For some two to three thousand years the Holy Scriptures have been promoted through western cultures as being the ultimate in moral guidance for mankind. But anyone with genuine respect for moral conduct and ethical behavior toward their fellow man often stagger away in bewilderment after reading a few holy accounts.
Indeed, the opening chapters of Genesis brusquely kick things off with a highly questionable take on common ethics. The naive couple, Adam and Eve, the last of the Creator’s handiwork, were seemingly fashioned only for fun and games. Naked and clueless, they were placed in a deceptively paradisiacal setting–a setting which featured two breathtakingly beautiful fruit bearing trees as its focal point. Ah, but these trees were declared to be off-limits as a food source for the Creator’s not-too-bright last creations. This is clearly a case of crafty entrapment, not omniscient wisdom. But God was supposedly outraged when the innocent pair find the trees too alluring, and God declared that death is to be their punishment–just not for Adam and Eve, but for all matter-life forms! The first two humans within the walled-in Eden had absolutely no experience as to what self-aware life meant, so how could they have possibly comprehended what the sentence of death meant?
Ethics and compassion (qualities of conscience) soon got another below-the-belt attack in the “revealed” record of Adam and Eve’s sons Cain and Abel. Cain had become a farmer and Abel was a sheepherder. For the bounty that God had supposedly allowed them God expected both boys to gather from their hard work and bring him offerings in gratitude. That seems a tad materialistic for the Creator of all things, but what the heck. Abel slit a sheep’s throat and God found that to be extremely pleasing, but Cain’s gift, taken from the laboriously tended fields, was scorned by the Creator. Cain, of course, smarted at this bald-faced discrimination and in a jealous rage killed his brother. There were no actual criminal laws established in Paradise, nor had there been need for such in a family of four. So the homicide of Abel cannot be termed murder or even manslaughter. As punishment the testy Omniscient One banished Cain from his native land and Cain was commanded not to till the ground anymore. Apparently Cain was expected to starve himself to death. Or perhaps that was the Omniscient One’s plan for evolutionary success, for Cain became wonderfully successful as a builder of cities after that.How he populated them is never explained. Still we can’t help but wonder–is infinite punishment for “sins” committed by a finite being’s brief life really the caliber of an Omniscient Creator’s justice?
The same slack concept of holy moral/ethical conduct is continued throughout holy word accounts. Aggression is highly praised in divine tales, and war crimes pass as acceptable practice–if carried out for the security of a man-invented faith system. For example, under Moses’ generalship the Israelites are glorified for having killed off all the Midianite men, their kings and their prophet Balaam. Joshua, in turn, reveled in holocaustic violence in which even thousands of noncombatant women, children and aged were slaughtered. Deceitful David exterminated men, women and children in various stories, even sawing victims in half or hacking them to pieces.
In a number of holy stories characters are admired for indulging in homicide. The alleged “prophet” Elijah, for example, who allegedly killed 450 priest of Baal to “justify” Jehovah is held to be exemplary. And there is Elisha, Elijah’s successor, who called upon God to send two bears to kill children who had dared to mock his bald head. And there is the woman Esther who is praised for scheming the mass murders of Persians. And there is Jezebel who trumped up false charges against a father and his two sons so they would be slain.
Sexual misconduct, as long as it is strictly heterosexual, is routinely sniffed over. Lot and his two daughters, for example, merit no chastising for acts of incest. The maltreatment of Sarah whom her husband Abraham loaned out to the king for material benefits is brushed over. Isaac, their son, followed dad’s example and passed his off wife to the king as his sister. Good old David indulged himself in adultery and had the women’s husband set up for assassination at the war front. Dinah, Jacob’s daughter, too young to give legal consent, was defiled by her half-brother, Prince Shechem. How do these, and many similar holy examples teach seekers how they are to achieve a personal state of grace?
Strangely, impurity of spirit is a constant counterpoint played upon in holy tales, but the “impurity” is always about not following some man-invented routine of pretentiousness and mannerisms as being the only method to approach the Omniscient One. The impurity angle of one’s commitment to a man-made faith system is made the major concern in the three western corporate style faith systems. This springs primarily from the claim that just being born–expelled from a woman’s body–renders a person impure. It is never explained why, if the Creator is omniscient (all-knowing) and supremely merciful, “he” could not have devised a more practical way and less painful manner for multiplying new life. Nonetheless, that little oversight broadly allows for his self-appointed representatives to have steady employment in their self-devised theatrics. For example, to make up for their original impurity a man-made faith system may insist that one’s hair must be trimmed in a strict prescribed manner; or other faith systems demand certain foods must be avoided or prepared in a ritual way; and of course in all systems certain theatrics (rites, rituals ceremonies, etc) must be performed by those who aver to be God’s selected representatives.
Such is the enticement and lure of man-written “holy” books. The emphasis is commonly based upon following some man-devised routine as though it was magically set down in stone and perchance delivered on some mountain top. That, however, does not reflect the varied and all-inclusive nature of true spirit. Rigidity and inflexibility just happens to be the condition of something that is dead.
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