Subject: God's Football Team [LONG] This is going to be rather disjointed and boring. You


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From: atanu@hpsemc.HP.COM (Atanu Dey) Subject: God's Football Team [LONG] This is going to be rather disjointed and boring. You have been warned! Question: It appears to me that God is normally assumed to be on the side of the good and the holy - for example, in the recent case of the Ayatollah and the Author (S. Rushdie). And it also seems that since the Prophet is blasphemed, God would be at least as upset as the good Ayatollah (May he live 10,000 years and kill all who disagree with him and his religion) to see such satanical writing. So, why does God not solve the whole debate by striking Rushdie ( BTW: Rush to Die :-) dead and collecting the $5.2 million. In fact, last time God did make a few bucks (around 8 million) through Oral Roberts, didn't he? I assume that you know this guy called God. I unfortunately have not the opportunity to meet him personally. All I know about him is from second hand knowledge; like reading stuff which has been written about Him (I capitalize in keeping with tradition) by people who have first hand knowledge about what He wants and does not want; also from stuff that He Himself has written. In short, the word of God as written by Him and as written by those who have heard him speak personally. Rather strange fellow, it appears to me. According to some who have direct knowledge of what He wants, He appears to have the morality of a sadist and the intelligence of a doorknob. OK, I am exaggerating. He is smarter than that. But he is certainly mean minded. If you do not 'believe' in Him, then you go to some kind of HELL. Some kind of egomaniac, if I have ever heard of one. Then, at times He orders some of the people who believe in Him to go out and kill those who do not believe in Him. Then at times those who believe have to lead miserable lives (which they do willingly enough, given their feeble intellects and lack of moral fibre) so that they may go to HEAVEN. So He wants (Digression: I cannot understand this at all. How can God 'want' anything at all? 'Want' implies a lack and so obviously this God guy is not perfect. But that is another point I will go into later.) people to believe in Him as though somehow his godhood is dependant upon how many trust him - somewhat in the lines of a democracy with votes and all that sort of things. Popular acceptance seems to be a big thing with this guy. So He is insecure. And He wants things but cannot do it Himself. Like, when He needs a few million dollars, He has to ask Oral Roberts. He is forever either asking for things or talking to others giving them orders. For example, talking to Idi Amin. Or to the Bakers. Must have a very busy day. Anyway, as I was saying, He does not believe in doing a thing for Himself - He deligates most of the jobs to trusted followers like TV evalgelists and assorted godmen (and godwomen) Some of these godpersons have to do cheap tricks like materializing Seiko watches out of thin air to convince the unwashed masses that He is serious. The worst part of all this is that He is a terribly confused person. He cannot do a thing himself. So instead of deligating the task to one trustworthy lackey, He gives contradictory orders to about a half a dozen of them. And these guys then go around doing what He has told them creating confusion and generally killing the others who are also following His order - only they are referring to the other books which contain His words. So, from what I know second hand, it appears that He has been the cause (indirectly, of course) of the worst instances of man's inhumanity to man (not to mention those to animals). Every person who believes in a faith that purports to be the only TRUE faith is implicitly condemning the other faiths to be bullshit. And, I have no problems with what someone believes in - it is what a person does as a result of that belief that is of concern. Beliefs - what a deadly concept. Literally DEADLY. A belief is a thing beyond reason. A person could observe a fact and state it without requiring others to subscribe to it. That person could be burned at the stake because that fact contradicts the beliefs of the masses. In general, beliefs held by the masses are generally wrong. As someone once pointed out, when were the wise and the good ever in majority? I think that it is safe bet that any belief held by a significant majority is most probably wrong. (Maybe, I should encode this as the Inverse Majority Belief Law: The likelihood of the correctness of a belief is inversely proportional to the number of people holding it.) Beliefs are fine as long as they are kept within the brain of the believer. When coersion has to be applied to make others believe that, then watch out. Take the question about Creationism and Evolution. Evolution is not a belief. It is a codification of an obsersation about the nature of the universe. And given the nature of the universer, knowledge of a certain area is never complete nor incontrovertible. Yet those whose beliefs this goes against are up in arms about this whole thing. I wonder what it would have been if God were not painted differently. Imagine God to be the sum total of all the laws of the universe and the body of god to be the universe and every part of the universe to be a part of that infinite. A search for God to be that search for the mysterious within us and without us. But wait a second. Why should we have to search for God? Actually, it is a rather pompous endeavour. Just doing what makes one happy without hurting another should be a good enough guide to living. Why hold any other thing sacred? If you don't hold any belief sacred, then you will not have to go kill someone if they don't say the correct words. And so to hell with all the 'holy' books of the world. The only books worth talking about are the ones that can be changed. The ones which are not open to change are the sole responsibility of people whose intelligence compares unfavourably with that of a block of concrete. In conclusion I can only say: " Thank you, good night and may your god go with you." Atanu Dey ------------------------------------------------------------------------ LET NOBLE THOUGHTS COME TO US FROM ALL UNIVERSE. = Rig Veda =


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