Friday, April 22, 2011

Devil in this guise

You see where I’m headed, don’t you? I’m about to string together these nothing moments into an unbroken, unbreaking wave. Our perception of the present, our most intimate experience of being, is itself the greatest testament of, argument for and proof of quantum-mechanical-reincarnation. Ism is hidden clockwork that jerks life along by the bootstraps.



We insist on regarding ourselves as individuals with separate souls living independent lives. We act as though we are discrete—fenced off from one another by date and location. We see our lifespans as a linear progression of personally relevant events.
 

But I put it to you that we’re finger puppets, and that together we make up one enormous hand. Can your self-awareness stretch that ultimate octave? We’re alone, and yet we’re totally together, like tube feet on a starfish, or the cilia on a single-celled organism. We’ve got to get it all together if we want to work in concert. The question is how.
 

So . . . let me get this straight. What you’re saying, I think, is that there’s just us—WE—plus God, right? Us and Him—a kind of duality. But that doesn't help me understand what God wants. What is it that he wants us—ME—to do? What is my—OUR—purpose?
 

Ah, you still imagine yourself separate.
 

Whoa now! You’re not going to . . . I mean, you can’t mean . . . Are you telling me . . .?




Just what the hell is this—some unholy text? Is the writer the devil in disguise? Is that what’s going on here? Is he (or I) fooling with your mind? Or am I the Antichrist come for your soul? Danger, Will Robertson!
 

Who knows? It could be—I mean I could be. It depends what the people who thought up that term had in mind. Could they have seen any of this coming? Certainly the ideas contained herein could change a person’s thinking. They could make you see the world very differently. You might decide that everything you thought you knew is way off the mark. And if what I say causes you to discard your religious convictions, then I suppose that I lay myself open to the charge.
 

But would that be such a bad thing? Aren’t you halfway there already? Western society has already largely weaned itself away from the idea of a vengeful and jealous Dog. Come on now, really. Is there anyone who still seriously believes in hell, damnation and original sin, and a red-skinned devil with horns on his head pointing a pitchfork? The sooner we escape the clutches of such crackpot witchery the better, it seems to me.



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