I unintentionally had this argument with an old friend just before we were given the assignment to start one. He is a friend from my past with whom I had fallen out of contact. We bumped into each other on campus last year and wound up in technical writing together this semester. I said that I believed there were parallels between Biblical mythology and the mythologies of other religions. Christianity, I said, shared many similarities with other religions.
"Not really," he responded.
"But how can you say that," I countered, "when Islam, Judaism, and Christianity all derive from the Old Testament? And did you know the story of the 'Great Flood' is a common theme in many cultural mythologies? It's not peculiar to the Bible. In fact, there are Native American stories describing how Creator had become angry with humanity for living wickedly, and destroyed them with a flood; all but one pious man and his family, who weathered many days in a vessel which Creator explained how to make. And these stories existed in their cultures before whites came and forced Christianity on them."
"I don't want to talk about it!" he snapped.
"Oh, I'm sorry," I said. "I'm not religious, so--"
"Well I am." As if only those who are religious have any right to voice opinions on the Bible.
"Well I'm not. I don't think we should base our lives on a text written thousands of years ago by one small culture. However, I think the Bible is important because it basically invented literature as we know it."
"That's fine," he says, trying to be authoritative, "as long as you respect it."
"Well, I do respect it, but not for the reasons you think I should. It's a Semitic cultural accounting. It's the story of ancient people who are not my ancestors. It bears very little meaning for me."
"I'm sorry," I said without knowing why I was apologizing. "I can't force myself to believe something I don't."
And that was it. That's where I had my epiphany. The stories contained in the Bible are not the accounts of my people. I don't have lineage dating back to the Mayflower, or concrete accounts of noble ancestors contained in dusty, old archives in the Old Country; but I know where many of my ancestors lived before coming to America: Wales, England, and Sweden. Now, it can certainly be argued that my ancestors living in the British Isles were most definitely Christians. Indeed they were, and some still are today. It can also be argued that without the Old Testament, there would not be a New Testament; which is where Christianity derives most of its dogma. Though Christians may cleave more adamantly to the teachings of the New Testament, they still claim the Old Testament's mythology as their own. I have always balked at blindly accepting the Christian faith as the only way to believe without fully realizing why; but then, in that epiphytic moment, I did realize why: It is not the story of my people; therefore it has no legitimate claim to my spirit.
I did not grow up religious, but I did attend a few church services with various friends and joined a youth group for a short period of time in middle school. Never, not once, have I ever felt any sense of comfort in church. I left the youth group because I came to realize what a crock it was. A flimsy sham attempting to brainwash impressionable young people while out of their parents' presence. I didn't like the way they countered what my parents had taught me (for I did pose questions of faith to the pastors) with how they thought things ought to be. I remember being told on one occasion that my parents were straight up wrong, and being a good person is not enough to redeem oneself from the horrors of Hell. A statement I took to be a deliberate, meditated act of undermining parental authority. As Dr. Sexson has pointed out, most of the beliefs associated with the Bible are not contained therein; they are interpretations formulated in the minds of individuals whose capacity to understand is no greater than mine. What hegemonic rule makes one ancient culture's mythological history more legitimate than that of another? I want to learn more about the stories that were being told by the people who would become my ancestors, for they also walked the face of the earth during "Biblical Times." That is where I will find myself; not in the pages of the Old Testament. Nor do I believe it to be contained within the pages of the New Testament. For me, it is unfathomable that there is not something beyond this life on Earth, but it is equally unfathomable that that something can be summed up on one small library of books called the Bible. Last winter, a girl I had know since she was a child passed away. She was only seventeen, but she was about to give birth to her first child. A little girl. She and the baby's father lived out in Three Forks and on their way to the hospital to give birth, she died in a car accident. They were not able to save the baby. It was an accident; one coalescent moment in time that resulted in a horrible tragedy. She died, her baby died, but the baby's father and the other driver lived. And why? Why did it happen that way on that day? I don't accept the answer that God's ways are mysterious, yet I do not begrudge God. I do not angrily rebuke the sky, demanding to know why, if He's so just and great, God would permit such a horrible thing to happen. I do not do these things because I feel that any answers given, whether by laymen or priests, would be hollow. There is no answer; it just happened. What if it had not been icy and foggy that day? What if they had left the house just five minutes earlier or later? What if they had taken the interstate into Bozeman instead of the frontage road? What if the other driver had taken the interstate instead? Who suffered the bigger injustice? The young girl and her baby, or the young man who survived his family? I find more comfort in accepting that life is unfair at times. It's terrifying to realize the truth that bad things can and do befall anybody at any given moment in time; but these things are not resultant of cosmic vendettas, and we cannot stop their happenings. That is the common thread which connects humanity. We're all in this crazy world together, and we can feel empathy for the plights of others--even if they're not God's chosen people. And that, I think, is the true beauty of the human spirit. It is our want to ease the pain of others because we know, that at any unpredictable time, it could be us.
Believing that, in spite of the murmurings of the callous and the self-righteous, lends me more strength and integrity than can be found in the pages of any book.
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