just some comments related to the issue that candi chruchill brought up
recently:
this summer i read a book entitled ISHMAEL by daniel quinn which i
recommend to everyone, and there was a story in it about how the gods
acquired the knowledge they needed to rule the world. it goes something
like this:
one day the gods were administrating the world in the usual way, when one
of them said "here's a spot i've been thinking about for a while -- a
wide, pleasant savannah. let's send a great multitude of locusts into
this land. then the fire of life will grow prodigiously in them and in
the birds and lizards that will feed on them, and that will be very fine."
the others thought about this and one said "...the fire of life will blaze
in the locusts and the creatures that feed on them, but at the expense of
all the other creatures that live there." and they decided not to do it
so things went on as before. but then another god said "surely this would
be as great a crime as the other. for don't the locusts and the birds and
the liszards live in our hands as well as the rest? is it never to be
their time to flourish greatly, as others do?" the gods looked down and
saw a quail stalking a grasshopper and a fox stalking the quail. they
realized that if they let the fox get the quail, both the fox and the
grasshopper would bless the gods, but the quail would curse them. this
was a situation with no easy answer. well, time went on, and the gods
were sinking right into the slough of despond when one said "say, didn't
we make for the garden a certain tree whose fruit is the knowledge of good
and evil?" "yes!" cried the others, "let's find that tree and eat of it
and see what this knowledge is!" so they did. soon, a lion went out to
hunt, and the gods said to themselves, "today is the lion's day to go
hungry, and the deer it would have taken may live another day." and so
the lion missed it's kill, and as it was returning hungry to its den it
began to curse the gods. but they said, "be at peace, for we know how to
rule the world, and today is your day to go hungry." and the lion was at
peace. the next day the gods allowed the lion to catch the deer, and the
deer was at peace since the gods told him that yesterday was his day to
live,and today his day to die. so the gods acquired the knowledge of who
shall live and who shall die. the story goes on by one god giving a
"hypothetical" situation of what would happen if adam ate from the tree of
good and evil. now, in reality, the fruit of this tree would not have any
effect on adam, him being a mere mortal, but this is what would happen if
he IMAGINED he had acquired the knowledge of good and evil:
in his arrogance he (adam) might look around the garden and say to himself
"this is all wrong. why should i have to share the fire of life with all
these creatures? look here, the lions and the wolves take the game i would
have for myself. this is evil. i will kill all these creatures, and this
will be good. and look here, the gods have set a limit on my growth just
as they've set a limit on the growth of all others. this is evil. i will
grow without limit, taking all the fire of life that flows through this
garden into myself and that will be good." "if this should happen," said
the other gods, "adam would devour the world in a single day, and at the
end of that day he would devour himself." "this is true," said the
god,"but then would he not go on to escape from this world and devour the
entire universe?" "but might he not be tempted by his yearning for growth
to take the fire of life into his own hands even without deluding himself
that this was good?" protested the other gods. "he might. but what would
be the result? he would become a criminal, and a murderer of the creatures
around him. without the delusion that what he is doing is good, and
therefore done at any cost, he would soon tire of the criminal's life.
but because he has eaten of the tree of knowledge, he will say, 'i know
good and evil, and this way of living is good. therefore i must live this
way even though i'm weary unto death, even though i destroy the world and
even myself. the gods wrote in the world a law for all to follow, but it
cannot apply to me because i am their equal. therefore i will live
outside this law and grow without limit. to be limited is evil. i will
steal the fire of life from the hands of the gods and heap it up for my
growth, and that will be good. i will destroy those kinds that do not
serve my growth, and that will be good. i will wrest the garden from the
hands of the gods and order it anew so that it serves only my growth, and
that will be good. and because these things are good, they must be done
at any cost. it may be that i will destroy the garden and make a ruin of
it. it may be that my progeny will teem over the earth like locusts,
stripping it bare, until they drown in their own filth and hate the very
sight of one another and go mad. still they must go on, becuse to grow
without limit is good and to accept the limits of the law is evil. and
when at last all the garden has been subjugated to my use and all kinds
that do not serve my growth have been cast aside and all the fire of life
in the world flows through my progeny, still i must grow. and when they
can grow no more, the people of this land will fall upon the poeple of the
next to murder them, so that they may grow still more, and when the groans
of my progeny fill the air throughout the world, i will say to them, "your
sufferings must be borne, for you suffer in the cause of good. see how
great we have become! wielding the knowledge of good and evil, we have
made ourselves the masters of the world, and the gods have no power over
us. though your groans fill the air, isn't it sweeter to live in our own
hands than in the hands of the gods?....."'"
something to think on.....
