the existential outcry

No, dear readers of mine, no, I will not enter the grounds of Satan.
Neither will I embark with Jehovah for choirs.

My battlefield is the arrogance of Jehovah.
My battlefield is the self-pity of Satan.
No, I'm not a Richard Dawkins.
Neither am I a Christopher Hitchens.
I know to value the humble believer. He is in his own right,

But it is difficult to find your way from speaking of the arrogance of Jehovah, here on this blog, to the place where it thrones: the minds and hearts of individual men.
As it is hard to find your way from speaking of the self-pity of Satan to the place where it resides: the same places.

Having said that ...

There is no God or Satan, as there is no Captain Hawkeye or Leopold Bloom, or Kurtz. They are created.
Of course I admire the creation. I particularly admire the construction of that great book of stories, the Bible: I think the consecutive writers and editors have done their utmost to put it in a consistent frame.
But please notice, they are also indebted to other cultures. Here, in my hands, I hold two books - one Stories of the See, one The Creation, with a lot of stories of diverse cultures, and there’s much similarity.

There is, in your thinking, that existential question: why.
These stories are not an answer. They are not even the beginning of an answer. The answer is in your own heart and mind (by the way: I do not believe in the difference between ratio and emotio as the determining factor; in a technical sense it is all flesh and blood).
In a certain way you could say: the why-question is there from the beginning - and so is the answer.
But I have a practical way to solve the problem of our free will: in spite of my idea of the flesh and blood, our behavior is so unpredictable, that the question: free will or not - becomes an academic one.
There's no such thing as a free lunch.

So it's your own choice how you come to the why-answer. You can make a choice for the bible, you can go to the philosophical academy (one thing I never succeed to grasp: studying philosophy, declaring yourself a philosopher and then become Pope), you can go to a cloister of Buddha (like a friend of mine).
You can build your own universe.
All can be true, all can be wrong, and there's no one to tell you.

I like to play with these stories.
I don't believe in the concepts of good and evil. Yes, there's good and evil. But not in a laid down structure. Not with a fundament. Not with right and left.
I like to question these things, to explore.
In an easy and leisurely way.

The very reason for these stories?
My way to deal with it.

NB
This is the second of a series of impressions of the dwellings of Jehovah and Satan
For the third impression follow the link women in he-realm

how to tell you're in heaven

It's a long time now, since I have lived here. I can't remember how long. The place is peaceful, green hills, green valleys. With big trees and bushes. Not a formless void, covered with darkness, as some want you to believe. Certainly not a neverending storm of darkness, dark flames and dark smoke.
Empty, yes, but sweet.
I live there with my neighbor. We have both our own space. There's enough for both of us. Every now and then we met, during a walk, and had a nice chat. But one day we had a quarrel, and Jehovah - that's the name of my neighbor - built a huge fence, a barrier, and he said: Satan - that's my name - I do not want you to tread my property anymore.
That's a long time ago, can’t even remember what the argument was about. Since then we’ve felt both a bit alone.

One day I saw others around his place, people like him and me (those days I learnt to know the word female, because he and I were ... ahem ... just he and he). So there were other people out in the dark. And not just a few, because next day he had some more visitors. And no one seemed to leave the place. They seemed to adore him.

I tried to figure out where they came from. They came always at night - through the night was the expression I heard them use. I found out that a great river, separating our realms from the rest of the universe, was crossed at night by these people. At daytime there was nothing to be seen, Jehovah had covered the entrance to "his" commons with palms and olives. But at night, when it was dark, I could hear, between the singing of the voices, the noise of the oars dipping in the water.

It was impossible to guess what he was up to, he didn't want to speak to me, so one night I crossed the river myself, and found a path leading to the place where the people embarked. Every night a few or more came along that path, heading for the place where the boat was waiting. I decided to try my share of the new company, so I made a second road, a side road, with a broad entrance in order not to be passed unnoticed, and waited for some people. I managed to tempt a few every night, with candies - sometimes I had some wine or beer with me - and so I got my portion.

Good idea of Jehovah’s! It was nice to have some people around. But when Jehovah saw it, he became furious. First he called upon his powers: lightning and thunders and these kinds of things, but I have my powers too ... anyway, he had made the fence so strong that he couldn't harm me.
But he couldn't stand the fact that I too was able to fish people, so he started to tell stories about me. Naughty stories. Nasty. He even sent his son - he had met a nice girl among his visitors and lay with her - to the other side of the river.

Again, since Son's return a long time has passed.Things got worse and now they learn: it's either his father's paradise or destruction in Satan's hell. This misbelief has grown alarming. Listen, in Wales they sing what they call a rousing song:

When I tread the verge of Jordan
Bid my anxious fears subside
Hell and Hell, and death's destruction
Land me safe on Canaan's side

Do you understand?
Now, if there's one place at earth which earns the name ‘hell’ nowadays it is Palestine, isn't it? And they're longing for that in Wales? Which by British comparison is considered the Philistia of Albion!

I decided to do some publicity. I invited some people, who were not yet ready for the Voyage au bout de la nuit to meet me in my own place, to meet reality.
But who will listen, when asked to come to Hell, as my place is generally referred to? So, I had to be a bit devious ... well, like all advertisement, isn't it ... and I invited them to "heaven", to bring them here, not by rapture but by Ascension.
It's not that devious: my place has the same qualities, just the location is a few degrees shifted (more western longitude).

And I had that tremendous idea. I asked Marlon Brando, who nowadays lives at my place, to play the role of Paul. He did. But, being a smart-ass as in his earlier days, he surrounded himself with virgins, knowing of favored promises in Paradise, while I had ordered him to be surrounded by handsome youths, to display the real purpose of Paul's traveling’s along the coasts of the Mediterranean.
My intent was: during the session Marlon Brandon would reveal his identity to convince these people of the real nature of the premises they had entered, that they were in Hell.
Well, Jehovah solved that problem for me, partly.

Seeing that I was improving my relations with our Jenseits his behavior became sociopathic. He came to the fence, shouting Now it will be Armageddon. I didn't know what he was speaking about, so I ran to my computer to look it up in Wikipedia. No need to. Before I could enter my house there was an infernal racket behind me.
I turned on my way and saw Jehovah, using all his powers, trying to knock down the fence. With might and main, and, I'm proud to say, with the help of all my fans, we managed to throw back the heavenly forces.

The place is now peaceful again. But I'm braced for the next troubles. Because again, I am the loser. My mission hasn't even started yet. Look at one of the reports in your world, to be found at Open Salon. It describes a visit to heaven and concludes with: all hell broke loose - while the man was at my place, in Hell, and the expression has to be: "all heaven broke loose".

So, no misunderstanding about that: the good lord hasn't the pains of damage control. No, it's me still having my image problem.
There's a lot of work to be done, but that's another story.

NB
This is the first of a series of impressions of the dwellings of Jehovah and Satan
For the second impression follow the link the existential outcry

Dit is de eerste van een serie impressies over hoe hemel en hel te beschouwen.
Ze zijn geschreven, in wat nu een eeuwigheid geleden lijkt, als antwoord op een paar impressies van een Amerikaanse blogfriend op het blog Open Salon - vandaar het Engels.
Mijn blog daar is inmiddels opgeheven.

the unobservability of the observable universe

Op het blog van Marleen kwam een keer the observable universe langs.
Ik heb daar toen hap snap een paar opmerkingen over gemaakt, en me voorgenomen de vraag "is het wel obsevable" uit te werken.
Inmiddels heb ik dat gedaan onder de titel klein bier


hier is de link klein bier