Are Religions Like Gossip Changing on a Whim?

We have around 10,000 years of recorded history. Unlike the Indigenous Religions whose religious beliefs were handed down by word of mouth. Written recorded history has a higher probability of holding the information accurately. For example if I tell you a story verbally and ask you to do the same to a line of 20 people and the last one will tell it to me...it will probably not be the same story. The Apostles were not the only people who recorded what is in the Scriptures; there were historians, clerks, trader’s journals, councils of law, birth records and a large variety of other sources used to validate what was in the scriptures.

    However, "the variety of interpretation" does follow along the lines of the process of gossip in an abstract way. Gossip is used at the level of moral development of the "power seeking" and the "legalist." (I view three primary moral developments (1) stage one egocentric or power seeking. This is where one believes the world itself is an evil place and everyone lies, cheats and steals so it is OK for them to do so as well. The next stage is (2) ethnocentric or the legalist, this is where people start to barter for position in society through following laws, customs, social norms. For some the final stage is (3) autonomous interdependence. (These people live for a "cause" that involves caring for others.)

    Now if instead of telling a story verbally I hand a published story written on a piece of paper that is handed from one person to the next and it comes from the twentieth person to me it will probably still be the same story, especially since everyone there knows it is published.

Frank Mueller

Are Religions Like Gossip Changing on a Whim?