We, the unjust stewards

Before our children, we came,
this world of generations
no wiser, and to them,
to the children of light,
we said:

“Until you, there was the dark
we made. True,
what we’ve made,
we made for ourselves. Even you.
We made an end
of Man, an end of we men
with the means to make
a righteous mess, and
if we failed, we failed only us,
not you.

“We made deceptions. If we could
have deceived you,
one more generation,
we could have been, we men,
forever, lasting
in our habits, in ours,
nations.

“We were faithful, most
faithful to this, or at least
our faiths filled it,
if too much. What’s just
in the least, how can it be
unjustly too much? If we were,
if we’ve been
faithfully unrighteous,
for Man, or we men and we admit it,
will it comfort you? Will it win
your trust?

“There are true riches,
we have not been
faithful to. To who
should we have
given them? To you?
What do you own? No,
servants serve. We were
masters of earth. Better
to be one and hated,
than as the other
be loved.

"Behold
us, that one, despised
but no other. We cannot
serve but god. God is Man, and
we men..."

A very un-natural history museum

For some who find that their story doesn't fit the facts, it's easiest to ignore those facts or even change them to fit the story (I think that's a bastardization of someone's quote, but I don't know whose). That's exactly what a group called "Answers in Genesis" has done with the Creation Museum that is set to open on Monday in Kentucky.

The phrase "junk science" is used a lot by conservatives to dismiss any theory that could cost big business their profits, but this new museum is the true definition of the term. Ignoring all known evidence, the curators of this fantasy land have concocted dioramas that depict humans frolicking with the dinosaurs.

Dinosaurs, we're told, were described in Genesis and co-existed with our earliest ancestors. Noah even brought pairs of the beasts onto his ark. That kind of compressed timeline, which runs counter to the fossil record, is a necessary evil when you view the Bible as an accurate historical document of the Earth's creation 6,000 years ago.

The exhibits described in yesterday's New York Times remind me of the kitschy 1970s Sid & Marty Krofft kids show Land of the Lost (see the picture above), where a modern day family is transported to a world filled with dinosaurs, furry little caveman-like creatures, and nasty reptilian villains called Sleestak.

Unfortunately, by abandoning the metaphorical and mythical qualities of the Bible in order to interpret it literally, these religious fanatics actually rob the stories of their power. In trying to convey their twisted take on history, all they're left with are the absurdities of a Saturday morning cartoon show.

Here are excerpts from the New York Times review of the museum, and a link to the full article:

Adam and Eve in the Land of the Dinosaurs
By Edward Rothstein

... Outside the museum scientists may assert that the universe is billions of years old, that fossils are the remains of animals living hundreds of millions of years ago, and that life's diversity is the result of evolution by natural selection. But inside the museum the Earth is barely 6,000 years old, dinosaurs were created on the sixth day, and Jesus is the savior who will one day repair the trauma of man's fall.

It is a measure of the museum's daring that dinosaurs and fossils — once considered major challenges to belief in the Bible's creation story — are here so central, appearing not as tests of faith, as one religious authority once surmised, but as creatures no different from the giraffes and cats that still walk the earth. Fossils, the museum teaches, are no older than Noah’s flood; in fact dinosaurs were on the ark. ...

Read the full article

Today's gleanings from Wikipedia: Bio of Erich Fromm

In my Internet wanderings today, I came across the informational tidbit that Psychologist Erich Fromm was born this day in 1900. I admit not knowing very much about Mr. Fromm, but found the description of his world view quite interesting.

Here's a long excerpt from the Wikipedia article on him:

The cornerstone of Fromm's humanistic philosophy is his interpretation of the biblical story of Adam and Eve's exile from the Garden of Eden. Drawing on his knowledge of the Talmud, Fromm pointed out that being able to distinguish between good and evil is generally considered to be a virtue, and that biblical scholars generally consider Adam and Eve to have sinned by disobeying God and eating from the Tree of Knowledge. However, departing from traditional religious orthodoxy, Fromm extolled the virtues of humans taking independent action and using reason to establish moral values rather than adhering to authoritarian moral values.

Beyond a simple condemnation of authoritarian value systems, Fromm used the story of Adam and Eve as an allegorical explanation for human biological evolution and existential angst, asserting that when Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge, they became aware of themselves as being separate from nature while still being part of it. This is why they felt "naked" and "ashamed": they had evolved into human beings, conscious of themselves, their own mortality, and their powerlessness before the forces of nature and society, and no longer united with the universe as they were in their instinctive, pre-human existence as animals. According to Fromm, the awareness of a disunited human existence is the source of all guilt and shame, and the solution to this existential dichotomy is found in the development of one's uniquely human powers of love and reason.

That interpretation of the Biblical story actually resonates quite well with my own. If you think of this and the other stories from the Bible on a metaphorical level, its significance as a historical document actually grows -- at least in my eyes. That our earliest ancestors were able to create and transmit through countless generations a story that symbolically captures the moment when humanity achieved consciousness is an amazing possibility to contemplate.

See also my post The Serpent, the Tree of Knowledge, and Evolution? from last July.

Did Judas get a bum rap?

There is a new book out that tries to tell the Gospel story from Judas's perspective. In it, it's not Judas who betrays Jesus. Here are a couple excerpts from an article in today's Washington Post about it:

Unorthodox Pair Converts Judas Tale Into a Page-Turner
By Sarah Delaney

Lord Jeffrey Archer, author of best-selling thrillers, former member of the British Parliament and convicted perjurer, has written "The Gospel According to Judas" with the academic help of the Rev. Francis J. Moloney, a world-class biblical scholar and former theological adviser to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI. ...

In the book, Judas does not mean to send Jesus to his death; rather, he
hopes to persuade him, with the aid of a scribe, to return to the safety of
Galilee. The scribe, however, betrays Judas and, consequently, Jesus.

Let's skip the juicy tidbit about one of the authors being a convicted perjurer and the concept of the true traitor being a scribe or writer (ancient version of a blogger?), and focus on Judas himself. I'm sure you thought that the story of Judas was pretty straight forward: betrays Jesus for 30 pieces of silver then hangs himself in shame. Well, nothing is ever that simple is it?

It turns out there's been a lot of pretty heavy theological discussion about his motivation, his actual actions, and even whether he's a villain or not. If Jesus needed to die on the cross in order to save Man, and Judas played the critical role of getting Jesus crucified, does that make him a hero? Was he just a victim of fate -- a pawn in God's plan? The interpretation may depend on your views of the importance of intention, or the existence of free will. But then again, what if Judas knowingly, or with divine encouragement, acted to fulfill prophecy? Can an act of betrayal be noble, if that act is committed for the greater good?

If you'd like to read more, check out the Wikipedia article on Judas Iscariot. In it there is a list of the following theological questions concerning Judas's role in the Biblical story:

• Why did Jesus allow Judas to betray him?
• Did Jesus fail to foresee the betrayal?
• Was Jesus unable to prevent the betrayal?
• Did Jesus willingly allow the betrayal to go ahead?
• Did Jesus actively try to cause the betrayal to happen?

All of this brought to my mind the film "Last Temptation of Christ" (click here for the IMDB listing) directed by Martin Scorsese (it's also a novel written by Nikos Kazantzakis ). In it Judas (played by Harvey Keitel) recalls Jesus to his true mission -- sacrifice on the cross, salvation of Mankind -- after Jesus has given into the desire to pursue the life of an ordinary married man. That was the devil's last temptation of Christ, allowing him to see how his life would be if he accepted a different fate.

If you believe in a black and white world of pure good versus pure evil, all stories will have pretty simplistic interpretations (see any of George W Bush's speeches). If you live in the real world, and deal with real people and their conflicts and contradictions, you'll realize that there's always much more to the story.