Abraham and Everything Else: "A whimsical musing on the supreme origin of the existence and divinity"

November 30, 2007

by William Ramsdell

In the beginning there was God. Or light. Maybe even both, but without a doubt, there was something. This is the extent to which we, as a species, can agree. Plenty of people think God was here in the beginning, and I think Atheists can probably band together to agree that there was at least “stuff” around that at some point began to constitute life. It’s a grand consensus of human comprehension, is it not?”In the beginning there was… something.”

God seems to know what he’s doing though. I mean, 11 dimensions of vibrating super-strings, a universe filled with mysterious dark matter, and only one populated planet out of the countless of billions while the actual substrate of space itself is expanding? Talk about specificity. I don’t think 11 dimensions and 6 “flavors” of quarks screams “natural order of things” and I think Occam would agree.

Are we really expected to accept that God constructed everything in so aberrant a form? Fortunately, we have religion to clear up all of those frustrating peculiarities. In a world awash with silly science and laborious logic, it is a comfort that religion is here to make everything simple, so here is a run down on finer points and fun facts of the Three’s Company of monotheism thus far.

As the apocryphal story goes, Adam and Lilith were a happy couple, but she wouldn’t submit to him during sex so she was banished, becoming the queen of demons and leaving room for Eve to stain those of us born from a uterus in original sin. I, personally, am a test-tube child and therefore consider myself only peripherally stained in eternal damnation. Adam and Eve’s kids intermarry and inbreed for few thousand years and the result is humanity as we know it today. Darwin: that misguided soul.

Abraham lives in the desert for 300 years and, since he’s one thing everyone can agree on, becomes the namesake of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam the Abrahamic religions. Next up is Moses. He can part water, summon pillars of ionized materials, and possesses a tremendously respectable beard. He goes up on a mountain in the desert, talks to a shrub, and when he gets back, his people have presumably discovered forge and bellows and subsequently smelted golden livestock. The result: Judaism.

The Jewish people are pretty low-key, despite this peculiar start. They do well at most things they try and, ironically, aren’t too into xenophobic genocide. Granted, they literally worship a wall, but whatever. As it happened, God’s attempt at talking via bush proved slack-job and it would seem that weather conditions and faulty fauna precluded 100% of the message from getting across. Perhaps the fumes of whatever native herb, once incinerated, muddled his whits. A couple hundred years later, though, God gets motivated to update “the word.” You know, about how to more perfectly worship him, nothing about…I don’t know, Germ Theory? So Jesus comes on the scene. He’s pretty social, rolls 13 deep, good with the ladies depending on your stance on The Da Vinci Code, and is the Son of God; definitely a superior communication medium, having a vocal box.

Sadly, however, The Man keeps Jesus down, but he goes out in style. He blows off Satan, saves humanity, re-ascends to heaven, reminds everyone to have a drink on Sunday, and that’s all she wrote, right? Wrong.

Despite all that “don’t worship me, just follow my lead” business, we, 200 A.D.’s best and brightest, are relatively sure that Jesus was just being modest. Henceforth, I’m thinking: Complete Torah makeover disregarding any semblance of translationary accuracy, an arduously boring sequel, an elite religious authoritative body ,and we’ve got Abraham’s v2.0!

Clearly the idea was a hit. Christians seem alright with just dumping more rules on an existing religion and calling it their own, and the Jews just want to do their thing. Of course there are those times when Christians slaughter people for silly reasons, but who are we to judge? Your culture rapes virgins for good luck? Can’t judge. Your religion sacrifices people? Can’t judge. Your religion demands infidel genocide? Simply not our place.

Q: But which texts are going to comprise this arduously boring sequel, or, rather, the New Testament?

A: The Counsel of Nicea of course. Run by the Romans, there should be no conflict of interest what so ever…

Book by Jesus’ wife? Out. Book by the violent apostle who wanted her exiled? In. Book entailing Jesus’ youth? Out. Book of “Revelations” depicting apocalypse by alien-space-locust-filled asteroid called Wormwood written by John in a brain fever?…Definitely in.

Hold up…This guy from yet another boondock desert just got a visit from God. Muhammad, thank God, I mean thank Allah, was God’s (Allah’s) vessel for another revelation. Jesus’ work got cut a little short apparently, and he forgot to mention that his real name was actually ‘Isa. It seems that God was also a little unclear about the fact that Jesus/’Isa is actually Allah’s slave and that he will be a witness on judgment day. Jesus will be working the “Jews and Christians” kiosk, condemning all of his own followers, and for some bizarre reason, the Jews to eternal damnation. Ironic, eh?

Fortunately, where the Christians ‘greatest triumph was the invention of beer, the Muslims are one step ahead. Not only did they figure out that wearing 60 lbs of wool in the scorching desert was a brilliant fashion statement, they finally got the real edge on those condemners of men’s souls: women. Or was that Arab culture’s influence? At any rate, with Jesus/’Isa and Abraham on Muhammad’s side, and the Qur’an pilled on top of those other 2 books, how can the Jews and Christians possibly deny Allah?

But it looks like the people on all levels of this teetering tower of tiered religious 1-uping are sticking to their guns. Funny thing is, the guns seem to change. Islam used to be the most homosexually friendly of the three, though now Pres. Ahmadinejad assures us that not a homosexual exists in all Iran. Even the Vatican finally had to admit that purgatory was a prank, although I prefer limbo to Papal condemnation of condom use in Sub-Saharan Africa happily contributing to the AIDS pandemic, but that’s only my op-ed opinion.

So God says “you, that one chemical bag (human) on that one rock (Earth) in an ocean of stars (universe), on this radial degree of your rotation around the gravitational center of your rock’s orbit (Friday), you may not chemically break down (eat) this variety of organism (fish), otherwise, Hell. Amen.” Right.

Just because Newtonian physics works pretty well around the house, filling the universe with conveniently placed dark mater to equalize the equation makes about as much sense as the convenience of God’s secrecy and shyness. Everything came from somewhere, “it always was” doesn’t do it for me, but I will never abandon reason. Or humor.

William Ramsdell is a sophomore and has not yet declared a major.