I've heard of A.J. Jacob's The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible, in which the author decides to follow the Bible (Old and New Testaments) as literally as possible. Every rule he attempts to follow to the letter, even the obscure ones, excepting where it would come into conflict with the law. The book is listed under humor, and is considered a rather hilarious example of some of the absurdities of biblical laws. Today, I dropped by my local Border's bookstore and began reading the first chapter.

So far, I'm not enjoying it as much as I thought. I wonder if I'm being slightly narrow-minded, as part of what spoils the experience for me is the open-mindedness of the author. Instead of getting a hard-boiled skeptic seeking to expose the bible's atrocities, I saw a man actually trying to make sense of the nonsense and discover if there was "a God-shaped hole in [his] heart." In itself, I suppose it is an honest and noble quest, however I found myself so frustrated and intimidated by the inflexible, picayune nature of the Old and New Testament's decrees I had a hard time seeing how anyone could find anything legitimate about them without being brainwashed. More importantly, there were a number of chances where the author could have critiqued the hardcore believers' abandonment of reason, but didn't. Such as when he asks a Jewish fabric-tester why it's important not to mix wool and linen, and gets the answer that no one knows, you just have to trust God. I understand that part of the author's quest is to critique fundamentalism by example, but I came away with the fear that a fanatical True Believer reading this book would just find himself nodding his head at all the absurdities and move on without questioning a thing.

All that, and I just didn't find the book as funny as I expected. I found the biblical laws to be depressing in their irrelavance, ignorance and bigotry. One possible interpretation of the law against mixing fibres, for example, is that the Jews wanted to be as little like the "heathens" as possible. If that is true, then it is a law founded on nationalism and racism, aimed at imprinting in the Hebrew mind a strict notion of "goodness" that raises himself as the superior and spiritual man, and the unbeliever as dirty, unholy and worthy of killing. And why? Because they wear different clothes, eat the wrong meats in the wrong way, and have sex with the wrong people at the wrong times in the wrong places. And most importantly, because they're not Hebrews. All of these are irrelevant to the fundamental moral principles of respect and compassion, yet they are considered to be essential virtues to the Hebrew soul, and the essential sins of the infidels. And imagine: people still believe this to this day.

What disturbs me most about the laws of the Talmud, however, is that even the "good" laws are aimed at regulating human behavior in the most invasive way. It creates a model of an ideal citizen to which all must conform, and of course this citizen succumbs to the religious authorities and turns his aggression toward the heathen and the infidel. There is no room here for individual life: you are either a Good Little Hebrew or no, and if you don't quite fit the bill, then you must beg God forgiveness for failing to live up to your responsibility.

Some will say, no doubt, that though there are bizarre and irrelevant rules, that we still need at least some of these holy laws. How else, they say, will we know what is good? The first commandment says "Thou Shalt not Kill." If we gave the Commandments up entirely, then we would descend into a murderous rage.

I doubt this. One should not refrain from killing just because People Don't Do That, but because it is wrong. And we know it is wrong because we can recognize that others are living, conscious, feeling beings like ourselves, and thus there is no reason not to give them as much respect as we give oursleves. They are not just strangers, but other selves. This capability for compassion, combined with an honest and uncompromising sense of reason, are the tools that should be used to define our moral faculty. Inflexible and arbitrary laws, tainted by the avarice and hatred of our ancestors, do not fulfill the end goal of morality: providing each man and woman with their rights. Compassion and reason do. The only laws we need are legal guidelines to protect these rights, which are codifications of the free and respectful exercise of our vital faculties.

And besides, as mentioned above, such moral laws create the notion of an ideal person. But what is an ideal person? A spectre made of our desires? Or made of the desires of most people? Why should we have any need of this? We are individuals. We are our own people. Nobody in the history of this earth has any experience in being ourselves. We may learn much from others, and always seek to be respectful of other life, but do so with a free conscience. Though much wisdom has been passed down through the years, each life remains a quest for dicovery, in which many things much be decided that the past's wisdom cannot determine.

All in all, I think I shall continue reading A.J. Jacobs' book. It may turn out to be better than I expected, and perhaps I will discover something that is good about religion. I imagine there are some things, but it is so hard to tell with all the irrelevant laws, outdated customs, bigotry, ignorance and hate.

Except for Buddhism. Buddhism is frankly, awesome. Mostly.