Somebody ought to make a historical study of—the relation between theology and corporal punishment in childhood. I have a theory that, wherever little boys and girls are systematically flagellated, the victims grow up to think of God as ‘Wholly Other’—isn’t that the fashionable argot in your part of the world? Wherever, on the contrary, children are brought up without being subject to physical violence, God is immanent. A people’s theology reflects the state of children’s bottoms. ... Look at the Hebrews—enthusiastic child-beaters. And so were all good Christians in the Age of Faith. Hence Jehovah, hence Original Sin and the infinitely offended Father of Roman and Protestant orthodoxy. ... Major premise: God is Wholly Other. Minor premise: man is totally depraved. Conclusion: Do to your children's bottoms what was done to yours, what your Heavenly Father has been doing to the collective bottom of humanity ever since the Fall: whip, whip, whip!

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Somebody ought to make a historical study of—the relation between theology and corporal punishment in childhood. I have a theory that, wherever little boys and girls are systematically flagellated, the victims grow up to think of God as ‘Wholly Other’—isn’t that the fashionable argot in your part of the world? Wherever, on the contrary, children are brought up without being subject to physical violence, God is immanent. A people’s theology reflects the state of children’s bottoms. ... Look at the Hebrews—enthusiastic child-beaters. And so were all good Christians in the Age of Faith. Hence Jehovah, hence Original Sin and the infinitely offended Father of Roman and Protestant orthodoxy. ... Major premise: God is Wholly Other. Minor premise: man is totally depraved. Conclusion: Do to your children's bottoms what was done to yours, what your Heavenly Father has been doing to the collective bottom of humanity ever since the Fall: whip, whip, whip!" in the context of "Aldous Huxley, Island (1962), quoted in Ram Swarup, On Hinduism: Reviews and Reflections (2000), Ch. 5" to mean that wisdom is timeless.