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WHY I WROTE AN ACCIDENTAL GOD
Look at the news on any given day; it is remarkable how much of it is driven by intolerance and fanaticism based on slightly different interpretations of the God of a Bronze Age nomad named Abraham. How ironic it would be if all of this human energy was being wasted on a long dead person, who had no idea that he would become God. If we discount the existence of magical beings, and I certainly do, then religious beliefs must have human rather than supernatural origins. Throughout the ages, humans have deified forces of nature (wind, rain, sky), geography (mountains, sea, rivers), and other people like rulers and dead ancestors. We cannot blame intelligent people three to four thousand years ago for seeing magic in nature, the landscape, and in death, since they had no better knowledge. Although the book of Genesis sometimes conflates Abraham’s God with the Canaanite sky god El, and associates Him with high places in the geography, the origins of this God are unknown, so it is possible that he was a deified ancestor.
Then it occurred to me that at the time of Abraham every other clan in the world had its own deified ancestors and family gods. How was it that the god of this one family out-competed those of every other to become the God of the Western World? The answer must be an evolution of religious thought, which is in many ways analogous to biological evolution. As people experience life’s constantly changing and often seemingly random challenges, they develop new ideas and new solutions. Unworkable approaches are discarded, but people hold onto the best ideas, those that solve their problems or provide some advantage. They spread these ideas to others, and pass them on to their children. This process can be looked at as the mutation and natural selection of ideas, which led over time to one religious tradition’s rise to dominance. Of course this process of religious evolution took thousands of years, but An Accidental God only looks at its very beginnings: The life of a boy named Yehhi, who would eventually become our God, and the thought-evolution of his descendent Abraham as Abraham confronts a life of challenges and misfortunes. It seems to me the height of irony that modern-day religious people who deny the truth of biological evolution do so because of their belief in a God which is itself the product of an evolution in ideas. This observation is true independent of whether or not there is any truth to the fictionalized events in An Accidental God.
In the sections of the book focusing on Abraham, the dead ancestor Yehhi is presented as a disembodied presence contemplating the actions of Abraham and his clan. This would seem to contradict the secular point of view I have outlined above. However, Yehhi is present after his physical death only as the collective thoughts of all the living people who focus their minds upon him. The disembodied Yehhi character in An Accidental God is a symbolic representation of this dynamic. Yehhi’s opinions and ideas evolve throughout history as the thoughts of those who think about him evolve. Why is it that the Old Testament God is wrathful and obsessed with sacrifices and ritual, while the New Testament God is a God of love and forgiveness? Could it be that it was the people who had changed, and they then dreamed themselves up a changed God? The mental energy flows from the people to the God and defines the will of the God. What the people interpret as the will of God is in fact the aggregate of ideas of the people regarding God. The people deceive themselves into believing that the will of the God originates with the God and He imposes His will upon the people. In fact it is exactly the opposite.
This volume includes a series of essays as well as extensive notes on the text. The essays discuss the philosophical underpinnings of An Accidental God in depth. The notes in some cases tell the reader the author’s intended meaning or interpretation of parts of the text. Other notes give historical, archeological, or biblical commentary related to the text or identify sources of information. The casual reader might want to ignore the notes unless something really strikes them as interesting or troubling, or downright wrong. Then please look at the note and see what I have to say on that point. Otherwise, enjoy a good story and draw your own meaning from it. However, since An Accidental God includes some unconventional interpretations of topics many people hold as sacred, it is bound to push somebody’s buttons. If you find this work offensive, inaccurate or misguided and wish to criticize me, I welcome your feedback in the spirit of free and open discussion. I ask, however, that you read the relevant explanatory material to be sure that your criticism is based on what I actually said and what I mean, and not based on a misunderstanding.
Aleron Zemplin 2013
Then it occurred to me that at the time of Abraham every other clan in the world had its own deified ancestors and family gods. How was it that the god of this one family out-competed those of every other to become the God of the Western World? The answer must be an evolution of religious thought, which is in many ways analogous to biological evolution. As people experience life’s constantly changing and often seemingly random challenges, they develop new ideas and new solutions. Unworkable approaches are discarded, but people hold onto the best ideas, those that solve their problems or provide some advantage. They spread these ideas to others, and pass them on to their children. This process can be looked at as the mutation and natural selection of ideas, which led over time to one religious tradition’s rise to dominance. Of course this process of religious evolution took thousands of years, but An Accidental God only looks at its very beginnings: The life of a boy named Yehhi, who would eventually become our God, and the thought-evolution of his descendent Abraham as Abraham confronts a life of challenges and misfortunes. It seems to me the height of irony that modern-day religious people who deny the truth of biological evolution do so because of their belief in a God which is itself the product of an evolution in ideas. This observation is true independent of whether or not there is any truth to the fictionalized events in An Accidental God.
In the sections of the book focusing on Abraham, the dead ancestor Yehhi is presented as a disembodied presence contemplating the actions of Abraham and his clan. This would seem to contradict the secular point of view I have outlined above. However, Yehhi is present after his physical death only as the collective thoughts of all the living people who focus their minds upon him. The disembodied Yehhi character in An Accidental God is a symbolic representation of this dynamic. Yehhi’s opinions and ideas evolve throughout history as the thoughts of those who think about him evolve. Why is it that the Old Testament God is wrathful and obsessed with sacrifices and ritual, while the New Testament God is a God of love and forgiveness? Could it be that it was the people who had changed, and they then dreamed themselves up a changed God? The mental energy flows from the people to the God and defines the will of the God. What the people interpret as the will of God is in fact the aggregate of ideas of the people regarding God. The people deceive themselves into believing that the will of the God originates with the God and He imposes His will upon the people. In fact it is exactly the opposite.
This volume includes a series of essays as well as extensive notes on the text. The essays discuss the philosophical underpinnings of An Accidental God in depth. The notes in some cases tell the reader the author’s intended meaning or interpretation of parts of the text. Other notes give historical, archeological, or biblical commentary related to the text or identify sources of information. The casual reader might want to ignore the notes unless something really strikes them as interesting or troubling, or downright wrong. Then please look at the note and see what I have to say on that point. Otherwise, enjoy a good story and draw your own meaning from it. However, since An Accidental God includes some unconventional interpretations of topics many people hold as sacred, it is bound to push somebody’s buttons. If you find this work offensive, inaccurate or misguided and wish to criticize me, I welcome your feedback in the spirit of free and open discussion. I ask, however, that you read the relevant explanatory material to be sure that your criticism is based on what I actually said and what I mean, and not based on a misunderstanding.
Aleron Zemplin 2013
SYNOPSIS
An Accidental God tells how, through a series of accidents, a person who lived at the dawn of civilization became God. An earthquake shakes the ancient Mesopotamian city of Ur; amid the devastation, Abraham sees that all the family idols have toppled over, all except for the statue of Yehhi, a revered ancestor. He is convinced that Yehhi has shown his power by remaining upright amid the collapse of the other gods, and he believes that this is Yehhi’s call for his clan to abandon Ur. Abraham’s young nephew Lot is swindled by a wily merchant into squandering the family fortune on a smelly herd of sheep and goats tended by slave boys, named Ishmael and Isaac. Abraham must now become a nomadic shepherd wandering in a strange wilderness. Ishmael, who was stolen from his family, secretly guides them back towards his home in Canaan. Along the way, events challenge Abram to think differently about his relationship with his god Yehhi.
Centuries before Abraham, Yehhi tells his own story. A chance meeting at a desert oasis gives the precocious, ten-year-old the opportunity to be educated as a scribe at the Temple of the Moon in the big city of Ur. Separated permanently from his family, Yehhi struggles to fit in. He finds solace in a heretical religious movement that advocates worshiping the wonders of nature rather than idols, but he wrestles with whether to abandon these beliefs in order to move up in the Temple hierarchy.
Abraham has been unable to conceive children due to a disease that he does not understand, so he develops a fatherly affinity for Ishmael and Isaac. Nevertheless, Abram becomes increasingly obsessed by his inability to produce children of his own. He bargains with his god Yehhi, and he seizes upon a local custom of genital mutilation to improve fertility. He engages in increasingly gory animal sacrifices and eventually resorts to human sacrifice.
Centuries before Abraham, Yehhi tells his own story. A chance meeting at a desert oasis gives the precocious, ten-year-old the opportunity to be educated as a scribe at the Temple of the Moon in the big city of Ur. Separated permanently from his family, Yehhi struggles to fit in. He finds solace in a heretical religious movement that advocates worshiping the wonders of nature rather than idols, but he wrestles with whether to abandon these beliefs in order to move up in the Temple hierarchy.
Abraham has been unable to conceive children due to a disease that he does not understand, so he develops a fatherly affinity for Ishmael and Isaac. Nevertheless, Abram becomes increasingly obsessed by his inability to produce children of his own. He bargains with his god Yehhi, and he seizes upon a local custom of genital mutilation to improve fertility. He engages in increasingly gory animal sacrifices and eventually resorts to human sacrifice.