Before God turns off the lights

 

 

God made man, man made religion, and religion made theology! Loosely defined, theology is the understanding of Theo, which is loosely defined as God, a God, or many Gods. That is that attempt to understand something you have previously defined as beyond all understanding. And it that doesn’t define crazy I’m not a white boy from Austin. 

 

The usual path to this understanding is some holy book, arbitrarily defined as scripture. And scripture can be a “holy” work, the “Holy Bible,” “Holy Qu’ran” “Holy Book of Morman,” or anything deemed to have been given by “holy” inspiration to men by some psychological means not fully understood by the minds of men. The Karma Sutra cannot be holy because it involves women to an unsettling degree, and if there’s one thing that will make a holy man unholy it’s an unholy woman. The usual remedy for an unholy woman is to have her stoned. In Biblical times the offending woman was stoned after the act and in the modern era they are typically stoned before sinning which doesn’t excuse her but can make her extremely popular. 

 

All of these religious books depend upon inspiration. And that would mean literal inspiration. God grabbed two stone tablets and gave Moses ten rules that couldn’t be broken, especially on The Sabbath, depending upon what time of the year it was. An Angel grabbed Mohammed by the throat and squeezed until he babbled The Goat-Herder’s Guide to the Universe. Joseph Smith was visited by an illegal immigrant named Moroni who told him that there was a pot of gold at the end of some potato field. And last, but not least, adherents to the Karma Sutra grab something a tad more practical. 

 

But all are “inspired!” So, what is inspiration? Inspiration is whatever you burn in your crazy mind. The crazier the better, and it helps if you have a prophet handy who has a lifestyle that would make John Lennon blush with shame. So students of such as these will scribble down fallacious utterances that will later be translated into countless renditions for eager minds searching for “the truth!” Attempts to understand cultures, languages, and beliefs have brought about the end of many a man, religion, culture, and mental stability. Great wars have been fought over the misunderstanding of but one holy word in whatever holy scripture you may buy into. All over an error no greater than a misprint in a Walmart ad! 

 

All in subjection to an unproven idea arrived upon by someone’s whacky understanding of a whiskey-soaked dream or getting caught with a girlfriend by one of the wives. But it all comes down to theology. So, is there a God? A supreme being? A source? And if so, where does such an entity come from? 

 

If there is a such a thing as inspiration it comes from the human mind and if it is in the mind, then it was put there by the same force that put that tree in your yard. You cannot deny what you can see and you can see that tree. Can we ever understand that force? Well, in a word, no. The best we can do is try to understand our understanding, and that’s a stretch.  When we open one door there is always another one at the end of the room. 

 

There is no answer to this equation. For we are looking for answers in all the wrong places. If there is a God, He learned from Mount Sinai that we couldn’t count to ten. Jesus tried to teach us to count to two and got nailed up. Before it is all over it is said that Jesus will return and put it all in place. And I believe that. I mean, somebody has to fix this mess. Or maybe we’re not a mess. What if we’re just a ramp to a better world? What if we’re not? The remnants of a bad day before God turns off the lights and goes to wherever home is for Him. Trust me, it’s not Killeen Texas!

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