I mentioned one time the parallel between the procreative habits of amoebas, one-celled, brainless animals and TV and radio evangelists. A few of my detractors failed, inconceivably, to see the connection. But I bow to the superior wisdom of Walt Kelly who wrote: “Break out the cigars, this life is for squirrels: We're off to the Drugstore to whistle at girls.” A far superior religion than some others or Satan worship. At least good, old-fashioned sex and a good cigar are enjoyable and non-existential or transcendental.

    While these detractors of mine are convinced that my soul is going to wind up being stir-fried in the nether region for eternity, I rather compare my thoughts on the subject of religion to that of the flight of a butterfly. One of the most charming characteristics of a butterfly is its seemingly erratic flight path. The beauty of the fractal/symphonic pattern of the countless firings of the neurons of the brain is just such a flight path (I discount my detractor's comparison with the flight characteristics of bats rather than butterflies).

    It isn't erratic at all, anymore than that flight path of the butterfly. That butterfly knows exactly where it is going. It just, like me, wants to take the scenic route. I don't get lost; I'm just admiring the scenery. The myth that men don't ask directions is just that, a myth. We just want to enjoy the scenery. So there, ladies! (Of course I know you women aren't buying this but it makes a good story).

    As Kierkegaard pointed out, it is difficult to catch one of those butterflies of thought. As soon as you have one, another immediately demands attention. As I plowed, and continue to plow, through innumerable volumes of information, trying to make any sense of it all is the most daunting of tasks. And, it does make one a little mad. But I take heart in the fact that there is no trace of Alzheimer’s; quite the contrary, I remember and know too much. And there is a lot of this worth forgetting for the sake of some peace and a quiet mind.

    As a sop to my academic colleagues I understand how, without benefit of the sciences of Archaeology and Anthropology, Aquinas could lose himself in the metaphysics of a Summa Theologica and come to the end of his life counting it all as “Nothing but straw!” My point being that Aquinas would have been better off if he had taken the time to enjoy a woman and a good cigar. The Church would have been better off, as a result, as well.

    In case my colleagues missed it, I'm talking about realities; not the purposeful, intentional obfuscating verbosity with which those that pride themselves on the ability to take 100 pages to say something that can easily be summed up in one page are heirs and practitioners. Keep it simple stupid, KISS, is always good advice to those that think God hears them because of their much speaking. And this, of course, is that connection between the amoeba and the TV evangelist.

    Those charlatans on TV and radio, in far too many pulpits across the nation, think they can reproduce like an amoeba- brainlessly. Unhappily, there are so many other amoebae out there that pay good money for this kind of brainlessness. But as science keeps pushing our understanding of ancient cultures and creatures from farther and farther out of the past, Christians would do well to heed my call for a theology that will accommodate these findings. And we would do especially well to confront the ignorance and superstitions of these amoebae in pulpits and call them to account in the process.

    Ah, now for my hypothesis that the trouble with humankind involves two classes of people: Men and Women! Profound; right? Sam Clemens, Will Rogers, and Walt Kelly were humorists. But they made a good deal of sense. It just came better to them to cast the foibles and silliness of people in a humorous way rather than drown in the the Dark Side of realities too unpalatable to handle in a constant mood of seriousness or morbidity.

    I suspect they, like myself, kept from becoming unhinged through humor. Actually, I have several defenses against total madness (hereby admitting to madness in part), not just humor; essential though that is. I love good literature and art, good music and films and ... there is something else but I can't seem to remember ... Ah, yes, I remember now: women. Knew there was something that seemed important that I was forgetting. When I feel myself slipping into that Dark Side of love and romance, and I am increasingly convinced of much of the Bible as a Romance, I put on a great old Broadway Musical, the last time poets worked in America, or an old classic film.

    Then I have the backyard, the birds, quail, squirrels and critters I so enjoy watching as I sit at my desk or in the yard. Quite often I have some of the great music of the past playing in the background as I write or visit with my little companions. I even have Chip, Dale, and Alvin, small squirrels; not chipmunks though just as antic in their behavior and I often find it delightful to engage in whimsy and humor to make my points.

    However, it was in finally noticing that the philosophies of men that have guided the course of nations virtually excluded women throughout recorded history that I began to ask some really hard questions of the churches and scholars. Since the history of humankind has been a history of warfare, since women don't have babies to sacrifice them on the altar of war or the state, why should it be so?

    Sam Clemens said “men and women are natural born enemies.” I don’t agree but much of history would seem to support Sam's claim; but why? The obvious that men are bigger and stronger and will always win by force and bullying if nothing else, that it is a man's world, men lead and women are forced to follow, these are biological facts that withstand all attempts at any kind of ephemeral equality by fiat of laws that can never accomplish the real need which is equal value.

    But where is the compatibility of differences, why competition and combativeness as the rule? Where the necessary melding and amalgam of the hardness of men and the softness of women resulting in a useful toughness with the resiliency to meet the needs of family, rather than the brittleness that fractures and breaks so easily?

    The battle between good and evil that we face as human beings has its roots in the things that led to the story of the Garden with Adam and Eve. At this point I could go browsing in any number of my dictionaries, like that of Behavioral Science Terms, and find a convenient dementia to make sense of the insensible. I could, delightedly, use my philological encyclopedia to grab hold of archaisms to expound, profoundly, on the root of the words good and evil. I could exhaust my inventory of philosophies of every description and finally exclaim forget it! and just pour myself another cup of coffee; undoubtedly much the better course. But I remind myself there is some chance a lost soul out there might yet be redeemed and I'll comfort myself with the memories of an idyllic childhood and youth in the forest wilderness, of the girls I used to know.

    Are we, in our modern age, fine-tuning religion? Are we getting any closer to the How am I here, Why am I here, and Where am I going? Not as long as the churches continue to try to do Business as Usual and charlatans like TV and radio scoundrels continue on their track of gulling the gullible; shaming God in the process. If the Gospel is the Good News that we are to be redeemed through faith, if the way to eternal life is by a narrow path and few there be that find it, we have a long way to go in understanding what all this means. I Corinthians 14:20 comes immediately to mind: “Brothers, stop thinking like children. In regard to evil, be infants, but in your thinking be adults.” Mighty good advice; but where do we see it being taken in the churches?

    There is a spirit of the Bible that sometimes, and in some places, speaks to hearts as they read, just as some other books, textual criticism aside. No other book has had such an enormous influence on people. But it must be said, both for good and evil. As to understanding the Gospel, it is a message of God's love for all of us. Any gospel that consigns good men and women to hell is not The Gospel no matter the church or no church, religion or no religion, of the individual! There is a spirit representative of Jesus, of God and the Bible that takes precedence over all sectarian views.

    That spirit, if it is of God, is a spirit of love, understanding, and compassion for others regardless their belief system. The Bible says that God is love and all those who live in love, are the children of God. “If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is right has been born of him (God).” The First Epistle of John.

    God has gifted some men and women with wisdom, with the power to inspire; and I clearly profit from reading their words. It is an indisputable fact that we do well to heed such words of wisdom and inspiration, especially in those things that promote love, understanding and compassion for one another. But in a squeaky clean and sanctimonious environment with pious songs and lyrics filled with holy lying winging toward the heavens, a reading from the OT and New, a carefully guarded sermon designed to glorify God, offend no one and protect a paycheck and keep the deacons off your back, the modern shepherd of the flock takes up the collection and earns his pay. Everyone goes home glad to have done their duty of worship and turns on the TV.

    The charismatic churches too often engage in their versions of Hollywood and The Exorcist accompanied with homegrown choruses written by Rock Star wannabes, the religious equivalent of 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall. With healings of everything from gout to PMS, with tongues, visions and being slain of the spirit, the collection is taken and everyone goes home happy to have worshiped God and turns on the TV.

    The Jews have a rabbi that concentrates on the practical application of the Torah, takes up the collection, and everyone goes home and turns on the TV, happy to have appeased the Deity for another week.

    The Catholics go to confession, count their beads in cadence, hear a practical sermon, brief and sensible, genuflect, cross themselves, pay off the priest, and go home and turn on TV.

    The Hairy Chestnuts, mullahs, priests, preachers and rabbis know a good thing and religion keeps pumping along with no paucity of shamans. The difference today is the one thing that gives me hope that we will grow up in a philosophical understanding of God, the one thing that all these modern worshipers and their shamans have in common (along with the time-honored collection): TV!

    Now before you accuse me of being sarcastic, a trait far-removed from such a noble soul as myself, let me explain. Blest be the tie that binds: TV. We may all have our doubts and struggles about God and his universe. We may all have trouble with reconciling some parts of our belief system with facts of science and human nature. We may argue ethical points until it is reliably reported that ice has indeed formed in the infernal regions, but we all agree on TV!

    This medium (1. Something occupying a position or having a condition midway between extremes. 2. One thought to have powers of communicating with the spirits) is the answer to our conundrum. And you thought I didn't know what I was talking about?

    With the advent (1. The coming of Christ. 2. A coming or arrival) of TV, accompanied by miracles (soap that really cleans and deodorants that make women rush into your arms, tearing off your shirt and pants), signs in the sky (satellites), and virtual reality, together with the vicarious fulfillment of every dream from harems of nude, willing, nubile young women making men jump through the hoops, coming into the home via TV, we have it all. Like the song says: “Who could ask for anything more?”

    Talk about worship! Just turn it on and away you go. For hours on end! Oh, most holy and inscrutable Box, I am thine! And the whole world goes worshiping after the Beast! Revelation chapter 14.

    Uh, oh. The Beast. Well, worship takes many forms. But at least TV brings folks together on this basis; it is one thing we all have in common in a world that is so divided on so many fronts. The problem, however, is that we don't agree about everything on TV. Though a common focus of worship, there are still points of view that separate the brethren. So we haven't really found the perfect answer in TV after all! Drat!

    While billions of people watch the flickering shadows of electrons bouncing off the phosphor (Lucifer) of a cathode tube, books fall into decline. Yet those entertaining shadows pass on into oblivion while the words engraved on a page remain. And those words, oracles, still move those who read them.

    The watching of Hamlet on video will never take the place of the considered, careful reading of Shakespeare. A book allows you to lean back and contemplate what you have just read, to return to the passage and consider, turn over in your mind; it encourages that most important God-like and essential gift that separates us from the beasts of the field: Imagination. This God-like part of us as human beings enables us from the words in good books to feed our sorely impoverished souls. In fine, it would behoove all of us to examine our beliefs in the light of our prejudices; and as the Apostle Paul had to do, reflect on those things that are surely believed, but in reality are false.

    The power of the mind is awesome and largely not known or exercised. The paranormal does exist in many manifestations. Anomalies and enigmas, paradoxes, abound, resisting all efforts at rational explanation by the criteria of present, empirical science. I am confident that in time, research into particle physics, brain function, and genetics will provide some much needed answers.

    The long history of charlatans and Black Coats, now and in the past notwithstanding, I have better hope of humankind finding real answers to real questions. The true children of God are those who obey him in spirit and in truth. I don't think Jesus, Peter or Paul would have us go beyond that or try to improve on it no matter how many lists of do’s and don’ts church leaders come up with.

    It is in that spirit of truth that I hope we will find answers to our questions about God and his work in our lives. Skeptics will continue to have to deal with the supreme paradox of good and evil in spite of their doubts. But it will be those that seek to honor God and love one another that will find the answers. Believers face a formidable task even so. For example, I have said that I believe if the Bible is taken at least in part as a Romance, it explains many things not otherwise understandable. I have several reasons for this view but will have to save them for another time since the subject is quite complex.