dreamer_easy | (no subject)

I'd like to share with you a story from my religion. It's about the goddess of childbirth, Ninmah, and the cunning god, Enki. They get drunk one night and have a competition: can Ninmah produce a disabled person for whom Enki can't find a place in society? She makes a blind man, and Enki gives him a job as a musician. She makes a lame man, and Enki gives him a job as a silversmith. She makes a woman who can't have children, and Enki gives her a job as a weaver. She makes an intellectually disabled man, and Enki gives him a job as a servant of the king.

I like this story for two reasons. Firstly, because of its light-hearted explanation of disability: it's not a curse or a judgement or a catastrophe, it's just that the gods had a bit too much to drink. And secondly, because of its compassion. No disabled person is worthless; each has a useful role in society. We need weavers and silversmiths and musicians, and where would the king be without his servants?

I thought of this story when reading the terrible news stories about two women with Down syndrome who were apparently used as human bombs in Iraq. Far from treating them as people created by God or the gods, they were treated as worthless and disposable.

And I thought of myself, too, crippled with physical and mental illness, and yet still able to keep a household running and do a little Web work and writing and look after my husband and cats.

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I still don't see any chance or compassion in the story. The gods get drunk and have a bet; they decide to cripple some humans as part of their game.

Funny thing about monotheism -- it often assumes that God is perfect and isn't capable of making a mistake. Everything God does in that context is deliberate, and usually either a punishment or a reward for an individual or humanity at large.

Pantheistic parables that talk about the gods getting drunk, playing tricks on each other, and making mistakes are supposed to carry the implication that you never know what those crazy gods are going to do, and sometimes humanity just has to roll with the punches.

In either case, there is no chance on the gods' side of things -- they're portrayed as conscious beings making decisions (and perhaps lacking in compassion or forethought sometimes). But from the human side, the monotheistic version implies that humans can control the situation by being good (i.e. working to please the gods, get rewards, and avoid punishment).

To me, that's where the element of 'chance' comes in on the 'gods getting drunk' story. We can't control whether gods get drunk, but we still have to live in the world that they made. That seems like a pretty straightforward metaphor for living in a world where we ask questions like 'why was I made this way?' In the absence of gods, the answer is still the same as far as our own responsibility is concerned -- it just happened, and we can't help it.

But from the human side, the monotheistic version implies that humans can control the situation by being good (i.e. working to please the gods, get rewards, and avoid punishment)

Christianity certainly doesn't: thinking you can control God by being good is, well, gosh, there was a whole Reformation about that.

Judaism, or at least the Old Testament, has more of a tradition of calling on God -- but even then it's not so much of being able to control God by being Good, as God being a just judge who will find in the favour of the innocent. When the Psalmist calls on God, he's not trying to control or invoke God by being good, he's asking God to recognise his goodness. Important difference that: when two parties go to court, is the wronged one trying to control the judge by having been wronged? Or are they simply asking to court to recognise the justic eof the situation.

I know about Islam even less, but my impression is that a Muslim would laugh at the very idea of trying to control Allah, or change his mind in any way. Allah is sovereign and does whatever he wants, and we humans must simply accept that and obey -- very much like you describe the pantheistic response.