The non-rationality of a myth is its very essence, for religion requires a demonstration of total faith by the suspension of logic or critical doubt.
All stories which occur in the Bible are truths for the devout Christian, whether they correspond to historical fact or not. All human societies have myths in this sence, and normally the myths to which the greatest importance is attached are those which are the least probable. It is common for all religious systems to make sure all important stories recur in several different versions.
Man is created in Genesis 1 verse 27 and then is created all over again in 2 verse 7. And, as if the two first men were not enough, we also have Noah in chapter 8. "Only a couple thousand years late." Likewise in the New Testament, why must there be four gospels each telling the same story yet sometimes totally contradictory on details and facts? In the technical sence that religious leaders are taught, it is a measure of freedom of choice in selecting a message that fits their stories. In the mind of the believer, these stories do indeed convey messages which are the Word of God.
To such a human the redundancy of the story is a very reassuring fact. Even if the message is badly snarled up with interference and contradictions, the most confident devotee might feel a little uncertain as to what precisely is being said. But, as a result of redundancy, the believer can feel that, even when the details vary, each alternative version of a story confirms his understanding and reinforces the essential meaning of all the others.
To explain what is surely the most striking of all phenomena, and the passionate adherence to delusional sectarian belief is to understand this paradox.
The whole of Christendom shares a single corpus of mythology stories, so it is surely remarkable that the members of each particular Christian congragation are able to convince themselves that they alone possess the secret of revealed truth. But if the true believer can interpret his own mythology in almost any way he chooses, what principle governs the formation of the original story? It is only by chance that a story assumes one pattern rather than another.
In every religious system you will find a persistent sequence of binary discriminations as between human/superhuman, mortal/immortal, male/female, legitimate/illegitimate, good/bad, followed by a "mediation" of the paired categories. "Mediation" is always achived by introducing a third category which is "anomalous."
Thus religious stories are full of fabulous monsters, incarnate gods, virgin mothers. This middle ground is abnormal, non-natural, and yet to the believers it is holy. It is typically the focus of all taboo and ritual observance that some things are just not talked about.
In these repetitive and inverted tales it asserts the over riding virtue of close kin endogamy.
That the sacred hero ancestor Abraham can carry this so far that he marries his paternal half sister, an incestuous relationship. That a rank and order is established which places degrees of inferior status depending upon the nature of the defect in their original ancestry as compared with the pure descent of those of clean bone.(Israel) Abraham's incest goes unnoticed in the context of such outrageous characters as Ham, and Lot's daughters, and the men of Sodom. Just as Adam and Eve are virtuous as compared to Cain and Abel. The Bible is full of incest and breaches of sexual morality, but because of the status of being of "clean bone" thus likened to the Pharaohs." (wealthy men)
The laws of God only pertain to the lower status. Isaac marries a kinswoman in preference to a Canaanite woman. Esau's marriage to a Hittite woman is marked as sin. Jacob marries two daughters of his mother's brother, who is, in turn, Jacob's father's father's brother's son's son. There are other stories, Hagar, Sarah's slave, bears a son Ishmael to Abraham, whose desendants are of low status. It seems evident that much the same paterns exist throughout the whole Bible message, and all religions of this world hold the same racial status, and that these sexual morality laws, and all laws, only pertain to lower classes and those likened to Pharaoh are above the law and this book called the Word of God.
Disinclination to study is an indication of conservatism.
