let us review

bob - Lets review...

A few thousand years ago people didn't know a heck of a lot about science so they invented this god thing to explain stuff. The god idea caught on and then a few schizophrenics came forward claiming that this phantasmagorical god thing had spoken to them. They wrote down or preached about what god had said to them, or what they thought god had said to them, or what they thought people would want God to say if, in fact, you could ever get a word out of the old bugger. One guy even went so far as to say that he actually was god, or the son of god, or one corner of a triangle. Does that make any sense to you? Look, its complicated....

Anyway, at the time there was no TV, and writing was more of a chore so people tended to take more notice of such things and in fact whole civilizations, justice systems, architectural styles etc. grew up around the god idea. It inspired some of the most beautiful art the world has ever seen. There was a wonderful book written about all of this too with great stories about virgin births and women talking to snakes and some of it is even more or less verifiable and intended to be interpreted literally. There is a lot of stuff in the book that people have trouble interpreting cause it seems so dream like or like a fairy tale or something. Some of it though is definitely supposed to be interpreted literally, like for instance the part where the triangle guy in a fit of grandiose shame takes it upon himself to die for all of our sins. There was even a movie made about this part. You should see it. They break the triangle guys back and peel off his skin with whips and pull his arms out of his sockets and drive nails through his hands and this teaches us about the magnitude of triangle guy's sacrifice even though most of it isn't true probably.

Such is the power of the human imagination.

Not many people (with a few notable exceptions) today however claim to have had conversations with god and were they to really push the issue they would probably end up under psychiatric supervision. Unless those people happened to be very well connected politically of course. In fact these days we have Iranian politicians claiming to have a God given right to nuclear technology that will allow them to build a nuclear bomb, and a group called "The Taliban" seeking to bring human affairs under the will of God and a little monkey named Bush elected on the God idea and on his conversations with the God idea. Of course all these people are deluded and grandiose enough to believe that they are acting on God's will and in the process they threaten the security of the entire planet, but apparently in private conversations with god this is all part of the big plan or something. It's all covered in the last chapter of the book.

Such also is the power of the human imagination.

The problem with the god idea essentially of course is that it too often allows people who are so wrong to feel so right. There is nothing more dangerous than that, but the triangle guy isn't around anymore and the people who claim to speak for god are all in psychiatric hospitals, or in politics, or employed by oil companies or by weapons manufacturers so we wee people are pretty much left to figure these things out for ourselves. It is quite a strain generally and with time it becomes more and more difficult to always look on the bright side of life.