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JesusandMo

Mahdi Appears

February 2, 2006

AP – Tehran, Iran.  The long-awaited, some have said “mythical,” Mahdi appeared this morning in a tiny Iranian village southwest of the Capital of Iran.  The Mahdi is the legendary 12th Imam. A dispute over the existence of this fabled Islamic character led to the 1200 year, bitter and bloody rift between Sunni Muslims, who rejected the Mahdi and instead followed written laws of succession, and the Shia Muslims, who held that only the bloodline of the prophet Muhammed should rule.
      The Shia believe that that the Mahdi, the last Imam, would appear from a cave in the final days before Jesus returns – no, really.  
     The Mahdi’s return initially was taken by many in the Islamic world as a fantastic justification for the policies and pronouncements of the – some had thought – delusional President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
     However, shortly after his arrival, the Mahdi spoke briefly with President Ahmadinejad, and then shocked onlookers when he screeched in a high-pitched, British accent, “You’ve been a naughty boy!” and slapped hapless Ahmadinejad across the face.
     The Mahdi then retreated to his cave.  The Mahdi saw his shadow this year, indicating that there will be at least six more weeks of winter.

Dumbest Sentence Ever Written

I am enjoying Tom Clancey’s “Teeth of the Tiger,” wherein this brilliant man posits that a future terrorist attack upon the USA may be undertaken by – hold on to your seats – Arab Muslims. (What?):

Unfortunately, in the middle of this otherwise entertaining and insightful novel is the dumbest sentence ever penned in English.  To wit:

“The sun rose promptly at dawn.”

Um, guy.  The, uh, sun can’t be late for dawn.  Because the rising of the sun … IS DAWN, you dolt!  Oh well, it’s fun nonetheless.

Hamas Sponsors BYOB Rib Roast

AP -- Ramallah, Palestine (Occupied) -- In a run-up-to-the-elections bid to win over Palestinian Christian voters, peace-seeking members of Hamas (i.e., Ted, the leprous mute) have offered to sponsor a bring-your-own-beer pig roast in Bethlehem. Pigs in the area expressed alarm.

"It is forbidden by Allah to eat the meat of pigs, and as well to drink beverages of alcohol!" shouted one pig. Oops, never mind. That was an imam.

Local Christians expressed some doubts about Hamas' intentions. "Ted is a leprous mute, clearly they are not serious," said Yehsua al Hassid. "But I love ham and beer, so I may go anyway."

Pressed on his intenions, Ted told this reporter, "MMmmm, nyhaa fnnn, nnnnn nahaaaaaaa."

Isreali sources were unavailable for comment.

Pat Robertson, spokesman for all true Christians, offered, "This will fit in perfectly with the menu at Christeyland."

The Fall

There was no literal "Fall." There was never an Adam and Eve. They are mythological prototypes for who each one of us is. The sinfulness of Man is built into Mankind by the fact that we are animals living in the grip of Time. That, however, is our nature. That nature was created by God. It's a "design flaw." (That'll get Gary's engine started.) The "Fall" is this: that every single one of us ignores the call of God to forget about that, to stop being just an animal, and to stop worrying about Time. But the Eve in you says, "I can understand this and get past it." And the Adam in you says, "I can overcome and control this." And both of you are wrong.

That is the reason for Jesus' sacrifice. Set up from the Beginning. God knew the flaw and Jesus was the answer, the retrofit.

Um, so that begs the question, What is necessary for the salvation of the individual? Nothing? Since Jesus "fixes" it all?

This is where my speculative, uneducated musings end. I don't know.

Gary?

What it is

So here’s my overall dealie with the whole God thing and atonement and creation and whatnot. This is, obviously, a guess.

About 15-20 billion years ago, God said “Boo,” and the universe exploded. God thought it was pretty damn cool.

“That’s pretty damn cool,” God said.

Then God thought, “I like this material world so much that I want to make it eternal, like the spiritual world.” Immediately he thought, “Uh oh. The dang thing is either going to collapse in on itself and explode again, or else continue to expand until it runs out of energy and then just die out, depending, of course, on the value of the Hubble constant.”

So God said (to himself at this point) “I know, I’ll make a creature out of this stuff and then make that creature eternal, and then pull the whole material world through that creature into the eternal.”

Of course, God didn’t have to do anything about this plan because the eventual arising of humankind was already in the blueprints (damn, he’s smart), but anyway, then Man arose.

Man was an animal. Still is, matter of fact. That’s really the problem, isn’t it? God tried to communicate with Man. At first, this was really hard because of the saber-toothed tigers. But after Man killed all of those, it got a little easier and some people started to listen to God. And what God said, basically, was this: “Stop listening to the animal part of you, and start listening to me.”

Well, long story short, that didn’t really work. For instance, God tried to get people (the Jews (he started small)) to do things like empathize with their livestock (who are sentient after all) and so he made rules for farmers along the lines “don’t cook a calf in its mother’s milk.” That’s a rule aimed at making a simple farmer feel empathy toward what is, really, his “prey.” Nice, civilizing rule that. There’s a whole bunch of them. All aimed at making people think non-animaly. Alright that’s not a word according to my spellchecker, but you get the idea.

Anyway, finally God said (actually my guess is this was in the blueprints), “Alright, they can’t really completely divest themselves of their animal nature. So, I’m going to become one of them. Then, I will be killed and my blood – a really, really animaly and material kind of thing – will “atone” for their animaly, material nature. Make it spiritual. ‘Cause it’s me. Who can beat that?”

So, the death and atonement of Jesus for us is God’s way of pulling us and the entire material creation into eternity. The resurrection, of course, is just gravy. I mean, not “just” gravy. But gravy. God showing off. "Woo-hoo! Kill me will ya? Plllllppp, suckers!"

Umm. I have the feeling that this is not orthodox. I would appreciate any comments, especially from Gary.

Inspiration

Okay, my consultant Gary Sattler tells me the post below on the Bible is okay, but really just opens up the question what do I mean by "inspiration." Here's what I mean. When a human being sees a beautiful sunset, they may be inspired to write a poem or paint a picture, or just talk about it with a friend or lover. The man or woman writing the poem (let's assume they went that route) will -- if they are talented -- write a poem that inspires others, a well-crafted poem that reflects the beauty of the sunset the writer saw. If not talented, the person will write a clunky, Hallmark poem that makes people say "Oh, how lovely," and then gag. And if the person is a Nazi, the poem will have something of that in it; and if they're a buddhist priest, something of that. But in either case, the sunset does not "possess" the person and literally dictate to him or her in a trance the words of the poem.

In other words, "inspiration" is the internal response to an external stimulus, which then (maybe) generates an external expression of that response, which itself is colored by all of the other stuff going on inside the responder.

In short and in sum, this means, I believe, that the Bible's "inspiration" consists of a response to the revelation of God within the person of the writer of the particular book, the response being colored by the mental capacity, prejudices, culture and other crap going on inside the "inspired" person.

Now, God may well have carefully chosen those to whom He made special revelations, knowing their capacities and flaws. And it probably is the case, based on my review of the historical record, that the men who put the Canon together were themselves "inspired" in some way. All of which is only to say that I have no doubt that the Bible is especially inspired, and not just a book of poems about sunsets. Because the subject of the revelations -- God, not sunsets -- is an active person who participates in the expression of the revelation in a way the sunset cannot. Again -- not by dictating -- but perhaps on occasion by offering that "still, small voice," and perhaps on occasion,actually being heard.

"Okay, that makes no sense. So, God doesn't dictate the books, He just talks to the guys who wrote them? Whaddya nuts? That's the same thing!"

Alright, I agree it's not entirely clear. Let me put this as succinctly as possible and see if this helps: God inspires because of who He is. Some people, out of amazement, wrote down what they saw. What they wrote down was affected by who they were. God worked on them. They responded to that work imperfectly. Their writings reflect that work and those imperfections. And that's as close, in this life, as we're gong to get.

Okay, Gary -- how and or why is this wrong?