December 12, 2005

Dear Colleague,

         "In the valley of Mina, outside of Mecca, Abraham threw rocks at Satan who tried to tempt him out of sacrificing Isaac, his son. Two million pilgrims gathered at the same spot on February 1, 2004 to reenact the patriarch's wrath by casting seven pebbles at a pillar representing the devil. Sadly, this year some 251 were trampled to death" (The Economist, February 7, 2004).

         What, then, is religion? In one version, it is obedience to God, the creator of heaven and earth, a force so overwhelming that the only permissible posture of the human creature is to obey, even if the order is to kill--to kill all women and boys if they happened to be Midianites (Numbers 31) and to kill one's own son, nay, sadistically better, make the son carry the wood on which he is to be sacrificed, linger over the agonizing steps that father and son have to take in the preparation of the ritual, savor the father binding his child with trembling fingers and lifting him--feeling his dear weight--to the top of the altar, and, finally, torching the wood pile. To a human sadist, the Bible's account is too short to be satisfactory. Before he can enjoy what is happening, it is over. He would be better served by the filmed version of the sacrifice, for, watching the film (The Bible, made in 1966), he could believe that he was present at the scene, savoring the slow passage of the agonizing minutes, observing the sweat oozing out of Abraham's face and the tears welling out of the child's eyes. God's pleasure was something else. It did not lie in the killing itself. After all, he drowned nearly the entire human race when it displeased him. No, it lay in Abraham's total submissiveness, his spineless obedience.

         As readers of George Orwell's 1984 know, Winston not only learned to obey his torturer but to love him. In other words, Winston was so converted to his torturer's point of view that he willingly--of his own "free will"--followed his torturer's designs for him and for society. In the belief of a substantial number of people (see first paragraph), Abraham did not just acquiesce to God's command, he actively fought his tempter, he threw rocks at Satan. And what did Satan do to merit such abuse? Well, he did something very wicked. He tried to persuade Abraham to desist killing his child, be compassionate, disobey God and obey rather that tiny seed of goodness (his conscience) that God himself planted in one of his better moments. In response to Satan's counsel of mercy, two million pilgrims gathered outside Mecca to throw rocks at him. We don't know whether Satan escaped unscathed to do further mischief in the future. What we do know is that, last year, the pilgrims' righteous anger caused hundreds to be trampled to death. Over a fifteen-year period, nearly 3,000 people perished in crowd-crushes, fires, and riots. How God must be entertained by the cruel ironies of this annual show!

         We made God in our image--and he is (what do you expect?) a monster!

Best wishes,

Yi-Fu