2/16/06 6:52 PM Thinking about a lot of things.

Let’s take Paul & Mohammed and Smith and examine them as possible frauds. We will see the experience that is promised in the Paulian revelation and can wonder if it is true or not. If experience is a factor it is hard to think of Paul as a fake [especially since it is replicated).

On the other hand it is easy to imagine both Mohammed and Smith as frauds for they have no experiential evidence of a miracle in their lives, but merely the tales that they tell and the promises that they make (you can't know for sure until after you are dead).. Mohammed may have this magnificent idea of a world which he has slowly built up over many years of reflection, like Plato in his utopia, and then comes up with the best way to implement it, namely command it of God. And then perhaps he conceived of a Gabriel who brings the glad tidings of this magnificent world which would be peaceful and enduring, the world of Islam. And for the sake of this his great love for humanity Mohammed tells the tale of self imprisonment, an imprisonment of the self to the self. Mohammed finally appeals to a debased conception of the human being, the one who is willing to violate the moral law in order to get a prize from someone, in this case it being God, the Super of all supers (consider the hero Abraham).

The appeal of Islam today comes in with its impressive numerology, and this needs to be dealt with. As a result of this numerology it is my present opinion that Mohammed cannot be easily dismissed as a Noble Liar but rather is an honest man who heeded the instructions of a super human being. And so of course I must assume the possibility of both God and a demon, but I don't think an hallucination.

Now in science we cannot permit the introduction of a super human being because it would bring everything to shambles. Suppose, for example, that you accepted the notion of a demon, then it would be impossible ever to have had the experience of having overlooked something in a review of a landscape and where the object looked for was later seen and we realize that it had been “over looked” = “was there all the time only I did not notice it”, e.g., “oh, there are my glasses. I looked too quickly and missed them. They were there all the time and so it is possible that I don’t always see what is there, e.g., when I sleep.”*

[* 8:54 PM continuation of my experience. I had looked franticly for my glasses and looked twice in the living room. And just now I spy them on the table, even though I remembered looking at the table, but then I remember that I had look only on the right end of the table, a customary resting place for the glasses, and not up where they actually were: on the upper tray at the left end of the table. And so there is no reason here to presuppose that a demon took them out of existence and then brought them back into existence. It is easier to assume that I didn’t look at the entire room but had only given it a loose and imperfect scan.]

And so God and the demon are necessarily out of the equation of a possible experience for the human being. Too bad, so sad. And that’s that.

But that does not keep us from imagining them, both God and demons, and from introducing them into the equation, as long as we remember that things are not going to tie together and that we must finally here be dealing with ideas which we cannot comprehend or make feasible to us in any way.

And so what we do is we introduce the super human being and this is then understood by science as an hallucination, and treats it accordingly by finding its sources in the imagination of that individual as some common element to all humans, but which are much greater in some, e.g., Shakespeare. The dictator of the Koran could just as easily, in another context, hallucinate the entire Lord of the Rings. There is nothing in Mohammed's revelation that is anything but physical, and so there is nothing there that could not have been imagined by a gifted person except for the numerology.

And so even though science will have none of it, we can still assume a super human being who could influence Mohammed and Paul by means of induced hallucination or visions where the eyes of each man beheld a reality equal to that of the rainbow, namely a Jesus-in-the-sky and a Gabriel-in-the-cave where the sky and the cave are nothing more than sensations on the eye of man; again: just like the rainbow. [science will accept the hallucination, but not the supernatural cause.]

I am frankly taken by the numerology of the Koran and suspect that this is true for all people. There is something about numerology, but this can be the work of any super clever being, and you can find it in the bible and in Moby Dick, though still perhaps surpassed by the Koran. Again this assures us merely of a supernatural origin, but not God, i.e., either God or a demon.[In a way we have to contrast the marvel of the numerology with the marvel of the Pauline transformation.

Now we turn to the matter of clarity, and this may be overriding. It is a fact that the revelation of Gabriel is so complex, and so mixed with the apparent understanding and demeanor of the Prophet, that experts are required in order for the elliptical meaning of the Koran to be fathomed. The revelation of Smith is so uncertain as to be frightening, for it will be determined per an existing prophet of God (and more are in line) who meets God in an upper room and talks face and face and man to super man and then informs his followers. Who can fathom the purposes of God? and who can say in advance what God may tell people to do?

In neither case, however, is there any indication that it would make it impossible to ever understand a revelation as immoral, e.g., Abraham in presuming that God would call for him to slay an innocent man.* This is not clear in but one of the revelations and that is the revelation of Paul. For in Paul alone do we find the moral law of Kant and of every man who recognizes that he is free, for there we find that all things become lawful with respect to externally given rules, and all that we must do is to apply the law of love. And so we have in one fell swoop both clarity and (certain) morality with Paul alone. It is quite remarkable. It is clear for it is the moral law and the moral law, speaking to every individual, is the supreme guide of all action and all interpretation of divine visitation. The demon for Paul is effectively excluded by virtue of the foundation of the practices of the gentile congregation squarely fixed on the law of love as the guide of the spirit of Christ and his Abba/Father.

[* Did Abraham step back from his dedication to say that he would not hinder the death of his son and so he would therefore, for the sake of his son, do it himself?**]

[** We certainly don't want to waste's Kant analysis of Islam as an "extortionist" faith, and thus not moral at all except in appearance.]

With Mohammed and Smith we have moral uncertainty. Mohammed has no grand example equal to that of Jesus in John 5 breaking the Jewish Law. And Smith, even if the revelation of the mode is moral, it is so only in a contingent way for the future, and there is no certainty in the morality at all.

And so the cases look like this: Mohammed’s revelation is probably that of a supernatural being of some sort. Smith’s revelation is probably the work of a charlatan who improved on the work of the supernatural being and came up with a better idea, and so to this extent both are the work of a supernatural being, and there is no evidence to show that this could not be demonically inspired.

I think we need to consider Islam and Mormonism as successful cults who call for a self imprisonment for the sake of a reward for self, either as going to some paradise (or at least avoiding hell) or as becoming a god and having one's own planet something to play with. Now what is called for (in that cult) is a shunning of that world which is not of the cult for the sake of self salvation. We are led to understand, at least in the words of the Prophet, that some are going to paradise and some to hell and this has all been worked out and so what someone smart would be doing is to be acting like one who is going to paradise, for if you are destined for paradise, then you will be acting like it. And so we can go ahead and recognize in advance (in the conception of this cult) that there are certain humans who have been destined for hell and who as a result don’t count. As a result the moral concord among humans is broken and we become wild, for it is then each against all, namely I want to the reward of the paradise or the planet so bad that I am willing to treat another human as trash if that is necessary for that reward, if that is ever perceived as necessary for that reward.

It goes back to Abraham. He must be condemned by the Christians in no uncertain terms.*

[* Sometimes, it is recorded, God sends lying spirits.]

And so that seems to be the consequence of this project when it is finally put together. Of the three Paul alone possesses the clarity of what must done to please God (thus obviating all need for an external revelation of behavior or conduct), the identity with the moral law which wells up within each reasoning person and affirms the authenticity of Jesus as the Righteous One (the story cannot be considered as faked, for all are called to live such a life), and then that truly unique element, the transformation of the body from a servant of self (which reigns in Islam and in Mormonism and thus reflects Satan) to a body of Christ, i.e., where Jesus and the individual are one and the same spirit and share now life and death for each other, each now representing one and the same thing, the Christ, in his respective condition, i.e., in this case with his righteousness and my own unrighteousness, each striving on the same way, with him the leader and king, who made it all possible for those who were apart from the law of righteousness.*

[* Much like the left and right hand represent one and the same idea of hand, even though they are so different and cannot wear the same glove.'

We have the clarity, the morality (moral foundation), and the experience, and the latter is ample confirmed in the histories of St. Francis and John Wesley and countless others, some of whom I know.

The only thing Islam has going for it is numerology, but since there is no solid moral foundation (this not being possible with beings who are born to slavery, to sell out for personal gain, which I suspect is the general Muslim conception of humans, some to be rebellious slaves and destined to feed hell) and certainly because it is not clear but calls for “interpreters” and “depositors”, it neither is clearly moral (and with either there may be reason to think immoral*) nor is it even clear as a dictation and so it is easy to think that it might be a work of a supernatural being, but not that it were a divine being, although with the hypothesis of God being a god, i.e., an exalted man, no telling what you might get. That’s the only really scary thought that the Mormons might be right, for then we are in the hands of a human being with enormous power.

And so it seems reasonable to conclude in this wise: Islam is likely demonic, Mormonism is likely fraudulent and that Paul is likely true, and interestingly enough, at least for those who are forced to believe in God due to the moral law, this can be verified in one’s own life, for as John Wesley proclaimed: what the gospel promises has been accomplished in my soul.

I think then that is what we shall do.

We will look for the clues to an angelic and a demonic being. We will know that we cannot tell by looking. We know that an angelic being will call for conduct in accordance with the moral law and we know that a demon will call for this and that but will do so with the object being the destruction of the moral law. This will have to be established. We will presuppose a universality in the message which can well up in all people and thus it must be perfectly clear to even children. We cannot establish any experience as conclusive (due to the limitations of our knowledge) but we can marvel at it as a real possibility.

We will apply the analysis or investigation or whatever it is called and find that Islam and Mormonism cannot be distinguished from a demonic revelation, while that of Paul is easily distinguishable, such that Paul’s revelation can only be divine or hallucination, but then we are talking about an hallucination which is replicated many times over.

Now we may end up having a make a choice between the numerology and the experience. The numerology can be the work of a demon, the experience of Paul's transformation cannot be. So people will have to think about it.

We can probably say at least this much at the end, if one had a choice and had to choose between Paul and Mohammed and Smith,, but couldn’t decide for sure,, at least they would want Paul’s revelation to be THE revelation, for it makes us free beings who are able to join with other free beings (Christ and his followers)) in a realm which exists in spirit and is not physical at all. An unbiased rational listener to this argument will not be able to tell for sure, but would certainly prefer the way of Paul over that of Mohammed and Smith, if he had a choice and if he had to choose.

The world will come to be at ease with the specter of a universal Christian mindset, for some there will always be those who will realize that it is just an idea, because when the Paulian congregation is made clear they will see that the supreme teaching is that we comply with the three loves of Christ: neighbor, Christian, God, i.e., as self, more than self, and beyond expression.

It is very clear to be now especially now that a solution has been found for the atonement challenge on behalf of those, like Paul, who believed in a sacred history.