The longest game of telephone - ever

I think a lot about religion. Actually, the better way to phrase that would be to say that I think about religion a lot. I spend way more time wondering about how religion got where it is today than I do about what I actually believe, though. And the other day, while standing next to a whole bunch of random people on a fairly crowded (but not uncomfortably so) Metro train, I was thinking about how all of the different religions are pretty much just different end results of a game of Telephone. Remember that from when you were a kid? One person whispers something to the kid next to him or her, and it goes down the line or around the circle until the last person, and it never comes out the way it started.

Truthfully, I don’t know details of many religions. I was raised a conservative Jew, and even though I went to a private Jewish school for 4 years and Hebrew School for 7 years after that (plus took a Judaism class in college), I don’t even know that much about Judaism. I do know that there are people who believe that the Bible/Torah/Old Testament or whatever you want to call is actually the word of G-d.* If you use the telephone theory, it totally makes sense that a huge portion of the population decided that parts of the Bible foretold of the coming of Jesus (the Son of God) while people of the Jewish faith are still waiting for the Messiah. Elementary school students can rarely make it through a line of 10 without losing or changing some of the words in the game – how would humanity be able to make it thousands of years with no changes? Especially since the beginnings of religion likely precluded writing… makes you think, doesn’t it?

*Let me explain the dash. Growing up, I was never allowed to actually write out the word, because there’s some Jewish rule about having to give anything with the deity’s name written out some sort of proper burial. Or the teachers were afraid it would get misspelled, I’m not sure. Anyways, the habit continues, just in case I end up in Hell for spelling out the word. G-d forbid. But now I realized that unless this is printed, it really doesn’t matter, because you can’t bury a website. So please don’t print this, or God will be mad. Unless my religion’s wrong, in which case you’re probably fine. And either way, I warned you, so print at your own peril.