March 2, 2006 6:36 PM

There is something to be said for the Buddhist. His idea of the moment is telling and promising. I and my friend are to be shot tomorrow. But we have a good meal before us and I am enjoying it, but my friend is sad and tells me he can not enjoy it while thinking about tomorrow. And therein is his error, for when he is thinking about tomorrow he is living in a nevernever land of his own creation, i.e., continuity and time, and if he would leave until the morrow the ills of the morrow he would be able to be quite content at this wonderful meal.

Now the Christian has a slightly different take, for then he is filled with a joy that comes from realizing that the joy of the present meal is not just for now, but for always, for the Christian then looks upon the morrow as eating at the table of Jesus, much as the Islamic Jihadist looks not at his death, but at his organism that will be taking place immediately and continuing for a thousand years. The climax of the very first Muslim martyr has not yet completed his organism and he has the delight of knowing that it will go on for 1,000 years, and then can be repeated an unlimited period of times.

For the sake of the devil I like to imagine the resurrection of one of these martyrs and he is made so that he can only get off when playing with his own feces in the presence of all these young girls. His organism would last a 1,000 years and he would have no compliant except that he has always known (and thus shall always know) that feces is dirty and not to be touched. The girls don’t know this, but he does. And so while he cannot resist the delight of his toys, he can only hate himself for being dirty and left alone by all his family and friends.

6:43 PM

8:44 PM When I consider the spectacle of Tolkien I don’t know why I should be surprised to find such a genius in Mohammed. They are rare, but not unheard of. Mohammed, as Smith also, could have put the whole thing together in a fashion of Plato’s Noble Liar (for the good of everyone), and then announced it as the decree of God. Mohammed would have likely have given up on any help from God,, for, like a Mormonian “exalted man” he would have proven he could not do it.

I don’t think we need assume that. It is complicated and perhaps meaningless for our purpose.

Mohammed could have dreamed the entire thing up and then, unlike Smith perhaps, he hallucinates what he has been dreaming and the mind that fashioned those dreams now fashioned more feverishly and emphatically and vividly. Smith then would really be no different except he will have had to put the whole thing together as a concept first and then reveal it. They would both be self produced, but Smith’s alone would be fraudulent, while Mohammed would be innocent.

With Paul it is a bit different for there is an experience which is promised those who believe Paul and heed him, namely that of the new birth which, instantaneously or more commonly gradually, results in a person loving to do good, i.e., as a new nature.

But this experience is possible only post facto and after having first believed and heeded. To begin with he take it on the testimony of Paul himself, and we can even replicate that with Francis and John Wesley among others, and so then enter into that faith and then, we are told, they then themselves in fact experience the new birth.

And so Paul alone has the promise of an authentication of this message this side of Judgment. The others remain hearsay. And who knows?

Now personally I do not subscribe to the notion of hallucination and would reserve that for Abraham alone. Rather, due to a remarkable numerology (which was discovered only by computers), I think it is more reasonable to assume some super human influence.

And so my estimation based on the criteria (which might end up being only one, the moral) we can rank the prophets and the estimation in respective order: Abraham, Paul, Mohammed, Smith; hallucinatory, authentic, demonic and fraudulent.

8:57 PM I am not so clear on the clarity criterion after all. Paul will have made it clear that women are to stay in their place, and yet we will now say that he spoke by his own authority (which he admitted to on occasion) and that in any case, even if divinely inspired, is always in terms of the speaker's own experience and understanding. And so while it was understood that women were to be subservient as the very order of nature itself, that was based on Paul’s conception of the known world and the science of that world, and thus was indeed valid and clear to his hearers, even as now we go beyond the confusion of his time (where stars hung on the ceiling sky) and see even clearer (almost like the clarity suddenly of the numerology of the Koran)

And so here then is the clarity: Paul, and every person sharing Paul’s conception of reality, could derive all necessary Christian conduct from the law of love. And so that was perfectly clear to him and them,just as it is equally clear how we are to love, now that we have a different, though perhaps still evolving, understanding of how things tick.

The clarity is uniform. The understanding or, if you will, the science has changed. For example, we can expect one day a full acceptance of the homosexual as a blessing of God. Then we will think differently about them than now, and still our relationship is clear, for the clarity of the gospel requirements are universally comprehendible, and each decides for himself without having to look around for external assistance, though perhaps prompting.

And so I think I am comfortable again crowing about the clarity of Paul’s message. Everything is to be understood in context.

9:07 PM Well then, how about the universality? Here the message speaks to each individual in the condition in which he or she finds him or her self, and it says this: to the extent that you can, comply with the law of love, and so do what it is evil and yet necessary do always reluctantly, wanting rather to comply with the law of love. That’s it.

Or would he tell the slave to refuse the master? I think not. He slay must do as the master demands, but no more of course, for the heart is attuned to the three loves of Christ.

Now Paul even goes further and asserts that people should not lightly think of changing their condition, it being preferable to remain as one was called by Christ (when they heeded the message). It is not wrong to change and if one wants to and if it is possible one can change his condition.

The import here: the message is applicable in all circumstances and each must give of an account on him or her self to the church and pray for a change in their condition, where they don’t have to be commanded to mistreat other people.

Of course here Mohammed and Smith stumble in regard to homosexuals. The acceptance of the homosexual by the Christian and the rejection by Mohammed and Smith is clear evidence of the limitation of the scope of the message of each of the latter two. Of course also the Christians have to get their own thinking straight with regard to the homosexual,, and that has not been easy.

And so in Paul alone do we have all three: moral foundation, perfect clarity, universal application, and in neither of the other two (Mohammed and Smith) is even any one of the three.

9:18 PM As a recap on the moral core. With Mohammed we see that the vaunted moral precept of giving to the poor is nothing but an extortion for property for God, and instead of the moral law the foundation laid is that of each against the others, each man for himself first and foremost (a vaunted premise of Islam). And so with Islam we find the actual destruction of the meaning of the moral and instead have certain acts, commanded by God, which are grouped together under a title of moral, but without a principle and thus without a concept, but merely arbitrarily grouped, much as though I might say: standing on your head on wednesday, sucking your thumb on Thusly and holding you nose on Friday are all moral because they are the command of God. In fact it is simply not clear as to any difference in meeting between commanded of God and moral.

Now it is true that with Paul the moral is commanded by God, but that is an add-on, for the moral is first recognized by means of the innate moral law and then we understand that this is exactly also what God commands. And so when we learn that God rewards moral acts then we are happy because what we know we must do anyway will also by grace end up as being what leads to our happiness.

And so there is a stark contrast between Paul and Mohammed, for with the former the moral law is innate and the experience is that we shall come to love that law, while with Mohammed Allah knows what leads to happiness and that is doing what he says, and so we then heed his words (through Mohammed) if we are smart, and these deeds can be called moral, because they lead to happiness.

The behavior with Mohammed leads to happiness, i.e., simply doing as one as told, as did the Great Slave Abraham. With Paul what we intended to do anyway, as acts of love of Christ, is also rewarded by God, for he rewards those of a kindred spirit with Jesus.

Conceptually there is also a great difference. With Mohammed the person is ever wary of Allah and is diligent in discovering his guidance for he knows that this is the way to paradise, although he is not to think of the paradise, but just to be wary of God, that he is ever watchful and always hearing the secrets of one’s thoughts. With Paul the convert has already entered into eternal life and already possesses the reward of communion with Christ in that eternal life, and so has his reward already and so it is not a factor in his motivation. That’s a big difference on the moral scale.

Mohammed fails the test, for his premise is directed toward the rupture of the moral bond which holds for all humans without exception. He puts each man on its own and against all in the eye of God, such that it is finally only he and God, and nothing else counts. Period. I think Abraham makes that quite clear. In the Arabian tale.