A pagan friend on monotheism

Some don't disbelieve me; others mock me. The one camp thinks that somewhere deep within the bowels of my home or office there's a computer upon which I write. The scoffers say things like: “Josh, [I've asked them to call me 'Excellency' but to no avail] I just hit the 'send' button and whoomph, my letter is received.” Maybe, I mentally concede, but I'm a Luddite because I know that when the Postal Service mail arrives at my door, there's more than just bills, circulars and occasional invitations. There are letters from friends and relatives, long epistles I can open, and read, and savor. The joy of receiving real mail trumps the speed of truncated missives. Over the years I've collected hundreds of letters from correspondents who took the time and trouble to write to me. I suppose you can save E-mail as well, but it's not the same. You don't get the tactile sensation of holding the paper, the same hint of the sender's fragrance lingering.

One fellow I've known since before high school recently came out of the closet. Not gay, pagan. This surprised me. I didn't think there were pagans in my old neighborhood, but he assures me that there were and are. I tease him about sacrificing goats to mythical beings long since discredited; he denies the goats but insists that paganism is much to be preferred to monotheism. What follows is recently received:

“Excellency:

“Do you really think your god is the only one? Pshaw. I don't know if any god exists but to play it safe I'm worshiping Zeus this week. What harm can it do? Look at the universe. It's 14 billion light years from here to wherever. That's roughly 5 trillion miles times 14 billion miles of space. Do you really think there's one god who not only created it all, but governs the life of every creature within it? Double pshaw. OK, maybe there's one god per planet, but even that's a stretch. (Can you imagine the despondency of the poor schlub of a god who created Pluto? Barren, cold, and now not even a planet!)

“And what benefit is there to humanity to impose the one god theory? When we pagans ruled the roost we had wars, and you have wars. Our wars, however, were never to impose a religion on anyone else; yours are often enough just about that. Muslims conquered the Middle East and North Africa and imposed their religion; Christians launched a series of Crusades to kill infidels (and Jews). And if that's not bad enough, within the monotheistic religions, but never amongst us polys, people kill each other over the proper belief and practice of the one true religion. Christians used to massacre other Christians over such arcane questions “as is god the son equal or inferior to god the father,” and “does the bread become the body of Christ, or not?” Barrels of blood flowed over these questions. Have you seen pictures out of Baghdad recently? Sunnis are killing Shiites and Shiites are killing Sunnis and then if they remember, almost as an afterthought, they kill Americans. We pagans never imposed our beliefs. We're immoral, you read? And the proof of that is condoning homosexuality? Pshaw. Just ask your Reform and Conservative rabbis about that one!

“You might point to the bible and say, 'see, here are examples of pagans persecuting Israelites.' Ah, verily, I say unto you, not so. Pharaoh didn't try to impose his religion on his slaves, he just wanted them to work harder. He didn't deny your god, he just didn't know about him until Moses showed up—and neither did the Hebrews, if I remember correctly. The Amelikites didn't try to impose their religion, they fought to prevent illegal immigrants entering their territory. Canaanites didn't impose Baal, they were interested in re-conquering land. The Greeks didn't impose paganism on the Jews, Some Jews thought pagan practices would get them in the good graces of their conquerers, at least until the fanatics stepped in and went to war against both the Hellenists and the Hellenized Jews. Until that nut Nero, the Romans didn't persecute Jews and yes, they did persecute Christians, but Christianity was illegal and subversive—the way Communism was seen to be here in the '50s, and persecuted.”

I wrote back and asked if I could use his letter in my column. A week later I received his response:

“Sure, why not. God willing it will provoke some intelligent discussion.”