You Are Less Than Dust (Job 25)

Moving on to Job chapter 25, there’s 1 point of interest:

Even the moon is not bright, And the stars are not pure in His sight
How much less man, a worm, the son of man, a maggot! (v5-6)

Job says this in bitter anger, but this sentiment is often expressed literally.

Someone one told me there are 2 opposing yet complementary statements in Judaism. One says “the whole world was created for you” and the other says “you are less than dust”. The first is seen in Psalms 8:4 as discussed before (“who is man that You are mindful of him?”). The second in the verse from Job above.

You might think (as I think I did at the time): “what a great, profound yin/yang approach!” Hang on a minute…no it isn’t — it’s just nonsense. We are all prone to paint things with a broad brush: our brain likes to create theories of the universe which often get too general. This is how you can get in a conversation with someone about whether humans are good or bad.

When you think about it for a second, the question is so vacuous that you can’t have an interesting conversation about it. Good or bad compared to what? Do we have different criteria for evaluating a person or event as good or bad? (The answer is definitely.) At least these questions are slightly interesting because they are about something. The broad one is just empty space.

So why would a religious system tell you “you are less than dust” or “the world was created for you”? And especially, why would it tell you both (as I believe most religious traditions tend to do)? I think the answer is threefold:

1. Vacuous statements often sound profound. Especially something general about “Man”. It’s related to using mysticism to make something appear profound. However this is best answered by Nietzsche: Mystical explanations are thought to be deep; the truth is that they are not even shallow.
2. Emotional manipulation of the believer — one statement builds up your self-esteem, the other one tears you down. The ultimate lesson you learn is that your self-esteem is something given to you by your religious system. This is used by cults who give inductees love-bombing AND public criticism/humiliation as a combined strategy. In a biblical religious system, it’s usually an aside, a tool for those particular believers who are interested in using it.
3. Non-falsifiability — the statements that “man” is both great and puny not only sound profound but can be used to make it seem like your religious philosophy is always right, and has some special insight into human nature.

For this last trick, who better to close with than the venerable Thomas Paine? For he tore through the mist of such unfalsifiability centuries ago.

Jeremiah[...]guards his prognostications in such a crafty manner as always to leave himself a door to escape by, in case the event should be contrary to what he had predicted. In the 7th and 8th verses he makes the Almighty to say, “At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and destroy it, if that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent me of the evil that I thought to do unto them.” Here was a proviso against one side of the case: now for the other side. Verses 9 and 10, “At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it, if it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent me of the good wherewith I said I would benefit them.” Here is a proviso against the other side; and, according to this plan of prophesying, a prophet could never be wrong, however mistaken the Almighty might be. [Age of Reason]