To Serve Man

I think how you read a cookbook can be very telling.

For some people, it is a guidebook - giving them a host of possible temperatures and measurements that they use as a starting point only to end up adding paprika and subtracting squash, heating the oven to 375 degrees instead of 350 just to try to get it a bit more crispy. It's cooking as jazz improvisation. For others, it's about adhering strictly to the numbers and letters. It's about exactitude. Cooking as classical piano solo. Striving for perfection by following the rules as closely as possible.

I fail to see any real qualitative way to say which is better, but if ethics were applied, it's conceivable that there is a "best way" to cook. A correct way.

I suppose the main difference I see in the two methods is that the first, playing fast and loose, focuses on the cooking experience itself. It runs the risk of making a bad product, but the process is liberating and artful. The second method focuses on the time-tested result. Following steps A, B and C will yield a perfect meal every time. The process itself is strict and tiresome, but devoted.

Can you already see where I'm going with this?

I wonder if any religious text can or should be viewed as a guidebook or as a rulebook. I'm assuming that you can't view one as both at the same time. I'm also assuming that no religious text is inerrant - (I feel fairly safe in that assumption since Genesis contains two different creation accounts and, by definition, nothing self-contradictory can be inerrant. There are also examples for every major religious text).

My question is an important one I think, because I feel like we never question the way in which we use our religious texts. If they are to be the force of morality in our world, exactly how are they to act as such?

The Bible can be seen as a guidebook - that is, a general method of heading in the right direction - because it is extremely vague. It speaks of lofty ideals without detail and offers an incredible amount of subjective material, the proof of which is easy to see with hundreds of sects with differing opinions have sprung up since the first Pope existed. We disagree on the meaning of the Bible. Ergo, even if it is infallible, it is still subject to one's ability to interpret it.

The Bible can also be seen as a rulebook - that is, an exact prescription for living a moral life based on guidelines - because it has, well, rules. It speaks of exact scenarios and gives a reasoned method for dealing with them in the way that the Eternal Being would want you to. Breaking the rules also has a specific means of reconciliation.

I like to see it as a guidebook (perhaps because I like listening to classical but I like playing jazz) because of one major issue. I fail to see how a document can claim to be a rulebook if it doesn't cover every possible ethical scenario. To be fair, I fail to see how any book can live up to this measure, but a cookbook doesn't need to include every recipe in order to be a cookbook. A book purporting to be the ultimate in how to live an ethical life should include unquestioning rules for living.

Since the Bible is of the past, it fails that criteria. For example, it gives down-to-the-letter instructions for sacrificing a goat, but says nothing about how one should conduct herself while using the Internet. As a rulebook it lacks these specific instructions.

Imagine the Bible as a computer that answers your questions. If it were to claim it could give the right answer for every ethical situation, as a religious text should be able to provide, it would be sorely lacking. I might ask it, " Bible, if someone disrespects me in a public internet forum, what is the right way to contact them to rectify the situation - through email or by phone?" The computer might respond, "Answer not found."

But what's so critical about having exact answers for every possible scenario? Because the Good Life (as ethics dictates) is about the best way to live in even the small details. Theoretically, there is a correct or best way to brush your teeth. I don't require anything that strict, but I do see a need for more direct answers for modern day ethical problems. As we drift further and further into the future, the time of the Bible will begin to look more and more alien. Harder to relate to. Thus, when used strictly as a rulebook, it will become almost complete obsolete. For example, no one will need to know the proper way of bartering for a slave, but the Bible will still be there, offering up its silent advice on the matter despite the lack of anyone asking.

As a guide, it works marvelously. That's why I almost think the entire book could be erased, leaving only the word, "Love".

It would represent what the book is (as a noun) and a command of what you should do in life (as a verb). I imagine, it would also include a sweet saxophone solo.

It's about focus - following a rulebook is about doing the right things in order to reach a certain goal while following a guidebook is about taking a winding path to reach the same goal, not knowing sometimes if the path you're on is correct, but finding comfort in knowing that at least you're headed in the right direction.

Or maybe I've just never been one for being told what to do. Sorry Miss Manners.