our days on earth are but a shadow

Today's Bible lesson, class, will be Natalie's interpretation of the Book of Job. (And you totally can't mock me for knowing about Jesus because Job is from the Hebrew Bible. And I learned about it in my Philosophy class in college. I am utterly mock-proof.)

Anyway... Job. Job is this pious, devout Bible guy, and one day Satan and God make a bet. God says to Satan, "Check out my man Job, he's pretty sweet." and Satan says, "Please. Of course he's into you, look at how great his life is. Take all that away and I bet he'll change his tune and curse you to your face." So Satan systematically ruins Job's life, pretty much. Kills all his children, demolishes everything he has, gives him icky skin diseases. Shit piled upon shit, basically. So Job is sad and pathetic and he spends a really long time arguing with his friends about why God would do something like this to him. He never curses God, he merely wants an explanation. And then this young kid comes and tells him he's acting like an arrogant sinning-person and that he should not presume he has the slightest idea what God's giant-fancy plans are. So finally, God himself comes out of the clouds all scary-like and says, "How dare you! Do you have any bloody idea how hard I work? What with creating, oh, I don't know, EVERYTHING. Sheesh." Only he's angrier than that, really. God outlines all the ways in which he is, you know, godly, and Job is a lowly worm. God schools Job, and Job hastily repents. And then God gives Job a new, better family and cooler stuff (more oxen) and everyone lives happily ever after. Except Job's old family because they're all dead.

Ok. That was the summary part. I would say that it is generally accurate. Now for the analysis part: This story functions, for me, on several levels. (I'm not going to talk too much about traditional interpretations or scholarly analyses of this book of the Bible. You can search on Google Scholar and read them for yourselves.) It is really interesting in a historical context because Christians have a much different relationship with god than old-school Jews do. And that is quite evident within the Bible itself. Jesus is really a kinder, gentler deity. He eliminates that separation between human and god, since he is the divine walking on Earth, allegedly. That, to me, is philosophically interesting.

So there's that part. Then there's the part about Job being the archetypal guy-who-gets-a-raw-deal. He didn't do anyhting, really, except be "blameless and upright." And that sucks for him. He gets reduced to a human bag of misery, and who, in that situation, would not curse god? I certainly would. I certainly have. And I haven't ever been a human bag of misery. But I do know about shit upon shit. I know about life being a constant test of one's ability to cope. I also know about life not being like that. I know about life being endlessly wondrous and incomprehensibly amazing. Which is kind of what God was saying to Job; life is more complex and expansive than you can even begin to imagine.

Then there's the part about Job being rewarded for his faith. (Was he rewarded for his faith, or for how quickly he caved as soon as God showed up? Or maybe he was rewarded for having the balls to ask why, and the balls to admit he was wrong. I don't know. I didn't write it.) Faith is one of those words, for me, that activates my anger. Blind faith is one of the singlemost destructive forces on the planet, I think. It keeps people stupid and placated. Like cattle. It's a drug as much as anything else is. And faith is different from trust. For me, faith is something directed at obscure, abstract concepts (like religion). Trust is an interpersonal thing. More real. Definitely legitimate. But faith is bullshit. Faith is like asking someone to ignore their thoughts and intuitions for some ridiculous social construct. "Here's a bunch of bullshit. Take it on faith." Fuck that noise.

One last thing, because I have to leave very soon. How fucked up is it that God and Satan make a bet about poor Job? Are they that bored? I guess so. They ruin his life. And I mean ruin. And then God's just like, Ok, reset. And everything is back to normal. The first time I read it I couldn't get past the your-entire-family-is-dead thing. I know it's an allegory and I am being legalistic. But I couldn't get over that part, were I Job. Excuse me, um, God, you can't just kill everyone I love and then replace them. That's kind of horrible. What kind of god are you, to do that to a person?

Oh, one more, all-important bit: it is your right and duty as a person of intelligence to question absolutely everything. This includes your parents, the establishment, god. Nothing and no one is above scrutiny, ever, under any circumstances. Also, on a slightly unrelated note, no one deserves your respect who does not show respect to you. This includes your parents, the establishment, god. Respect is earned, not freely given, I don't care who you are, what you've done, or how much older you are than me. Also. You don't owe anything to anyone. This includes your parents, the establishment, god.

Ok, class, I hope today's lesson provides you with a better picture of not only the Book of Job, but of my deep-seated agnosticism. And deeply-set it is. Don't forget there will be a quiz over the material I have covered next week.