More Divine Mystery

It seems rather strange that pre-Bronze Age accounts of how the world, the heavens--all that is in the universe--came into manifestation is today being actively forced into school textbooks by religious fanatics under the claim that Genesis presents a more accurate account than scientific study has discovered. So for a moment let us continue to pursue a little further the "revealed" mysteries as presented by pre-Bronze Age fantasists.

In Genesis God is portrayed as busy verbalizing everything into creation, and the first light was declared by him to be "good." By the fourth "day" God verbalized the lights in the firmament--the sun for the greater rule of Day and moon for the lesser light of Night--and once again he pronounced his work to be "good."

It was on the fifth "day" of Creation that God became exceptionally inspired and whipped up the fowl to fly in the "open firmament," as well as the whales in the seas and every living creature on land (although more were to come). Inspiration spilled over into the sixth "day" of Creation and God expanded his creative talent by fashioning the beasts of the earth and the cattle and creeping thing, with attention given that they should all continue "after his kind." God found all this to be "good" also.

The last and supposedly crowning work was to make a life-form "in our image;" a curious phrase if he is speaking to himself. Or was it verbalized to everything that he had already created? At any rate, it was to be a being total in itself--so a hermaphrodite seems to be implied, for in one of the two versions of the creation of man the newly created entity is pictured as being alone even though the account states that "male and female he created them."

After God had fashioned the entity "in our image," and this entity had given names to all "the cattle and the fowl in the air and to every beast of the field," God came to realize "It is not good that the man should be alone: I will make him an helpmeet for him." So apparently "the man" (he was not yet named) was subjected to surgical reapportionment. Then, although God is said to have blessed them, he never pronounced his final life-forms as "good!" In addition, once the one entity had been made two and given the ability to multiply, their innocence was subjected to the threat of death if they should eat of either of two trees placed temptingly in the center of the garden paradise.

We are not told how this newly fashioned couple were supposed to comprehend the meaning of death. After all, they would have no experience of life, let alone understand that it could be torn from them. But God so loved them that he left the two forbidden trees temptingly situated where the couple could not ignore them.

When the inevitable happened and the fruit of the tree lured the couple to indulge, their eyes were opened and they discovered just how to multiply. God pretended to be incensed. Rather than admit duplicity in the garden setup, God then cursed the pair and sent them packing through the eastern gate of the garden.

With this cockamamie tale the mythmakers smeared everyone with "original sin," and false sex guilts have been the gold mine for religious hucksters ever since.

Divine Mysteries

Today we live in an age of extreme contradictions. Awesome technologies allow us to communicate instantly with other persons around the planet, and man can even send exploration projects into outer space. On the other hand, superstitious, apprehensive and insecure parts of modern society still cling to belief systems that have their taproots anchored in Bronze Age interpretations of Creation. These contradictions are like little monkey wrenches clanking around in the machinery of daily life, and thus present a constant threat to humakind's higher potential.

Hence my weblog identity--monkeywrenchthoughts--which will allow me to question, and at times even marvel at the bewildering explanations and justifications used in politics, religion, science, sex attitudes, and other pieced-together thought processes.

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Since the unknown stretches ahead for everyone, and at one time or another everyone has had moments of anxiety about what lies ahead, a fascination of the mysterious is a natural and functioning part of human life. Thus human nature tends to become captivated by puzzles and things that mystify--which may partially suggest why so many generations have been captivated and enthralled with the so-called "holy books."

Unanswered mysteries abound in all holy literature, and vagueness often serves to exert a mesmerizing control over an unquestioning audience. In addition, when tales are told from an omnimpotent viewpoint the reader is given a sense of being elevated--of being privileged to some insider knowledge. Fairytales are an excellent example of such writing techniques.

As an example, mystery is introduced in the first few lines of the Holy Bible. Indeed, by verse three (which is really the fourth actual line) of the opening book of Genesis there is presented a holy mystery that is never answered anywhere in any subsequent accounts. The enduring mystery is initiated with the words, "...and God said" this or that.

Unquestioning believers hold that creation really began when God verbalized the words "let there be light," and of course first light appeared! Apparently the light was made from some portion of nothing. Scientifically speaking, an aura of light would indeed be the first phenominon to emerge out of an involving field of energy.

All sacred mystery tales are constructed upon this writing technique. In the example of the opening of the Bible account of "beginning," the question arises, if darkness was upon the face of the deep and everything was without form and void--meaning nothing had been created--then just who could have been around to hear, let alone write down what God is said to have said?

But sacred language accounts for light and dark by avoiding explanations by saying the ways of God are mysterious and beyond mortal comprehension. With this introductory scene we understand that nothing else had yet been created. Even so it is written that God then said, "Let there be a firmament" from which he could then divide waters from waters, and this accounted for God's second day of creation labor.

Strangely, since nothing else had been created there was still no secretary or recorder on duty to take down his verbalized orders, so the mystery still remains. Nonetheless, we are told that God continued to verbalize for another four days before finally getting around to creating any creature that might have the capacity to record what he is said to have said.