I often ask myself why? Not ‘why is the sky blue’ or ‘why is the ocean salty’ as these have scientific answers.
No, I ask myself, why is talking about sex with your children embarrassing? Why is it ‘those’ parts of the body that are ‘private’? Why do some people hate other people just because of their skin/beliefs/way of life?
I once read a short story, the name of which escapes…hang on, internet, google…let me go look…don’t go away…never mind, can’t find it…anyway, in the short story sex, any sex, was open and public. Thoughts and ideas, however, were private. The story is set in a classroom, during what I guess could be called Thought Ed (like SexEd, get it?) and there is a girl expounding on the idea that perhaps in a parallel world, sex is private and thoughts are public. The teacher kisses her to get her to be quiet.
So what skews our world, our part of the multiverse (tm RAH), to sex being private and thoughts being public? You can’t just say, ‘The Bible’, and be done with it, since The Bible, meaning the Old and New Testaments, isn’t used every where in our world. But you certainly won’t find a teacher kissing a student to shut them up in our world…or if you know of a place, send me the address, k?
So that leads to my third ‘why’ above. Why be mean/hate/kill someone if they believe different from you? What does that prove? That you’re right and they’re wrong? That you have a bigger gun?
Getting back to RAH…oh, sorry, Robert A Heinlein, for the non-sci fi geeks in the audience…there is a scene in Stranger in a Strange Land (and read the unedited version if you haven’t yet) where Mike, the Man from Mars, is trying to understand how every religion on earth can honestly believe that their god is the true god and all of the rest are false. This is not possible, to his logical, Martian raised mind. On Mars, according to Mike (and RAH, obviously) there is one religion. The tenet? Thou Art God. You, Me, Him, Her. All. Apparently it works out much neater if you can say it in Martian. Really need to find time to learn Martian.
Anyway, while I don’t think everyone can be god, cuz, by definition, aren’t gods omnipotent and omniscient? And, ya know, human here, but I do think that all gods are true gods. If you believe, then your god is true.
And who does it hurt if people believe this? Is my god so weak that your god makes him weaker?
So…why?