MDMD(3)--Just a thought

[Paul Mackin]

Steven Maas (CUTR) wrote:
  It seems that generally a major purpose of
> religion is to encourage the behavior thought proper by the group in
> question.  How does this "double predestination" accomplish this?


I respond:

I agree, it wouldn't accomplish this goal and probably
wasn't designed to, because there were OTHER reasons for
being 'good' than for the purpose of achieving heavenly salvation. 
Honesty, reliabililty, and decent behavior are good business
practices in a rising secular society, a society that will be
governed from Here below, not from There above. Religion will
at best serve in an adjunctive capacity. 

Of course Reformation Era theological thinking doesn't make
literal sense to us moderns. My only reason for pursuing it here
is because Pynchon puts it to such good metaphorical use. The
thought of us MODERN 'poor preterite souls,' condemned to our
dying material existence, through no fault of our own, IS quite 
heart-wrenching. Vaska used this word I believe.

Materialistically (not in the Madonna sense) and sadly,

	                                P.