"Yes, I know," God mused.
And while God's cloud seemed to smile, Gabriel interjected. "So, Mr. Young Earthling, with almost all earthly religions castigating an overabundance of pride as sinful, do you think it would be fair of God to let his poker-playing buddies play some head games throughout his universe of sentient beings as well as on the righteous and self-righteous populating his little Earth?"
"God has poker-playing buddies?"
"Sure, and chess-playing buddies too," Gabriel responds.
"Would I know them?"
"Some of the earthly ones you should know -- Mohammed, Buddha, Krishna, Galileo, Einstein, Gandhi, Martin Luther, Mother T" as well as the likes of some of your three lettered luminaries like FDR, IKE, JFK, MLK, RFK."
"They are just fun games?"
"From some of these fun games come the brain-twisters that make life a challenge for you sentient beings, which God has scattered through his billions of galaxies that make up his multi-universes and what you call Black Holes."
"And do you think God is limited to having stories on those places limited to what you earthlings know as Christianity, Islam, Hindu, Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Sikhism?"
"Being 'All powerful,' reckon God is not limited to anything."
"So you accept the belief that God could, on another place in his vast universe, create a religion called JoeBobism? Founded by a character named Billy Joe Bob, who is a bearded, homeless banjo player, prone to epileptic fits, with a gimp leg, crossed eye and screechy voice, who emits guttural songs that implore people to try to live better, more useful lives? And his followers there might be called JoeBobians or JoeBobists."
"Yes. Reckon he could create that somewhere in his galaxies."
"And the stories in the Book of JoBobists could be a lot different from those inherent in Christianity's Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Koran, the Bhagavad Gita , or etc., espoused on your tiny planet? And God could have a gang of Joe Bob's friends roam their planet and make up their own rhythmical songs to convey generally good ideas on how to live a good life?"
"Yes. He could plant whatever stories He wanted through the beings He created in the religions He planted or let others create them for him. According to how I was taught, God can do anything he damn well, ah, excuse me, God can do anything He wants."
"Sometimes, God often watches in bemusement as his poker and chess playing buddies create religions and the stories in them as part and parcel of the tests -- the practice fields. He wants to watch you run through this finite testing ground you all call life. He wants to see whether you play hard -- but fairly; what you will do on the field to those who share the game field with you; how those blessed with more refined skills, better equipment, and richer lands engage those with little or less of life's comforts."
"You mean God creates differing religions to test us?"
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