Sigh. Very peculiar goings-on in the head...I am not at all appreciative of my inherited neurotransmitter mechanisms, no sir. Den Beste has a long post on the role of religion in law that I disagree with for a half-dozen reasons, but I can't seem to muster up the wherewithal to respond, or even care that much, which is odd, because religion is supposed to be right up my street.
It may be because because I'm currently slogging through the first of three thousand-page volumes commenting on Leviticus, and so am up to my eyeballs in minutiae concerning the removal of the caudate lobes of livers, the proper sacrifice of kidney suet, the difference between the sacrifice of a male versus a female sheep, the mixing of oil and grain for sacrifice (which in turn may be parched, deep-fried, fried in a pan or toasted on a griddle, and there are rabbis who've commented on the differences between each), and the burning of Special Formula incense. This stuff is the nuts-and-bolts of Temple Judaism. Back in my angsty Jesus-Jumping days, the saying was that the Good Lord put Leviticus in the Bible as a cure for insomnia. On its own, the stuff is certainly soporific. Broken down in Hebrew word by word, cross-referenced with similar rites in the Ancient Near East and considered point by point, reading Leviticus becomes a long period of stupefying dullness interspersed with moments of total fascination.
So right now, the whole God/religion/culture triad is, to me, a vast muddy swamp through which I trek with inadequate footwear. Add to that an onslaught of downright bizarre dreams lately and you've got yerself the makin's of a finely toasted brain! Yazzoo!
