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The Bible is a collection of books, which begins as a compilation made by Hebrew scholars of myths that existed prior to the foundation of Israel. Those first myths: Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah, were wonderful stories that captured human existence. The subsequent story about the Hebrews is a description of international politics. There were no physical boundaries to the world, and no one to ultimately answer to. The first books of the Bible describe the founding of a tribal identity and the subsequent struggle to maintain order, while meanwhile conquering neighbor tribes and founding a kingdom.

One has to see that God is used in all these old tribes, kingdoms and empires, as the tool of politics. There is a priestly class that seeks to reconcile us to wonder and mysteries of nature, but however kind and constructive this is, we are always at the mercy of the empire builders and warrior castes who use God to justify the seizure of land.

It is in this way that those Hebrew scholars did the world a service, and themselves a disservice. For, in clear, honest straightforward explanation, the Hebrews capture the essence of what it is to be a people in a world of other people. There is probably no better document that describes this universal truth; that tribes compete for land.

The new testament section is the reformation of a brutal but honest depiction of the state of (tribal) nature. Jesus sought to humanize and universalize Hebraic thought as the rival Classical system of values proved more effective in seizing land and ruling. Jesus sought to reconcile us to the brutalities of not just a militant religion, but to the brutalities of nature as well.

Empire builders, kings, imperialists, need the vast organization of a religious system to maintain their zone of control. This is true in Old India, Old China, Old Iraq and other states that grew into Nations capable of defining the world enough for their citizens to maintain the borders, and perhaps overreach in the name of truth.

Now, the religious faiths must acknowledge science, and the foundation of absolute limitations to the boundaries of nation states on the globe. There is no more frontier, and we now disabuse ourselves of colonialism, though the competition to win the hearts and minds of population continues.

Of course, the issue of the sacred must be addressed. But in overview of the world's cultures and religions, no one religion has the final say, and all to often religion's use is to close the mind and provide peaceful conduct of thought and behavior. It is too much a burden to face death and the universe all at once. In designating something sacred we gain so much in peace of mind, that we feel grateful, in fact, obligated, to uphold in faith those who provide us with a better explanation that the weird machinery that is Cosmology.

Learn more about this author, James Hinton.
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