A Matter of Perspective (Update)

DHGulley said...

Watch it Preston, you're starting to sound a bit religious. Maybe old age is setting in?

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My momma did her best to make me a good Baptist. The problem was, I like asking questions. And Baptists ain't too fond of that.

The story of The Fall made no sense to me, as I told my Sunday School teacher. So it was better to run around nekkid with no sense of morality? That' s what the fruit (not an apple) of the tree provided, the knowledge of good and evil. This is growth. It's what separates adults from toddlers and people from the critters of the field. My pet dog won't hop on the sofa when I'm gone if I've trained him not to, but not because it's "wrong" but because he wants to please the alpha human.

Also, without that knowledge then God as a moral force becomes unknowable. How can you choose between good and evil if you can't recognize it? Doesn't the Christian story of The Fall strongly imply that moral ignorance is paradise? Me, I find knowing good and evil a lotta fun. Why would I be better off without it? Wouldn't that make me little better than the dog I noted above? See, this is where this line of reasoning takes you.

As a parent, I've come to see The Fall in a whole different light. It's all about family. You raise the kids and make sure their needs are met without their worry. That's the Garden. But you know they're going to need to think for themselves once they get out into the great wide world. So you give them knowledge, insight and self-awareness. This is the eating of the fruit and the realization of nekkidness. (And how do you make sure your kids stick their mitts into the cookie jar? Tell them not to. Sound familiar?) The serpent is the instigator because serpents, which shed skin, are considered symbols of catalytic change across the world.

Then you boot 'em out where they fend for themselves. This is the Expulsion. This is Daddy saying, "Enough lying around and eating fruit. Get out there and work!"

The end result is a planet crawling with vibrant people full of all kinds of goodness, badness, weirdness and indifference. Grown-ups.

Now, the story is an analogy for that point where humans developed past hairy-knuckled furballs roaming the ancient plains to moral awareness. It tells the story, as all good cosmological tales do, in a way with synthesizes what happened in a compelling and understandable way.

The second disagreement I had with my Sunday School teacher comes right out of the first. Since we're all given moral choice, it makes no sense for a supernatural deity to constantly interfere in those choices. I don't think God personally intervenes in human affairs. Praying or meditating can connect one to the divine but it's not going to make that rash go away or save your son on patrol in Iraq.

Because we have to make choices, we have to free to live with the consequences of those choices. Otherwise the choice made becomes irrelevant. And if the divine intervenes one day and one place to save someone from their own or another's folly, then logic and fairness would require such intervention everywhere. Otherwise the divine is playing favorites for no apparent reason, and again, completely undermines the nature of a moral universe.

So this is why I've cast my lot with the Unitarians. In Baptist church my momma got mad at me for raising these questions. With UU'ers, it's more food for thought. I like to think and eat, so it suits me well.