During the Committee's decennial viewing of "Citizen Kane," one member asked for my opinion about the following.
A stash of documents thought to have been destroyed long ago was found buried in the courthouse garden of a caretaker's cottage on an abandoned estate that is said to have belonged to a long line of English knights.
The documents shed light on daily life of a feudal society during the Dark Ages.
The Committee member wanted to know if we should release all the documents for public dissemination without adding waves of prereleases which include expert opinion about chivalry, gallantry and the sense of fair play that, we find quaint today, was established during the reign of sympathetic feudal lords and knights in the British Isles. Polls and TV documentaries would give the people a sense of ownership of that time period.
Does it make sense? It seemed so to me.
The Committee member then showed me one sheaf that was bothering him.
The text, barely legible and in a mix of Latin, Greek and what I assume was the English of the day, described the first meetings between a group of lords and an unidentified group that was fixated on sending men and weapons to save Jerusalem from captivity.
The scribe noted the lords' lucrative business relationships with Spanish traders who were of pagan, Christian and Mohammedan religions, describing the traders as equals to the lords, and hinted that the lords would consult with the traders before taking action.
The Committee member worried that the information presented an ambiguous start to a seemingly well-documented history of contact between Europeans and those along the Mediterranean.
I promised the Committee member I'd think about the issue for a few days before making my ruling.
If the Crusades were merely a matter of business, what does that tell us today about the groups who want to claim there's a secret religious war that's been raging for centuries?
What if we could prove to you that most of what you think is religious - the way you dress, speak or interact with others - was a commercial or economic decision made so long ago we've forgotten why we made that decision in the first place?
Does it matter in respect to your belief that the gods, God or Allah influenced that decision?
It should.
Your Deity or deities know(s) that environmental and social conditions change, meaning that what was sacrosanct ten generations ago is not necessarily sacrosanct in the same way today.
I'll report back to the Committee next week, so consider this blog entry a placeholder for a more important, detailed one later on because I'm too busy right now.
I've got some research to perform and press releases to generate in the form of fake book reviews written by a menagerie of virtual friends hidden in plain view on social networks (so many layers of experts referencing experts you won't know which so-called reclusive ones aren't real and took over for real ones no one knew had died) and industry-sponsored scientific reports for which I'll buy off my cadre of professionals with questionable credentials and/or immoral habits (heavy debt is immoral, don't you know?) to swallow their pride and write for me once more.
Phew! I'm breathless. Talk to you later.
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