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If I have power over you and you ignore what I instruct you.   You do your own thing in your own way and in your own time.   You disrespect my power over you and in doing so you disrespect me.   I will be irritated and then annoyed and then angered and then hate.   I will hate you because you tell me without telling me I mean nothing to you.   I will hate you because you will tell others around I have no power to control you.   And in that I have no real power to control them either.  I will hate you and will try and destroy you.  But in that I am controlled too.  I cannot be seen to destroy you or else I too will be destroyed by those who control me.  And that feeds my hatred.  That festers my poison. And I know that in all of that you are destroying me drop by toxic drop.   And I will not let that happen.  I will survive so you can not.

30 Seconds To Disaster.

Or just another daily occurrence at work – at church – in a social setting – in a relationship … ?  In any situation where we impose (or suppose) a hierarchy and where people are not the same.

I’ve heard this malady explained as our original damage – or original sin as we prefer not to say nowadays.  That genetic disturbance we received in The Garden – but don’t like to mention too openly today.  Whichever take of the bible you take – we seem to have accepted the science – of fiction and imagery.  The consequence?  I am no longer in control of myself.  I am born ready and willing to sin.  So the ills of being human – the less attractive desires of being a living being – we may now excuse as “not my fault”.

That scenario above… it is not a fiction.

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It happened to me loads of times as an aspiring manager of increasingly large departments.  Because those who controlled me expected me to control those I controlled.  It is a valued performance indicator.  One that dictated pay and promotion prospects. 

Nor, I think, it “evidence” of being born to sin.

Walk down any country lane and you see a silent battle for survival.  Different species trying to over-run other species.  Different bugs moving in and out dependant on what there is too eat.   Watch any rutting season and the obsessive competitiveness.  All for the right to impregnate the females – who wait for the winner to impregnate them.

Nature – of which we are part – isn’t sinful, it is born to survive and/or die.  Genetics is survival of the fittest.  And no matter how sophisticated, educated and “above all that” we humans think ourselves – unless we are NOT of nature (hello scientific bible) we too have that turbulent cocktail within.

But nor, I think, is Love unique to us humans either.

We simply prefer to draw (various) lines in the sand to elevate us above our competitors for survival (like the explanation the scientific bible offers and is taught).   Except I keep reading of examples of life on this planet who have as much a sense of community and compassion as we.  Life forms who might not use the same language or definitions as we – but whose consequences are the same: protecting life when protecting life puts our own survival in jeopardy.

We call that Love and think it unique to us.  Just as we prefer to label our base desires and actions as sin.  It keeps us from being just another species of evolving mammal.  Because God created us in His own image.  The science bible tells us quite clearly.

No faith required.

Just as the bible says God created all life forms.  And (obviously) all other life has nothing in common with God.  Why would it – they are only “animals” for us to name and rule over … to control.

And we are back to that hierarchy again.  God’s scientific hierarchy.  Just as written in the bible.  Just as if we study long enough (and with the right teachers) we will find the bible is its own scientific evidence.  And we will believe.  And it will not be faith.  It will be certainty.  Such certainty as requires no faith.  Just as it says in the bible …

“Oh ye of little faith.”

Faith is not needed.  The bible says.  And that is God speaking.  The bible says.

So let’s talk about the greatest of these …

Or does that require faith?

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