". . . After their huts were fired upon with machine guns, the remaining survivors were finished off with machetes. Stock prices are up. There is traffic north of town."
And all of this in just a few seconds. My god. How does anyone make sense of this? Any one of these facts (especially the first) can give us plenty to think about. But combined in such a way--without so much as a beat between them--they gel, creating a kind of apocalyptic collage that is unthinkable. And yet it must be. So let's try to pick up the pieces, shall we?
The first problem might be that we have moved into a world without sin and we don't know quite what to make of it. Back in the good old days, when we were sinful, there was a way of explaining human suffering to ourselves; it may not have done the best job, but it gave a purpose to the inequity that we find all around us (and something to do in the meantime). Some of us meet a fate worse than death, and, while horrible to ponder, there was at least one reason why. Sin. Or put completely, because the big man upstairs is unhappy.* To understand the importance of sin, for some, we turn now to a second item in the news. There has recently been much controversy about a certain celebrity's vocal disapproval of gay people. What does he find wrong with homosexuality exactly? Let's remind ourselves that it's not the "what" that matters so much. He is, merely, trying to hold on to sin. No sin, no rules. No rules, no fouls. No fouls, no reason for the big man to be upset. No reason for the big man to be upset, no meaning behind the suffering, and more than that, perhaps no big man at all. And without HIM, there's no afterlife. No afterlife? Well then it turns out there are no fates worse than death.
Not all religions are as sin-heavy, however. The Judeo/Christian/Muslim brand is especially focused on it, and this is because each is a sky religion. The other types, earth religions and intrinsic religions--an example can be found in Native American myth and Zen Buddhism respectively--are less focused on punitive repercussions for our transgressions. In Earth-religion the focus is more on "imbalance." Once balance is restored, hey, no harm no foul. And in intrinsic religions where the object of enlightenment is self-discovery the notion of sin is almost entirely absent. That leaves the rest of us, the Aurarians, from the magnificent Greek gods with their thunderbolts on up to the present day. Our errors come from failing to follow the dictates of those gods in the sky, who look down with watchful eyes.
But it's not all top-down so to speak. Our relationship has changed over the years. We've gone from being just one of many washed up in the flood to having a personal, one-on-one relationship with god. Starting with the Reformation, the nature of man's connection to his creator has become much more personal as the focus of salvation has been redirected to the individual. Protestantism, hand in hand with capitalism, has at every turn encouraged a singular story, although here the brand of religion becomes markedly Christian. Indeed the Old Testament, and hence Judaism, centers on the story of a people. (Even David--arguably one of the most personal narratives in the whole text--is someone to be revered more than emulated.) Which leaves Islam. And it lacks the same historical turn made by the Reformation primarily because it has grown in an entirely different economic environment.
Is it funny, then, that shifts in theology have accompanied shifts in political and economic climate?** The Catholic pontiff once gave imprimatur to the authority of a king, justifying his right to the lion's share. But as we turned our backs on aristocracy, a stage in which all money flows constantly and unquestionably up, we needed a new story--one of personal triumph and possibility no matter how difficult to endure are the current realities. Enter Martin Luther. It is possible with right thinking to move upward through the social strata into a state of wealth a leisure, just as it is possible for every individual with a pure soul to move upward into a figurative sky and enter a land of, well, wealth and leisure. Although it must be said that in both cases the real potentiality of everlasting milk and honey, shall we say, strains credulity.
Your current options? A fate worse than death. Stock prices are up. And traffic on the north side of town. If you want to make sense of this and get to the real truth, my suggestion is to follow the money. But then who has time for that with so much to do?
In other news, I bought a shirt today. It looks and fits great and it was probably made in China under much less than favorable conditions. I haven't yet explained that decision to myself. I turned on the radio instead and caught the news. But I know this much: never listen to a man with a well-fitted shirt; somewhere inside himself he has forgotten that the truth isn't pretty.
* Alternately, according to some theological positions, he has allowed us to bring suffering upon ourselves.
** For a particularly nice take on this connection that also ties in the history of the novel, read Susan Bauer's The Well Educated Mind. It's mostly about classical education, but her section on history is very good. I wonder too whether increasing complexity in monetary policy corresponds with ever more facile theological explanations. But we will rest there.
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