Man: Ah — you see, his conscience was awakened!
Old Man: Yes, his Self-Disapproval was. It pained him to see the mother suffer. He was sorry he had done a thing which brought him pain. It did not occur to him to think of the mother when he was misteaching the boy, for he was absorbed in providing pleasure for himself, then. Providing it by satisfying what he believed to be a call of duty.
Young Man: Call it what you please, it is to me a case of awakened conscience. That awakened conscience could never get itself into that species of trouble again. A cure like that is a permanent cure.
Old Man: Pardon — I had not finished the story. We are creatures of outside influences — we originate nothing within. Whenever we take a new line of thought and drift into a new line of belief and action, the impulse is always suggested from the outside.
Remorse so preyed upon the Infidel that it dissolved his harshness toward the boy’s religion and made him come to regard it with tolerance, next with kindness, for the boy’s sake and the mother’s. Finally he found himself examining it. From that moment his progress in his new trend was steady and rapid. He became a believing Christian.
And now his remorse for having robbed the dying boy of his faith and his salvation was bitterer than ever. It gave him no rest, no peace. He must have rest and peace — it is the law of nature. There seemed but one way to get it; he must devote himself to saving imperiled souls.
He became a missionary.
He landed in a pagan country ill and helpless. A native widow took him into her humble home and nursed him back to convalescence. Then her young boy was taken hopelessly ill, and the grateful missionary helped her tend him. Here was his first opportunity to repair a part of the wrong done to the other boy by doing a precious service for this one by undermining his foolish faith in his false gods. He was successful.
But the dying boy in his last moments reproached him and said:
“I believed, and was happy in it; you have taken my belief away, and my comfort. Now I have nothing left, and I die miserable; for the things which you have told me do not take the place of that which I have lost.”
And the mother, also, reproached the missionary, and said:
“My child is forever lost, and my heart is broken. How could you do this cruel thing? We had done you no harm, but only kindness; we made our house your home, you were welcome to all we had, and this is our reward.”
The heart of the missionary was filled with remorse for what he had done, and he said:
“It was wrong — I see it now; but I was only trying to do him good. In
my view he was in error; it seemed my duty to teach him the truth.”
Then the mother said:
“I had taught him, all his little life, what I believed to be the truth, and in his believing faith both of us were happy. Now he is dead — and lost; and I am miserable. Our faith came down to us through centuries of believing ancestors; what right had you, or any one, to disturb it? Where was your honor, where was your shame?”
The missionary’s anguish of remorse and sense of treachery were as bitter and persecuting and unappeasable, now, as they had been in the former case.
Old Man:The story is finished. What is your comment?
Young Man: The man’s conscience is a fool! It was morbid. It didn’t know right from wrong.
Old Man: I am not sorry to hear you say that. If you grant that one man’s conscience doesn’t know right from wrong, it is an admission that there are others like it. This single admission pulls down the whole doctrine of infallibility of judgment in consciences. Meantime there is one thing which I ask you to notice.
Young Man: What is that?
Old Man: That in both cases the man’s act gave him no spiritual discomfort, and that he was quite satisfied with it and got pleasure out of it. But afterward when it resulted in pain to him, he was sorry. Sorry it had inflicted pain upon the others, but for no reason under the sun except that their pain gave him pain. Our consciences take no notice of pain inflicted upon others until it reaches a point where it gives pain to us. In all cases without exception we are absolutely indifferent to another person’s pain until his sufferings make us uncomfortable. Many an infidel would not have been troubled by that Christian mother’s distress. Don’t you believe that?
Young Man: Yes. You might almost say it of the average infidel, I think.
Old Man: And many a missionary, sternly fortified by his sense of duty, would not have been troubled by the pagan mother’s distress — Jesuit missionaries in Canada in the early French times, for instance; see episodes quoted by Parkman.
Young Man: Well, let us adjourn. Where have we arrived?
Old Man: At this. That we (mankind) have ticketed ourselves with a number of qualities to which we have given misleading names. Love, Hate, Charity, Compassion, Avarice, Benevolence, and so on. I mean we attach misleading meanings to the names. They are all forms of self-contentment, self-gratification, but the names so disguise them that they distract our attention from the fact.
Also we have smuggled a word into the dictionary which ought not to be there at all — Self-Sacrifice. It describes a thing which does not exist. But worst of all, we ignore and never mention the Sole Impulse which dictates and compels a man’s every act: the imperious necessity of securing his own approval, in every emergency and at all costs.
To it we owe all that we are. It is our breath, our heart, our blood. It is our only spur, our whip, our goad, our only impelling power; we have no other. Without it we should be mere inert images, corpses; no one would do anything, there would be no progress, the world would stand still. We ought to stand reverently uncovered when the name of that stupendous power is uttered.
Young Man: I am not convinced.
Old Man: You will be when you think.
Matthew P. Barnson
Thought for the moment:
Beware of computerized fortune-tellers!
Another story..
And yes.. I made this one up.
There was a young woman with diabetes whose best friend also had diabetes. One day they were talking..
YOUNG WOMAN: You look sick. Are you alright?
BEST FRIEND: I have been feeling sicker. I have had headaches, and lately I have no energy. There are other problems too!
YOUNG WOMAN: Have you checked your blood sugar?
BEST FRIEND: I have not.
YOUNG WOMAN: Why not?
BEST FRIEND: I don’t believe I have to. Just because there are those who do have to.. I don’t like the idea of putting chemicals like insulin in my body. These sugar packets will treat the problem.
YOUNG WOMAN: But, if you do that, you’ll die. Insulin is your only chance, sugar will just make it worse!
BEST FRIEND: That is judgmental and wrong of you. I don’t believe in chemicals and needles.. you should think more about what you say.
The young woman went away confused, and asked her friends what she should do.. and to her surprise, everyone told her that she should mind her own business. People even called her bigoted and hateful. Everyone said her doctor may be a wise practitioner, but isn’t really qualified to prescribe treatment, and when she argued the case, people judged her harshly.
She spoke to other patients who used insulin, but they also were afraid to talk about it. People shunned them just because they used insulin, even if they were unlikely to suggest to other diabetics that they do the same. They had decided that it wasn’t worth the harsh words they received, and it was better for them to just watch people die than deal with the criticism.
Despite this, the young woman did everything she could to show her friend that she loved her, she helped her in every way she could and held off on mentioning insulin unless her friend brough it up.. which was often, and always to criticize it. Afraid to talk, the young woman watched her friend deteriorate, and said nothing, because she was afraid to be criticized.
Then, the best friend died.
When the friends mother asked the young woman :”You knew insulin would save her, but you only told her once.. she could be here today.. why didn’t you try?”
The young womand said.. YOUNG WOMAN: “It wasn’t worth it to try to change her mind. It might have hurt her feelings, or disturbed her belief in sugar. I didn’t want her to think ill of me.”
The friend’s mothers eyes welled with tears, and she walked away.
but not before saying: “You selfish girl. how could you.”
sure
If there were ANY possible similarities between the salvatory benefits of specific religions and the salvatory benefits of Western medicine, your story might make some sense. A better metaphor would be the two friends arguing over two equally-unproven herbal remedies, with no empirical or anecdotal evidence to suggest that either remedy had any effect whatsoever on the disease.
— Ben Schuman Mad, Mad Tenor
The point..
Is that Twain’s argument revolves around the idea that sharing faith is wrong.
The siliarity exists in the mind of the person sharing their faith. When you truly believe you have found the “Way”, or what not.. and that other ways are not all leading to the same place, but rather that other ways lead to a bad end.. then it is the same thing.
Christianity believes that our own sin is like the sugar packets.. it feels good but is killing us. Jesus is like the insulin, faith keeps you alive. It is not thought of as belief but as fact.
So, the impetus behind sharing the belief isn’t evil or self serving, but driven by benevolence. The Christian has ample anecdotal evidence, and some scattered empirical evidence.. the most impressing (on the sharer) of which is the personal anecdotal evidence.
Sharing faith
Knowing Twain, and his proclivity against evangelism, I can’t totally disagree. However, I would suggest that “faith” is a really loaded word to use. Rather, I think he introduced the true subject of the essay with this phrase:
We all want to associate with other people who think the same way we think, and we derive pleasure from that association. It doesn’t matter if it’s religious faith, model airplanes, or a love of cigars: we crave the company of people with whom we share some common thought processes. Without that relationship, I think humans are bereft of a great deal of the joy that accompanies the human condition. We are, after all, tribal beings, and establishing the boundaries of our tribes helps us gain identity.
That’s a great point. The impetus in trying to persuade others to our viewpoint isn’t “evil”, but benevolence. Regardless of the subject. And I derive pleasure by knowing that Justin thinks the same way I do on something 🙂 My tribe is expanded!
—
Matthew P. Barnson
– – – –
Thought for the moment:
How long a minute is depends on which side of the bathroom door you’re on.
Appreciated..
I always enjoy the civilty in our religious debates on here..
That being said.. the point of Christian evangelism isn’t to bring someone around to one’s viewpoint.
The drive behind wanting someone to accept Christ isn’t to make them think as I do, but to reap what I truly believe are both lifelong and eternal rewards that can’t be gotten another way.
I am commanded to do so in the Bible, but more than that, I want good things for people I care about.
Semantics…
I don’t know, but I think that’s a matter of semantics. I regard something as a philosophy that another regards as universal truth (and, most likely, the reverse is true). Therefore, when I look at religious evangelism, I see it as a sales mechanism, tying together many practices in influence (social integration, reliance on feelings, commitment patterns, etc.) to persuade someone to a new point of view. The point of the persuasion, in this case, is not personal enrichment (as it would be with sales), but a desire to help the other person avoid everlasting pain. Which, if you accept Twain’s analogy in the original post, desire is actually motivated by the discomfort you yourself would experience knowing that another human being is in pain because you’ve not done what you could to prevent it.
I think the question, at its core, boils down to “is there or is there not a universal truth?”, which is just about as useful as “is there or is there not a prime mover?” (“Prime Mover” being some form of Supreme Being, which at the very least set in motion the universe). Which is to say, a question people have been debating as long as we’ve had recorded history, and which I doubt we’ll resolve in my lifetime.
On the other hand, I’ve seen people have personal religious experiences which, to them, were extremely profound and moving, drawing them in one religious direction or another due to the strength of their subjective experience. I can’t speak to that, of course, because such an experience is outside the realm of provability — and I never had one myself, despite over a decade of effort in that direction. And, for me, when a discussion reaches a point of attempting to prove or disprove that which cannot be proven or disproven, it’s time to move on to another topic 🙂
—
Matthew P. Barnson
– – – –
Thought for the moment:
Did you know that if you took all the economists in the world and lined them up end to end, they’d still point in the wrong direction?
Love the “Thoughts for the moment”
But I digress.
Certainly there is universal truth. If there were not Universal truth, than that would be a universal truth.
I guess I get what you;re saying that atthe end of the day satisfying our conscience is also self-satisfaction.. but that gets all Matrix-y with what is reality.
I guess the issue I took was with the “you took my faith from me” stuff. People choose what they believe. You can neither take it nor give it.
Now, I know the Mormon technique differs somewhat from other religions, but at the end of the day, the point isn’t about hoping soemone will change for YOUR sake, but you truly believe its for THEIRS. If you’re wrong, then you’re wrong. But your intentions are good, its with THEM in mind, and ultimately, you don’t force them. You can’t. THEY decide. You just brought the option to the table.
As with kids…
Exactly the attitude I take in teaching my kids. I’m not going to force them into something. I’ll bring the options to the table, and it’s their job to decide what they want to do.
That also means that my responsibility ends with teaching, and modeling, correct behavior. Their choices to adapt that model for themselves are theirs, not mine.
It’s taken me a while to get to this point, though. I used to internalize everything; the failures of my kids and anyone I was close to, I regarded as my problem and my job to prevent bad stuff from happening to them. But now, I realize that, although I have a great deal of influence over my kids, I have absolutely zero control. Big difference: influence can be rejected, examined, and so forth, while control can’t. It’s the use of force, and coercion within a certain framework.
I don’t like trying to control anybody. I have enough trouble controlling myself!
—
Matthew P. Barnson
– – – –
Thought for the moment:
Teamwork is essential — it allows you to blame someone else.
Agreed.
Can you control the COH servers for me today.
they suck.
CoH
They have a notice on their home page that their network is undergoing reconstruction today during the daytime, but should improve tonight by prime-time play hours.
They also have a daily downtime, in your time, from 9-10AM I think.
—
Matthew P. Barnson
yah..
up now.. and up to lvl 8
it’s still not the same
I’d argue that Twain’s point revolves around the idea that *imposing* faith is wrong, not sharing faith. But that’s besides the point.
As good as your faith feels to you, there is no evidence, either anecdotal or empirical, of what happens after death, and therefore no evidence of whether Jesus helps or not. You can say that it’s true because the Bible says so, but that’s circular logic. You may think of it as fact, but it isn’t – it’s simply an opinion shared by a great many people. That’s powerful, but doesn’t make it fact.
You may have personal anecdotal evidence that your faith makes you a better person, but I have the same evidence about my own faith, and who are either of us to say that one is in any way “right” or “wrong”?
I have my own beliefs, which stand at odds to your own. I personally believe that Jesus was a very cool guy, but not the son of God in any literal sense. This is not a fact, but simply my opinion, or my faith – an opinion which is shared by a sturdy minority. So, from my point of view, Christian evangelism is not a matter of benevolence, but an imposition of one’s personal values on another for the sake of conformity.
I could very well argue with you that a Big Mac is preferable to a Whopper, and that you should reject your sinful Burger King and stick solely to the Golden Arches, but in reality the better burger is whichever you like more.
— Ben Schuman Mad, Mad Tenor
Big Macs and Whoppers..
I do believe Burger King is sinful, wrong, and not as good as a Big Mac.
The difference between sharign faith and imposing faith IS the point, my friend. When I was in High School, three of my best friends were Mormon. Two of them (Van excluded), sat me down, explained Mormonism, why it was the “right way”, how it fit with the Bible, and how what I was believing was rejecting the “true” teaching of God. I listened, debated, researched, and ultimately decided that what I was believing was better.
I don’t consider that imposing, Ben. I thank those friends for making me examine my faith more closely.
Evangelism was Christ’s last commandment. It is at the root of what I believe. Yet you and others slam it, saying its just a matter of making myself feel good, saying that its just me wanting me to have others come around to my way of thinking. Its like people are trying to change Christians from their faith to one that discludes that very important part of the Bible. Isn’t it ironic (dontcha think) – what you’re doing here is evangelizing, just for a different set of values?
Still.. DON’T STOP!! You’re not imposing your faith on me. You’re just disagreeing with me. You’re sharing your point of view, making me examine mine. I have had deeper conversations with you here online than with some of my close face-to-face friends.. and its a good thing. Its, sharing, not imposing.
So, upon rereading your post, here’s what I’m thinking. I don’t get where you are making the leap that Christian evangelism is in any way imposing its will for the sake of conformity.
If someone called themselves a Christian in order to conform, then they’r enot really a Christian in their heart.. and thats what matters.
If you really did say to me that Big Macs are better than say, taco Bell.. then refused to let me go to Taco bell, only then you would be imposing.
Its not imposing to let it be known that you like Big Macs, and to offer free Big macs to people, which they can choose not to take. The basis of Christianity is Evangelism. It was the last thing Jesus said to do… to share. Beyond that, it is up to whoever to choose what they want to do. So, yeah, I find the hostility a little strange.
As for fact vs. opinion.. In the case of Burgers, it is what you like more. In the case of God.. its not subjective. Either Jesus is or is not the Son of God. He isn’t for me and not for you. Its not a matter of opinion. One or the other is a fact. Many people believe I’m wrong. Many people believe I’m right. Many people don’t know or don’t care.
Its a fact (be it true or false), the question is NOT whether you share my opinion but rather whether or not I’m in error. As for circular logic, its not circular to cite the Bible as an authority on any subject except the authority of the Bible. I don’t do it much here because an argument has to based on agreed upon authorities.
The anecdotal evidene I have is less about “a better person” and more about my (and others) subjective experiences with God, the anecdotal evidence of Miracles, and the overwhelming anecdotal evidence that Jesus existed, performed miracles, died, and came back to life.
Your experiences are important as well. When you share them, I don’t consider it imposing. I want you to keep challenging my faith. It keeps me honest, and it keeps me thinking about it. But please, let’s not confuse “imposing” faith with “sharing” faith. People choose what to believe.
Enough with the parables
Uhm,
I have a problem with the notion that all we do is in the name of self-contentment. To say self-sacrifice doesn’t exist is foolish. A person can sacrifice and feel good about it, without lessening the meaning of the sacrifice. Say a parent gives up their life to save their child. They have sacrificed their life, which is the ultimate loss, but still feel good because those they love will live to see another day.
Just because doing something makes your feel good doesn’t negate the goodness of what you did. I do believe that anything we do has the ultimate goal of making ourselves happy. I DO NOT believe that this is necessarily a bad thing.
The ultimate grail of a person is to better themselves (IMHO). But it is the outside world which defines that betterment. And no matter what you do, you will never live up to your perception of what that outside world thinks you should be (diagram THAT sentence 🙂
If we help people so that we feel good about ourselves, because we think that’s what the world wants us to do, so what? There are times when the end result is the importasnt thing, not the motivation.
If some superstar gives away $10 million to relief aid for the tsunami, in order to get their name in the paper and claim it on taxes, do you think the people in Indonesia care?
I don’t.
The “attack” on religion is silly, I think. If religion is what gets you to act good, then believe in whatever you want. It’s when you force your religion upon unwilling others that there’s a problem, but we’ve dicussed that. The boys and the mothers in this parable should have had more faith. It’s not the infidel’s fault they lost their faith so quickly.
My $.02 Weed
“Force”
And remember, you can’t “force” your faith on someone. You can’t “make” them believe. You can “force” them to be a member of your religion with violence I suppose.. but sharing what you think is right is not “forcing”.
And I think thats what you’re saying, I think. (Statement from the department of redundancy department)
Twain on self-sacrifice
I don’t think Twain was saying that a sacrifice’s meaning is diminished. It is that the prime mover for all human action is external influence. Even our charitable actions, ultimately, act in our own self-interest, even if it’s just in our personal self-concept of being a “good person”.
I posted Twain’s parable because he put voice to a concept that I’ve previously only elaborated as a one-liner:
When I think about it, even in maintaining this blog, I’m doing a self-serving thing. It serves my self-image of “geekiness” to run something like this, and also serves the useful function of bringing me the pleasure of the company of friends. And a whole lot more (heck, it’s landed me jobs). I post technical articles here for… what? Really, just “props” and accolades.
It sounds terribly selfish to put it that way, but that’s the same reason I like to give to charity, or beggars on the street: it’s a way for me to uphold the self-image I’ve created. I consider myself a charitable person, which is a good thing in my mind (which “good thing” image was placed there by example and instruction when I was younger), therefore my giving is a direct result of the feedback I’ve received by giving.
Sounds a bit circular, and even perhaps a bit Ayn Rand-ian. I disagree with a lot of her philosophy, but that one bit — that people ultimately are responding to external stimuli even when choosing to do something charitable which does not appear to be in their personal best interest — seems to hold water.
See, I have a different perspective on that. I think a “self-sacrifice” response, such as a parent dying for a child, is natural selection at its finest. Those tribes of humans which were willing to preserve their offspring, even at the expense of their own lives, had an evolutionary advantage over those that did not. Thus self-sacrifice is a fairly common trait among humans, subject to some neutral drift so that we have sayings like “Eagles may soar, but weasels don’t get sucked into jet engines”.
I think that was exactly Twain’s point. We are doing what we think is the good and right thing. What that good and right thing is, though, varies according to the outside influences which brought it about. And also (Twain’s additional point, I think) that the existence of a “conscience” which is absolute and should be “constant” across humanity is a myth. In his time, the existence of an absolute moral constant in human conscience was a prevalent philosophy. I think his goal, here, was, in part, to debunk that frame of reference.
I find myself wondering why the missionary in the story ever started out as an infidel, for instance.
Admittedly, Twain was not a fan of organized religion. And I think he pictured himself as the old man, speaking to the younger version of himself (the young man) in this parable. But I don’t think the story was about the woman and child the Infidel influenced in each case. It was only about why the Infidel thought he was right, regardless of whether thinking he was right resulted in him contradicting himself.
—
Matthew P. Barnson
Thought for the moment:
Imagine that Cray computer decides to make a personal computer. It has a 150 MHz processor, 200 megabytes of RAM, 1500 megabytes of disk storage, a screen resolution of 4096 x 4096 pixels, relies entirely on voice recognition for input, fits in your shirt pocket and costs $300. What’s the first question that the computer community asks?
“Is it PC compatible?”
attack on religion
Weed, it’s not an attack on religion at all, but rather an attack on that absolute surety that causes some religious people to believe that anyone who believes differently must therefore be “wrong”.
Personally, I’ve never understood the satisfaction derived from evangelism. (Sorry Matt, I didn’t understand it when you went on your mission either.) If you believe that your soul is saved, why should you care about the soul of a complete stranger? It’s not as if people don’t know what religious choices are out there, enough to make an informed decision regarding which (if any) resonate with them on a spiritual level. So what is to be gained? A toaster for ever ten conversions? An extra special place in heaven? For me, it’s not so much a matter of what you believe, but simply that you believe something, something that gives you some form of fulfillment. What more could there possibly be?
— Ben Schuman Mad, Mad Tenor
Religious conviction
I’d chime in here that Twain seems to be pondering the infidel’s initial conviction of his “rightness” even in his non-religiousness. It’s neither attack on absolute surety of religious conviction, nor an attack on religion, but instead a commentary on the state of a man’s brain.
Today, I’m sure I’m right, even though several years ago I was sure I was right and today I think I was wrong back then. And as pig-headed as that sounds, it’s the way people think. No person is a “rock in the storm”: everybody changes, for better, for worse, or for neutral, but our internal “perception” is that we haven’t changed. We tend to think we’ve ‘always been’ the way we are — even when that is patently untrue. I think we have to think this way, in order to perceive ourselves as behaving consistently.
There’s a word for people who behave in a completely inconsistent way: crazy.
Well, in my case, it was a pretty clear religious requirement, in that the LDS church teaches that its members have a three-fold mission: to bring to pass the kingdom of God on the earth through Perfecting the Saints, Proclaiming the Gospel, and Redeeming the Dead. Much like going to college is ‘expected’ for many kids, as an LDS young man, you are commanded to go on a mission if you are worthy.
The Prophet speaks for God, and he said you must go, so you go, you know? There is actually a great deal of joy to be found on an LDS mission, but an overwhelming amount of pain and hardship which accompanies it. Most missionaries learn to ignore the trials for those very infrequent “spiritual highs” of changing someone’s life or being involved in a meaningful service project.
My opinions today differ, of course. Like everyone else, I’ve changed over the years. For the better, I think. For the worse, in the opinion of some I hold dear. Yet everyone changes, whether they want to or not — and whether they think they have, or not.
—
Matthew P. Barnson
– – – –
Thought for the moment:
“At least they’re EXPERIENCED incompetents”
Wacked Out
So I was at this Bar-Mitzvah last weekend, and instead of spending 90 minutes staring at the wall, bored out of my mind, waiting for the service to end, I decided to read the Torah, the Old Testament.
There’s some wacked out stuff in there.
I realize that there’s varied interpretations, but reading that thing boggles my mind.
Biblical literalism
You may want to check out a this fun letter about biblical literalism. It’s been floating around the Internet for some time. The origins are questionable, but I think the point gets across: it’s best to avoid interpreting such old works as a strict guide for current behavior.
I’m a moderate, and think that moderate, non-literalistic religions are really just fine. Where I get my dander up is people interpreting things literally. Like the Koran saying that non-Muslims who do not convert should have their throats cut and bodies put on display, the Old Testament condoning slavery, or the Book of Mormon supporting cutting the heads off of drunken men if God tells you to do it.
The over-arching principles of these works may be reasonable for day-to-day guidance for those who believe in them, but applying all the lessons with strict literalism would be disastrous. It is such literalism that I choose to fight when I encounter it, in hopes of making the world a nicer place to live. There are some traditions, common in modern-day America, which stem from such literalism that I choose to consider evil and deserving eradication in modern society.
—
Matthew P. Barnson
Hermeneutics
I try to keep in mind what the author’s intent was, who the audience (of the author) was.. the text surrounding the text in question – (is it surrounded by figurative text), but some things can be interpreted literally and some can not.
That is what “Hermeneutics” is all about.. and I took a course in it, but I got a C cuz I fell asleep in class. I was 19 and it was a long class.
Dictionary reference…
Here’s the dictionary definition:
yaawwwnnnn… Huh? What was that?
—
Matthew P. Barnson
– – – –
Thought for the moment:
Harrisberger’s Fourth Law of the Lab: Experience is directly proportional to the amount of equipment ruined.
mmmmm
Man, I dig pie.
reading the OT
So I was at this Bar-Mitzvah last weekend, and instead of spending 90 minutes staring at the wall, bored out of my mind, waiting for the service to end, I decided to read the Torah, the Old Testament.
Be careful. That’s how I ended up not being Jewish anymore. When I realized that my cousin’s bat-mitzvah portion was about the proper way to prepare an animal sacrifice so as to produce “a pleasing odor to the Lord”, I realized that this was not the religion for me.
— Ben Schuman Mad, Mad Tenor