Question your gods before bowing in absolute obeisance

There is one thing that has always pleased me the most about my primordial ancestors, the Dacians (before being conquered by the Romans in 106 AD and subsequently losing in the process pretty much all of their hitherto individual culture and identity). Like all other independent peoples of that early world Dacians used to have their own religion, which–quite interestingly–was, unlike Romans’, monotheistic. The Dacians believed that there was only one god in the heavens, whom they called Zamolxes. Zamolxes was, like most (if not all) other deities of the time, a god that demanded a totally obeisant worshipfulness from its mortal subjects. So much so that when the nation needed some vital help from their god the Dacians asked the very best of their own to volunteer for a missional journey straight to Zamolxes’ headquarters in order to pass him directly and personally their request. I learned about those things for the first time when I was a six years old preschool boy who went for the second time in his life to the cinema with his parents to watch The Dacians, a Romanian-French co-production that was to become the first in a subsequent trilogy of films about the creation of the Romanian nation. Needless to say, I was so impressed with the movie that a few scenes have been forever carved deep in my brain, to where even today I can enjoy a private screening when I feel the need.

Impressive as all the above may have been to my six years old mind at the time, though, what came to always please me most about Dacians was one thing altogether different in nature to all others. And that, which to my mind has grown to become the most impressive aspect of my primordial ancestry, is the following. As much as Dacians appeared to have obediently totally submitted to Zamolxes’ rules and demands, in certain situations they did not hesitate to openly rise in anger and frustration against their god’s seemingly absolute indifference to either their vital needs or wants. Indeed they often did even more than that: they arched their bows and shot arrows into Zamolxes’ heavens to let him know in no uncertain manner that they demanded a concrete and positive response from him!

Now, in as far as I know there’s never been another nation ever who dared to do that against any god, living or dead. Nevertheless, if I am wrong about that I will be more than happy to apologise and hear-learn about it. Until then, though, let me tell you why I am mentally pleased and satisfied with my ancestors’ reaction to their god’s apparent apathy, indifference, or ignorance concerning their needs or troubles.

As far as I’m concerned a god, whether a metaphysical or a ‘real’ one, simply cannot rule with total absolutism under any conceivable circumstances in any possible realms. Indeed a genuine god of any genuine kind should simply and outrightly deny itself any possibility of ruling absolutely under any circumstances and in all realms of possibility. Absolutism in whatever form, or under whatever guise, leaves absolutely no room for any form of creativity, progress, freedom, time, evolution, scope… Think about it. What is a god without another creation? Think about it in truthfulness, not in fear as the overwhelming bulk of humanity is. Think about it. Why would any genuine god want you to fear it? To perversely tickle its vanity, like us? Or maybe because god, like most of us, is just a bully in disguise? Think about it. Do you want your child to fear, or to love you? Think about it. Do you think that god is more flawed in character and wisdom than you? No? Why are you insulting it then? Do you think that it is stupider than you and that it won’t be able to see behind your badly camouflaged fears, urges, ignorance, shallowness, stupidity, egoism, etc. etc. etc? Think about it. You have two children. One of them comes to you and says “I love you”, but you know that he/she only said that because he/she needs $5 to go to the movies. Think about it. You smile, put the hand in your pocket and give him/her the $5 he/she wants. A few moments later your other child comes to you and says “I love you”. And this time you know that he/she is telling you the truth. Think about it–what should you do now? Think in truthfulness, without any vested interests. Think like a genuine god and then decide what you’re going to do in this case.

About 25 years ago I decided that I wanted to become a Christian of the so-called born-again kind. It was a purely sentimental decision, although at the time I didn’t know it. Immediately following that decision I found myself driven by a great enthusiasm and energy (which are two of a host of side-effects typical to the newly converted to anything, really). Without any apparent effort I thus gave up smoking, drinking, swearing, and began instead to pray regularly, to read the Scriptures from a new perspective, and to attend the services of my church with a strong desire to do all those good things which until then I had only thought about in some rare bouts of introspectiveness. The “honeymoon” of my new vocation though was not going to last for long, with the sceptic, the observer and the questioner in me coming once again to the forefront of my entire being after a couple of months. For a short while after that I managed to hide the return of my inherent nature well enough to still enjoy the praises of my fellowship, who were apparently so happy to see yet another real testimony that the power of God can indeed change anyone, just as the Scriptures said. Before long though my innate scepticism was to again become fully apparent and manifest, when I began to ask and ponder–like always before–inconvenient questions in my discussions with my pastor, who was also a good friend of about the same age as myself. Then, one fateful day I went to his house to confront him with an issue that was quintessential to the the continuous scrutiny I was subjected to by my contentious and furiously independent mind. All I wanted to know from my friend and spiritual leader was the official answer to the following question: How should one take what had been written in the Bible? Literally in everything it said, or rather allegorically by and large, as I believed. The truth be said I already knew the official stance on that issue, but what I really wanted to find out was how my friend, not my pastor, was personally perceiving that most important subject, to my mind. His answer came up as firm and as rigid as the official, doctrinal one–and every bit as turgid in its cacophonous pitch and tone as a forgettable vaudeville or soapy melodrama broadcast at all those odd times on most commercial free channels of some Fox-like Networks based in Idaho, Nebraska, or perhaps somewhere similarly in the far North of Brazil.

And thus my personal journey as a Protestant Christian came to a sudden termination after eight or nine months of a troubled and painful existence (or perhaps more accurately I should have called experience, instead). It all came in the end in good time and, to the absolute best of my understanding, for very good reasons too. Surely, I began arguing my case under the always present scrutiny of my completely independent mindfulness, no god of any decent kind could hold against me the belief, for instance, that no man ever could, as the Bible was so emphatically proclaiming, kill 300 enemies at once with just one swing of his sword, as David is said to have managed! What god would not only furthermore expect me to believe that Jesus walked on water, or rebuked the winds in a storm, or fed thousands with just a handful of fish and a loaf of bread–or indeed any other similar story amongst the thousands that have been conventionally chosen to be part of the scriptural Christian Bible for about fifteen hundred years now, but also to believe with absolute conviction that every word contained in it was indubitably uttered and fully endorsed by none other than God himself. Blame me for doubting such a grandiose tale, if you want, god, but then expect me to retaliate in kind for giving me a healthy brain to reason and a sound and objective capability to discern between what seems to be a reasonable possibility, on the one hand, and what on the other I deem to be merely a tale contrived by the relatively primitive mindset and mentality of a few for an even more primitive mindset and mentality that is characteristic to the many. What the humanity as a whole should fear is not the very much unlikely wrath of a genuine god, but the comparatively very likely possibility of a primitive majority which, given half a chance, could quite easily metamorphose into a raging mob hell bent on forcing the rest of the world to adopt, worship and submit to their most improbable gods, or to their unsubstantiated fears, laws, morals, expectations, dreams, ideals, scopes… Think about it without any personal bias, and you should little trouble seeing how such a bleak scenario could suddenly develop, given half a chance, from the very conditions that are prevalent or manifest for the majority of those seven billion of us that are inhabiting the earth at this particular point in time.

Look at our so-called modern world, my friend, with your own inner-sense of objectivity and wisdom, to see if my personal picture of it is too distorted to warrant any real concern. Look how deep and wide, for instance, is the majority’s overwhelmingly sole concern for finding or designing more and increasingly elaborate ways for little else beside individual self-gratification. What good is one’s humility and honest nature, for example, if he or she has nothing else to display to the world around beside those two idyllic human traits that may be beautiful, in principle, and philosophically desirable, apparently, but which on the other hand are wholly immaterial in all other respects? No one will envy you for having been bestowed with those traits by God, so you can rest assured that you won’t be pestered with questions about how others too might be one day able to acquire and enjoy the same godly-given gifts as those that have been granted to you.