The Revealer recently tipped me off to the Washington Post’s “conversation on religion.” And in one segment, Steve Prothero tackles the idea that we are “all” children of Abraham. Which is, of course, completely untrue. And an obnoxious thing to assert.
Funny timing for me to be reading this… as we had a “lively conversation” at dinner the other night about monotheism and polytheism.. One person at the table used the word “immature” to describe polytheistic faiths (though in her defense, she was addressing only one aspect of polytheistic worship.)
But still!
Immature?
Then I got to thinking about the way I was taught the story of Abraham smashing the idols. About how it was taught to me as illustrative of the moral/intellectual/philosophical superiority of monotheism and Judaism (over heathenish pagans). And today I discovered that actually… there is no such story in the Torah.
Hmmmm….
Not quite sure what I’m doing yet with these two ideas… the misconception of the “Abrahamic” tradition that the interfaithful world loves so much.. and the misconception that polytheism makes any less sense than monotheism. Which white people love so much.
After all… it isn’t really about “all getting along” or all about “making sense”. Is it? It’s religion, people. It makes no sense at all, and we fight about it all the damn time!