The Power of The Word

This week, a writers' loop to which I belong had a crisis.

The fuss started on Monday when one of the members asked for help in finding an agent for her novel, which was set 74,000 years in the past. Instead of responding to her question, another member replied, "It's been 2006 years since the first coming of Jesus, but I don't think there was 72,000 years of earth prior to that time. Maybe I'm wrong, but...where did you get your documentation?"

That's all it took, and we were off to the races. Of course, one of the more literally minded members responded, "The geological age of the earth is approximately 4.55 billion years...Sponges appeared about 600 million years ago...and mammals sometime before 160 million years ago...The first homo sapiens appear in Africa about 100 thousand years ago."

That posting brought out the inerrancy folk.

An aside here: I was brought up in an Italian/Irish family, which means I was raised as a Catholic. And I do mean CATHOLIC. My mother goes to mass daily, I attended parochial school, said the rosary every day after lunch, and went to confession every Friday.

For those of you who are not Catholic, Church doctrine teaches that the Pope--when speaking officially is inerrant. Inerrancy means "without error, infallible." Interestingly enough, my catechism classes did not dwell on the inerrancy of the bible. I was raised to regard the Old Testament as a parable similar to the parables told in the New Testament. Therefore, I'm always slightly bemused when confronted with people who insist that the bible is the literal truth. However, it would never occur to me to question their beliefs. First of all, that would be rude. More importantly, however, how do I know they're wrong?

Back to the controversy. Along with the inerrancy folk, we got the alternative history folk, which--of course--led to the Book of Mormon. Then someone brought up the Torah and...I'm going to stop here; you get the picture.

When someone who self-identified herself as a Christian who believed in the bible responded to another poster's belief system by saying, "That's just BS," I decided it was time to abandon the loop. I don't want to associate myself with people who denigrate others--no matter how foolish they think that person's beliefs are.

And that brings me to the power of the written word. Here we had dozens of people passionately espousing one point of view or another. And each and every one of them pointed to a written text somewhere to support their argument. Someone even made a disparaging comment about someone else's beliefs, referring to them as "mythology."

There was a time when I wanted to study archeology, and I still have a strong interest in the subject. Therefore, I know that "mythology" refers to a culture's belief system for how they came to be. Mythology is a culture's collection of stories explaining what made the universe and the rules by which it functions. The word "mythology" means "spoken word or story or thought." Using that definition, even the bible is mythology.

What I'm trying to say here is that writers wield tremendous power. And as Uncle Ben taught Spiderman [grin], "With great power comes great responsibility." If a writer expects to have his/her work treated with respect, s/he must treat the work of others with equal respect.

I am looking for places to inspire me and support my efforts at writing. What I saw this week on that loop was the furthest thing from inspiring that I've ever seen. I hope never to see such ill will and vituperation expressed in the name of the Almighty again.