Reflections From a Murky Pond

Winter solitude–
In a world of one color
The sound of wind.

— Matsuo Bashō, , “Winter solitude”

Most people think that they know what happened in the Garden of Eden and why the Fall of Man happened. Consider though that most people have only heard the tale from the Christians’ bible and then only in modern, translated form. What really caused the Fall of Man might have been a bit different from the mainstream report.

Oh yeah! If one considers ancient Jewish texts, especially the Kabbalah, then Adam was first paired with Lilith, not Eve. Also, Lilith, some time after divorcing herself from Adam, became the 1st Consort of Sama’el, who according to some works was the one who tempted Eve, not the Serpent, who was merely Sama’els mount.

So really, that part of Genesis that depicts the Fall of Man may just be a sanitized description of family drama surrounding a pair of Ex’s and their jealous new spouses. 😆

While we’ve no evidence that this has happened to Man before – the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1–9) is lore, not evidence – the Science-Religion Cycle both makes sense and is something of a favorite with both futurists and science-fiction writers. Frankly, I find it quite plausible.

And, introducing the Pope Hammer! 😆 Yes, this is a real thing that the Catholic Church came up with long ago. Whenever a sitting Pope died, it was the solemn duty of the Cardinal Camerlengo to “gently” strike him upon his head three times while calling out his Baptismal Name aka his given or first name. If he didn’t respond – after being struck in the head by a hammer up to three times – he was declared truly and really dead and the process for selecting his successor was begun.

So… Sometime “fairly” soon:

BAM! Jorge? BAM! Jorge? BAM Jorge?

Yeah, I’m guessing that Pope Francis aka Jorge Mario Bergoglio isn’t going to get merely a set of love taps when he’s presumed dead. Being both the first Jesuit Pope and the First non-European one doesn’t bode to well for him in that respect, given the nature of the Church. 😉

Since this meme seems to be running rampant right, it seemed appropriate to apply some fact-checking to it. Hence, “This is not a Christian Nation. It’s a nation in which you are free to be Christian” has been found to be Missing Context. It is, like much of what our domestic enemies spew, misinformation – but of the specific sort that is promulgated ,endorsed, and protected by most social media platforms.

First off, The United States of America is not and never has been officially a Christian nation, unlike Argentina, Armenia, Costa Rica, Denmark, England, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Faroe Islands, Georgia, Greece, Greenland, Hungary, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Malta, Monaco, Norway, Samoa, Serbia, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vatican City, and Zambia. We are not one of the 12.3% of the world’s nations which are officially Christian. So, insofar as that goes, the statement that America is not a Christian nation is true.

Missing Context

Officially so or not, America is functionally – even in these times – a Christian nation. The nation was founded by a variety of Christians, often of sects who were experiencing genocidal persecution in Europe. And, like all Western nations, our legal system is and was based upon Judaeo-Christian religious tenets. And, finally, Christianity is the basis of the vast majority of our citizens’ theological/spiritual makeup. Even the growing number of people within our borders who have – often stridently and virulently, sometimes for very valid reasons – rejected their Church, are still essentially Christian in their beliefs.

So yeah; we’re not officially a Christian nation but we’re de facto a Christian nation since Christianity was baked into America just as it was baked into our European antecedents before our founding.

In point of fact, it would be less misleading to say that America is a Christian nation in which you are free to be non-Christian.