God created the universe. Fine. Largely logical and eminently reasonable.
Man however invented words, which by definition exist only in the subjective recesses of human existence; every meaning, all implications, therefore, are relative.
Man, by his design and ineffable soul, acquired God’s word, or likely intent, whether by communing with the source of his life force, his energy, his soul, possibly of divine origin, or by God’s direct intervention. Either way, the result: the Old Testament, then the New Testament and the Koran, albeit inspired or directed by God. These divine or inspired moments necessarily have man attaching human words to them.
And here is the crux. There exists not a single word which has an absolute meaning. All have variable and changing interpretation according to the character and personality of the reader, the culture and language of the teacher.
To imagine that any one man, one rabbi, priest, or Imam, can both interpret every holy word in perfect unison with God’s original intent and then communicate same without any distortion, without any relativity, and then ensure a commonality of understanding, is pure sophistry and gross naivety to say the least. To further imagine every sincere adherent to each particular religion further can imbibe the same exact essence of these divine words, all the time, without change, without variation, is infinitely more unlikely than playing the Las Vegas odds. Those who do play Russian roulette with our children’s minds, as certain Madrassas and most suicide bombers will attest, are all too many.
So how do we use those books? From where cometh the invaluable inspiration of many of our saintly teachers and their most devout followers?
I suspect from the exact opposite of fundamentalism, absolutism, literalism, exclusivism. To imagine God speaks only to you, more purely to you, than any other, especially those of different religion, color or creed, is to deserve season tickets to the local asylum, the clearest expression of primitive insanity in a modern world.
Whether it be Moses or Buddha, Ghandi or Maimonides, Jefferson or Mother Teresa, there are countless people who have imbibed moderacy, tolerance and decency for all mankind.
When we allow for human interpretation, and for ethical and social evolution – when we absorb ever changing meaning and implications deriving from our religious tracts, our literature, philosophy and history, then and only then will we tend to share and absorb the lessons of all, acquiring thereby a humanistic commonality with all beings, all religions. It’s exactly humankind’s necessary partnership of human interpretation with Godly inspiration that is the awe inspiring commonality between all peoples that inhabit this Earth.
But when we insist our words are different to your words, our eyes better than yours, our ears the only ones hearing the siren call, then we usher in disaster and suffering. And it’s on thus, the most public and strong prohibition of such exclusitory intolerance, that our future will rest.
Leslie J. Sacks
