Mortons Fork / Mythology & Religion

aka: Mythology And Folk Lore

• The Calvinist concept of predestination leads to both Hobson's Choice and Morton's Fork. The predestination doctrine (God decrees every human being to either Heaven or Hell before he or she has been born and there is absolutely nothing he/she can do to alter his/her fate). A sinner therefore is not doomed to Hell because of his sins, but he commits sins because he has already been doomed to Hell. While it's been debated for centuries whether this doctrine is Biblical, it also makes God the source of all sin and evil in the world. The Calvinists avert this dilemma by the total depravity doctrine: since human nature is totally depraved, they choose by their own free will any of the sins available, but they cannot choose not to sin. Likewise, the total depravity of human nature enables humans to refuse God's call (by their own free will), but not to answer it.
• Cú Chulainn in Irish myth was under two separate geasan, whereby he would lose his strength if he either refused hospitality or consumed dogflesh, both of which were big taboos for the culture of the time. His enemies learned this and promptly invited him to dine on dogflesh, meaning he'd lose his powers either way.
• Older Than Feudalism example from the New Testament:
  • The Pharisees tried this trick several times to try and turn Jesus' popularity against him. In Mark 12:13, they asked whether the Jews should pay the oppressive taxes imposed on them by their Caesar. If he said yes, then he was acknowledging that Caesar ruled over the Jews, and so the rebellious Jews present would mob him. If he said no, he was guilty of treason, and so the Romans present would mob him. He didn't let this trip him up. The phrase "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and unto God what is God's" is familiar enough, but the subtext isn't quite obvious. He had first asked the Pharisees whose image was on the coin used to pay the tax (Caesar's). The meaning was therefore that one should give unto Caesar that which has his image on it (i.e. pay the tax, because it's just worldly money) but give unto God that which is made in his image (i.e. humans, i.e. devote your whole life to God, not just your money).
    • The full context is even sneakier, rhetorically and politically. Since the coin likely used would have been a denarius with an image of Tiberius and the motto Ti[berivs] Caesar Divi Avg[vsti] F[ilivs] Avgvstvs, or "Tiberius, Son of the Divine Augustus," with the reverse declaring he was also Pontifex Maximus (Highest Priest, which he officially was of the Roman state religion). Even carrying such a coin into the temple district in Jerusalem would be an act of heresy and idolatry, so tricking his opponents into showing they had done so undermined their credibility and supported his contention that the Pharisees were hypocrites.
  • The Pharisees attempted to do this a second time in John 8:1-11, where they asked Him to judge a woman who was caught in adultery. If Jesus chose to let the woman free (instead of stoning her, as the Jewish law required), He'd be acting against the law of Moses; while if He did condemn her, He would be contradicting His own stated purpose to save sinners. The Pharisees were themselves violating the Law of Moses by bringing only the guilty woman, not the guilty man as well, despite them both being caught "in the act." If Jesus condemned her, he'd have shared in the Pharisees' sin. So he replied, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her." Realizing they have failed, they all leave. Jesus asks the woman if anyone is condemning her, and she answers no, since all her accusers had left. He says "neither do I condemn you," which was also according to the Law, as at least two witnesses were required for a capital crime. But he never denied her guilt, for he says "Go, and sin no more."
    
    Another interpretation says that the point was that if Jesus said the woman should be stoned, well, they were under Roman rule, so killing people just because your minority religion arguably said so wasn't allowed. The other side still being that not stoning her would be against the law of Moses. Further, this fork applied to the Pharisees just as much, so when Jesus told them to start the stoning themselves, they had exactly the same problem they'd given him. On top of that, allegedly what he said to them would be more accurately translated as "Let he who is not guilty of the same sin..." so that the Pharisees not only had to slink away but looked like they were admitting to being adulterers.
  • In the page quote Jesus attempts one himself against the Pharisees. John was a popular figure just like Jesus and he was executed prior to this event, so he tries to discredit them by asking if they thought John's baptism was of heavenly or mundane origin. If they answered "from heaven" they would get discredited for not becoming his followers. If they answered "of human origin" they would get discredited because the people believed that John was legit and risked being stoned to death by them.
  • There are a few scriptures that state that even contemplating doing a sin (what the church calls "Sins of Intent," such as Wrath and Lust) is just as bad as doing the sin in the eyes of God. Ergo, no human can ever be perfect and reach Heaven on their own, and everyone requires Divine Absolution. It does not, as some might think, mean that you should go ahead and do them anyways. Besides which, actions have tangible consequences. You can't ruin your life by just thinking about doing something bad, but you can by actually going out and doing it.
• Nasruddin Hodja, the Sufi Muslim Trickster (known as Juha or Goha in the Arab World), especially when people pestered him for a piece of wisdom. Once when he had to preach but wasn't in the mood for it, he talked his way out of it... three Fridays in a row:
  Nasruddin: O people of Akshahir! Do you know and understand what I am about to say to you?
  The people: No, we don't.
  Nasruddin: What?! How can I speak to such ignorant people! (Leaves.)
  Nasruddin: (One week later) O people of Akshahir! Do you know and understand what I am about to say to you?
  The people: (Remembering what had happened the last time) Yes, we do.
  Nasruddin: Wonderful! Then there is no need for me to speak to you today.
  Nasruddin: (One more week later) O people of Akshahir! Do you know and understand what I am about to say to you?
  The people: (Some shout "No", some "Yes".)
  Nasruddin: Wonderful! Now let those who know tell those who do not know.
• This trope is one of the two theories about how Gautama Buddha met his death.^note The other theory is that he was just really really old. As the story goes, Buddha was kindly offered a meal which unknowingly contained bad food. While Buddha recognized the food wasn't safe to eat, the people offering it to him didn't. Either Buddha could have gone against his beliefs and refused hospitality or eaten the food and let his health suffer. He ate the food and died from it, but accepted his fate as his time to die.
• The story of Procrustes in Classical Mythology includes an element of this. Procrustes, a blacksmith who kept a house on the road outside of Athens, had an iron bed, which he offered to weary passing travelers. However, he seemed to have this thing about his guests fitting exactly on the bed, so once they were asleep, he either "stretched them out" to fit the bed if they were too short, or "cut them down" to fit if they were too tall, inevitably killing them (which, besides making him a murderer, made him in gross violation of Sacred Hospitality). The bastard realised, however, that he risked the guest being the right size for the bed—which would be no fun at all. Hence a second layer of this trope: he secretly had two beds. Yeah. Theseus eventually "fit" Procrustes to his own bed (ordered by Zeus, the God of Hospitality among other things).
• In The Epic of Gilgamesh, the goddess Ishtar tried to seduce Gilgamesh. This put Gilgamesh in a bad situation since sleeping with Ishtar would lead to Sex Signals Death, and refusing her would earn her ire. He refused her, and Ishtar responded by whining to her dad to unleash the Bull of Heaven on Gilgamesh's kingdom. She gives her father a Fork problem too (Ushtar seems quite fond of this). If he doesn't unleash the bull, she threatens to kick down the Gates of the Underworld, causing a Zombie Apocalypse. Showing its status as an Unbuilt Trope, Gilgamesh pretty much calls Ishtar out on this. He spends a page or so listing all the previous lovers she had and what happened to them. Then he goes on to say that if he refuses her it would lead to her unleashing the bull of heaven. He then said she could Take a Third Option and just take rejection gracefully. Gilgamesh also did this knowing it would lead to another Mortons Fork. He either allows the bull to destroy his kingdom, or he kills the bull and the gods would destroy his kingdom. He killed the bull, as at least that way he would deserve it and keep his pride.
• When Paris is asked to choose, among Aphrodite, Athena, and Hera, who is the most beautiful, it is not considered, but given what happens when he chooses Aphrodite, it is clear that, no matter who he chooses, he will anger two powerful Goddesses.
  • As Paris' choice kicks off the Trojan War, poor Orestes is forced to bear with its final aftermath. Orestes' father, Agamemnon, returns home successful from the siege of Troy, only to be murdered by his wife, Clytemnestra (who was herself avenging their daughter, Iphigenia, whom Agamemnon slew in sacrifice). Orestes, as his father's heir, has to avenge his murder, or else the Furies would pursue him to the ends of the earth. However, because matricide is a sin, the Furies are bound to torment Orestes even if he did kill Clytemnestra. In the end, Orestes chooses to kill his mother.
• Scylla and Charybdis. Scylla was a man-eating monster whose most notable feature was her ravenous six heads that would devour as many men as her multiple heads could allow, while across from her was Charybdis, a monster so gigantic that her mouth formed a whirlpool large enough capture and destroy ships. The two of them were based on a passage of water so narrow that avoiding both of them was impossible, thus ensuring that any sailor going through said passage would encounter death. The phrase "Between Scylla and Charybdis" is synonymous with this trope, and from this came the idiom, "Between a rock and a hard place." On the advice of Circe, Odysseus sailed closer to Scylla and allowed her to eat six of his men rather than let Charybdis swallow the entire crew.
• In the opening chapter of the Book of Esther King Xerxes orders Queen Vashti to appear before the people and nobles of Medo-Persia wearing her crown - the most common interpretation of this is "wearing only her crown" - placing Vashti in a fork: either she refuses to come, disobeying the king's order, and faces a likely execution, or she makes the appearance and is reduced in the eyes of the people to nothing more than a sexual fantasy. Vashti refused to come and was banished from the kingdom, allowing Esther to become queen and be in a position to save the Jewish people.
• A story called "The Clever Rabbi of Cordova" has the titular rabbi outwitting a corrupt official who wants to force the Jews from the city. As a final test, the official tells the rabbi to pick one paper out of a bowl to see how lucky the Jews are. Ostensibly, one says "go", and the other says "stay", but the rabbi reasons that both say "go." However, he finds a loophole by eating the paper he picks and pointing out that the other says "go." Unable to defeat this logic without admitting he cheated, the official allows the Jews to stay.