THEOLOGY/1 When I was very young, the catechism taught me to do good for the sake of convenience and not to do evil for fear of the consequences. God offered me punishments and rewards: he threatened me with hell and promised me heaven. And I feared and believed. Time has gone by . I am neither afraid nor a believer. And anyway, it seems to me that if I deserve to be roasted on a spit over a slow, eternal flame, so it will be. That way I'll escape purgatory,which will be packed with dreadful middle-class tourists, and in the end, justice will be done. Frankly, as deserving goes, I deserve it. I have never killed anyone, it's true, but for lack of courage or time, not for lack of desire. I don't go to mass on Sundays or days of obligation. I have coveted almost all of my neighbor's women, except for the ugly ones, and thus have desecrated, at least in my heart, the private property that God himself sanctified in Moses' tables: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, or his ox, or his ass... And to top it all, I have, with premeditation and in cold blood, committed the act of love without the noble intention of reproducing the labor force. I am acutely aware that carnal sins are very poorly regarded in heaven, but I suspect that God damns what he does not know. Galeano,Eduardo. "Theology/1." The Book of Embraces. Trans. Cedric Belfrae. New York: Norton, 1989. 88.
Click here to hear Theology/1 read by Eduardo Galeano in Spanish We chose this abrazo because religion is such a broad subject, and we felt that a wealth of information could be provided in this medium. There are so many opinions on different religions, and between just the four of us, the opinions and religious backgrounds are vastly different. When people come to college, they find out many things about themselves, and among these many revelations comes what religion, if any, they want to follow. We hope that the following pages educate you in different religions.
|
