When Alien Baby Jesus Attacks!

or, "Is the Χ in ΙΧΘΥΣ short for Xenomorph?"

or, "A totally silly yet perfectly serious defense of the apocryphal 'Infancy Gospels' from early Christianity"

Well-read Protestants know that the Roman Catholic version of the Bible is 14 books longer than the editions that all those schismatic Christians use. These 14 books, which the RCC takes to be part of the canonical Old Testament, are collectively termed The Apocrypha. (One of the best-known of these Apocryphal works is the Book of Judith, whose deadly she-mantis stunt with poor old Holofernes would inspire countless Western painters, including Gustav ''Your wife was just showing us her'' Klimt.)

Anyway, there's a whole 'nother set of Apocryphal books relating to the "New Testament" period of Christianity. Some of these are dubious epistles attributed to Paul and other early Apostles, and others are "pseudo-Gospels" purportedly describing the life and career of Mr. Jesus H. Christ -- but in either case, even the Catholic Church, along with nearly all other Christian denominations, reject these as authentically inspired parts of the canonical New Testament.

Some of these works are disqualified from the Canon because textual and manuscript evidence proves that they were written many hundreds of years after the time when the Son of God allegedly beamed down to Earth and became flesh. Others were roughly contemporary with the canonical NT, but at a theological level are overtly shaped by Gnosticism, which mainstream Christianity rejects as heretical. And a few books -- like the Gospels of the Infancy that I'll be discussing below -- may have been excluded from the Canon just because they is so DANG weird!

The Arabic Gospel of the Infancy of the Saviour has a story of a guy who got turned into a mule by a wicked witch, until Mary and Jesus come a-truckin' up and change him back. And Thomas the Israelite's account of Jesus's childhood makes the kid sound like -- well, to be blunt, like a lethal biological hybrid from an unnatural mating between a human girl and some hideous invisible sky-creature calling itself "Yahweh," though its real name might've been "Q*bert of Tau Ceti IV."

It's no wonder, then, that Christians don't accept these Infancy Gospels as authentically inspired, but in a way, that's too bad -- because on a closer reading, it becomes evident why anonymous writers of the early Church felt it necessary to flesh out the missing years of Jesus' biography in the New Testament. In fact, the authors of these Apocryphal works showed such remarkable insight into the human condition that if I weren't an ~~atheist~~ agnosticky Deist, I'd be inclined to accept these books (in conjunction with the four canonical Gospels) as divinely inspired. But don't take my word for it; here, judge for yourself...

Okay, let's put JC's life story in rough sequence, based on the New Testament and those Apocryphal accounts:

1. He's a totally adorable baby whom people shower with presents (Matt. 2:11) and whose used diapers even have magical healing powers! (Arab. Ch. 11)

2. When he gets a little older, we get to see a toddler-aged Li'l Jesus hanging out with cute Muppet Babies versions of his future Apostles and other Gospel characters, including Li'l Judas and Li'l Simon the Canaanite. (Arab. Ch. 35)

Unfortunately, Li'l Jesus has turned into a obnoxious young twerp (in the manner of most children) and goes around putting the hoodoo on people for the most trivial offenses, as when he causes a Li'l Pharisee to fall down dead after the poor kid stomps on a clay fish-pond that Jesus made as an Arts 'n' Crafts project. (Thom. Lat. Ch. 4) Plus, he sasses back to his teacher, and then promptly makes the poor dude shrivel up and die when the man tries to apply a little discipline to a misbehaving pupil.

By the way, parallel events happen in John Wyndham's classic sci-fi novel The Midwich Cuckoos -- filmed and re-filmed as The Village of the Damned: a bunch of women in a small British town turn up pregnant without explanation (hmmm!); kids get a little older and start zapping people dead, sometimes for trivial reasons; turns out that all the weird children with superhuman powers had fathers not of this Earth (hmmm!). Of course, the parallelism should not be taken too far -- after all, the half-alien kids in Wyndham's book work their deadly mischief when they're well past the excuse of being only toddlers!

Anyway, going back to the Infancy Gospels: Li'l Jesus and his telekinetic killing spree eventually come to the attention of his parents. Stepfather Joseph, ever the perceptive one, comments to Mary, "Do not let him go outside of the door, because those that make him angry die" (Thom. Gk 1. Ch. 14), thereby revealing this to be a very early draft of that Twilight Zone episode about the kid who would wish people into the cornfield. But a little later -- presumably after reaching the "age of wisdom" -- Jesus finally repents and undoes all of his "black magic," which includes bringing all the zapped-dead people back to life (Thom. Lat. Ch. 6) -- which is more or less exactly what happens in Joe Dante's happy-ending remake of "It's a Good Life" in the 1983 movie version of The Twilight Zone!

3. Later, Jesus is nicer to the teachers (even though the good rabbis are a bit confused and even overwhelmed by this gifted-track student), but the boy is perhaps unnecessarily sassy to poor Joseph and Mary when they come a-lookin' for him (Luke 2:43-49)

4. Fast-forward a couple decades, and Jesus is using his powers for fun frathouse hijinks, like turning water into wine for the wedding at Cana. However, he's just a BIT of an asshole to his mom (again): "What have I to do with thee, woman?!" (John 2:1-11)

5. The guy just gets nicer and nicer, using his supernatural abilities to heal people right and left, and interceding when some folks are about to throw rocks at a hooker (John 8 3:7). But even Jesus -- who might've been the super-brainy Son of God, but evidently wasn't granted perfect wisdom and omniscience by the Father -- slips up now and then. For instance, when he thoughtlessly imitates the ways of the average Galilean Jew in that era by uttering a racist slur to a Syrophoenician woman who only wants him to heal her sick daughter: "What, you want that I should give the children's bread to the dogs?" Rather than acting all put-upon, though, she snaps back with a bit of self-deprecating wordplay -- "Hey, even us dogs should get to eat what falls from the children's table" -- and Jesus is so impressed at her insight and faith (and maybe just a trifle humbled by her sassy wit, too) that he sends some good voodoo her way after all. (Mark 7:25-30)

6. Jesus finally cashes in the last of his "magic" to help other people -- in fact, all of mankind -- even though this particular "spell" requires the sacrifice of his own life (Luke 22:37). And unlike the little boy who casually zapped his playmates dead if they so much as looked at him funny, Jesus is a total mensch at age 33. The guy even has the class to say "Forgive them, Father, they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34) -- as well he should, since he himself used to make little "whoopsies" from time to time, like temporarily murdering innocent people way back in kindergarten, when he had not yet gained wisdom.

In other words, when the four canonical Gospels are taken together with the apocryphal Infancy Gospels, the entire life of Jesus can be read as a Bildungsroman whose take-home message is: "Everyone, let's all imitate the example of Jesus by learning to grow the fuck up and always use our God-given talents to make other people's lives better, not worse, Amen."

Amen.

[Note: This is an update of an essay that I originally posted in March 2002 -- now much better edited and with improved linkage. -- ed.
Readers may note that the "Infancy Gospel" links go to the online Catholic Encyclopedia at newadvent.org -- although, as I said in the intro, Catholicism doesn't regard these Gospels as inspired. Here's the Catholic Encyclopedia's general treatment of Apocryphal literature for more info, though be advised that the online Cath. Enc. is based on the 1911 printed edition, and thus the phraseology is at times horrendously un-idiomatic and clunky for modern readers.
And incidentally, regarding the handful of mentions that Jesus gets in the Qur'an, wherein he's called by the Arabicized name "Issa" -- apart from the fabulous story about Jesus bringing clay birds to life and the ridiculously contrived attempt to suck up to Christians by pinning the "Christkiller" label on those rotten stinky Jews even while simultaneously denying that Jesus was the Christ AND denying that he actually got killed, (Qur'an, Sura 4, 153-160), there just isn't anything substantive in Islam's Sacred Writ about the teachings of Jesus. So anyone who tells you that Muslims "revere Jesus" as some sort of secondary but important Islamic prophet who came before Muhammad is either (a) a Muslim fundamentalist who's trying to fool you, or (b) a pathetic New-Age-y liberal mush-head Western apologist for fundamentalist Muslims.]

Labels: art, Bible, Christianity, Judaism, philosophy, religion, revelation

posted by Throbert | 8/12/2009 04:26:00 AM | (2) responses

26 January 2009

Jerusalem/Athens Mash-Up

To me, this is one of the coolest sculptures in the history of Western art, and also one of the weirdest:

Michelangelo's Cristo della Minerva -- so called because the 14th-century church that houses it is situated on the former grounds of a temple consecrated to the Roman goddess of wisdom -- is a work that I'd never been aware of until a couple years ago, when it flashed onscreen in some PBS or History Channel special about artistic representations of Jesus through the ages.

Seeing it for the first time was one of those spit-take moments for me -- I could hardly believe that Michelangelo had gotten away with something so jaw-droppingly pagan in its aesthetics.

I mean, a Vulcan anthropology undergrad who'd studied a little about Earth's history and cultures, but who hadn't gotten to the chapter on Christianity yet, would probably look at the marble figure of a bearded human male carrying an odd †-shaped object, and think: "Aha, this must be another Ancient Greek statue honoring one of their many deities -- perhaps Taumikron, god of lower-case t's? Or Hypotenos, god of 90° angles?"

Of course, we know that it represents Jesus Christ, and yet... Michelangelo portrayed his Lord and Savior as a heroic, muscular, nearly-nude male beefcake -- the way that classical Greek sculptors were wont to depict Apollo or Dionysus. "Goddamn, that Jesus was a hot fucking sonofabitch!" or the Italian equivalent thereof, must've been in Michelangelo's thoughts as he worked on this statue. And it's remarkable, to me, that except for the fluttering strip of cloth covering up "the bikini area," Michelangelo totally ignored Christian standards of bodily modesty.

It was one thing to present J.C. as a near-naked corpse held by Mary in the Pietà -- there, the nakedness served to emphasize the Son's voluntary self-degradation in being incarnated as a human in all our biological squishy grossness and suffering physical death. But here, the post-Resurrection Jesus is very much alive, chipper, and looks not the slightest bit embarrassed to be strolling around like an International Male catalog model. One must wonder: in Michelangelo's homosexual imagination, was Jesus circumcised under that loincloth, or -- like the David -- "un-kosher"? _{[It was pointed out to me after I originally posted this that the cloth over Jesus's genitals was a later bowdlerization not intended by Michelangelo. -- ed.]}

I can't think of a work that more concisely embodies the Renaissance and subsequent Enlightenment, in which Christian Europe rediscovered the intellectual heritage of pagan Greece -- producing a cultural fusion without which America, and the modern Western world, could not exist.

Labels: art, philosophy, religion

posted by Throbert | 1/26/2009 04:17:00 PM | (0) responses

25 January 2009

Today's Bible Trivia (not that I'm gonna make a habit of it)

Elsewhere on the Innerweb, someone observed:

I can't think of a single reference to cats in the entire Bible. Does anyone know of a Bible verse that mentions cats?

In case you're ever on Jeopardy, the correct answer is:

"What is the Apocryphal book of Baruch, Alex?"

In the final chapter of Baruch -- a chapter that is sometimes referred to as "The Epistle of Jeremiah" and sometimes as "Baruch, Chapter 6" -- the author mocks the helpless, inanimate carved "gods" of Babylon:

3: Now shall ye see in Babylon gods of silver, and of gold, and of wood, borne upon shoulders, which cause the nations to fear. [...] 11: Yet cannot these gods save themselves from rust and moth, though they be covered with purple raiment. [...] 14: [One of the male gods] hath also in his right hand a dagger and an ax: but cannot deliver himself from war and thieves. 15: Whereby they are known not to be gods: therefore fear them not. [...] 19: [The gods] are as one of the beams of the temple, yet they say their hearts are gnawed upon by things creeping out of the earth; and when they eat them and their clothes, they feel it not. [...] 21: Upon their bodies and heads sit bats, swallows, and birds, and the cats also. 22: By this ye may know that they are no gods: therefore fear them not.

Like the other books of the Apocrypha, Baruch is regarded by Roman Catholics as part of the canonical "Old Testament," but is considered inauthentic (i.e., not divinely inspired) by most Protestant Christians and by Jews.

Labels: religion, trivia

posted by Throbert | 1/25/2009 03:49:00 AM | (0) responses

09 December 2008

Genesis Chapter 3, 2.0

I first read this short story, "Final Version," in an anthology of sci-fi/fantasy "short-shorts" when I was in high school, circa the late '80s. Several years ago, I managed to track down that anthology again at the public library -- and recognizing this story like an old friend, I transcribed it before returning the library book.

It's been on that hard-drive ever since, and I recently went searching for the file after someone on commented about the need to re-interpret Bible stories (in the context of a thread about creationism and "Intelligent Design™").

But this story has nothing to do with Adam and Eve riding around on dinosaurs. What the author John Morressey asks the reader to imagine, instead, is that the whole Garden of Eden drama with the man and the woman munching on the forbidden fruit and then getting kicked out of the garden, as described in the third chapter of Genesis, has actually been played out on many, many planets throughout the Universe. In this story, which takes place on an Earth-like planet that isn't our Earth, inhabited by an Adam and Eve who aren't our ancestors, Morressey presents his own twist ending to "The Fall of Adam."

Final Version
by John Morressey

    His days were full of work, but the life here was good. Each day brought new discoveries. On his long, strong legs he ranged far over this unfamiliar world, feeding a curiosity that grew with each day's nourishment. The woman, too, devoted her time to exploring, and between them they had already learned much about their new home.
    After his long day of questing he returned hungry and dusty, but in good spirits. She had come back before him, and at the sight of him she brought out food. As they ate, he told her of his day's findings.
    ''Did you see any new animals?'' she asked.
    ''Some flying creatures. They're beautiful things.''
    ''Oh, take me with you tomorrow! Please, I want to see them!'' The woman hopped from foot to foot, imagining the flying things.
    ''You can name them,'' offered the man, grinning at her excitement. ''You're better at that than I am.''
    When they finished eating, he asked, ''Did you find anything new by the river?''
    She smiled and shook her head, and the long waves of her hair moved gently to brush first one side of her face, then the other. She swept her hair back over her bare shoulders and said, ''I didn't go to the river. I went up the mountain.''
    ''To the top?''
    ''To the very top.''
    He had been reclining on an elbow. At her news, he sat up and reached out to her in a quick gesture, not of anger but of concern. ''You know the law. At the top of the mountain... you should never go there. Not alone, certainly.''
    She rose lightly to her feet and tugged at his hand. ''Come up with me, then, and see what I have to show you.''
    ''The mountaintop is not a good place. Not even when we're together.''
    ''There's no danger. I know there isn't.''
    He still did not move. ''The light...'' he said uncertainly.
    ''The light will be with us for a long time. Come.'' She tugged again, and he reluctantly arose and followed her up the gentle slope.

    They reached the clearing on the mountaintop in a short time. He stopped, but she walked on, into the center of the clearing, where the bright bush stood alone, and picked two of the thumb-sized golden fruits. He cried out and rushed forward as she placed one in her mouth and bit down, but he was too late to stop her.
    ''Why did you do this? Remember the warning -- if we eat this fruit, we die!'' he said.
    ''I've already eaten it before this, and I'm not dead. Try it,'' she said, extending the golden fruit to him.
    ''No. I can't.''
    ''We were told, 'Eat this fruit and you die.' I've eaten it, and yet I live. Try it. Please.''
    ''And if we die?''
    ''At least we die together. Would you rather live on here without me?''
    That was a thought he could not bear. Without a word, he took the fruit from her fingers and placed it in his mouth. It burst at the pressure of his tongue, and rich sweet juice flooded his mouth with a savor unlike anything he had ever tasted before. He gave a little involuntary moan of delight at the sensation, and without thinking, reached out to pluck one, two, then a handful more of the golden fruit, and the woman beside him laughed and did the same.
    He turned to her, and another new sensation swept through him at the sight of her. He was not sure how long they had been together, but since that first drowsy afternoon when he awoke and found her beside him, her head nestled in the crook of his outflung arm, he had never looked on her with the feeling he now felt. The glow of her smooth skin, the soft curves of her shoulders and breasts, the round smoothness of her belly, the long gentle line of her thighs were as new sights to him, and the look in her eyes drew him closer. He placed his hands on her shoulders and pulled her to him.
    ''You are the most beautiful of all things living. I never saw this before, but I see it now.''
    They sank down on a soft bed of grass and explored together the wonder of their newly discovered bodies. They found a shared joy they had not dreamed of before, and they blessed the golden fruit that had awakened their sleeping senses.

    Together, in the early twilight, they walked down the mountainside to their shelter. Her arm was around his waist, while he encircled her shoulder with his arm and drew her head against him. They walked in silence, slowly.
    At the foot of the mountain they stopped. A light flickered and flared bright under the darkening sky and came to rest before them. He stepped forward in a protective stance as the light dimmed and took the form of one of the fearsome creatures that they understood to be guardians of the place.
    ''What do you want here?'' the man said.
    The guardian's voice was like the rolling of great boulders down the mountainside. The rush of air from its pinions swept the fallen leaves past the man and blew the hair back from his face.
    ''You have broken the law,'' the guardian said.
    The man was afraid. He wanted to fall back before that awesome figure. But he thought of the woman, and the punishment that might befall them, and anger rose in him stronger than the fear.
    ''What we have done is not your concern. Get out of our way,'' he said.
    ''Do you defy me?'' the guardian roared, lowering a hand to the sword at its side.
    ''It is you who defy me, by intruding on the place that was given to me. Leave us,'' the man ordered, taking a step forward.
    The guardian-creature drew its sword. The man stooped, lifted a heavy stone from the ground, and hurled it with all his strength. It struck the guardian full in the chest, staggering it. The sword whirled free, glinting in the dying light. The woman sprang nimbly to snatch up the fallen blade.
    ''Now leave,'' the man said, picking up another large stone. ''And never intrude on us again,'' added the woman.
    The guardian hesitated, and seemed about to speak, but the man stepped towards the creature and the woman brandished the sword, and the guardian faded away. The woman came to his side and put her arm around him. ''You were brave,'' she said.
    ''Until now, I feared them.''
    ''But no more.''
    ''No, no more.'' He looked down at her, bemused. ''Before I even raised my hand against the creature, I knew it was already beaten.''
    ''Do I make you so strong?'' asked the woman.
    ''You've shown me why I must be strong.''
    He took the sword from her. Hand in hand, more watchful now, they descended the remainder of the way.

    As they reached their shelter, the skies darkened. A wind rose, and its first faint whisper grew in an instant to a roar. Sudden drops of rain struck like flung pellets against their naked flesh. A peal of thunder shook the ground under their feet, and in a flash of lighting that seared the trees around them, their Creator appeared, His blazing face drawn into lines of wrath.
    ''What have you done?'' He said in a voice that overbore the thunder.
    The man stood fast before Him, the sword in his hand. ''I drove out an intruder,'' he said.
    ''You have done more than that!''
    ''Accuse me, then.''
    Thunder roared all around, and lightning lanced the ground at his very feet, but the man stood firm. At last came the accusation. ''You have eaten the fruit of the knowledge of Good and Evil. This was forbidden you, and yet you did it. Now you face My punishment.''
    ''Why should I be punished?'' asked the man.
    ''Do you deny eating the golden fruit?'' the voice of the Creator thundered.
    ''I deny doing wrong. You gave me this place, and told me I was master here. Why should anything be forbidden to me where I am master?''
    ''Do you feel no guilt? No shame?''
    ''I do not!'' the man said, and took a step forward. ''I will enjoy the fruits of my own garden as I choose. Send guardians to threaten me, and I'll treat them as I treated the first one.''
    ''Would you attack Me, then?''
    The man let the sword fall from his hand. ''No, not You. Never You, Who made me. I only defend what You gave me for my own.''
    The Creator raised His hand and pointed at the man, who steeled himself for a blast that did not come. Instead, in a solemn voice, like retreating thunder, the Creator said, ''You have broken My law and struck down My servant, and you show no remorse. Will you kneel before Me and beg forgiveness?''
    ''No. I have done no wrong.''
    ''I can destroy you,'' said the Creator. ''Perhaps it is better that I should destroy you.''
    ''Then destroy me, and make a new creature that will crawl for You,'' the man said, standing as tall as he could.
    ''And make a new companion for the new creature,'' said the woman, ''because I will be destroyed with him.'' She came to the man's side and placed her hand tight in his.
    Then the wind suddenly fell, and the storm hushed, and for a long moment all was still as side by side, the man and the woman awaited their annihilation.

    ''At last!'' the Creator laughed into the silence. ''At long last!'' He laughed again, and the darkness lifted. A joyous light shone forth from His countenance and illumined all around the man and woman and embraced them. ''Over and over, on worlds beyond numbering, I have created you. On every world I put you to a test. And of all who take the test, none has yet had the courage to accept the consequences. Eat the fruit, and you can become as I. They could not bear this. When I faced them, they crawled before Me, and cringed, and whimpered for mercy. I demanded guilt and shame, and they gave it to Me, and they live in thrall to it forever. But you gave Me your courage.''
    He stepped closer, and held out His arms. They came to Him, and He enfolded them in light and pressed them to Him. ''On a million million worlds I have slaves and worshippers,'' He said softly. ''But here, at last, I have My children.''

*    *    *
©1981 by John Morressey
Transcribed by Rob McGee from 100 Great Fantasy Short Short Stories; Asimov, Carr, Greenburg (editors); ISBN: 0-385-18165-5

Labels: philosophy, religion, revelation

posted by Throbert | 12/09/2008 09:18:00 PM | (2) responses

08 July 2008

G-d Explains a Few Things

ELLO, kids! I am the LORD thy G-d and I would like to bend thine ear for a moment. But before I get to the meat of the issue, I need to clear something up. Using My omniscient brain, I am able to read your minds and see that some of you doubt that it is really I, the LORD G-d, Maker of Heaven and Earth, of all that is seen and unseen, Who addresses you now.

Let Me be quite clear that I never punish anyone for honest skepticism. Mr. Thomas Jefferson -- one of My more gifted children -- once advised his nephew, Peter Carr:

Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.

OMMY got it exactly right. Being a loving Parent, and not the insecure diva some people make me out to be, of course I would rather that a child of Mine disbelieve in Me for good and honest reasons, than that he believe in Me for silly or dishonorable reasons!

Naturally, what I like best is when My children believe in Me for the proper reasons, but failing that, I consider "correct disbelief" to be the next best thing.

I only wanted to reassure the skeptics out there that I don't hold their skepticism against them -- not at all. And I mean you, Charles, and you, Emily, and especially you, José. But having got that out of the way, I shall now give all of you a thoroughly convincing proof of My Divine Omnipotence! Are you ready?

SHAZAM! See how I am able to appear and disappear before your startled eyes? Pretty nifty, huh? I think that should be more than sufficient evidence for the time being that I am who I say I am. Now we can proceed with the question that I wished to address! Where did I put that email? Ah, yes... [ahem]

A young man named Travis, a self-identified atheist, poses this skull-cracking conundrum:

If there is only one God, why has he created so many different doctrines to confuse us all?

EHOLD -- sayeth the LORD, Who is Me -- it is really quite simple.

Firstly, as My beloved and discerning child Travis hath correctly stated, all of the diverse religious doctrines among mankind issueth from ME.

Yes, the Jewish Torah and Tanakh and Talmud, and the Gospels of My Beloved Son Jesus, along with NEARLY ALL of the rest of the Christian ''New Testament'', and the Qur'an, and the Hindu Vedas and Upanishads, and the Analects of Confucius, and the Buddhist sutras, and the Egyptian Book of the Dead, and BELIEVE IT OR NOT, Time Bandits and Atlas Shrugged and roughly two out of three episodes of South Park -- 'twas none other than I, the LORD thy G-d, Who authored these oft' mutually contradictory narratives, and many others. (And when I say "authored," I don't mean that I physically moved the pen, but rather that I whispered into the brains of My children and told them exactly what I needed them to write. Of course, sometimes I let them embellish my inspiration a little bit. Or a lot. But not a single embellishment went into the final text without My say-so.)

And how could it be otherwise? Woe to ye naive Christians who blameth "the Devil," a.k.a. Satan, for such "heathen scriptures" as the bloody and infernal Qur'an. It is true that My loyal and frequently misunderstood servant, the cranky yet lovable Satan, was instrumental in composing alcoran, or the "Koran," or Qur'an (all of which are perfectly sensible ways of latinizing the book's Arabic title). But you are logically and factually mistaken if you put the entire blame for this rather nasty document on poor Satan's head!

For in so doing, you attribute to a very gifted Freelance Writer, namely Mr. Lucifer Q. Satan, the authority that is held only by the CEO, President, and Editor-in-Chief... who is, obviously, Me. No document of any importance gets published in this Universe without My editorial oversight and approval. That is what "Omnipotence" means, My children. The Buck Stops Here, right on my gigantic glowing desk.

Now, using My vast intellect and mind-reading powers, I foresee that some of you will object as follows:

But, but... while the LORD G-d might have permitted Satan, or Muhammad, to author the horrible Qur'an, because He grants His creations free will, surely He would never have written such malicious nonsense Himself!

Well, that is a reasonable objection, and the Truth is that some of the religions out there really are the creations of My children, and not Mine own invention. For example, Joseph Smith made up the Book of Mormon™ all by his little self -- with My permission and My approval, of course, because I judged it to be a nice effort for a novice writer, and after careful thought I decided that Mormonism would overall be of far more benefit than harm for humanity. But it was not My own writing.

On the other hand, the runaway bestseller Dianetics was a mischievous invention from one of Satan's underlings, spoon-fed into the thoroughly average mind of poor L. Ron Hubbard, who could not have devised something so fiendishly stupid without help. Again, though, everyone involved acted with my permission, because I saw that Scientology would end up being an occasionally useful nuisance.

UT having admitted that some false religions are purely the invention of men or devils, I will repeat what I said before: that many other false religions, despite being more false than true, were invented by Me, personally. Come, let Us reason together:

Can you understand why I might have conceivably permitted Muhammad to invent the awful Qur'an? If you don't understand, just keep reading, My little one!
And can you understand that I allowed the Qur'an to exist because I foresaw that despite all the misery and havoc Muhammad's followers have caused in very recent Earth history, the religion of Islam would nonetheless be a key player in My looooong-term Plan for the universal benefit and salvation of humankind?
And if you understand those two points, can you bring yourself to speculate that when I, the LORD G-d, see something really important needing to be published, I prefer to cut out the fucking middleman and write the goshdarn thing Myself?

Now, if that doesn't persuade you that I personally authored the Torah, the Gospels of Jesus, the Vedas and Upanishads, the Iliad, Beverly Cleary's "Beezus and Ramona" stories, and the Qur'an, I think you are beyond the powers of logic, My poor child. (Which is not to say that all of these are true in ALL points -- only that each and every word in each and every one of them is either the Truth, or is a Colossal Fib that I, the LORD G-d, fabricated Myself, for My own highly mysterious purposes.)

Now, getting to those purposes -- as My child Travis wondereth, why would G-d inflict such theological diversity upon mankind?

ELL, the full answer is rather complicated, and for another time. Possibly for another generation not even born yet. But I will tell you part of the answer: I invented a mix of mutually-contradictory religions precisely because I foresaw that by quarreling amongst themselves as to which doctrine should prevail, men would in time increase the intellectual sophistication of their species. They would self-improve.

To put it another way: I seeded the minds of men with a mix of Truths and Lies so that by sorting out the mess, you clever little monkey-piglets might evolve your adorable selves into cunning philosophers! (And rest assured, there is not one among the billions of you who is in possession of the pure, unalloyed, 100% TROOF, for after all there are something like 80 billion galaxies, when last I checked, yet this has only recently been figured out by human scientists, and none of the Scriptures of any major religion clearly spells out the actual, factual Truth -- which is, namely, that My Creation is pants-wettingly gigantic, but not infinite, and in fact its dimensions can be abstractly calculated, if not mentally comprehended, by ordinary human minds.)

And that's the Truth, honest to Me, thus sayeth the LORD thy G-d. And on that note...

CIAO, KIDLETS! Stay groovy!

P.S.

Even though I inspired many different religions, some of the Holy Scriptures I created contained more Truth than others. And the "clever little monkey-piglets" remark was meant as to which one of these Divine Revelations happens to be a lot Truthier than most of the rest. If that's not enough of a hint: the word Truth has 5 letters and starts with a "T"...

Labels: philosophy, religion, revelation

posted by Throbert | 7/08/2008 12:41:00 AM | (1) responses

01 July 2008

Split Brains and Souls

A poster on LGF logo

recently asked :

Care to post proof that human beings have no soul?

And here's my answer to that challenge:

It would be difficult to conclusively disprove the existence of immortal souls, but the odd side-effects experienced by patients after "split-brain surgery" rather strongly suggests that we don't have souls during our biological lifespan.

Here's an online game that describes the outcome of the "split-brain experiments" in detail.

But in a nutshell, it used to be that when patients were suffering from severe epileptic seizures that couldn't be controlled by the medications of the time, the measure of last resort was to surgically cut the nerve bundle connecting the left and right halves of the brain. (As far as I know, improved anti-seizure drugs have made such surgeries obsolete.)

Not only did "splitting" the brain in this way help to reduce the seizures, but many of these patients were able to recover relatively normal functionality in everyday life.

However, under certain artificial conditions devised by experimenting scientists, the split-brain patients occasionally showed some very odd symptoms, particularly relating to the way that their brains processed sensory input and language.

For instance, the patient might be presented with something as familiar as an apple, and recognize it as something that he enjoys eating, and perhaps also recognize that a red apple and a red shirt were the same color.

Yet upon being asked by the researchers, "What's the name of this thing you're looking at?" the patient would come up blank -- totally unable to retrieve from memory and pronounce the words "apple" or "red." And the cause of these weird side-effects was that the two halves of the brain were no longer able to share information directly.

Now, if the consciousness of a living human were really located in a supernatural soul that exists apart from the physical brain, wouldn't we expect that this soul could carry information across the millimeter gap between the left and right brain, even though the physical connection had been severed?

Of course, there remains the possibility that a supernatural agent like God could create a soul at the very moment when we die, and miraculously download all of our brain's stored memories and sense of self into this newly-made soul, so that our individual personalities could survive the death of the brain. I see no way to prove or disprove that.

(And incidentally, the effects experienced by patients after "split-brain surgery" also give us good reason to doubt that there is such a thing as telepathy.)

Labels: religion, science

posted by Throbert | 7/01/2008 09:37:00 PM | (0) responses