Into What is the Universe Expanding? (Religion version)

Bobby Jack Schlueter was 39 now.  He still wore his hair long, like a dark shawl hanging on his shoulders.  That was his trademark.  In high school Bobby Jack had been the best tight end his school had ever seen.  He was 6 foot 3 inches big and 220 pounds strong with great hands and surprising speed and most amazing, he was nimble of foot and graceful.  Slow-motion replays of his catch and runs were works of art.  Some defenders he bowled over, some he simply waltzed around, and some he changed direction on so smoothly they tripped on their own feet trying to keep apace.  He carried the team to state for 2 consecutive years.  Those whose horizons stretched beyond the city limits watching him play football knew he could probably go pro someday.  Or, become a celebrity leading man in Hollywood.  Or become a great ballet dancer like Nureyev or Baryshnikov.  He had the looks, the charisma, and the presence to do it all.

But Bobby Jack was 39 now.  He still had the rugged good looks and he still stood 6’3’.  But his frame now carried closer to 260 pounds.  He was sitting on the front porch swing, straining the chains that held it above ground and creaking with the metronome beat of the swing.  One day a link would give way and down would tumble Bobby Jack, swing and all.  But that would not happen today.  Today his hair floated gently behind him on the upswing and slowly embraced him on the downswing.  Back and forth.  Creaking and moaning.  Bobby Jack, a cold beer and a front porch swing.  He both liked and hated these moments alone on the front porch as the sun set, as Sue cooked supper and though his kids had been herded inside still ran around with energy from unknown sources. 

Bobby Jack liked these moments because he could reflect on how good his life was.  He inherited the land his great grandfather had staked out and 3 generations before him had cultivated.  He was on the same front porch his dad and grand and great granddads had all occupied.  He was swinging in the swing his grandfather had built by hand, shaving each of the slats in the swing so that they would be curved to best fit human butts, backs and thighs.  Bobby Jack thought how lucky he was to have married Sue even if he had not realized it at the time.  They had been sweethearts in high school.  She was beautiful and stirred his manhood every time he saw her.  Just after graduation Sue had come to him in tears.  She was pregnant, what would they do?  Bobby Jack was a man of principle if nothing else and he proposed to her on the spot.  He walked away from college coaches waving money, girls and cars, and settled in with Sue.  His father welcomed them back in the old homestead where they lived until this very day and raised their 3 kids, two boys and a girl. 

Bobby Jack hated these moments because he could reflect on all that he had missed in his life.  He was not the college or pro football start.  He was not a Hollywood celebrity.  Hell, he wasn’t even a ballet dancer.  He was still sitting on the same porch of the same house in the same swing as had his dad and grand and great-grand.  He was a fourth-generation Schlueter in a small town in Texas.  He knew he would never escape.  He knew his "all things possible" days were gone.  He knew that all he had left was the same routine his dad had, his grandfather had and his great-grandfather had.  He was a farmer in a small German town and that is what he would always be.  Knowing that, made Bobby Jack, now 39, feel very sad, very lost, and very worthless.  He saw no good future despite the fact that Sue still looked good and his kids were good and he loved them more than life itself.  But he was sad.  Sorry for himself.  So he got another beer, settled back to swinging on the swing and feeling his hair rise and fall.  He was stuck in stasis.

Or so he thought.  Even as he could smell the hay freshly cut and the corn just now crowning he was not in stasis.  Even as he had not moved from this spot for over an hour or for over 28 years since his dad died.  It seemed peaceful.  It seemed still.  It seemed safe.

But he was not still.  He was not safe.  The sun was roughly 93 million miles from earth.  That was a radius.  The circumference of the orbit was 584,336,233.56 miles.  For each of Bobby Jack’s years he had traveled over 584 million miles through space.  In his 39 years he had traveled almost 23 billion miles.  That is not the attribute of someone who has achieved stasis.  So while he was swinging on his safe little front porch he was actually moving on his home planet at about 1,000 miles per hour, looping 584 million miles around his star every year.

And that is just for earth.  His solar system is moving.  His galaxy is moving.  Galaxies are moving further and further away from each other leaving space we do not understand.  Is it dark matter held in place by dark energy, or is that as likely as trolls bowling every time it thunders?  We do not know.  We guess.  But Bobby Jack, now 39, is not sitting still.  And he will soon come to know that.

Sue stepped out on the porch.  “Bobby Jack, supper’s ready.”

“OK.  What are we having?”

Sue said, “Cutlets and brown gravy and mashed potatoes and fresh spinach.” 

“Sounds great, I’ll be right in.”

“OK,” Sue said.  Then she paused.  Then she looked up.  The early twilight was changing.  It was growing brighter.

“What’s that?” Sue asked, pointing at a very bright spot on the horizon.

Bobby Jack turned to look.  It looked like a fireball and it looked like it was heading right for them.  They both yelled at the same time and ran inside and grabbed the kids and headed for the cellar.  They made it.  They called out to God to save them.  But it didn’t matter.  There was no stasis.  Not anymore.

The comet was unknown to us.  It was as big as all of Texas and it had just circled our sun so we did not see it coming.  The sun accelerated the comet’s speed to almost 100,000 miles per hour.  It hit in the Gulf of Mexico and the fireball from the impact spread at supersonic speed around the planet, burning off our oceans and our atmosphere.  No one survived.  No living thing survived. 

Earth would eventually have several rings formed from the debris thrown into space by the impact.  The moon would jostle around in these debris rings and grow larger.  The sun and other planets were barely affected at all.

But, Bobby Jack would only ever be 39.  The universe is expanding from some sense of stasis to total chaos.  Humans in a flash learned that we are not so smart and that there is no such place as safe and sound, no such place as the same old swing on the porch.  We learned that yearning for some mythical good ole days was pure fantasy.  We learned that somehow we were the chosen creation of some mythical deity was false.  The universe was going to expand or contract based on physical laws not all of which we understand, but not because there is some god in some magical heaven keeping watch over us.  

We learned that differences regarding gender identity and sexual preferences did not matter.  We learned that differences regarding wealth did not matter.  We learned that differences regarding skin pigment did not matter.  We learned that any belief that had separated one of us from another of us was inherently wrong when none of us would survive.  We learned all that and knew there was no ark for this flood.  We learned all that, and then we were extinct.

The universe continued to expand.  Earth’s fate was not even noticed by other sentient beings as galaxies collided and black holes ate light and the night sky shown less bright as all the stars retreated from view.  There is no stasis.  There is no status quo.  There is only progression from where we are and what we perceive to the eventual ripping of the fabric of time and space by an ever-expanding universe.  There is no why.  There is no how.  There is only expansion from where we are to chaos.

Had Bobby Jack survived he likely would have reached the following conclusions.  Make the most of each minute.  Bond with other humans as best you can.  Build bridges, not walls.  Solve the problems we can solve and accept that there are quantum forces at work over which we have no control and no understanding. 

All that would be good to do in honor of Bobby Jack and Sue and their kids and every other human on the planet as we expand into chaos. 

Of Faith and Reason

Humans appear to be hard-wired to seek truth through reason and to seek truth through faith.  We have a dilemma.  We have a dichotomy.  We are at risk of a short circuit.  I am now the product of such a short circuit.  Not before 2015, but since March of 2015 two wires in my brain that should never have touched did so.  A short circuit.  I applied reason to faith and fried my brain. 

My Dad was a preacher and I grew up in the church, that is, the Presbyterian version of Christianity.  I was “born again” in 7^th grade at a Billy Graham promo in the Houston Astrodome.  I attended church camp.  I actually became the director of a church camp.  I have been a church trustee, taught Sunday school, sang in the choir, assisted in communion and never missed a Sunday.  I prayed.  I believed.  I had faith.  Unquestioned, unchallenged faith.  The Trinity, the virgin birth, the resurrection, yadda, yadda, yadda.  I was seen as a man of faith.

On March 24, 2015, Germanwings flight 9525 took off from Barcelona at 10:00 p.m. bound for Germany.  150 people, passengers and crew, were aboard.  Men, women, children, infants, students, and teachers.  At 10:27 p.m. the Airbus reached cruising altitude of 38,000 feet and the pilot left the cockpit to go to the bathroom.  The co-pilot sealed the cockpit.  After 9/11 that meant it would be virtually impossible to breach the door.  The co-pilot altered the autopilot so that the plane sought sea level at full speed.  It would take 10 minutes for the plane heading straight down to crash in the French Alps.  Despite pleading with the co-pilot and efforts to breach the door, everyone on board knew what was happening and what the result would be.  They would all die.  In 10 minutes.  The plane disintegrated on impact, the largest piece of wreckage was the size of a small car.  Everyone died.  And I had a short circuit.

I can only imagine what happened during those 10 minutes on that plane.  I am confident, however, that there were fervent, impassioned prayers beseeching God to save the passengers and crew.  God did nothing.  The plane crashed.  All died.  What the hell?

So, from a deity who could create the universe, part seas, flood the entire planet, raise folks from the dead, turn water into wine, heal the sick, walk on water, etc., etc. it was simply too much to ask that this God unlock the cockpit door?  My mind reeled.  My stock answer in such situations had always been it was God’s plan, we are not to question, and there was a purpose we did not know.  It occurred to me that this belief was likely totally BS and was imply a strategy to forgive God.  How could the death of these 150 people advance a love in God or other humans?  It made no sense.  Reason had no answer.  How could I attribute such horror to a plan I had not seen, not read, was not available to me, but a plan I must believe to let a god off the hook for tragedy?  If God had the ability to save those people and did not then God was clearly guilty of negligent homicide.

My short circuit got worse.  I read the Bible.  Not the chapter and verses selected for me in sermons and Sunday school, but I read it as a book much as I had read Locke, Descartes, Plato, etc.  And my faith faltered even more.  Most of what I read was either Bronze Age philosophy or simply not true.  The book is riddled with inconsistencies and falsehoods.  This was no divinely inspired holy book, this was more human bull.  Totally discouraged I turned to Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and Richard Dawkins.  Wow.  These folks made great sense.  They applied reason to faith and reason won.  Every time.  They had survived the short circuit.

As I continued to apply reason to faith several truths became more and more clear.  Faith exists prior to a real factual answer.  People of faith, faith in whatever, do not want to discuss their faith in the light of reason.  People want to enjoy the fruits of reason and science while simultaneously having faith that denies reason and science.  In other words, most people are afraid of the short circuit when the power of reason touches the tenets of belief.

I could no longer attend church.  I could not repeat the Apostles Creed.  I could not participate in the sacraments, especially communion which now seemed like a cannibalistic exercise.  (This is my body, this is my blood?  Yuck.)  I could no longer believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus.  Either Jesus committed suicide or God killed his son.  And was anyone ever in heaven before Jesus?  If so, why let Jesus die?

More troubling is there is no evidence Jesus ever existed.  There was no Roman Census the year he was supposedly born.  Herod died 6 years before Jesus was born.  And on and on.  The Bible was not codified until 400 years after Jesus' death and we do not have any of the original scrolls.  They are all copies of copies, each iteration slightly different. 

There is more, much more.  I now know I do not believe.  My faith vanished, slowly and painfully, in the full light of reason.  I am a recovering Christian.  A survivor of the deep burn that comes with the short circuit when reason touches faith.  For many, that deep burn is too risky.  I see it now in politics and religion.  I do believe that our survival, our future on this planet will only happen via reason.  Faith won’t get us there, beliefs won’t get us there.  What happens to religious beliefs when we become extinct?

And the short circuit still burns.  Hot.  Especially this time of year. 

Happy Holidays.

More Questions

If Christians did not believe in an after-life would they be Christians?  If Christians did not believe in heaven and hell would they be Christians?  Is it the reward or the fear of punishment that drives them?  It does not appear that many Christians value the instructions Jesus left in terms of caring for one another, feeding one another, clothing one another, healing one another, treating all as brothers and sisters, etc.  It seems that Christians spend a lot of time condemning others.  Gay people.  Liberal people.  (Which I find funny as Jesus reads as a radical liberal.  Some Christian needs to tell Trump that it is the meek who shall inherit the earth.)  Non-believers.  Sinners as they see sinners.  People who might take some material goods from them even though Jesus said sell all that you own and follow me.  So, if Christians do not follow the moral code set out in their Bible, why do they claim to be Christian?  It must be to avoid hell and achieve heaven.  So, if there was no heaven and hell would there be Christians?  If there was no after-life like there is no pre-life would anyone be a Christian?

Does it bother Christians that their God comes across as a cop or a spy in the sky, always watching, all knowing, seeing all their behaviors, hearing all their thoughts?  Such a God eliminates any sense of self or sense of privacy.  Who am I really if I am monitored 24/7?  Seems to me that Christians must be experts at putting on an act for their God and for their fellows.  So, are Christians real?

Were there people in heaven before Jesus came?  If so, why not continue to allow people to achieve heaven in whatever manner was available pre-Jesus and not sacrifice a third of the trinity?  If not, why did God send everyone to hell before the escape from hell was provided?

Why is the trinity all male?  50% of the people on the planet are female.  But they worship “Our father who art in heaven,” Jesus as God’s son, and the Holy Spirit as the carrier of holy sperm for Mary.  How offensive.  We worry that women are underrepresented in Congress, as CEO’s, etc. but it’s OK for God to be all male?  Christians want women to worship God, but they are not allowed to be preachers, priests, etc. in some churches?  What an affront.

Why did this all powerful God forget to make a female in the first place?  Believers claim he made all life, male and female, but forgot to make a woman?  And he had to do it by taking a piece of a male?  Women weren’t good enough to be made from scratch like everything else including mosquitos and snakes?  Once again, what an affront.  If there is a God he is clearly a misogynist.

What is really going on in people who claim to have heard the voice of God?  Or claim to have been touched by the Holy Spirit?  Are they in the same camp as those who believe in ghosts, believe in the supernatural, believe in Big Foot, etc.?  We would say that people are delusional if they are hearing voices and feeling touches when there is no evidence of anyone or anything else in the room.  Is that why a logical conversation about faith is impossible with a believer? 

Please reply with answers.  Thanks.

Abortion

To get a quick and entertaining summary of what I think about abortion you may want to watch this 1996 video:  https://www.amazon.com/George-Carlin-Back-Town/dp/B00M0DBWE8

Meanwhile, I went looking for scripture that condemns abortion and could find absolutely nothing in the New Testament regarding this topic except that Paul bragged in Galatians 1:15 that God had plans for him even when he was in the womb.  That hardly applies to the question of ending pregnancies.  It only applies to Paul’s ego.  All the other biblical stretches regarding abortion come from the Old Testament.  So funny.  It is the Old Testament that argues that adulterers should be stoned to death, divorce is forbidden, rebellious children should be stoned to death, animals should be sacrificed to God, we should wage war on non-believers, and a host of other rules and laws that Christians have conveniently chosen to ignore.  From my point of view, if one can cherry pick the scripture in the Old Testament that merits following, why choose scriptures that do not address abortion directly to insist that it is evil?  Hypocrisy, that is why.

Carlin is right.  The pro-life movement is not really pro-life.  It is anti-women.  Any group that claims they are pro-life and wants to argue that life begins at conception is facing a whole lot of scientific evidence to the contrary.  A zygote is not a human.  A blastocyst is not a human.  An embryo is not a human.  A fetus is not a human until about 24 weeks of pregnancy when it is possible that the fetus could exist without the life support of the mother.  Further, since about 80% of all fertilized eggs tend not to take root in the uterus and are flushed out monthly then that would be serial killing on the part of God or the mother depending on your perspectives or beliefs.

If pro-life people were really pro-life they would oppose the death penalty.  They would favor stronger gun control.  They would favor drastic action to save our climate.  They would support early childhood education, food stamps, child welfare, CPS, etc.  They do not.  It is a bogus claim to fight for a zygote but not for breathing human beings.

A puzzle I heard from another source that I cannot recall:  You are in the waiting room of your doctor’s office when the fire alarm goes off and smoke starts to fill the room.  You are on the 4^th floor.  You run to the stairway and begin to descend.  At the 2^nd floor landing you hear an infants crying, you open the door and check the hallway.  There is a door labeled “fertility clinic” behind which you hear the crying.  You open the door and there on the floor are identical twins crying as smoke fills the room.  Next to them is a refrigerator labeled “fertilized eggs”, and inside is a tray of 1,000 fertilized human eggs.  You have a choice.  You can grab the tray and exit the building, or you can pick up the twins and exit the building.  You cannot do both.  Who do you save?  Do you let the twins die to save 1,000 possible humans, or do you save the twins and let those possible humans die?  In your answer lies your true understanding of the abortion issue. 

It is the living, breathing humans that merit our protection.  It is the mother and her doctor who should make the decision regarding a pregnancy.  Any other argument is either purely political or purely religious and should have no place in our law.  Old white men, priests and preachers, and confused women have no right to intervene, much less regulate such a decision. 

If you oppose abortion, do not have one.  I am amazed that the very people who are most fearful of Muslims attempting to implement Shia law in the US are the very ones who advocate implanting their own religious views into law.  Imposing your religious beliefs on others is un-American. 

Faith is a Delusion

Faith is a delusion held by those who do not really want to know the truth.

A cult is a faith group wherein members are strongly discouraged or are not allowed to seek the truth.  A group that will not tolerate challenges to their faith is a cult.  Cult members will ignore reality and people they love to avoid facing facts in conflict with their beliefs.  

Propaganda is the tool used to recruit cult members and convince existing cult members that their beliefs are true.

How would one know if they are in a cult or are the product of propaganda?  Question everything, seek outside views, challenge your own beliefs, trust science, and verify the veracity of cult statements.  If you are not able or are not willing to do so you are a cult member and/or are the product of propaganda.  If you would end friendships, if you would separate from family members because they do not believe as you believe then you are likely a cult member.  If your mind is made up and facts just get in the way, you are likely a cult member.  If you welcome new views, new insights, new thoughts and seek truth then you are healthy.

Current delusions and propaganda:  God chose Trump, Trump is persecuted by the left-leaning media, vaccinations cause autism, global warming is a myth, tariffs are helping American producers, Trump is a self-made billionaire, Trump is a stable genius, immigrant asylum seekers are bad people (rapists, murderers, etc.), the government is out to take guns away from citizens, socialism is a bad thing, liberalism is a bad thing, separation of church and state is a bad thing, white nationalism and racism are not bad things, the more guns the safer we all are, making the rich richer will help the middle and working class, America has more international respect under Trump, the wall is being built, Trump supports veterans, Trump supports Social Security and Medicare, abortion is murder, Putin is our friend, Trump has been exonerated by Mueller, etc., etc.

But increasingly if you seek the truth behind these issues you are alone.  The cult appears to be growing.  The delusions are more and more bizarre and less and less tied to reality.  I fear for the future of humanity if we cannot break free of the current cultism and tribalism.  We are capable of so much more.  The dinosaurs ruled earth for over 150 million years prior to extinction.  Humans have just made it 150 thousand years and are fading fast.  The answers to our longevity do not lie in faith.  The answers will be found by seeking truth.

I Must Be Stupid

These are some of the things I just do not understand.  I must be stupid.

Does God really care who wins football games or elections or is he the one who deserves the credit for home runs and touchdowns?  If so, let’s just form prayer leagues and wait for God to tell someone who should win the election.  If not, let’s stop praying and pointing the heavens.

If God answers prayers why doesn’t some Christian pray that God end childhood cancer, birth defects and child abuse?

If it is God’s plan that children die of cancer, birth defects and abuse what the hell kind of plan is that if you want to call this deity a god of love?

If God is a loving being who encourages us to forgive each other why is he still punishing us for the behaviors of Adam and Eve?  Why does he threaten us with eternal torture if we do not behave?

Why do Believers pray to ask God to do what the pray-er wants him to do but ends the prayer by telling God to do whatever God wants to do?

If believers believe all things are possible with God, then why is God so stingy in granting prayers?

Does the believer’s God need the government support for his policies?  What kind of powerful God is that?

If believers believe God answers prayers then why do all the prayer studies show that there is no difference in outcomes for sick people whether they believe or not, pray or not?

Did God write the Bible?  Did God dictate the Bible?  Or was it written by men and changed many, many times before the final edition? 

Do believers believe the Bible is the literal word of God?  If so, why don’t they support the stoning death of anyone with a divorce, or adulterers?  If not, why not pick other verses that would be easier to ignore?  If believers can choose to ignore whatever verses they choose to ignore, why would we call this a holy book and follow it at all?

If God is in control do we have free will?  If he is not in control, why pray to him or worship him at all? 

Why do believers believe God has a plan, a plan that cannot be seen, cannot be understood, cannot be known by humans, but still believe there is such a thing?

Why when terrible things happen do believers simply say that is part of God’s plan?  Why not simply say God’s plan sucks?  Why does God’s plan include so much suffering?

Why did God choose to reveal himself to a small, illiterate, nomadic group instead of to the Egyptians, the Chinese, the Sumarians and other cultures that had a written language at the time of his revelation?  As a result the Old Testament evolved from an oral history and was changed multiple times before it was ever codified.

If it was OK for Thomas to doubt the resurrected Jesus why isn’t OK for the rest of us to do the same without some proof?  Why doesn’t God offer some kind of proof, perform some kind of miracle, post a selfie on Facebook, send us a text, etc., so we all know he is real? 

If the answer to all the above is “one must have faith” is that not the same answer that was given when believers opposed the notion that the earth was spherical, that we orbited the sun, that the planet was billions of years old, that evolution is a fact, that slavery is bad and that a woman has the right to vote and own property?  All of that stuff is in the Bible too.  Why doesn’t truth veto faith?

How can a person of science be a believer in such non-verified mythology? 

Given the teachings of Jesus, how can a believer be politically conservative?

Why do believers make so many excuses for their God’s lack of presence or impact?  Might as well believe in Zeus.

If our souls are eternal, how can we have a beginning?

Why is it so hard to understand that there will be a time when we die and we will have no self-awareness, no consciousness just as it was before we were born?

Where is heaven?  Where is hell?  They are clearly not up and down.  How can we measure so much and not have the GPS coordinates for a place that houses billions of eternal life forms?

Were there souls in heaven prior to Jesus?  If so, why did Jesus have to die?  Why not keep the same method?  Why couldn’t God figure out a way to save humans without killing his only son?

If Jesus had the power to come down from the cross, then wasn’t his crucifixion really suicide?

If God had the power to save Jesus from the cross and didn’t then wasn’t God guilty of negligent homicide?

Why is there no external, non-believer accounts of the New Testament events?  Or even the life of Jesus?

Why are there no original copies of the Gospels or other New Testament scrolls?  Wouldn’t God want to protect those?

Why did it take 400 years for the “church” to decide what was really “gospel” and what was not? 

Why does each iteration of the scrolls have changes from the previous iteration?  If this is God’s word how did men gain the power to edit it?

Knowing what we know, isn’t it truly more likely that we made God in our image and not vice versa?

There are more, so many more questions.  Guess I am just stupid. 

Or is it folly to ask rational questions when it comes to belief in mythology?  Just can’t convince 6 year olds there is no Santa.

Transfiguration and Ascension

Made it through Easter, especially challenging as I attended a Baptist church service in a small Texas town.  Preacher had no college and no seminary but he clearly had his own theology, quasi Christian, mostly red-neck.  I squirmed.

But I spent my time ignoring his sermon by reading Biblical passages about the Transfiguration and Ascension.  I have read all that before, but it was somehow even more enlightening while sitting among the cult members who were intent on the message and nodding their heads with an occasional "amen.."  No evidence of though processes, no hands raised with questions, just blank stares.

The transfiguration occurred somewhere in the middle of Jesus so-called ministry.  He is visited by Elijah and Moses who descend from heaven and Jesus starts to glow.  Really scary stuff.  But it points out several things.  Folks at that time still believed heaven was up and hell was down.  Had to be that way because the earth was flat and the center of the universe.  Of course we cannot find such places as heaven and hell, but that does not matter to these 1^st century Bronze Age theologians who still do up and down. 

More difficult to understand is the presence of Elijah and Moses, two Old Testament heroes.  They glowed too.  They descended from heaven.  Unlike Trump they were transparent.  Other than believing anything like this could ever actually happen, it raises a serious theological question for me.  So, how did Moses and Elijah earn their spots in heaven?  What process allowed them to die and go to heaven?  Clearly, there were souls in heaven before the death and resurrection of Jesus.  If that is true, why did Jesus come, die and rise?  Why not stay with whatever system was in place pre-Jesus?  Sure could have saved a lot of heart ache while God killed his son and Jesus committed suicide.  In other words, even if I buy the Biblical story the whole Jesus story seems pointless.  People were getting saved pre-Jesus.

The Ascension seems like so much more smoke and mirrors.  Again, Jesus glows, goes transparent and floats up.  Up is heaven.  Ha.  A modern human witnessing such events would likely need therapy until they died, or would end up in the same group as the UFO abductees.  Quasi-Quacks.  Rising from the dead is a ridiculous stretch.  Rising from earth to heaven is beyond belief.  The belief works because no disciple had a telescope to track where Jesus went, there was no radar, no Hubble, and there were no jets to scramble.  It was magic.  Miracles are magic until they can be explained, unless the event never happened.  Believing something to be true does not make it true.

This adds additional fodder for thought about why the Jesus story was told when it was told.  I imagine a 2019 birth.  Verifying the virginity of Mary.  Taking DNA samples of god.  Checking to see if angels show up on radar while singing and talking to shepherds, how a star hovered over a city without boiling the entire planet to a crisp, etc., etc.  If Jesus began his ministry today we would have cell phone videos of every miracle he supposedly worked and they could be debunked.  Same with the resurrection, transfiguration, and ascension.  If there is an all knowing god he would have to stage this story before there were any tools of science to analyze the events. Fortunately, those who blessed the New Testament 400 years after Jesus could make the story read however they wanted because we had no way to challenge.   Now, it seems as real to me as the Greek and Roman gods working miracles.  Poppycock and Balderdash.

Probably not a good thing for me to go to church anymore.