Salt Licks and Church StepsI was thinking about the spots wild cattle found, to lick salt and minerals from the rock. The generations of cow tongues licking at the same soft spot, wore them away like our feet have worn away stone steps into temples of worship. If salt licks are a cow's religion... A cow atheist might say, "Give up religion!" But you need religion. It gives you needed minerals. "Give up religion but continue its number one worship activity: licking rock!" Then what's being given up? Might as well enjoy the salt lick along with the worship of the salt lick. "You only worship for the salt and minerals." But of course! Every cow needs religion, needs the salt and minerals. In this cow society, it would be true that everybody needed religion. It occurs to me that worshiping the salt lick is a simple religion, with no other commandmants saddled onto it by those who sish to control people. Do we also have a core religion that we all "need" and can find, somewhere, beneath the trappings of Christianity and all other world religions? Speaking of religion, do Catholic priests pick children, or to pedophiles pick the priesthood? Chicken or the egg. Arguing the first: Catholic priests pick children for sex, not women or an adult partner, because they want a sexual outlet but can't risk getting caught! Children are the most influenceable, and can be coached not to tell. Priests pick children, by this argument, not primarily because they are children, but because they are SAFE. Arguing the second: Men who wish to coerce children into perversion must perforce assume a role that children are told to trust. Policeman, priest, stepfather. By this argument, the pedophile apes a religious mien in order to more easily capture the affections and time of his prey. If only our religions were as simple as a salt lick. |