JUNE 20, 2022 – (Cont.) “Despite the rancor and discord that also defines us, we’ve always figured out ways to organize ourselves for all sorts of needs and whims, from growing food to building cities to warring as one nation against another. Religion’s no exception. Within each version a priestly class arose to organize the theological tenets, places of worship, and most important of all, the proverbial organizational chart—the high priests at the top, of course, and οἱ πολλοί gathering up the crumbs under the table.
“Then came fund-raising, then came the politicians, eager to leverage organized religion for the advancement of political agendae. Then came armies. Onward, Christian Soldiers!, as we used to sing.
“At the outset, three of the major religions started out with a big idea, a construct of unified power of creation, judgment, and redemption of some sort—qualified or unqualified, depending on the version you happened to adopt. These Big Three, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, in that order of appearance but in reverse order of current size, are called the ‘Abrahamic’ and monotheistic faiths—‘Abrahamic,’ because a guy of ancient times, Abraham, figured prominently in the stories and scriptures of each faith, and ‘monotheistic,’ because each of these religions believes in a one and only Uber God.”
“You humans are inventive,” said the alien.
“Let me tell you about it,” I said. I slurped my lemonade for extra punctuation.
“We had our guy Moses, the great lawgiver of Judaism and prophet of Christianity and Islam, who heard the Angel of the Lord speaking inside a burning bush; who led his enslaved people out of Egypt when the waters of the Red Sea parted; who received on high, 10 foundational laws, etched in stone.
“We had our Jesus, master of the parable and humility, who walked on water. According to the Christian Book, Jesus was the son of God, no less, and a miracle worker, and, to boot, the Messiah, for the redemption of all souls, it is claimed, who believe in him. And yet, humanity, hellbent, as always, to win the race to the bottom, nailed Jesus to two cross timbers, the in-vogue method of Roman execution back in the day. Why? Because he posed a threat to authority. But in the end, Jesus staged a comeback: he rose from the dead. So we’re told; and thus, so many people believe.
“And then we have our Mohammad, who took to praying—to get back to the whole business of prayer—inside a cave, where he was visited by the angel Gabriel, who, by revelation, imparted to Mohammad the word of Allah, the Arabic name for God. Perhaps in reality he simply wasn’t sufficiently hydrated—all this happened in a place called the Arabian peninsula, where it gets beastly hot. Or, as happens to people in every clime on earth, Mohammad was experiencing the effects of an array of personality disorders or simply chemical imbalances in the brain.” (Cont.)
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© 2022 by Eric Nilsson
