I would like to present the following scenario for your intellectual stimulation.
* * *
A boy buys an ant farm. He puts it together, fills it with dirt and releases the ants. Seeing them get to work, he says excitedly to his mother, 'Look! Watch them build tunnels!'
The ants have a vague idea that the Boy exists, and they hear his voice. But it is so different to their own that they only understand words that make sense to them: build tunnels. They take this as a direct order from the Boy and write it down in little ant books and begin building tunnels.
But then conflict breaks out. Some ants believe that to build tunnels means lots and lots of tunnels, while some believe that there should only be a few good ones, and a couple extremely heretical ants assert that the holy words were 'build tunnel' not 'tunnels', so there should only be one tunnel, and that one straight down. Further schisms are caused by arguments over how wide and how deep the tunnels should go. Before long, the ants are fighting and killing each other, asserting that only their way of tunneling will please the Boy.
Meanwhile the Boy is watching, fascinated, and trying to figure out why all his ants are killing each other.
The ants eventually settle down. The Boy is bored, so he pours some water in the farm to see what happens. Predictably, a lot of tunnels are ruined, a lot of ants die, and the remaining ones conclude that the dead ones were sinfully supporting the wrong kind of tunnel building. They rebuild with better, 'right' tunnels.
Time passes. Sometimes the boy forgets to put food in the farm. The ants raise their feelers and cry for food, and eventually the boy remembers and puts some food in there, and then the ants know that their pleas were answered. They worship a just and merciful Boy who loves them, and who surely starved them to teach them a lesson of some sort.
Sometimes the boy shakes up the ant farm, wanting to see a new one built. The ants have many interpretations for the devastation this causes. Some think the Boy is testing them, some think he is following a preconceived plan that determines the fate of each one of them individually. By the fact that he gives them food and holy words, they decide that he loves them, every one.
The Boy does like his ants. He watches them for hours sometimes. But most of the time, he has something better to do with his time.
* * *
The point of this is not to say God is a capricious child or anything of the sort. I am suggesting that if there is a God, he/she/it is probably farther beyond us than we are beyond ants. We can pretty much assume that ants cannot comprehend our motives and actions. How can any of us assume to know God's?
Some claim that we can know through the Bible, which is the word of God. But wherever the words came from, they were put onto paper by a man. And then read and translated into a new language by another man, and then again read and translated into another language by another man. And then another person interprets it and calls it truth. Try running a sentence through four or five translators, let alone generations of them. It's a 2000 year old game of telephone.
Some say Jesus was a conduit for the word of God. I admit I am not as up to snuff on my Bible as I would like to be, but I do not think any of the New Testament was actually written by Jesus' own hand. (Please correct me if I'm wrong). I was under the impression that it was mostly written after his death, from the memories of people who knew him. Again, translated by translators.
So how can one man legitimately say he knows God better than another? How can your personal faith be applied to anyone--ANYONE--else? From where does one person receive the right to say they know the Truth? What makes the Pope any Holier than Fred Phelps? Or me? Or you?
These are my questions. I welcome your answers.
* * *
A boy buys an ant farm. He puts it together, fills it with dirt and releases the ants. Seeing them get to work, he says excitedly to his mother, 'Look! Watch them build tunnels!'
The ants have a vague idea that the Boy exists, and they hear his voice. But it is so different to their own that they only understand words that make sense to them: build tunnels. They take this as a direct order from the Boy and write it down in little ant books and begin building tunnels.
But then conflict breaks out. Some ants believe that to build tunnels means lots and lots of tunnels, while some believe that there should only be a few good ones, and a couple extremely heretical ants assert that the holy words were 'build tunnel' not 'tunnels', so there should only be one tunnel, and that one straight down. Further schisms are caused by arguments over how wide and how deep the tunnels should go. Before long, the ants are fighting and killing each other, asserting that only their way of tunneling will please the Boy.
Meanwhile the Boy is watching, fascinated, and trying to figure out why all his ants are killing each other.
The ants eventually settle down. The Boy is bored, so he pours some water in the farm to see what happens. Predictably, a lot of tunnels are ruined, a lot of ants die, and the remaining ones conclude that the dead ones were sinfully supporting the wrong kind of tunnel building. They rebuild with better, 'right' tunnels.
Time passes. Sometimes the boy forgets to put food in the farm. The ants raise their feelers and cry for food, and eventually the boy remembers and puts some food in there, and then the ants know that their pleas were answered. They worship a just and merciful Boy who loves them, and who surely starved them to teach them a lesson of some sort.
Sometimes the boy shakes up the ant farm, wanting to see a new one built. The ants have many interpretations for the devastation this causes. Some think the Boy is testing them, some think he is following a preconceived plan that determines the fate of each one of them individually. By the fact that he gives them food and holy words, they decide that he loves them, every one.
The Boy does like his ants. He watches them for hours sometimes. But most of the time, he has something better to do with his time.
* * *
The point of this is not to say God is a capricious child or anything of the sort. I am suggesting that if there is a God, he/she/it is probably farther beyond us than we are beyond ants. We can pretty much assume that ants cannot comprehend our motives and actions. How can any of us assume to know God's?
Some claim that we can know through the Bible, which is the word of God. But wherever the words came from, they were put onto paper by a man. And then read and translated into a new language by another man, and then again read and translated into another language by another man. And then another person interprets it and calls it truth. Try running a sentence through four or five translators, let alone generations of them. It's a 2000 year old game of telephone.
Some say Jesus was a conduit for the word of God. I admit I am not as up to snuff on my Bible as I would like to be, but I do not think any of the New Testament was actually written by Jesus' own hand. (Please correct me if I'm wrong). I was under the impression that it was mostly written after his death, from the memories of people who knew him. Again, translated by translators.
So how can one man legitimately say he knows God better than another? How can your personal faith be applied to anyone--ANYONE--else? From where does one person receive the right to say they know the Truth? What makes the Pope any Holier than Fred Phelps? Or me? Or you?
These are my questions. I welcome your answers.
