The more we learn, the less we know

That’s the hard thing for religion to admit. It is about certainties, after all. It’s hard to admit I really don’t know jack shit about what’s out there; I only know what’s in here, that I feel this incredible love radiating outward and seeping inward that connects me to every living thing that breathes on this one-in-a-trillion planet. It has nothing to do with someone stroking my ego or pulling my leg. It has everything to do with a friendly word from a stranger, a helping hand when you’ve fallen down, or a baby’s smile. Just thinking about it in the fifth dimension of memory can send a shiver up my spine, and a tear to my eye. This is the great gift of Christianity, the transformative power of love. In a dog-eat-dog world, nobody had ever said anything as simple as “love your neighbor as yourself”. Imagine what would happen if everybody actually did that. The problem is that too often those who don’t, take advantage of those who do.

Messiah complex, God simple.

If you believe in anything, then you believe in God. But beware of false prophets and easy solutions. It’s time for a new religion, gather up all those shitty little revelations and write them down in a new Bible, if that’ll make you feel any better. Ancestor worship runs in the family, but stops short of a true metaphysics. Oriental religion offers a way out, but no way in. Western religion could use a pill to chill and enjoy the show without everybody demanding the starring role and a share of the box-office. But no drugs, please. It’s time for East and West to meet somewhere besides WWIII-era cheesy GI bars lining the beaches in Pattaya and Frankfurt. It’s time to reconcile science and religion without all the rank and rancor. Science is about probabilities; religion is about certainties. There’s really no need to battle over turf. Islam is way ahead in one area- they have a God with no face, pure and inescapable, while Christians need frequent inspiration from the guy with the tan, and Buddhists prostrate themselves to a thousand graven images while professing non-attachment. Christianity wins the battle over behavior hands-down with the doctrine of unrelenting love, and Buddhism will always be closer to theoretical physics with its flexible approach to reality. But talk’s cheap. As always, do as they say, not as they do. Buddha, Christ, and Muhammad take their places in the head, heart, and muscle of the world and man like the sage, lover, and soldier in all of us: old, middle-aged, and young. Islamic discipline, Christian love, and Buddhist other-worldliness are the tripod legs of one true religion, the trilogy, the triple Gem, the five pillars, the Ten Commandments, and the eight-fold path all showing different sides of One Truth- God exists. Live your life accordingly.

ARGUMENTS FOR GOD

Maybe there is a God, and maybe he gives a shit. Maybe there is a reason to live. Maybe I need it. Maybe I need the sandy coastline, the muddy rivers, and the purple sunsets. Maybe I need people in general, though maybe no one in particular. My heart is a palimpsest, a lonely beach washed over and rewritten many times by warriors determined to topple my castles in the air. If you can explain it, then it isn’t God. God speaks in silence, in your innermost thoughts. God is that voice inside, your partner in dialogue, your constant companion.

HOLY SHIT

Give Israel up, guys, you’re not going to get it back, not that it was ever yours in the first place! The Philistines can take care of themselves; they don’t need Jews or Arabs, six-pointed stars nor Egyptian scarabs. This is not holy war; this is holy shit! Go back to your deserts and count your money, then get on with your lives and count your blessings. Things could be worse. Armenians got it much worse from the same Turks who let Jews back into Palestine in the first place, long after the Romans kicked them out with great ceremony and fireworks. Surrender to your war god of victory and conquest; prostrate yourself to the great black rock of fortitude, Holy of Holies. Take the veils off your wives and get them some make-up. That’ll make it better. If they look less like executioners, then maybe you’ll feel less suicidal.

FUTILE SYSTEM

“Eye for an eye” is a much misunderstood phrase, typically considered to be encouragement of revenge as the highest form of justice. In fact it is an admonition to limit compensation to no more than actual damages, in other words, NO REVENGE, or at least, no punitive damages. This is a lesson a few American lawyers should consider. Some Thai females take the example to a new extreme, whacking off the genitals of a partner who has done them wrong, or so the urban legends go. Sometimes it can be sewed back on, if it can be found, but not always. One tale even has the unit sent flying to parts unknown by hot air balloon, a forlorn member of a very select club sent on its way to never-never land with no return ticket. Welcome to the lives of the cheap and dirty, humanity laid bare for pubic consumption, the American dream, docile natives in service to their superiors. As weird as Interzone is, Thailand is even weirder. Like Navajos in turquoise, Thais like to wear their bank accounts around their necks, 24 K gold redeemable in cash on demand. Most have never had credit cards, and for good reason. They run up a huge bill, and then wonder why the credit gets cut off, and the bills keep coming. Very few Thais use checks for the same reason, so nobody will take them. They bounce, and bounce, and bounce. This is the futile system, in God we trust, as long as he pays cash. But I digress.

AND THE MEEK WILL INHERIT THE EARTH

Will the meek inherit the Earth? Forced to take sides in a war they don’t want, they’re left to their own devices when it comes time to take up arms. Most would rather busy their hands working the fields of Abraham, but the powers that be reject simple solutions. Individual egotism becomes group solidarity becomes national pride becomes racial superiority, religion holding the hand that feeds as it follows. Conspiracy rules, a conspiracy of ignorance. Half the world consumes what the other half produces, as if nothing could be more natural, peasants plowing fields becoming poorer and poorer while hunters become herders become warriors become corporate raiders with habits as large as their bellies to feed from the fields of peasants. Everybody gets in on the deal, women holding down the fort while men do the hunting, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER

This is the Bible; this is a new millennium; this is WWIII. Populations are in movement all over the globe to avoid the axe, to avoid the sword, to avoid the inevitable. This is the war to end all wars. This is slow-motion Apocalypse, the first to be televised. This is the year of the virus, DNA carefully packaged in Trojan horses. This is the race to end all races. Jihad rears its ugly head like a ghost from the past, Saladin riding a gilded stallion, forcing the infidels into submission, showing mercy to the repentant. The One God is a jealous God. His three grandsons fight for favor in his eye, Ariel, George, and Osama taking up where Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad left off, jockeying for position in a world growing smaller by the day. Abraham’s house long divided between Jesus’s many children and Muhammad’s brotherhood of the sword, Moses wants nothing more in his old age than his childhood room with a view after years of travel and homelessness. Sibling rivalry for the Father’s favors begins at home.

RELIGION MADE TO ORDER WITH A MESSIAH ON THE SIDE

God may be dead and long gone, but religion is a horse of another color. Religion is more about godliness than God himself. If necessary to create Him, then do so. Draw the hair long and the beard wild, or put him in a business suit with clipboard and calculator. The Chinese portray Buddha (and always have) as a sitting laughing bald guy with a belly bigger than his considerable buttocks. The Thais portray Buddha (and always have) as a tall slender stroller with eyes half-closed and an empty palm extended gracefully. On the other hand, the legendary Avalokitesvara, exporter of Buddhism beyond India’s borders and Bodhisattva par excellence somehow invariably morphed from a man into the woman Kuan Yin/Kannon/Kuan Im everywhere he/she entered the pantheon of worship. Go figure. If Jesus has ever been portrayed as anything other than a well-tanned surfer dude breaking bread with the buds or gazing above invariably back-lit halo-like, I’ve never seen it, but that all started with renaissance ‘hippie’ painters with agendas, or so a high-school teacher assured me. Likenesses of Muhammad are proscribed, of course. Religions tend to give the region of their acceptance the message they need, like it or not. Violent Europeans get the love-priest. Sexually obsessed Arabs get the head wrap for women. Possessive face-obsessed Asians get the religion of renouncement and passive withdrawal.

ISLAM 101

Muhammad is the only prophet to turn a profit these days. Moses is bankrupt; Jesus is in Chapter 11, trying to write off II Corinthians as a total loss; Buddha just laughs it off, belly fat now after ‘going Chinese’. He doesn’t care about Nirvana any more than Jesus cares about Madonna. Islam is the only plan with a man. It’s a good investment, no interest allowed, but a piece of the rock implied, a place in Heaven guaranteed, and a piece of cake to boot. Applications are being accepted, no fee required. Islam is the religion for the rest of us, no thought necessary, just submission to Allah. Allah knows best, in his own inimitable way. Pray what you will; take what you need. Your body is a temple, point it five times daily toward Jerusalem; I mean Mecca. Put no pork in it, nor any other food that’s not kosher; I mean halal. Punish infidels, but spare the Fidels and the Rauls and the Saddams and Gomorrahs, as long as they’re enemies of our enemies. Annihilate pagans, Israelis, and Americans. Got it? There, that’s not so hard, is it? Religion 101, point and shoot.

BLACK OILY MEAT

Mushrooms are the forbidden fruit; oil is the forbidden meat. The Russians claim that oil is a renewable resource, constantly replenishing itself from below. If you go deep enough anywhere, you’ll eventually find it. That may be wishful thinking. Nevertheless, time is the crucial factor. Anything is renewable if you wait long enough, just as anything is depletable if you use it fast enough. The genie is out of the bottle and won’t go back in without some major coaxing. There’s no wishing for an earlier time without oil when everything was peaceful and simple and pristine. The air and water may have been cleaner, true, but human hearts were certainly no more gracious. The past is a pool of blood, ready to trap the unwary in its web of deceit. The present is a pool of oil, purchasing peace and happiness on the installment plan, buying time with the accumulated wealth of centuries. If there’s nothing there to substitute for oil when it gets scarce, will people kill themselves? Is there something like a methadone maintenance plan for oil junkies? Will a downward spiral into Dark Ages ensue? It’s probably a good time for a new Messiah; nothing heals like religion.