Homily Addendum

____________________

Homily addemdum -- Confession as Enablement:

An excerpt from a recent interview in Slate with Pulitzer Prize- winning myrmecologist and sociobiologist E. O. Wilson (Altruism and the New Enlightenment). Mr. Wilson is an Alabama boy who has evolved in his thought:

So it comes down to a conflict between individual and group-selected traits?

Yes. And you can see this especially in the difficulty of harmonizing different religions. We ought to recognize that religious strife is not the consequence of differences among people. It's about conflicts between creation stories. We have bizarre creation myths and each is characterized by assuring believers that theirs is the correct story, and that therefore they are superior in every sense to people who belong to other religions. This feeds into our tribalistic tendencies to form groups, occupy territories and react fiercely to any intrusion or threat to ourselves, our tribe and our special creation story. Such intense instincts could arise in evolution only by group selection—tribe competing against tribe. For me, the peculiar qualities of faith are a logical outcome of this level of biological organization.

Can we do anything to counter our tribalistic instincts?

I think we are ready to create a more human-centered belief system. I realize I sound like an advocate for science and technology, and maybe I am because we are now in a techno-scientific age. I see no way out of the problems that organized religion and tribalism create other than humans just becoming more honest and fully aware of themselves. Right now we're living in what Carl Sagan correctly termed a demon-haunted world. We have created a Star Wars civilization but we have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions and godlike technology. That's dangerous.

Mr. Wilson ironically echoes the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., who said, “Modern man suffers from a kind of poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to its scientific and technological abundance”

“Through our scientific genius, we have made this world a neighborhood; now, through our moral and spiritual development we must make of it a brotherhood. In a real sense, we must learn to live together as brothers, or we will perish together as fools.”

Sympathy for the Devil

It's a fools' game
Nothin' but a fools's game;
standing in the cold rain,
feeling like clown
--It's a Heartache, Trick Pony

So far as I can remember,
there is not one word in the Gospels
in praise of knowledge
--George Bernard Shaw

It's embarrassing -- you try to overthrow
the government and you wind up
on the Best Seller's list
--Steal this Book, Abbie Hoffman
___________________

Sunday homily: What if we've got it all wrong?

By "it", Ranger means the bible as the Good Book and the god-worshiping thing? What if the devil is the one before whom we should be burning incense? Let us go back to Genesis.

Genesis portrays a Club Med for Adam and Eve. Unless mistaken, those two were thrown out of paradise --if you call Babylonia paradise -- for eating an apple symbolizing knowledge and free will.

So Step One is the travesty of getting evicted for opting in for knowledge and free will. That, we demonize as temptation . . . the work of the devil. So what of all of that exegesis going on by theological scholars? Well, it's not looking good for learned theologians. If we stay stupid, can we live forever?

Step Two is everyone turning around and believing that this same god who screwed us in the beginning is going to gift us with glorified bodies after death and give us life everlasting, IF we follow all of his rules. Why would we expect he is going to suddenly play nice once we have strut our petty hour upon the stage, dependent of course upon how well we walked within his lines?

Oh, and further, no one knows if they have won the lottery and gained his grace, anyway. It's like playing monte, but the dealer never shows his suit. Are those the odds of a loser, or what?

Again, if not mistaken, it was the devil (= fallen archangel and god's favorite) who encouraged mankind to seek knowledge and free will. If god will cast down and out his favorite (Lucifer), then why should we trust he will not turn on us?

Why do we put our faith in the goodness of this very strange god? How is he any better than the fallen angel who encourages us to make our own meaning? Are we to believe that everything achieved beyond the supposed "received" word of this god as transcribed in the bible is evil?

Ranger does not believe in any of the bible's mutterings, but if he did, he would give the whole thing a good thinking over.