(January 23, 2018 at 2:18 pm)Khemikal Wrote: @ Kev.
IKR? My kids tells fairy tales about me to their friends on sleepovers. Just the uze..the sort of stuff that small children believe about their dads before they realize that we're human. It doesn't make me angry when their friends don't believe their stories, and I'm certainly not going to boot some kid out into the woods on account of being incredulous. I don;t set their hands on fire when they pilfer the cookie jar either..not for second, and certainly not for eternity.
I'm always struck by the smallness of god, in the minds of the faithful.
In a way, it's actually a clever little bit of psychology. The bible sets up the notion that humans are the children of god. We were made in his image. We very obviously have similar emotional states (gee, I wonder why?
). He has enemies, doles out punishment, etc. In every way, he's supposed to be relatable to us, yet powerful, much like how I would assume an ancient Middle Eastern father to be. So, when the "Wait until your father comes home!" threat is finally revealed, there's a powerful and visceral emotional response.From the outside looking in, we can identify it as merely a way for a tribe to keep as many members as possible from deserting the group without having to exert physical pressure/resources to do so. But for the people in that tribe, it apparently sparks a very real fear, and a desire to avoid it.
