3.2. Story Is Life; Isn't It Also Judging?

• Jurisdiction: United States
• Publication year: 2021

3.2. STORY IS LIFE; ISN'T IT ALSO JUDGING?

Before there was writing, there was story. Scholars guess that business and accounting drove writing's invention, but recording a culture's epic poetry was not far behind. Few readers are unfamiliar with "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey," attributed to an epic balladeer named Homer. Less known is the first such record, the "Epic of Gilgamesh" of Mesopotamia. Epic poetry following the oral tradition continued in some cultures for centuries after literacy. There's "Beowulf," recorded in Old English, and the "Mahabarata" and the "Ramayana" of India. Oral epic stories continued to be recited from memory in the countries of the western sub-branch of South Slavic (i.e., the former Yugoslavia) into the middle twentieth century.⁴⁰

More than half the world's people profess Islam or Christianity, and the sacred texts of both religions are founded on story. The third-largest religion, Hinduism, rests on stories of a polytheistic divinity. Parents and teachers introduce children to religion and culture through stories. Adults as religious leaders teach religious principles and impart moral truth to adults through allegory.

People do not bring their children to religion by works of logic and theology, nor do they teach culture by works of philosophy and anthropology. Those studies are for System 2, after the roads to belief and behavior are paved in System 1.

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