A parable (hell, America, myths, bible)

[Renaldo5000]

There once existed an idyllic and quaint farm that was owned by a man. On this farm there was a comfortable house and a small ramshackle barn. Around these structures existed an exquisite field filled with the greenest grass, the most vibrant wildflowers and the most fertile fruit trees that one could imagine.

The man was stern and demanded obedience from all living things on his property. When things were not done to his liking, he could become quite angry. The other inhabitants of the property were his spiteful wife (who bristled at the man's domineering ways) and two dogs (a male and a female). The dogs had recieved a small amount of training, ran freely around the property and ate normal dogfood that the man set out for them. One day, the man and his wife had a huge fight. She no longer wished to be his servant, wanted a divorce and was leaving. The wife (being the malicious person that she was) decided to start some trouble right after this terrible row. When the man was out of the room she took the pie that she had made for him earlier that day and set it out on the porch. The wife then whistled for the dogs and motioned toward the pie. The male dog hesitated (remembering being disciplined by the man for begging before). But, the delicious wafting scents enticed the female dog so much (being the stupid biological animal that she was and not being very well-trained by the man) that she couldn't resist the temptation of tasty human food and jumped up and ate it. The man came onto the porch and became so enraged after seeing the pie gone and the crumbs lying all around the female that he made both dogs go live in the small barn behind the house. The man proceeded to barricade the barn in such a way so that nothing inside of it could escape.

The dogs survived off of whatever critters wandered into the barn and whatever rainwater seeped into puddles on the floor. The female became pregnant and once the puppies were born the man took great pain so as not to be seen by them. Both the male and female dogs eventually died and the puppies grew older. As they became adult dogs they inevitably become more territorial. They roamed the small barn fighting, mating and reproducing. Many more puppies start showing up in the barn from said reproduction. The dogs separated into warring packs and consistently engaged in violence against one another. Feces started to pile up on the floor and dead carcasses were littered everywhere. Most days were brutish and filled with various uncertainties, sufferings and atrocities for the inhabitants of the barn.

All of the dogs suffered, but the puppies suffered the most. Some of them starved and others were killed by neighboring adult male dogs who wished to minimize competition for their own offspring in the face of scarce resources. Some mothers rejected or killed their own puppies because they were too much of a burden or inconvenient at the time (the female puppies were especially victims of this because they could not contribute to the future security of the mother's respective pack like a stronger male potentially could). Several pregnant females even had their stomachs ripped open by jealous female dogs who could not have puppies of their own. The man reticently watched through a peephole in the door at the entire situation every day and made no effort to interfere (even though he had the power to do so at any time). The man refused to give any coherent and consistent direction to the dogs or to let them out of the barn. He refused to train them or improve their situation in any way. The man completely refrained from interacting with, or even declaring his presence to, the dogs. He just continued to watch. The wife (who had since divorced the man) sometimes snuck onto the property to watch the dogs as well through the peephole. The man knew of her late night visits and yet made no effort to stop her (even though he presumably had the power to do so considering that is was he who owned the property).

These dogs had never seen a man and could not comprehend what one was. But, some of the more hopeful and perceptive dogs would occasionally pick up the outside scents of the man, the house and the field as they wafted in through the walls. These dogs could not help but think that there must be something better than the barn. They wondered if there was something more outside of these walls or if something was watching over them (with the limited animal intelligence they possessed). But, they couldn't know for sure. And, as soon as these wonderful odors infiltrated the barn, the stench and reality of the decrepit building quickly overwhelmed them and most of the dogs would forget about the sweet smells in seconds. Some of the dogs spent their days standing by the walls with their noses pressed up against the cracks straining to smell the man, house or the field that they had never seen nor even knew truly existed. Other dogs just lamented at the misery of their existence and wished for an end to their lives. But, most mainly focused on the harsh realities of the barn and the ways in which to improve their lot within the confines of its walls.

One day, a beautiful purebred dog somehow managed to sneak into the barn. I think it was possible that the man let him in, but I am not exactly sure. This wonderful dog knew tricks, had a shiny coat and shared a rabbit that he had managed to drag in. He had the smell of the field and of man all over him (because he had been handled and trained very well). He didn't engage in violent or selfish acts typical of most of the dogs. He walked around the filth and degradation refusing to be affected by it or drawn into it. He seemed to be from a different world; something better. Some of the dogs proceeded to follow him around as their pack leader. Because of his training he was a very smart canine as well. He started to dig a hole in order to squirm out of the barn and motioned for his fellows to follow him. However, most of the dogs were still too preoccupied with their own struggles for survival, basic biological impulses and hierarchal pack tendencies to take much notice of the promise of the purebred dog and of his digging. One of the other dogs attacked this beautiful purebred amidst his exercise in excavation and ripped him to pieces.

Years went by and of the eight puppies from the original litter, only two were left alive (the others had died from disease and violence). When all of the dogs were sleeping the man slinked into the barn (so as not to show himself to any of the canine inhabitants) and dragged out the oldest two dogs of the original litter (who were by now elderly). As these two dogs woke up out in the field next to the barn he held his hand out to both of them. All of a sudden the dogs realized (with their limited intelligence) that he was the strange being who was responsible for the barn and their lives in the barn. The man said, "I was always there and I loved you. I demand your complete devotion. Worship me. I am your master. If you completely subjugate yourself to me you will have a much better life". The man then pointed toward the house. On the porch there was a big bowl of food, a dish filled with sparkling clean water and a comfortable bed for the dogs to rest their old bones. The dogs even got the impression that they might be able to actually enter the house on occasion and sit next to the man. The first dog glanced at this promising vision that was so much better than what it had experienced in the barn and immediately submitted to the man. It jumped up, licked him and then obediently sat by his side. The man then held out his hand to the second dog as if to say, "What is your choice?". The second dog bit the man's hand. The man then shoved the second dog inside a small cage that was even worse than the barn.

Would such a voyeuristic and sadistic man not be guilty of animal cruelty and negligence? And, do you blame the second dog?

[hiker45]

At least Jesus kept his parables short and easy to understand.

[Renaldo5000]

Originally Posted by hiker45

At least Jesus kept his parables short and easy to understand.

A shortcut for the lazy:

The man = God
The wife = Satan
The field = Eden
The male and female dog = Adam and Eve
The eating of the pie = Knowledge of good and evil and The Fall
The barn = Earth
The dogs = Humanity
The horrors of the barn = The realities and atrocities of Mankind (especially those visited upon the innocent)
The purebred dog = Jesus
The house = Heaven
The cage = Hell
The first dog = A believer
The second dog = A denier


Not terribly difficult stuff.

[rifleman]

Well duhhhh, as the immutible Homer Simpson would say.

Q: why restate all this? Soz the truly naive, illiterate or hard-of-learning could have another simplified way to learn the rote-chant stuff in the discredited bible? Or so some can figure it out like a simple kid's puzzle game?

("Oh! Wait.... Say; I'll bet the man is God and the field and farm is Eden. Wow! I'm gonna get a gold star for this one!")

Oh. Well OK then. Thx. But now, it's back to this month's copy of Scientific American. Myself, I kinda like to be challenged when I read stuff.
____________________________

(And as for female humans being equated to "stupid biological animals"... what a hoot. Denigrating your kind like that...)

[Renaldo5000]

Why restate all of this? And, what is the point and challenge of it? Because I was trying to illustrate a bunch of stuff.


-If the monotheistic tradition is accurate, why should the descendants of the original sinners be punished? What have we done to deserve banishment? It's like blaming me for slavery because some other white people did it 300 years ago.
-The world is a horrible place. God is able at any time to stop the terrible things that happen (especially to young innocents), but He does not.
-An omnipotent God has the ability to show us evidence of His existence, but inexplicably chooses not to. He has the ability to step in and personally guide us at any time and chooses not to. He also has allowed too many influences and distractions to proliferate. The deck is stacked against us when it comes to finding the true path (whatever that is).
-If Satan exists and is currently wreaking havoc and pushing his diabolical tentacles into everything then an omnipotent God could stop him at any time.
-The faint and confusing examples of what we should strive for and follow are no match for our biological whims that will routinely overrule our senses and minds from anything greater or more noble. Is it reasonable and even feasible for us to focus on the other-worldly when we have much more pressing concerns and visceral drives at the moment? God made us too weak and distracted by our instincts to be responsible with our free will or to consistently follow Him.
-Either God doesn't exist or He has failed us, is sadistic and deserves rebellion. It is a tyrannical narcissism that seems to drive Him.

And, those are just the main points. There are a lot of other minor points buried in there.

[Fred314X]

Originally Posted by Renaldo5000

And, those are just the main points. There are a lot of other minor points buried in there.

The key word being "buried." You did such a good job of burying them, that nobody even noticed they were in there. Way too many words, and way too deep, so that all you succeeded in doing was turning people off. You know how to throw down words...but not write.

[rifleman]

Anyhow, of course there is no Satan, no God, no Eden, no original sin, no Adam and no sinful Eve. So.. what's the point? What on earth would you be trying to convince anyone of with this story?

The real world is only as bad as greedy, ignorant power-hungry people want it to be. I do agree though, those are simply immutable instincts that would have once supported the ultimate survival of the clan. Nowadays, we should be trying a more sophisticated approach, but we probably can't and thus will perish at the hands of our own self-centered greed and avarice.

Another lowly, "lesser" species will get to be the evolving progenitor of the next worldly dominant organisms, if we don't get side-swiped by a gigantic meteorite before that happens. You know: the Great Tribulations, whenever that's conveniently predicted to happen... . (all the time, according to the popular Christian media.. )

OR: My version of a cute fable*: Chances are, we're probably the best and only technological hope for man to get the heck off this planet before it goes down (or up) in flames or shrapnel. If we do get off this planet, we'll simply take with us a few good DNA samples of as many organisms as we can record, and it will all be documented on an organic hard drive as a simple data set, along with a DNA synthesis lab. Life per se will simply be but a keystroke away from "creation" whenever it's required.

There will neither be room for, nor an accepted need of, some shipboard chapel or any attention to a "Godly component". That thinking will have been jettisoned by necessity: only important and testable elements will be allowed onboard, obviously.

We'll leave behind (thank the Gods, we'd finally be rid of them!) all the thousands of competing, petty religions and illiterate myths, demoting them to some minor memory space on the ship's long-term dead-file archive storage memory banks, and we'll head off in a (hopefully) endlessly self-sustaining mobile ecosystem "rag-tag fleet" bound for whatever other potentially habitable planet we can hope to find and colonize. But this time absent the hypocrisy and vicious greed-based social control systems that have plagued our lowly planet here ever since religion crawled out of the swamps to enslave man and his otherwise naturally inquisitive mind.

And the remnants of a once-hyper-self-centered and viciously arrogant but pagan-oriented chanting society, droolingly fixated on medieval myths as "The Truth of Everything", will be left behind to become simply, cinders in space.

A fitting end for institutionalized and orchestrated ignorance, wouldn't you agree?

Thee End.

(*Like it anyone?)

[Renaldo5000]

*applauds*