Myths, miracles, mumbo-jumbo and morality By Melville Cooke, Contributor In Duppy, Anthony Winkler shows that he is truly a man of the cloth. Man dies, goes to the afterlife on a minibus and through a culvert, meets God as a peenie-wallie and teaches him to be a person of the cloth, finds out there is no hell and he is really in heaven because sex is a constant with no Raw Moon needed, gets a second chance and asks God if there is a message for the world. Love one another, do some good. The returnee is stunned. No "thous" and "therefores"? No ponderous proclamations on parchment, written in broad strokes of a quill pen? No. Love one another, do some good. Unfortunately Christianity, the religion which has come to dominate a good chunk of the world through murder, deceit, theft and torture, does not see things as simply as Mr. Winkler's firefly. Using the Bible as a rod and an inscrutable, irritable God as a shepherd, Christianity attempts to set a moral code for societies of sheep. From where I stand on the goat side in the other pasture, it has not worked. Christianity builds its house of morality on sand of myths, miracles and mumbo-jumbo. There are two consequences, with the same result. One is that since the moral code depends on the myths and miracles, when these are exposed for the frauds they are then the values of right and wrong cease to be valid. In addition, there is a heavy bias towards retelling and reinforcing these myths maybe to avoid an occurrence of number one and the essence of the Bible is lost. Which is a pity, because at its core the Bible is an excellent guide to harmonious living among human beings and societies. Of all the mumbo-jumbo in the Bible that I take issue with, two stick out. One is the Virgin Birth and the other is the story of creation. The Bible would have us believe that Mary did not have sex with her husband Joseph to produce Jesus, that she was a virgin and with child. I do not believe that. Furthermore, I do not believe that even if it were true it would not make Jesus any more or less holy and what he said and did 2000 years ago any less true and correct. Frankly, if Jesus were the son of a prostitute and his father could not be identified from the lady's horde of clients it would still not make his life and work any less significant. This Virgin Birth thingy is the beginning of a sexless life for Jesus, which I also do not believe. A man dies at 36 and there is no record of intimate contact with a woman in his life? No way. Hypothetically, if Jesus was born in Jamaica about 30 years ago and was running in a by-election in St. Ann in an attempt to toss the money-changers from the Parliament, in his 'womanless' state his competitors would have a whale of a time with a song called Chi-Chi Man. But that is purely hypothetical, of course. There is nothing sinful about sex. The story of creation is another myth I feel strongly about. We should all know about "In the beginning..." and the seven days etc. It is a wonderful story, but that is all it is - a story. I once had a Catholic Bible (I can hear the storm of protest) which stated up front that the story of Creation and other early parts of the Bible were passed down in poems from generation to generation. Can you imagine how much each generation must have added to the fable, till it was printed and passed on to us as holy, true and unquestionable? I was often a part of a game in ISCF at Munro College in which the participants would be put to stand beside each other and a message given to the boy at one end. He would in turn whisper it to the person beside him and so on down the line. The persons at both ends would then say what they were told. Invariably the two statements were dramatically different. That is how it is with "two by two into the Ark". 'Miracleship' I also find that we have an unhealthy preoccupation with miracles. Heart surgery is no less a miracle because it is done in a hospital by a team of surgeons; the birth of a child is no less of a miracle because it happens every day. But instead many persons would believe that only the laying of hands, prayer and some sort of miraculous recovery qualifies for "miracleship". Miracles happen in mundane ways. But back to the mumbo-jumbo. We do not need a God thundering from above the clouds, laying waste to Pharoah's people and flooding the world to adhere to rules which should create a harmonious society. The ten commandments stand, regardless of who said them and the birth and death circumstances of that person. And the supreme rule, to love as you yourself would be loved, is sound whether it was uttered by a Jesus, a Gentile, a beggar, a policeman - or even a murderer who has broken that rule. But religion is never simple, only literature - sometimes. Mr. Winkler's peenie-wallie glows much brighter than Moses's Burning Bush. Melville Cooke is a freelance writer.
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