in-His-own-image.com: preface

preface

    I loved my Mother and Father with every fiber of my being - I didn’t always show it, but I know they knew, nevertheless.
    Yet they filled my youth with stories of all of the things I could do to get sent straight to Hell. They meant well, I’ll give them that - they were honestly and deeply concerned that I live my life in such a way that I earn a reservation in the Heaven they were certain existed. They loved me, I've no doubt.
    Regrettably, their own education was limited - Dad finished fifth grade, Mom the seventh. They weren’t, to say the least, readers on a grand scale. They never read the Judeo-Christian Bible upon which they so fervently wished me to model my life. Instead, they (i.e., my Mom) went to church and chose to accept what the minister said as, well,...gospel. Neither the minister, nor my parents, ever questioned the veracity of that book upon which they believed their fate after death to lie - a book my parents never read.
    My son was a beautiful little boy in whom I was (and am still) well pleased. He always told me the truth, even if he knew he would be mildly punished for whatever offense he committed. One day some postage stamps were discovered missing from our neighbor’s house shortly after my son had visited there. I was asked if he might have taken them. He insisted he hadn’t. I returned to tell my neighbor that my son assured me he hadn’t taken the stamps and that my son never lied to me. I later discovered that he had indeed taken the stamps and had in fact lied to me. I was crushed. Today, my son is a mature family man, a good husband and father himself, well educated, with a professional career - and to be honest, my best friend. Yet even now, when he tells me something, I can assume that it’s true, but I can never again be entirely certain. Such is the power of a single untruth.
    The Judeo-Christian Bible is true, in its entirety, or it is not. Half-truths, metaphors, allegories and innuendos have no place here. If you’re going to tell me a story, if you'll identify it as fiction, I’ll follow the advice of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and gladly suspend my disbelief - I love a good yarn. But don’t hand me a book and tell me that part of it may be true, while part of it may or may not, and it’s up to me to determine which is which. And oh - no pressure, but the eternal future of my immortal soul depends on how well I figure it out - with the clock ticking.
    Not for me - give me the truth or leave me to find it for myself.
    I acquired a Weed-Eater last week. Before I started it, I read the owner’s manual - that seemed like the common-sense thing to do.
    How much more crucial to read a book whose rules purport to determine whether one spends eternity writhing on a spit, or frolicking merrily among diaperless cherubim, while singing, “Rah, Rah, Rah, Sis, Boom, Bah, Yeeeeaaaaaa GOD!!"?

    The assorted books, scrolls and other media that may have comprised the original Judeo-Christian Bible, no longer exist, thus you and I will never be allowed to see for ourselves if what the Gideon Bible Fairy leaves on hotel nightstands, are in fact true to the original.
    We’re expected to take it on faith.
    So get out your King James, or whatever version you may have handy, and let’s take a long, objective look at the book that began it all and see just exactly what we have.
    Let’s read the Bible together - just the two of us - I promise to make it more fun than it sounds, and who knows, you might accidentally learn something --

pax vobiscum,
archaeopteryx