Whatever

(Only parts of the following are true. You decide.)

My first attempt at college was at a small liberal arts school near Cleveland. As I recall, I studied music, English literature, medieval philosophy and comparative religion. The latter two classes took place under the same roof of Marting Hall. We called it the department of faith and reason.

The ordained Methodist minister who taught the religion course had a tough row to hoe. Although the college was a private Methodist institution, most of the students in this class were Jews who could best be described as “humanists.” Humanistic Judaism is a movement that offers a nontheistic alternative to contemporary branches of Judaism. It defines Judaism as the cultural and historical experience of the Jewish people rather than a religion, and encourages Jews who are humanistic and secular to celebrate their identity by participating in relevant holidays and rites of passage.

Few among us had studied Hebrew or endured the rite of passage known as a bar mitzvah, but we had a proud history that usurped Christianity’s by millennia.

As I think back on that time, I remember little of the approach the professor used. It seemed limited in scope and only marginally acknowledged those religions that are at least amusing. The professor reluctantly allowed that all religions are made up. Conversations with God are manifestations of imaginations. Faith is something that can’t be proved. That sentence is the perfect rejoinder to anybody selling their belief system door-to-door on Saturday mornings. (If you accept the handout magazine, you’ve been duped.)

Judaism is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal traditions and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in the Middle East during the Bronze Age with dietary restrictions that are just weird.

It was the first religion to be monotheistic, no doubt inspired by the Sumerians who had more gods than really seemed necessary. By the time the humanistic movement came around, we were down to no gods.

Sumerian religion was practiced by the people of Sumer, the first literate civilization of ancient Mesopotamia and the first to turn bread mold into beer. It was also known as the Borscht Belt of the Middle East, where Jewish stand-up comics tried to satirize the four Sumerian Gods who were responsible for all matters pertaining to the natural and social orders. In time there would be several more Gods in charge of lesser matters.

Manny, one of the Middle East’s best comics, thought that the idea of one God would not be so confusing and that He was all we needed to place blame for all that is wrong with the world. At the time, it seemed to be no big deal because nobody knew there was anything beyond their community’s walls.

One of Manny’s writers, Samuel, decided to look beyond those walls and traveled to several locations in a drab desert. He saw Moses floating down a river and next noticed that God was giving him what would become known as the Ten Commandments on a mountaintop that would give its name to countless hospitals. It would later become a movie directed by Cecil DeMille with an all-star cast including Charlton Heston as Moses, Yul Brynner as Rameses, Anne Baxter as Nefretiri and Edward G. Robinson as Dathan.

Next, Samuel saw pairs of animals being herded by the 600-year-old Noah onto an ark that would one day become an amusement park in eastern Montana, as well as an over-used name for veterinary practices.

Only then did Samuel begin questioning the pills he’d been given by Dr. Stein.

Fast forward a few centuries and we can plainly see that Christianity had been splintered into any number of sects with some fairly bizarre behavior and practices.

The Ludite-inspired Mennonites and Amish are deeply religious folks (at least I think that’s their excuse) who dress Goth and refuse to use modern machinery to harvest the fruit they grow to make jams for tourists.

The United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, more commonly known as the Shakers, are a millenarian restorationist Christian sect—whatever that means—founded in 1747 in England and then organized in the United States in the 1780s. They were initially known as “Shaking Quakers” because of their ecstatic behavior during worship services. Espousing egalitarian ideals, women took on spiritual leadership roles alongside men, unless the spirit awakened in them the sudden urge to do the Wha-Watusi.

Not blessed with much forward thinking, the Shakers practiced celibacy, which pretty much doomed their future. They did, however, create some great furniture.

The utopian Oneida Community was established in Oneida, New York, in 1848. It was founded by a small group of Christian Perfectionists who nobody has ever heard of. After more than thirty years of operating as a commune, the sect incorporated and started making flatware. Today, it is the largest manufacturer of flatware in America.

In the modern era, sects have thrived for short periods of time. There was the Peoples Temple, a then-new religious movement founded by Jim Jones, an American cult leader, political activist, preacher, and faith healer who led the mass murder-suicide of his inner circle in his remote jungle commune at Jonestown, Guyana, on November 18, 1978.

He will be forever known as the inspiration for one’s “drinking the Kool-Aid.”

Along the way came the CUT (Church Universal Triumphant) and the Branch Davidians, which sounds like something you’d order in a bar, and countless other sects teetering on the remote edges of evangelicalism.

But I’ve got to hand it to L. Ron Hubbard, the third-rate sci-fi novelist who started Scientology on a bet. I spent the better part of Friday morning inventing a new religion, and let me tell you, it’s hard work. All I’ve come up with so far is the eleventh commandment (Thou shall not eat from another’s plate), and a processional accompanied by Gershwin’s “It Ain’t Necessarily So.”

Graphic by Courtney A. Liska

Scungilli ala Medico Giuseppe

The word scungilli is the Neapolitan dialect word for conch, which is sconsiglio. Scungilli has a pleasant briny flavor and a dense, meaty texture. We always had canned conch and served it with these simple instructions.

Drain and rinse the scungilli. Take individual filets of the conch and briefly soak them in a very good olive oil and fresh lemon juice. Thinly slice some lemon and sweet onion (Vidalia or Walla Walla). Take a filet and place it atop a piece of matzoh cracker. Top with sliced onion and lemon. Buon appetito!