I'm an adult-onset atheist.
I was an easy sell for the warm and fuzzy parts of religion. But not for nothing am I a lawyer. I can recognize a losing argument.
Religion endures. Not for much longer, perhaps, but its had an awfully good run. Sure, lots of the Bible now sounds bizarre. Like offering your daughter to satisfy the sexual appetites of house guests or the death penalty for wearing mixed fibres. Or human sacrifice. The Bible's world was different from ours.
How different? Well, 100 years ago we seriously debated whether women should vote. 250 years ago, slavery made a lot of sense to a lot of people. 2000 years ago, 1000 was M.
Now, imagine the world was 1000s of years ago. The earth is flat, and almost everything in it is a mystery. You likely believe in lots of Gods, on the QT, even if you're Jewish. Your tribe is your universe.
That's the world of the Bible. A world I love.
Not for the mind-numbing genealogies. Not for the obsessive-compulsive brutality of Deuteronomy and Leviticus, or for the psychedelic sadism of Revelations.
I love the stories. Jealous Cain. Joseph, weeping on his reunion with the long lost brothers who almost killed him. Esther's courage. Jacob's love for Rachel, burning bright for all those years that he tended her father's sheep. The good Samaritan.
Thousands of years ago, without pens, pencils, books, or paper, people recorded these stories. They're still compelling.
That's more than miraculous enough for me. If I have faith in anything, I have faith in stories.
No comments:
Post a Comment