This bible. I found this bible in my berth on the last day of my cruise to the Bahamas. That’s right, I indulge in a cruise every now and then, a guilty pleasure, a release from stress, nothing I would call religious.
Excuse me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think there’s a priest aboard these ships, maybe there’s one or two walking around in mufti, but not to say mass. I don’t even think there’s a non-denominational chapel with a set of pews where pious passengers kneel in reflection every morning before the festivities begin.
There is, however, a gym equipped to the hilt with newfangled weights and machines to keep bodies tiptop while at sea.
Although you won’t find me in this gym with someone throwing a gigantic medicine ball into my abdomen, you will find others making their bodies fit.
Meanwhile, I’m on the Lido deck, taking in some rays with a secondhand paperback novel in my grip and a plastic glass from the buffet with ice, water, and two splashes of vodka bought offshore, before the exorbitant prices, and kept cold in my berth.
It’s my little way of making this whole trip financially tolerable. Free food, free drink, lots of ocean, and lots of sun for a week. That sounds a lot better than free food, ten dollar beers.
This bible. Here it is again, dormant, patient for a reader.
I found this bible in the top drawer of the desk that I meant to use for writing a short story, some words to round out this weeklong gluttonous debauchery, but of course the Gideons had to be there with their watchful eye.
In the spirit of the times, and so that the Gideon placer didn’t work in vain, I opened the bible with the intention of reading about Lot’s wife disobeying God and looking back at the ravaged city.
To teach her and everyone to follow a lesson, God turns the curious cat into a pillar of salt.
Quite the dramatic image. The destruction of Sodom in the backdrop and, in the fore, a curious statue of salt. The stuff paintings and Disney movies are made out of. The stuff of magic, whim, lore, dreams, and the bible.
It’s intended to be a lecture, a fable, a story to learn from.
Don’t look back, that’s what God’s punishment of Lot’s wife says, don’t look back at the destruction, don’t look back at your origin, only look ahead at all that is promised.
Dylan and Vonnegut know it well.
For me it is only a reason to open the bible.
God does not exist!
I wasn’t expecting this graffiti on the first page, usurping HELP IN TIME OF NEED. It gave me pause. I took a sip of vodka and traced its evolution.
God does not exist! –> God does exist! –> God does not exist!
It reminded me of debate, of futility. Like covering someone else’s hand with yours. And then your hand is covered by someone else’s. And then you cover someone else’s hand with yours. And then someone else covers your hand. And then another person has to join the mosh pit because both of you are out of hands.
And like this the pattern repeats forever, building a tower of hands and fingers.
Is this what the bible promotes? Smothered hands and gnarled fingers?
Do the Gideon placers wake up in the morn, dress in suits, and trek across the world’s hotels and motels encumbered with boxes of navy blue bibles thinking their purpose is all good, almighty?
Do the Gideon placers walk in peace, in harmony, with a clear conscience, oblivious to the seeds of discord they are planting and nurturing?
These are only questions.
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- A Description of Two Epiphanies
- On Nadine Gordimer’s The House Gun
- One Of Those Days
- Give TOE Your Joycean Epiphany and Letters Home From Boot Camp!
- I’m in Miami, Trick! [LMFAO - Mom Remix]
Really need to get going with the Gideon God Delusions
This comment was originally posted on Reddit
“For the atheist no proof is sufficient, for the believer no proof is necessary.” Sorry I can’t remember the author of this snappy little quote. However, I do believe we should bear in mind the beautiful symmetry of faith and reason, an argument that was so elegantly developed and explicated in Pope John Paul II’s magisterial encyclical “Fides et Ratio”. Indeed, modern thought appears to have abandoned the quest for transcendent truth while concentrating on the limits of human cognitive ability. We should make use of the human capacity to know the truth rather than accentuate the ways in which this capacity is limited and conditioned. “Credo ut intellegam” – the profound relationship between the knowledge of faith and the knowledge of reason. Reason and faith cannot be separated without “diminishing” the human capacity to know oneself, the world, and God. Nor, according to JP II, is there any reason for “competition” between reason and faith. On the contrary, “each contains the other, and each has its own scope for action”. In sum, we are on a journey of discovery, a search for truth that cannot be halted. The two modes of knowledge lead to truth in all its fullness.
I wonder sometimes what draws folks to the Bible? If it had been a medical text, would we pick it up? If it would be a children’s “Highlight” magazine would we give it a second thought? Yet, this Book called the Bible about a God that doesn’t exist, that contains stories that are not true, about a future we laugh at, causes us so much concern that articles are written, debates waste valuable time, and many moments spent in private thought of “What If!” The fact that much time, energy, and thought is spend on this subject for some unknown reason makes me wonder about the “What If.”