Just musing. Feel free to refute or clarify.
But I was looking at all of the Bible stories that I once loved as a child, that now horrify me, and wondering why they DIDN'T horrify people in the 1960's and 70's. You know, the Flood (genocide), the Exodus (deliberate torture of the Egyptians and then deliberate drowning of their army), the many stories of god-sanctioned murder in order to take a city, the stories of stoning and maiming for minor transgressions . . . all of those and more. Wondering why my uber-fundamentalist parents told us the story of the Tower of Babel, and cheered the moon landing at the same time? Why did I not hear "god committing murder" when he slaughtered the firstborn sons of Egypt, hardened Pharaoh's heart, and sent the Egyptian army into the parted sea in order to deliberately drown them?
- - Because they were the bad guys. They didn't worship god, so they deserved to die. We were insular back then, we were separated from people that were not like us. We were still tribal - everyone we knew was white and christian. (I actually remember a guy standing up at a church dinner and yelling about the "wetback" neighbors that moved into his block. He actually said "If they were good christian folks then god would make 'em talk right, not that devil jabber I keep hearin'.")
And then global news and television arrived, and let us see other cultures. But we really didn't talk to them. They still were "others" who were different and far away and worshiped the "wrong god".
And then the internet arrived. And we could actually talk to those others. I remember playing a game of online Spades in the mid-90's, discussing politics with a couple from Taiwan and a girl from Sweden.
We started to see "others" as part of humanity. And one Easter, I was listening to "horse and chariot were cast into the sea" and all I heard was praise for deliberate murder. It's not so easy to point a finger and say "they worship the wrong god and deserve to die" any more. Because they're just people, like us.
But I was looking at all of the Bible stories that I once loved as a child, that now horrify me, and wondering why they DIDN'T horrify people in the 1960's and 70's. You know, the Flood (genocide), the Exodus (deliberate torture of the Egyptians and then deliberate drowning of their army), the many stories of god-sanctioned murder in order to take a city, the stories of stoning and maiming for minor transgressions . . . all of those and more. Wondering why my uber-fundamentalist parents told us the story of the Tower of Babel, and cheered the moon landing at the same time? Why did I not hear "god committing murder" when he slaughtered the firstborn sons of Egypt, hardened Pharaoh's heart, and sent the Egyptian army into the parted sea in order to deliberately drown them?
- - Because they were the bad guys. They didn't worship god, so they deserved to die. We were insular back then, we were separated from people that were not like us. We were still tribal - everyone we knew was white and christian. (I actually remember a guy standing up at a church dinner and yelling about the "wetback" neighbors that moved into his block. He actually said "If they were good christian folks then god would make 'em talk right, not that devil jabber I keep hearin'.")
And then global news and television arrived, and let us see other cultures. But we really didn't talk to them. They still were "others" who were different and far away and worshiped the "wrong god".
And then the internet arrived. And we could actually talk to those others. I remember playing a game of online Spades in the mid-90's, discussing politics with a couple from Taiwan and a girl from Sweden.
We started to see "others" as part of humanity. And one Easter, I was listening to "horse and chariot were cast into the sea" and all I heard was praise for deliberate murder. It's not so easy to point a finger and say "they worship the wrong god and deserve to die" any more. Because they're just people, like us.
"The family that prays together...is brainwashing their children."- Albert Einstein
