Are You My Mother?

When I began to read the bible with a keener and more objective eye, I didn’t have to read too far beyond the first book of Genesis to realize that what I was reading was the stuff of make-believe. I wondered why so many intelligent people took these stories seriously. I then realized that it probably had less to do with one’s level of intelligence as it did with one’s tradition and fear. Many are simply comfortable believing the stories they were introduced to as children.

Konrad Lorenz, an Austrian zoologist divided two groups of geese eggs by placing them into separate incubators. When one group of eggs hatched, the geese were placed with their mother and naturally began to learn and adapt her behavior.  The other group of eggs were absent from their mother and upon hatching were exposed exclusively to Konrad Lorenz. The geese identified Lorenz as their mother and began following and treating him as a parental bird. Some of the geese even courted Lorenz in preference to other geese. This classic experiment was called imprinting.

This is what has happened to African-Americans as far as religion is concerned. Blacks are Christians by default, being introduced to Christianity during their American enslavement period. Jesus was the first religious image that was seen and consequentially, Christianity became the first “mother” that was followed.  Blacks have been imprinted upon religiously. Imprinting is very powerful and tends to stay with one for a lifetime. It takes an open-mind, fearless heart and trusting spirit to question or doubt certain “truths” about our traditional religious convictions.

Shortly after Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning,” we are bombarded with far-fetched, chimerical stories that only those who have been imprinted upon could accept as true. The following stories would have no place for an otherwise healthy-minded, intelligent and reasonable thinking human being.

God made the grass, flowers and trees on the 3rd day but the Sun on the 4th. 
God made “Adam” from dust and “Eve” from his rib.
A serpent tempted Eve in the garden of Eden.
A flaming sword prevented Adam and Eve from going back into the garden of Eden.
God and Cain had a conversation.
Methuselah lived to be 969 years old.
Noah spent 120 years building an ark.
Noah loads predator and prey side by side upon an ark.
The door of Noah’s ark shuts by itself.
Noah was 480 years old when God told him to build an ark.
God sent a rainbow as a promise that he would  never destroy the world again .
People attempted to build a tower of Babel to the sky and God became threatened by it.
God stopped the work of the tower by causing people to speak in different tongues.
God promises Abraham he would save Sodom if there were 10 good men there.

Now, let’s be completely honest with ourselves. Do not justify these absurd stories by claiming that we don’t understand the mind of God or that “God works in mysterious ways.” Take a hard look at what you’ve just read (and this is only in the first few chapters of the first book of Genesis). These stories were written in a time when humans were in their elementary stages of intelligence and people expressed themselves in very exaggerated ways. How long do we want to stay in elementary? We “study” from the same book (the bible) our entire lives but never actually graduate. It’s time we realize that we have been religiously imprinted upon. We are simply believing the stories we’ve heard after “hatching” in the Christian “incubator” called America.

Advertisement

Explore posts in the same categories: Uncategorized