On one hand

Dear diary,

This morning it was raining. The gutter that is supposed to drain the water away from our lousy apartment was congested with leaves. We had to get out the ladder and climb it and unclog the downspout.

Apes sometimes eat fruit. Apes sometimes eat meat. By meat I mean flesh that has been torn from a monkey. And sometimes apes eat the roots of plants. That is what I learned from a book that I am reading.

I love computers and I will be happy when they become the new top of the pyramid. The president of the food chain or whatever. When I use the word computers I mean electronic devices like robots and androids: in human form, preferably. Like God.

What are my feelings about the social network, now that it has been X number of months since I closed my account? I don’t know. I wish that I were more popular, and I wish that people would pay me to experiment with words. I’d like to be put in charge of creating new terms like… Actually, I can’t think of anything new, at the moment.

On one hand we have plays and live music performances. Movies are filmed and edited and released in theaters and on video discs; and, although many versions of a movie can exist, each individual cut of a film is permanent, so to speak. And a music album is released on cassette tape, vinyl, or compact disc. Various physical items can be melted down into a bucket.

I felt like writing today, in order to wash away the bad feeling of having to use the silver ladder that makes loud clinking noises when you extend its length to unclog the maintenance-free gutters. That is the only reason that these words are here right now. Yestermorning I heard on the news that a biblical scholar whom I love and respect had actually (while he was alive) accepted the label of…

No, I don’t want to finish that sentence. My resolution for the rest of this lifetime is to stop commenting on the religion of Christianity. I do not want to descend into cultural relevance.

If elves and fairies really did exist, it would be fine with me. I could whisk them into heaven with a slingshot.

When you watch a play, you are stuck in your seat: that is your perspective: there is no equivalent of a movie camera zooming in on a shot—unless the stage and props along with the actors themselves increase in size to promote the illusion that the audience is observing a part of the performance in detail.

Why does the deity allow rape to occur? If you are all-seeing and all-powerful, how can you stand by and let one creature rape another, and then further afflict the victim with the miracle of pregnancy? Why is rape not proof that God is dead? What being ever imagined God as a compassionate force? My guess is that the inventor of God was a conquistador.

Regarding the idea of monotheism, I think it makes more sense to say that there is no God but only one Devil, who is neither all-powerful nor all-knowing. So the Devil is beatable, if only we nitwits would team up and do something about it.

No, I am kidding: I give in: I’ll call the feind God. God is the big man in charge, the boss man. He is male, as was proved by the dissection video. The angels are his henchmen. But are angels human? I do not know. And there is also some confusion about whether or not God can bring forth children. Jesus was called a “son of God”—I think he also sometimes called himself a “son of man.” (Adam and man are the exact same word in Hebrew.)

I was joking around when I first started writing about God here in this stupid blog entry, but now I am fascinated by the wall that I just smacked into. Is it true that God can really give birth to sons? I’m tickled by this notion. Let me look inside the Holy Bible and see what it has to say about “sons of God.”

And it came to pass, when man began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. (Genesis 6:1-2)

Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them. (Job 1:6)

What are the sons of God? Is Jesus one of them? Are sons of God gods? What is the difference between “God” and “son of God”?

…[Nebuchadnezzar] said unto his councellors, Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered …True, O King. He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the son of God. (Daniel 3:24-25)

The phrase also concludes Luke’s genealogy of Jesus (3:38):

Seth, which was the son of Man, which was the son of God.

And here are some words from Psalm 82 (6-7):

I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the Most High.
But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes.

Is there any difference between “children of the Most High” and “sons of God”? Are Jesus and Adam the same kind of sons of God? Might all the above instances of the phrase have the same meaning? When is it permissible to create new churchly doctrine?

Here is a passage from the gospel of John (10:33):

The Jews answered [Jesus], saying, “For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.” Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, “Ye are gods?” ’ If he called them gods unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, ‘Thou blasphemest’; because I said, ‘I am the son of God?’ ”

By this argument of John’s Jesus, might anyone be excluded from the status of “son of God”? To whom does he refer when Jesus says “he called them gods unto whom the word of God came”? Is it significant that Jesus says “he called them gods,” instead of “God called them gods”? (Does Jesus believe that God said this?) Lastly, is it possible that Jesus implies a distinction between he who called them gods AND the Father AND gods AND sons of God AND God?

I’m only half serious in asking any of this.

Below are some passages from Exodus where the Hebrew word for gods (plural), “elohim,” is used for the human judges that Moses appoints. In every passage the word ‘judges’ is ‘elohim’ in Hebrew, which means ‘Gods.’

…the master of the house shall be brought unto the judges [judges = elohim = gods]… (Ex 22:8)

…the cause of both parties shall come before the judges [the gods]; and whom the judges [the gods] shall condemn, he shall pay double… (Ex 22:9)

…his master shall bring him unto the judges [the gods]… (Ex 21:6)

And the King James Version actually translates the word properly here:

Thou shalt not revile the gods… (Ex 22:28)

Exodus 18:19 gives us Jethro, the priest of Midian, saying to Moses:

Hearken now unto my voice, I will give thee counsel, and God shall be with thee: Be thou for the people to God-ward, that thou mayest bring the causes unto God…

And here is another passage from Exodus (7:1):

…the LORD said unto Moses, “See, I have made thee a god to Pharaoh: and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet.”

Dear priests, may I draw any conclusions from so many instances of humans being referred to as elohim, or gods—the same word that is used to refer to the creator throughout the scripture?

In the beginning elohim created the heaven and the earth. (Genesis 1:1)

This topic has sufficiently bored me. I thank myself for skimming.