In the framework of that old story by Uncle Remus, when Brer Fox tricked Brer Rabbit into getting stuck in the Tar Baby, Clara Rising has written an iconoclastic bombshell. Too many of our cultural beliefs have become obsessions. Hog-tied into a numb acceptance of inherited commands from religion and government, we blindly obey, ignoring our own capacity to reason and our obligation, as thinking beings of the human race, to understand. It is in this quest for understanding that this book is written. We begin with questions, ...
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In the framework of that old story by Uncle Remus, when Brer Fox tricked Brer Rabbit into getting stuck in the Tar Baby, Clara Rising has written an iconoclastic bombshell. Too many of our cultural beliefs have become obsessions. Hog-tied into a numb acceptance of inherited commands from religion and government, we blindly obey, ignoring our own capacity to reason and our obligation, as thinking beings of the human race, to understand. It is in this quest for understanding that this book is written. We begin with questions, as all understanding must. And, if we are to find any satisfaction, we must approach those questions without prejudice. Where did the idea of good vs. evil come from? What is the nature of man, of God, and of their relationship? Why was original sin introduced into the Garden in Genesis? And why did it become inherited? Inherited sin is foreign to Jewish tradition. Why did it enter Christian doctrine? Or, to be more precise, through whom? To answer that question we will meet a host of characters. But this will be no dinner party, although on some occasions we may experience indigestion. We will meet the Greek philosopher Plato, the Stoics Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, and the followers of the Persian prophet Zoroaster, who believed that men
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