Yes, a while back I said I shouldn't talk about religion ever again. Well, it is a deep subject, and perhaps worthy of a mention now and again. I guess that the conversations yesterday have led me to bring it all up again. It seems as though some people (my brother) like to point toward the perceived problems with things that don't measure up to their world viewpoint and faith. Anything that stresses that ideal about the infallibility of the bible, and modern religion is wrong, no possibility of compromise whatsoever. I on the other hand understand that viewpoints differ, and accept the fact that it takes all kinds to make a world. And that leads me into today's thoughts about, not religion itself, but about god.
What kind of a creature is god? Benevolent, beneficent, sure, whatever. God is all things to all religious men. God has taken time to create this incredible universe and according to my brother, out of the billions and billions of galaxies each containing billions and billions of stars god has created life on this one planet out of all the other planets out there in this great cosmos. And on that one planet, god has decreed that it is his provenance to make sure that young catholic boys don't masturbate. Given what we know about the activities of catholic priests, there does seem to be some correlation between a man devoting his life to god and what we believe god is doing. You know, sex wise. Anyway, my brother tells me that the great cosmos is in fact devoid of any other life. That all life in this universe is here on planet earth and that god created this place for us. And we are to go forth and multiply like Mexicans and never masturbate. And give countenance and devotion unto the god, the creator. Through prayer. That's how we communicate with our god, the creator. It is not a one way street, god shows us daily the miracle that god has created for us here on planet earth by making the sun rise, the birds sing, the rain come and of course the mosquitoes bite and the germs kill, and earthquakes destroy and tornadoes kill and destroy; god makes life happen.
There is an old cartoon that I remember seeing a long time ago that is appropriate here, a man is sitting on a bench talking to god and he asks of him why does god allow war, disease, poverty and death to be so rampant here on earth. And god looks at the man and says that he was just about to ask the man the same thing. I take it a step further and say that man then says that he learned all that from god himself as god does a pretty good job of destroying and killing the people that were chosen to live their lives on this planet created for people by god. When we look at all the suffering going on in this world, and all, or well most attributable to god, we begin to see why there is a need for prayer, for the people to communicate with god. To ask forgiveness for sins, for forgiveness for masturbating, for cheating on a spouse, and most often, to ask for help to save loved ones from death as a result of all the problems that beset mankind both from god and from himself. Plus I'm sure there are a lot of prayers to hit the lottery, or for a roll of the dice, or a horse or dog to speed it up a bit. Given that man was created in the image of god, or so we have been told, then maybe there is a correlation between mankind and the sadistic nature of listening to the prayers of mere mortals asking for things beyond their means, and to save people from death and suffering. So the question is in reality, does god listen to prayers? It is the standard reply from the religious among us that god answers all prayers, we just don't always understand the answers. That means it is all pure hokum and they have no answers either. But what if this planet was chosen as the location of the indoctrination of hell unto those that deserve it. A place where beings of incredible power and ability that have misused their power and are sent here to serve out a sentence from the greatest beings of all, the actual creators of the universe. Those sentenced to serve in hell are strapped into a chair, not necessarily in the literal sense, and forced to listen to the continuous prayers of the beings created especially for that purpose. Beings that live on this imperfect planet and living lives with free will and the actual sinner here is our god, forced to listen forever to the incessant whining of people here on this planet as they go on and on and on and on and on about how they need to win the lottery and how they are sorry for having sex with the paper boy and the gardener, and how they stole that money from petty cash and blamed the secretary, and how their parent needs to be saved from the ravages of a deadly disease, and of course how the teenage boy couldn't help himself and masturbated.
It all sounds a bit tiresome. Having to listen to all those prayers, constantly, day in, day out. For a god that is able to create a universe and then create human beings, having to listen to all that crap for all eternity seems like a waste of good divine ability.
Then there is sin. What is sin? Is it sin to kill a man that is trying to kill you? In war, no, in the streets, maybe, because he slept with your wife, no way. Except in the bible, it was the duty of the populace to stone, and kill, a woman that slept with a man not her husband. So when did that change? Bestiality is a sin, or well, it is illegal, but when I lived in Austin I was sleeping with a woman that wanted me to urinate on her after sex. Anal sex. Is that a sin? I guess the more important question, is it illegal? And since no one was hurt, and the young maiden enjoyed the experience, on many occasions, was it a sin?
God has a mighty weird job.
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