Constitutional Law
Part 2: “What Were They Thinking?”
Digression: “A History of Government in 6 Revolutions: From the Paleolithic to Philadelphia”
124. Inventing God and Law: A Funny Thing About Faith
TITLE: Part R: A Funny Thing about Faith
Panel 1: An elderly woman in middle-eastern garb, with a hooded robe and a jeweled and embroidered headband, taps one finger to the side of her head while looking knowingly at the reader. Behind her, an elderly man with a long pale beard, brown robes, and a dun cloth-covered headdress, squints at the reader.
NARRATION:
Here’s a funny thing about faith:
WOMAN:
If your belief can be challenged, it can be changed.
MAN:
Can’t be having with that.
-=-
Panel 2: A giant stone tablet has been chiseled with the words, and the letters have been gilt. Below the tablet, a person addresses the reader.
NARRATION:
When your world is rooted in a belief that can be challenged, there’s one cardinal commandment:
ENGRAVING:
THOU SHALT NOT DISSENT
PERSON:
If you thought monolatry was intolerant, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
-=-
Panel 3: A narration box, with a person below it addressing the reader.
NARRATION:
Disagreement wasn’t a harmless difference of opinion—it felt like a very real attack.
Dangerous acts like murder might be utterly reprehensible, but dangerous ideas were the most anti-social, the most evil thing imaginable.
These cultural transformations had given the world thought crime—or, if you prefer, the phenomenon of intolerant ORTHODOXY.
PERSON:
You say that like it’s a bad thing.
-=-
Panel 4: Outside the city walls of Jerusalem, three men are stoning a woman to death. The woman is on her knees, her hair soaked and dripping with blood, her hands pleading as she addresses the reader. Behind her, one man raises a giant stone to crush her, another is in the act of throwing a smaller stone, and a third holds a stone to throw at her.
NARRATION:
Fighting ideas with violence felt heroic! By defending the orthodoxy, you defended your team, your community, and your self.
WOMAN:
HeROic?
Forgive me if I disagree.
MAN:
Destroy this heretic!
And her incorrect, unapproved beliefs!
NARRATION:
Thus began a long sad history of ideological, faith-based violence…
-=-
Panel 5: An overhead view of people, tiny as dots. As some scatter this way and that, a large number form a ring around a single person.
NARRATION:
Religious…
VARIOUS VOICES:
We must fight the infidels!
Not now.
We’ve got to stone this apostate to death!
He abandoned our faith! The worst sin there is!
Traitor!
Viper in our own bed!
Stoning lets us all participate in justice.
And it reinforces our sense that the rules are right.
Plus it’s cheap—rocks are everywhere!
-=-
Panel 6: A large number of voices cover the scene with a blur of grayish greens and browns.
NARRATION:
…and secular.
VARIOUS VOICES:
Anybody spreads news or photos we censored, they “disappear.”
Make ‘em afraid to speak up!
To the gulag with those dissenters!
Purge the educated! They might think for themselves!
Line ‘em up against the wall!
Tar and feather that abolitionist!
We support free speech, but not that speech!
Get the rope!
Burn ‘em at the stake!
Get him!
Death to the opposition!
Fuck “civilized discussion.” They’re advocating for evil!
They’re erasing our heritage!
You see one, you punch him!
Get her!
These bombs will change their minds!
Their views are violence! Fight back!
Bring me that journalist’s head.
Their words are an assault! We must defend ourselves!
Thou shalt not dissent!
NARRATION:
Fortunately, faith has an even stronger upside…