And Man Created God

Maybe they should simply all read "Obey." (Photo from al-Jazeera.)

I've written (and joked) about my confusion over the idea that with all of the things that have gone down in American history that God would decide that extending the institution of marriage to same-sex couples would be the thing that finally triggers him to snap, so I'm going to try and approach this from a different angle this time.

When I encounter the idea that the United States has done nothing worse in it's history than sanction same-sex relationships, the only workable explanation that I can come up with is that people don't keep their Bibles close at hand during History classes. It's difficult to think that a careful reading of history wouldn't turn up a never-ending series of things that God would take issue with.

In the end, I think, what's really at work is that people derive their understanding of morality less from religion than religion derives its understanding of morality from people. Whether or not deities are real, and are factors in human affairs, the religions that revere them are human institutions, and driven by the emotions and biases of their constituents. For a stone-age people living in a harsh desert where all hands were needed, sexual activity that didn't increase the size or health of the tribe was a luxury they couldn't afford. But even though the necessity of controlling people's sex lives has gone away, the virtue of a circumscribed sexuality hasn't. It's unlikely it ever will.