Mulish faith and the salt of existence

[Joel S. Berson]

At 10/1/2010 09:31 AM, wordmall wrote:
>I hate to impose this on you, but the writer of this letter to the
>editor leaves me gasping every time. The subject was science vs.
>faith, and this sentence stood out: "Mulish faith leaves no tracks,
>and the salt of existence does not hang in the hands of time, but
>rather with the swing of the pendulum."  Say what?
>
>Michael J. Sheehan

I'll start.  Someone obviously obsessed with metaphors and taking
pleasure in mystifying his readers.  (Does the Traverse City
[Michigan?] Record-Eagle not have an editor to review letters?)

The whole paragraph is "True believing keeps both science and
morality in their proper place. Mulish faith leaves no tracks, and
the salt of existence does not hang in the hands of time, but rather
with the swing of the pendulum. We will not live long enough to see
the results over deep time."

"leaves no tracks" = "leaves no traces, has no permanence"?

"salt of existence":  413 Google Books undigested hits.  Salt as the
seasoning (zest) of life?  Back into the early 1800s, but the phrase
is not in the OED although I suspect it must be old and common.  (A
quick Bible check didn't show it.)
      From Ludwig Feuerbach, "The Essence of Christianity" (tr. 1855)
-- "Qualities are the fire, the vital breath, the oxygen, the salt of
existence. An existence in general, an existence without qualities,
is an insipidity, ..."
      Lord John Roxton, in Conan Doyle's "The Lost World", as
analyzed by Wikipedia -- "Roxton greets the prospect of visiting the
Lost World with delight, largely because of the prospect of bringing
home a dinosaur as a hunting trophy:
" '...a sportin' risk, young fellah, that's the salt of existence.
Then it's worth livin' again.' "
      From The European magazine and London review, 1819, in an
article on duelling:  "Temperance is the very salt of existence
..."  [The sober, unzestful, Puritanical existence?]

"hands of time" vs. "swing of the pendulum":  Clock hands progress
forward (the progressive theory of history's chronological march)
while a pendulum swings back and forth (the cyclic theory of
history's progression)?  Opinions will change, perhaps many times, as
time passes?

But I still don't fully grasp the writer's intent.

Joel

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