God spoke to Moses through a burning bush.  This page shall be devoted to discussion of God, the creator being, the one who came from Ein Sof and inhaled to create a place other than himself.  Our future discussions shall be devoted to an examination of the Godhead and the personality of God. 

THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION- A NEW LAW OF QUANTUM THEODYNAMICS

“I was watching Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” --Jesus (Luke 10:18b)

 

Those of you with two good ears had better listen and those of you with two good eyes had better read.  God creates the Universe at the end of time, not at the beginning.  What you perceive to be reality is but four of 11 dimensions, which form the physical world.  What you perceive to be religion is a mere esthetic, the reflection of God as he interacts with various peoples of the earth.  Each faith is an expression of what a culture hears when they listen to the voice of God.  Future generations will know that the dissimilarities in our vision of God are nothing but the reflection of a culture in one of the varying facets of the unified gem that is God.  The language of faith is dissimilar, but the function of faith is the same as language.  In essence, we each say the same thing about our understanding of God, however dissimilar our Gods seem to be.  To say that we have different understandings is not to say that anyone is wrong, for each culture is right, albeit people voice their understanding in different languages.  Dissimilarities in religion are insignificant, for the language of religion is the mode through which we express our understanding of God.  To say my understanding of God is wrong, or yours for that matter, is to say that speaking in Greek, Arabic or Chinese is improper.  God is not dissimilar to his creation; his creation is dissimilar in its religious speech.  We only see bits and pieces of the eternal whole. 

Plato gave Western Civilization the Forms, and forever set our destiny on the theory that this world is but a shadow of the next.  It is in the world of science that I believe we may most readily see the handiwork of God.  I must confess to being passionate for one thing, a greater understanding of God.  The archetypes of this world, as identified by Carl Jung, are, also in the platonic sense, a reflection of the archetypes of God.  I posit that the structure of this Universe is therefore a reflection of the structure of Heaven.  All of it contained within the being of God.  I also believe that if one studies the actual sayings of Jesus, it is possible to discern a man’s belief system that “cast fire upon the world,” (Thomas 10; Luke 12:49) which, if adhered to and all else discounted, presents a unified view of existence, alluding to and incorporating the essentials of the physical world along with the explanation of the spiritual.  To illustrate my point, I would seek the counsel of the physicists working on Einstein’s dream of a Unified theory for the physical world. 

I am the first to admit I know nothing about physics, being math illiterate, however in my readings I see a synthesis in nature created from a unification of the theories of physics, with the theology of the Divine.  The science of Theodynamics, both at the cosmic level and at the quantum level indicate that God’s structure for the Universe also governs the dimensions of Heaven.  Indeed, if the physicists believe that the laws of physics must be uniformly applicable to all of nature, then they must accept that the same laws of the physical world apply to the spiritual as well.  The first law of Theodynamics is a combination of two theories:  one, the law of parsimony, the simplest answer is preferred over the more complicated; two, the law of emergence, complicated structures are formed from simple interactions, a school of fish is nothing more than a great number of individual fish grouped together by simple interactions between closely positioned fish, when grouped as a whole can manifest in group movement which is both spontaneous and coordinated.  Combined the two theories explain the generation of the Big Bang before it appeared in space-time.  Hawking tells us that a weak singularity is required for the Big Bang to occur, for in a strong singularity the laws of physics break down.  Hawking also says that mathematics require the creation of imaginary time to create a whole system which both is contained yet boundless.  Imaginary time, where the events of the Big Bang are anticipated through the generation of simple structures, which combine in a primordial quantum stew, if you will, imprinted with the model that simple structure emerges to complex structure.  The Big Bang is then anticipated in imaginary time and inserted into space-time, to emerge from the simple to the complex.  That is why God creates it all at the end of time, for it must first emerge before it may be seen as being created.  Hence, the need for the law of parsimony, the simplest explanation is the preferred explanation, the Big Bang moves from imaginary time to space-time and from there simple systems unite to make complex systems, the Universe is born.

The second law of Theodynamics is that both Heaven and the Universe are contained within God, but paradoxically, God is contained within the Universe.  The Third Law of Theodynamics, as has been alluded to, is that the laws of the physical world apply equally to the spiritual.  In essence, Heaven and the Universe combined represent a closed and self-contained symbiosis.  Columbia University physicist, Brian Greene, who proved that space could rip, not just warp and fold, calls it the “Elegant Universe.”  However, the elegance of the Universe that Dr. Greene sees is likewise applicable to the realm of Heaven.  The elegance is that supersymmetry explains the existence of the Heavenly realm as superstring theory explains our Universe.  In studying God, I have learned to look for the patterns of God, his fingerprints if you will.  They dominate history and indeed archaeology and genetics as a painter’s brushstroke does a painting.  Remember the archetypes of this world are a reflection of the realm of God, or Heaven.  The parsimony of this observation is that Heaven and our spiritual beings directly correlate to the Universe and our physical beings through the theory of supersymmetry.  Before I run too far a field, I have to summarize what I understand to be the problem with the laws of physical nature. 

Einstein created the theory of general relativity, which says that space and time form the phenomena of space-time, and that force of gravity is relative to the position of large cosmic objects as their mass-energy and momentum warp space.  The general theory of relativity very well explains the forces of gravity and how it relates to the cosmos, however it does very little to explain the other physical forces of the Universe, namely, Electromagnetism, Strong Nuclear force and Weak Nuclear force, which is radiation.  Together these four elemental forces govern Euclidean space.  However, the laws of general relativity do not harmonize with the other three forces that best explained by quantum mechanics.  Where general relatively is the large, quantum mechanics is the small.  Physics looks to harmonize the four forces with a Unified theory that explains all four of the elemental forces and applies to all situations.  The archetypes of this world are reflections of the archetype of God.  I was raised a Catholic, so I learned at an early age that the purpose of our lives is to love God with all our heart, all our mind and all our soul.  Heaven was a glorious place where angels sang an ethereal song sweeter than any chorus of human voice, which brings ecstasy to those that hear.  An archetype to be sure, but the reality of the archetype may indeed be that all of creation, is filled with the song of God, both Heaven and the Universe.  String theory would be the foremost, yet untested, theory of unification that joins the world of the large with the world of the small, accomplished by mathematical equations, which indicate that all matter is a compilation of various, minute, specks of energy called strings.  These strings vibrate with a specific energy pulse and in combination with other strings forms the basis of all particles.  The size of a string is a millionth of a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a centimeter.  This is Godspace.  It is the simplest, most essential filament of nature.  String theory believes that the harmonization of all four manifestations of our physical Universe, Gravity, Strong Nuclear, Weak Nuclear and Electromagnetism is possible, if you only look deep enough into the fabric of nature.  Stings are the most elemental level of energy.  Quantum Mechanics tells us that at the subatomic level random is the word.  The quantum level of space is disordered and so random that physicists believe that all possibilities are probable, if given an eternity of trying.  The quantum world is like the cauldron those witches in Macbeth stir; anything is possible because all things have happened.  Now Gravity is orderly.  It does not bubble and brew, but glides across the filament of space, warping space-time. 

By endowing the Universe with strings of energy vibrating in specific harmony, God has created an integrated reality that does not end at the end of our lives, but allows us to pass into another dimension predictably and now, knowingly.  Heaven and the Universe joined in one boundless creation, each predicting the other.  String theory harmonizes the four elemental forces of Euclidean space.  At the sub-atomic level and beyond, Gravity is the weakest force.  Physics predicts that string can stretch into surface areas, which anchor strings to a reality.  Some scientists even predict that the collision of two membranes, or branes for short, or specifically p-brains, created the Big Bang.  On the level of Godspace, according to quantum Theodynamics, gravitons, strings vibrating to the band of energy producing gravitational force, are likely circular and can pass through p-branes, which hold the other strings of energy in place in this Euclidian space   Now bosons are particles which have integer spin which is the angular momentum intrinsic to a body.  Then there are fermions, which are particles with half integer spin.  The four elemental forces in the Universe: W vector bosons represent the Weak Nuclear force; gluons represent the Strong Nuclear force; photons represent the Electromagnetic force; gravitons represent the force of Gravity, together are particles called Gauge bosons.  The fundamental interactions are interactions of virtual bosons and real fermions.  The bosons and fermions dance together with infinite bosons able to occupy a quantum state whereas only one fermion may occupy a quantum state at a time.  The unification of Gravity Strong Nuclear, Weak Nuclear and Electromagnetism, through String theory harmonizes Quantum Theodynamics and Cosmic Theodynamics.  The discovery of supersymmetry holds the hope that the parallel particles which mathematics predicts should exist in another dimension, would answer the question of where those who have passed over now live.  Godspace and Heaven exist parallel to this world in the other seven dimensions predicted by Superstring theory to exist beyond the four of time, height, width, length.  The white clouds and faces of loved ones reported by those who have died and been brought back, fit perfectly in a Universe where our spiritual selves, our souls, pass through a quantum dimension into the realm of Heaven, where imaginary time exists, Godstime. 

Stephen S. Hawking theorizes that time had a beginning, because time in both Euclidean space and Godspace or imaginary time as Hawking predicts, is finite but without boundary.  This paradox forms the Second Law of Theodynamics that God is both outside and inside our Universe at the same time.  This is what gives the Universe no boundary.  Hawking does the math for it all.  Hawking describes imaginary time as a perpendicular point above a timeline, with the past being at the left end and the future on the right.  The reason this is Godstime, is that we impute from the archetype of imaginary time to the archetype of Godstime and harmonize the existence of both Heaven and the Universe, as a wholly self-contained system.  Both are the domain of God within his infinite size and patience a trinity of physical and spiritual existence equally governed by the laws of nature as created by God.  I believe this is why Hawking says that ultimately the Universe is opaque.  From the distance of real time, which we can understand and measure, the Universe is clear and vibrant allowing us to see billions of years into the past to the Big Bang.  However, Godstime is different, measured in Godspace.  Hawking says that the Universe cannot be constant but must have a beginning.  Microwave radiation has the spectrum of radiation in thermal equilibrium at a constant temperature of two point seven (2.7°) degrees over absolute zero.  In order for microwaves to have that specific thermal rate throughout the Universe, they must have been scattered by matter over a vast amount of time.  Hawking says that the proof of the amount of matter in the Universe is made when you consider a light cone with the point of sight being ours looking back in time to the earliest stars.  The light cone will spread out to its maximum extent then the pressure of the mass of the Universe will pressure the light cone to curve inward and bend the light cone.  Since the force of Gravity applied to the horizon width of the light cone, bends the light inward, demonstrates that from a sufficient distance the Universe contains enough matter to be opaque.  Only in Godstime and Godspace may we see the opacity of the Universe.  It is only from this perspective that it all makes sense.  The fourth law of Theodynamics then is that Godstime is the same as imaginary time, and Godspace is the realm of supersymmetry or that of Heaven.  It is the advent of varying dimensions provided by the theories of superstring theory, 11 such dimensions, that we can see the fingerprint of God, a finite system with no boundary. 

When you consider the combined Laws of Theodynamics, you get a beginning to time with the Big Bang, without the problem with singularities.  Hawking tells us that if all matter and what came before the Big Bang was contained within the Big Bang, then that would be a singularity and the laws of physics break down in a singularity.  Therefore, Professor Hawking theorizes that the Big Bang contained a weak singularity, which appeared in a moment of time and exploded, but not at a constant rate which would create an oscillating Universe, but at an accelerated rate caused by Hawking’s inflation which mathematically solves the problems of peculiar velocities.  By identifying imaginary time, Hawking solves the problem of the singularity in the Big Bang.  It was not the totality of all reality in the Universe, for if it were, then the creation or prediction of the Big Bang and what follows, could not have occurred inside this Universe, because the laws of physics break down in a strong singularity.  Therefore with the addition of the theory of imaginary time, a weak singularity occurs which allow the laws of Quantum Mechanics to explain the expansion of the Universe and allows for the anticipation of the Big Bang to occur within this system or in imaginary time which will predict the Big Bang.  This then would be another example of Godstime.  For it is in Godstime that the Big Bang is conceived. 

This is where I must diverge from the hard science of my theory and discuss some of the more esoteric aspects of the science of Theodynamics.  We accept for the time the observation that the archetypes of this Universe are reflections of Gods archetype.  We have discussed the need to see God in the history of the world and how the identification of trends shows us the hand or even fingerprint of God.  Therefore, I submit that we can compare and identify the strange peculiarity that the archetype of God explained by the Kabala, almost predicts or, perhaps just Jungian Synchronicity, that there would be 11 dimensions to reality as explained in Superstring theory.  For those who have not read of the Kabala, you need to know that this ancient philosophy, which may have been introduced to the Jewish community during their captivity in Babylon, explains to the dimension the emanations of God.  The poetry of the Kabala is unique.  The Kabala tells us that God inhaled and created a space other than him.  It was in this space that he created the Heavens and the Earth.  Compare to the theory of supersymmetry, where the Universe contains a parallel symmetry wherein a particle has a parallel spartical and a quark has a parallel squark, gravitons, sgravitons.  And so we see the prediction of the Big Bang.  God, at first unconscious and silent some 15 billion years ago, inhaled and became conscious creating the Universe that we know, by picking a day in regular time and releasing the predicted particle of matter that expands through a weak singularity into the Big Bang.  Another surprising anomaly is that the ten Sefirot or the 10 emanations of God correspond precisely to the 10 dimensions of Superstring theory and time. 

The Sefirot of the Kabala predict that there are ten emanations of God.  God has a dual nature, Ein Sof or Nothingness, infinity and the ability of God to become hidden from his creation or Tzimtzum.  This hiddeness or restriction makes creation possible because then God may become revealed through the Sefirot.  Hearken back to Hawking who says that imaginary time and real time is finite, allowing for the prediction of the Big Bang in imaginary time.  The Universe is integrated and complete, because God is fused into its very fiber, and that fiber is the common string, which vibrates according to its individual song.  All creation is built upon the song of God.  Just as imaginary time allows us to predict the Big Bang in a closed system, so too do the archetypes of Ein Sof and Tzimtzum allow the revelation of God in nature for in the Tzimtzum the Big Bang is predicted for as Stephen Hawking states:  “But if one knows the state of the universe in imaginary time, one can calculate the state of the universe in real time.”

The Sefirot emanate as follows:  Keter is the first Sefirot, meaning Crown.  Keter sits upon the Tree of Life at the top, as the Crown, with Binah or Understanding below and to the left and on the same level as Chokhmah, Wisdom.  When Keter is not present in the emanations of the Sefirot, Daas or Daat is present, which is Knowledge.  This emanation in combination with Keter would equal 11 Sefirot, which equal the 11 dimensions of Superstring theory.  The next Sefirot below and to the left of Daas, is Gevurah or Severity interchangeable with Dat or Judgment.  To the right of Dat is Hesed, or Mercy.  Beneath is Tiferet, which Adornment.  This is the Sefirot, which is Spirituality and connected through the unconscious to the other Sefirot, but Daas and Malkut.  Below and to the left is Hod, or Majesty.  It is from this Sefirot that the religion of Mohammed springs, for in Hod, Submission is implied.  Across from Hod is Netzach, or Victory, the realm of God’s energy.  Below and center to Hod and Netzach is Yesod which is the Foundation.  This is the only Sefirot, which connects to Malkut, the Kingdom.  Yesod is the Holy Spirit.  It is to this Sefirot that the Christian religion connects.  Malkut the Kingdom is the Universe and Euclidean space.  Together the 11 Sefirot and the 11 dimensions of Superstring theory connect Heaven and Earth, a complete, whole system.  The correlation of the Sefirot with the dimensions predicted by Superstring theory could not be happenstance.  This is Synchronicity in its traditional Jungian context.  There are many events of Synchronicity, which we should track to see the path God has left on human history.  I call your attention to an intriguing analogy, which cannot be random. 

There are essentially five major religions in the world, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hindu and the religions of Asia, including Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism.  Now applying the rules of Theodynamics, the five major religions of the earth are parallel to the five explanations for sting theory.  In string theory, there are five versions of the theory which physicists predict: type I, types IIA and IIB, and the two heterotic string theories (SO(32) and E).  Now the physicists would say that the five explanations are essentially five mathematical explanations for the same phenomena.  This would be M theory, or the theory of unity.  All five variations of string theory explain the same phenomena.  We accept this as true.  Now if we consider that the five world religions correspond to the five explanations of string theory and apply Jung’s theory of Synchronicity, we accept for the sake of argument that like string theory, the five world religions essentially explain the same phenomena, which is God.  So a warning comes to the religions of the world through the auspices of science:  Your contempt and derision for your neighbor’s religion is nothing more than five legitimate explanations for the same phenomena, which is God.  So before you deride your neighbor as damned to hell for their failure to believe in the faith of God that you have, understand that your religion stands on equal footing as all other religions.  Your belief therefore is not the only truth, the only path, the only way.  Your belief is just one of many which explain the concept of God.  This would be the place that one would remind Christians that Jesus said with equanimity:  Judge not lest ye be judged. Matthew 7:1, Luke 6:37, 41; Rom 14:10, 13.  The enmity you bestow upon the other religions of the world will haunt you in the next.  Our Lord will judge you with the same measure as you judge others.  Do not complain when our Savior chastises you for your intransigence.  God too goes by the name of Allah and while Jesus may judge the living and the dead, he will judge you by the same measure as you judge others.  If you cannot see that in the New Testament, you miss much of what Jesus was trying to say. 

Jesus was a man to be sure.  He had a family, which we know was part of and connected to the religion, which followed in the wake of his death.  We know from the New Testament that Jesus had at least three brothers and likely two sisters:  James, Simeon, Judas Thomas, Mariamme and Salome.  His father’s name may have been Cleophas however, Joseph was common enough.  It is also clear that sometime after the death of James in 62 c.e. and most likely, after the end of the Jewish War in 70 c.e., the Christian Church, Greek in language and Roman in outlook formed before the death of Paul.  Part of the phoenix rising from the ashes, was a concerted effort to de-emphasis the authority of James and the family of Jesus, in favor of the authority of the Roman Church.  The primacy of the pope, developed at the beginning of the Christian faith, which started at the end of the Jewish state, there can be no doubt.  The story started with John Mark a close associate of Paul.  After the death of Jesus, James took over.  Sometime around 50 c.e., Judas Thomas, known as the twin of our Lord due to his physical appearance, wrote the Gospel of Thomas.  There may have been some corruption in the text from Gnostic traditions or Judas Thomas may have proffered a Gnostic understanding of his brother’s message, but the Scholar’s version of the five Gospels published by the Jesus Seminar, suggests that the Judas Thomas’ Gospel, populated throughout the east to the southern shores of India, where Judas Thomas’ message and church exist to this day, was an original source, equal in time but independent of the “Q” sayings Gospel.  Mark, written as early as 50 c.e., perhaps in response to Thomas and as late as 80 c.e., followed by Luke and Matthew, which were likely written from 80 c.e., to 120 c.e., were likely the revenge of the Gentiles, to the popularity among the laity of the Gospel of Thomas and even the Judas Gospel recently published by National Geographic.  Paul was concerned with authority.  He links himself early in his writings to the “pillars of the church” of which James was clearly the leader, their Zaddik, the Righteous One.  Never afraid to trade on an opportunity, Paul needed to pull the entire Eastern Church, the vast majority of the population Greek speaking, to Rome, where he was establishing the church along Roman standards of organization.  Paul’s bishops ran the Christian community populating parishes with Gentile priests speaking Greek; the structure of the Roman Church to this day is a creation of Paul.  All of this held in check by James from the conversion of Paul to the death of James.  Paul even submitted to taking an oath to appease James, promising to first make Gentiles convert to Judaism, through the adult circumcision of Greek speaking men.  Nevertheless, he bided his time.  Paul waited and steadily built his church along side the church commanded by the Jerusalem Assembly, the congress that governed the leadership of the faithful, from the death of Jesus to the death of James.  From 62 c.e., the year James was stoned to death in Jerusalem, to the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus in 70 c.e., Paul built his church from his house arrest in Rome. 

Now how do we know if Paul’s vision of the Christian Church is what Jesus intended?  One could argue, because Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to convert Paul on the Emmaus Road.  Paul’s conversion speaks for itself.  He became a new apostle of Jesus Christ and proceeded to create the Roman Church whose bedrock was the synoptic gospels.  The synoptic gospels, created the Jesus myth.  The history of the event gave way to the authority of Paul.  After the destruction of Jerusalem, there was no one to rival his supremacy, spreading the Christian faith into the house of Nero and the house of the Flavians after Nero’s fall.  Paul won by default.  Nevertheless, Jesus converted Paul because he knew that Paul would convert the Gentiles with a Greek thinking religion and not an overly zealous Judeo/Christian faith that required male circumcision.  God wanted Paul to win.  When the Jerusalem Assembly, the original Apostles and the directives of James, no longer held him in check Paul rewrote history and forever tarred the memory of the family of Jesus.  Judas Thomas became Judas Iscariot, the betrayer of the Lord, James the brother of Jesus became James the Less.  Simon bar Cleophas, another brother of Jesus became a stranger in the crowd when he assisted his brother in carrying his cross along the Via Dolorosa.  By St. Jerome, Mary becomes ever virgin and never had children other than Jesus, who knew that the religion of James would never survive the first generation of the faithful, if the circumcision of adult males premised admittance to the synagogue by Gentiles.  My purpose in telling you all this is to petition that the conversion of Paul on the Emmaus Road is the most tangible example of God’s interaction in human events.  God is both within and without the 11 dimensions of reality predicted by string theory.  According to the Second Law of Theodynamics, Heaven exists in the quantum level, or the seven dimensions other than Euclidean space, which explains much of superstring theory or parallel points in space and imaginary time.  We accept that imaginary time measures time in Heaven and real time measures time in the Universe.  Upon our deaths, we go quantum, a level of existence, which predicts that all possible realities exist. 

The laws of physics bind Heaven as readily as they bind our Universe.  Time in Heaven is different to measure, but exist it does.  Heaven measures the scope and largeness of imaginary time differently than a 24-hour cycle.  Our physical needs are no longer biological, but we relate to others as we did in our biological lives.  Heaven contains all possibilities, its parallel state in this Universe, which contains but a singular possibility, free will the determining factor.  In Heaven, the eternal community of souls resides in harmony with God.  In Heaven, we shall share our friendship by sharing our lives with those we meet.  It is plausible to imagine that should we want to become friends, we would exchange life experiences, merging, each living the other’s life experience as they lived it, making the decisions they made, understanding their lives from their own perspective.  It will be the highest compliment one may pay to another.  In this world, all we can do to experience God’s plan is to look for its signs and extrapolate from there.  Signs of God’s activity abound, not being limited solely to the conversion of Paul.  I cannot help but ask the question, did God influence Phillip of Macedon to be great and raise his son Alexander to be the man that would conquer the world, or would Philip have been great and Alexander greater, regardless of God’s influence, which may have been as subtle as having Philip pick Aristotle as Alexander’s teacher, or perhaps exert no influence at all?  If the latter were true, then I would think God merely took advantage of a propitious happenstance to select the exact point in time when much of the known world was a Greek culture suborned to the unity of the Roman Empire.  Think of it.  If Jesus were born earlier, he would have been a local sage at best, a regional player perhaps, doomed to mediocrity as just another prophet whose message was never translated out of its original tongue and would never have hung on the cross, a victim of Rome, the symbol for God’s forgiveness of humankind.  If Jesus were born later, flippant his message would be.  No, Jesus was born when he was born because it was the right time.  Jesus was born at the cross roads of east and west at the only time in human history when his religion could flourish in a uniformly Greek speaking/Roman ruling world.  Again, God’s effect on human history cannot be random or by chance.  God chooses his moments, from Abraham, to Moses, from Jesus to Mohammed and his choices trace his path along human history.  To Moses, he speaks in a burning bush, refusing to be named or in any way contained; by the Book of Job, around 600 b.c.e., he orders Satan to test Job, torturing him to prove Job’s love for God.  By the birth of Jesus, you see God himself, enduring crucifixion for humankind, no longer asking Abraham to sacrifice Isaac.  This is a marked development in the personality of God over time.  As God interacts with humankind, so too does humankind react to God.  Take the issue of slavery as an example; we see slavery throughout ancient times and it was common practice in Jesus’ day.  Two Thousand years after his death, it has been eradicated from the earth and while economic inequality may certainly exist, the wholesale acceptance of the belief, that one human should not own another human is universally accepted.  That is progress make no mistake about it.  If we were in a modern Roman world, we would not care a fig about value of human life.  The Roman world would think us quite insane to discuss the sanctity of life opposed to the right of women to control their bodies.

In the end, we go quantum.  I think it not so bad to leave the physical rules of the four dimensions of Euclidean space for the seven additional dimensions of quantum space.  This world and all we see in it is the shell of and gateway to the seven dimensions of quantum space where we shall live in eternity with our God.  So you may say, but what proof is there of this?  I answer that not only do the physicist of this age consensually hold that superstring theory is the likely M theory or theory of everything that Einstein spent his later days looking for, but there is absolutely no empirical proof of it.  Yes, the math anticipates that this is the structure of our world, but unable to test, it cannot be proved.  Belief in modern physics, while an educated guess, is based on faith and faith alone.  So too then is the Theory of Theodynamics an educated guess based on faith and faith alone.  Before you dismiss this theory, however posit this:  According to the scholars of the Jesus Seminar, there are approximately 91 sayings, aphorisms and parables that are from the mouth of Jesus or represent his thinking.  In this paper I have quoted the passages of Jesus reproducing their color scheme, which holds that red letters are, by a substantial majority of the scholars, the actual words of Jesus, pink letters are, by a majority, likely the sayings of Jesus, gray letters are possibly the sayings of Jesus and quotations of Jesus in black are generally considered by the scholars of the Jesus Seminar to not reflect the sayings of Jesus, but those of the respective authors.  A small number to be sure, but I would posit that everything else can be tossed out, every passage of the Bible, every scholarly text, every apologia, apocrypha, and instruction every written since the death of Jesus to now.  Reject it all as so much chaff falling from the grains of wheat and accept only the true kernels of Jesus’ wisdom.  The religions of the world will never be able to get past the idea that theirs is the only truth, until they can acknowledge the historical reality of the creation of Christianity and their own religion and how they each reflect a face of God.  The source of saying is as important as the book in which recorded.  Not able to prove this, modern scholars accept certain beliefs about the New Testament, based upon implication and allusion.  For instance, they believe that there were two early sayings gospels, Thomas and “Q.”  Thomas was discovered at Nag Hammadi, while Q has never been found, existing only from the additions of Matthew and Luke not included from Mark.  Scholars posit too that both Matthew and Luke had sources (respectively Special M and Special L) that were not available by Mark or either of the other.  In reading Mark, Luke and Matthew then, the sayings of Jesus, are singled out and attributed to Jesus.  Thomas fills in many gaps and adds some original work of its own.  Only 91 sayings are legitimate words of Jesus, or concepts, which Jesus would have uttered, as opposed to the extraneous matter added by the Fathers of the Church to win a debate with a rival group.  Now posit this, assume the laws of Theodynamics, are governed by the laws of physics and the laws of physics are governed by the laws of Theodynamics.  In that context, I would ask that you start at the fountainhead and work your way out of the maze.  If we focus solely on the core sayings of Jesus and view them in light of our assumptions, we may see words never understood, aphorisms revealed and parables that mean something in a modern and future world.

Do not accept any interpretation on my part.  Read the words of Jesus in context of our quantum existence and tell us, do the sayings make greater sense now than they did before?  What does Jesus really mean when he tells us the kingdom of God is like a mustard seed?  Thomas 20:2-4 said:  “It’s like a mustard seed.  (It’s) the smallest of all seeds, but when it falls on prepared soil, it produces a large plant and become a shelter for birds of the sky.”  Jesus presents a model of interaction that explains the kingdom of God as readily as the quantum world.  We see a small seed placed in fertile soil to produce a plant large enough to shelter others.  (See also Mark 4:30-32; Luke 13:18-19; Matt 13:31-32).  Compare that saying to Jesus’ saying about Leaven:  What does God’s imperial rule remind me of?  It is like leaven, which a woman took and concealed in fifty pounds of flour until it was all leavened.  Luke 13:20-21, Matt 13:33; Thom 96:1-2.  Once more the model of taking something small and adding it to something larger to combine into something greater than it was, a mustard seed growing into a home for animals, a bit of leaven in flour to make bread, why not a weak quantum singularity into the universe one day to begin the outward explosion of the Big Bang?  The models are the same, yet the sayings of Jesus, contemporary to his age, present the model, repeatedly, to explain God’s imperial rule?  

Jesus speaks in ways that without context could mean many things.  I think this is intentional on his part.  He knew that his message was greater than his age.  He knew that people of the future would read his words for meaning as readily as people who listened in the shadow of the crucifixion.  Therefore, he discussed God’s imperial rule in ambiguous terms.  Regardless of what the saying may have meant to a contemporary of Jesus, the only salient issue is what the saying mean today.  Thomas records:  “It will not come by watching for it.  It will not be said, ‘Look here!  or Look, there!’  Rather the Father’s imperial rule is spread out upon the earth and people don’t see it.”  Thomas 113:2-4.  Compare this to Luke 17:20-21:  “You won’t be able to observe the coming of God’s imperial rule.  People are not going to be able to say, ‘Look, here it is,’ or ‘Over there!’  On the contrary, God’s imperial rule is right there in your presence.”  People cannot see the reality of superstring theory but only see its shadow reflected in mathematics; likewise, people do not see God’s imperial rule because it is spread across eleven dimensions of space and time, commanding both the heavens and the earth.  However, exist it does, manifested in the laws of physics.  Jesus perhaps references the concept of the Big Bang when he said:  “The Father’s imperial rule is like a person who wanted to kill someone powerful.  While still at home he drew his sword and thrust it in the wall to find out whether his hand would go in.  Then he killed the powerful one.”  Thomas 98:1-3.  In that context, I would take the powerful one to mean God’s unconscious.  And as we see reflected in the poetry of the Kabala, “God inhaled” creating a space other than himself.  In an instant before time, God woke up and expelled the Big Bang at the moment he inhaled.  That is why God creates the universe at the end of time.  By existing without time c.f., the Second Law of Theodynamics, God creates the perfect world, but lives through it to understand what developed from his initial creation at the Big Bang.  I am certain that is what Jesus means when he said:  “God’s imperial rule is like this:  Suppose someone sows seed on the ground, and sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and matures, although the sower is unaware of it.  The earth produces fruit on its own, first a shoot, then a head, then mature grain on the head.  But when the grain ripens, all of a sudden (that farmer) sends for the sickle, because it’s harvest time.”  Mark 4:26-29, see also Thomas 21:9.  God sent forth the Big Bang and waited to see what would come of it.  Having seen what was created; God withdrew from this world into his own consciousness and returned at the end of time to begin it all.  While wholly intentional in his actions, his creation is a pleasant surprise that he ensures will become reality by his creation in the Big Bang.  God may have done this many times before and after the Big Bang with other planes of time and space each receiving a seed upon fertile ground to create universe within universe within universe, ad infinitum.  That is why Jesus said:  “The [Father’s] imperial rule is like a woman who was carrying a jar full of meal.  “While she was walking along [a] distant road, the handle of the jar broke and the meal spilled behind her [along] the road.  She didn’t know it; she hadn’t noticed a problem.  “When she reached her house, she put the jar down and discovered that it was empty.”  Thomas 97:1-4.  This exists only in the Gospel of Thomas, but it resonates when you interpret it in a quantum universe. 

I find it interesting to note that the quantum world being infinitely small is perhaps the nature of the seven other dimensions, surrounded by the Universe, which has no center and no boundaries, a beginning, but perhaps not an end.  Could that be what Jesus is referring to when he said:  “Struggle to get in through the narrow door; I’m telling you, many will try to get in, but won’t be able.”  Luke 13:24.  See also Matthew 7:13-14:  “Try to get in through the narrow gate.  Wide and smooth is the road that leads to destruction.  The majority are taking that route.  Narrow and rough is the road that leads to life.  Only a minority discover it.”  Jesus warns us that the path to God’s domain is not an easy walk.  This raises the question of who will be saved.  I do not think that you can tell from the sayings of Jesus specifically who will be saved.  He is ambiguous at best.  He himself does not proclaim to be the judge of who gets in or who does not:  “Mister, who appointed me your judge or arbiter?”  Luke 12:14, or again “Mister, who made me a divider? . . . I’m not a divider, am I?”  Thomas 72:2-3.  Jesus has revealed to us the nature of heaven and earth.  The existence of both creates the whole.  Perhaps this is what Jesus means when he said:  “Why do you wash the outside of the cup?  Don’t you understand that the one who made the inside is also the one who made the outside?”  Thomas 89:1-2, see also Matthew 23:25-26:  “You scholars and Pharisees, you impostors!  Damn you!  You wash the outside of cups and plates, but inside they are full of greed and dissipation.  You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and then the outside will be clean too.” and Luke 11:39-41 with a meaning closer to the verse of Thomas:  “You Pharisees clean the outside of cups and dishes, but inside you are full of greed and evil.  You fools! Did not the one who made the outside also make the inside?” but still receiving a gray rating from the Jesus Seminar.  Luke 11:39-41 is a good example of how the passages of the New Testament can mean different things to different people.  Not even the evangelists could interpret the same saying in the same way. 

The reason inconsistencies fill the New Testament is because so little of the New Testament is original to the generation immediately following the death of Jesus.  From approximately 27 c.e. to perhaps 33 c.e., the death of Jesus to about 50 c.e. there are no writings of the sayings of Jesus.  Scholars accept that Thomas and Q were likely written in the 50’s along with Paul’s letters, James’ epistle and Judas Thomas’ epistle, Jude.  There is recent evidence with National Geographic’s publication of the Gospel of Judas Thomas, that that gospel was written before 180 c.e., when Iraeneus condemns it and as early as the 40’s c.e.  This would be possible as there is some evidence to show that Judas Thomas, the twin of the Lord, who converted King Aretas and his wife Helen of Adiabene the nominal Arab rulers of Petra and the trade routes to the Middle East and later went to India to convert the people there, was martyred in 52 c.e.  To truly understand the New Testament, you have to be willing to throw it all out and only retrieve the 91 sayings of Jesus that scholars believe to merit the greatest likelihood of being uttered by the Lord.  Few understand the history of the era.  Jesus was from a noble family, a family of the priestly class that served in the Temple.  Zaccharius was the brother of Cleophas who was the father of James, Simeon bar Cleophas and Judas Thomas.  Their father was Joseph of Arimetheia.  Far from being a backwater, the young Jesus likely grew up in Sepphorus, and could easily have traveled to the Roman city Tiberius or the Roman port of Caesaria.  Zaccharius was the husband of Sarah and Mary, the mother of Jesus, was the wife of Cleophas.  Zaccharius was the father of John the Baptist.  Joseph was a high priest under the reign of the Maccabees, who had the generation before Herod and the Romans, governed a free and independent Judea, after Judas the Hammer, bested Antiochus IV in battle.  That is why Jesus so threatened the Sanhedrin and the High Priest.  He was from a priestly clan that had served the last truly Jewish leadership of Judea.  When John the Baptist, Jesus’ first cousin was beheaded by Herod Antipas, Arêtes, the Arabian king of Petra, insulted that Herod has divorced his daughter to marry the last Maccabean princess, Mariamme, acceded to his wife Helen’s wishes and attacked Antipas to secure the release of John the Baptist, whom Helen followed from afar.  Arêtes marched on Herod Antipas who had imprisoned John the Baptist at Machaeros a fort in the Moab province in Transjordan.  This fort was on the boarder between Arêtes’ holdings and the Kingdom of Galilee.  Not only was Arêtes willing to take up arms because Antipas divorced his daughter, but his queen was a recently converted believer in the Christ.  The thought of John the Baptist imprisoned, if not killed, was mortifying to her.  She convinced her husband to attempt to save John.  Unfortunately, their offensive resulted in Antipas ordering the Baptist’s execution in 37 c.e.  Arêtes was successful in defeating Herod Antipas’ army, but he could not reach Machaeros before the Baptist was dead.  The defeat of Herod Antipas militarily caused great concern in Rome. 

There can be no doubt that the history of Jesus is likely wholly different then the story portrayed in the New Testament.  Therefore we must not seek history in the New Testament and we must disregard anything that cannot be supported as history.  So we seek our history from outside the Bible and we seek only the sayings of Jesus in the Bible.  Everything else is gloss.  Jesus tells us that the imperial domain is difficult to get into.  He gives us clues to the nature of reality.  Understanding the nature of the heavens and the earth from the sayings of Jesus is the greatest and highest use of biblical writings.  We must restrain from interpolating religious writings attributed to Jesus to provide authority and identity for a burgeoning new faith.  The whole of reality may be expressed within the 91 sayings of Jesus.  It all depends on how you read them.

Who was Jesus?  Accept the shroud for a picture of the broken and battered man at the moment he rose from the dead and then read his sayings to find out what he believed in.  The Jesus I know is a man who walked upon the road to Jerusalem with a song in his heart and ditty on his lips:  “Foxes have their dens and birds have their nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head and rest.”  Thomas 86:1-2 [interpretation from James Robinson, the Gospel of Thomas, the Nag Hammadi Library) Matthew 8:20; Luke 9:58.  Jesus laid down his morality in his own words.  However be wary of anyone who interprets what he thinks Jesus said or meant Jesus himself warns of such people many times in the New Testament.  “Damn you, Pharisees!  You’re so fond of the prominent seat in the synagogues and respectful greetings in the marketplaces.”  Luke 11:43 (derived from Q) .  “Look out for the scholars who like to parade around in long robes, and insist on being addressed properly in the marketplaces, and prefer important seats in the synagogues and the best couches at banquets.”  Mark 12:38-39 “They are the ones who prey on windows and their families, and recite long prayers just to put on airs.  These people will get a stiff sentence” Mark 12:40.  “You legal experts, damn you!  You have taken away the key of knowledge.  You yourselves haven’t entered and you have blocked the way of those trying to enter.”  Luke 11:52.  “The Pharisees and the scholars have taken the keys of knowledge and have hidden them.  They have not entered, nor have they allowed those who want to enter to do so.  As for you, be as sly as snakes and as simple as doves.”  Thomas 39:1-3, see also Matthew 10:16b, or even “Damn the Pharisees! They are like a dog sleeping in the cattle manger: the dog neither eats nor [lets] the cattle eat.”  Thomas 102.  Does not the true voice of Jesus ring out when he said:  “Everything they do, they do for show.  So they widen their phylacteries and enlarge their tassels.  They love the best couches at banquets and prominent seats in synagogues and respectful greetings in market places, and they like to be called ‘Rabbi’ by everyone.”  Matthew 23:5-7.  Having warned of the type to be suspicious of for instruction and interpretation of his words, Jesus sets forth the standard by which all shall be judged:  “And the standard you apply will be the standard applied to you.”  Matthew 7:2b. Luke 6:38c, from Q and “The standard you apply will be the standard applied to you, and then some.”  Mark 4:24.  Which of course leads to the Golden Rule:  “Consider this: Treat people in ways you want them to treat you” Matthew 7:12a; Luke 6:31.  This relates to Jesus’ sliver/timber saying:  “Why do you notice the sliver in your friend’s eye, but overlook the timber in your own?  How can you say to your friend, ‘Let me get the sliver out of your eye,’ when there is that timber in your own?  You phony, first take the timber out of your own eye and then you’ll see well enough to remove the sliver from your friend’s eye.”  Matthew 7:3-5.Luke 6:41-42; Thomas 26:1-2.
 

Jesus explains God’s nature towards humankind.  “Again, who among you would hand a son a stone when it’s bread he’s asking for?  Again, who would hand him a snake when it’s fish he’s asking for?  Of course no one would!  So if you, shiftless as you are, know how to give your children good gifts, isn’t it much more likely that your Father in the heavens will give good things to those who ask him?  Matthew 7:9-11; Luke 11:11-13.  This view of God’s love of humankind is reflected in many sayings of Jesus, including:  “What do sparrows cost?  A dime a dozen?  Yet not one of them is overlooked by God.  In fact, even the hairs of your head have all been counted.  Don’t be so timid:  You’re worth more than a flock of sparrows.”  Luke 12:6-7;  Matthew 10:29-31;Luke 21:18, see also Matthew 12:12:  “A person is worth considerably more than a sheep.”  Jesus is earnest when he relays the demands of God upon the peoples of this world.  They are not that onerous if you really think about it.  Jesus said:  “That’s why I tell you: don’t fret about life—what you’re going to eat—or about your body—what you’re going to wear.  Remember, there is more to living than food and clothing.  Think about the crows:  they don’t plant or harvest, they don’t have storerooms or barns.  Yet God feeds them.  You’re worth a lot more than the birds!  Can any of you add an hour to life  by fretting about it?”  Luke 12:22-25;  Matthew 6:25-34; Thomas 36.  Jesus assures us of God’s true love:  “If God dresses up the grass in the field, which is here today and tomorrow is tossed into an oven, it is surely more likely (God cares for) you, you who don’t take anything for granted.”  Luke 12 28.  Jesus does not want us to take anything for granted, and in doing so, God will certainly feel that we have acquitted ourselves well.  For God gives us our soul and as Jesus warns, what God gives, God can take away:  “There was a rich man whose fields produced a bumper crop.  “What do I do now?”  he asked himself, “since I don’t have any place to store my crops.  I know!” he said, “I’ll tear down my barns and build larger ones so I can store all my grain and my goods.  Then I’ll say to myself, ‘You have plenty put away for years to come.  Take it easy, eat, drink, enjoy yourself.’”  But God said to him, “You fool!  This very night you life will be demanded back from you.  All this stuff you’ve collected—whose will it be now?”  Luke 12:16-21; Thomas 63:1-3.  So at any time God may call us to forfeit our eternal soul?  Consider the mechanism of God demanding back your soul, something that is uniquely identifying to yourself, which is forfeit to our Father upon his request.  Note the soul belongs to God.  Also note the standard by which our Father will measure your reward.  The standard is by agreement and by reward with the lesson that God will reward each according to the Father’s needs, desires and wishes.  This is not to say the Father’s reward will be arbitrary, but it is to point out that the Father views each of us as a unique being and wants each of us to achieve our greatest soul.  The following saying of Jesus is, by all scholarly account, defined in red type as agreed by a majority of scholars to be the words of Jesus:

“For Heaven’s imperial rule is like the proprietor who went out the first thing in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard.  After agreeing with the workers for a silver coin a day he sent them into his vineyard.

And coming out around 9 a.m. he saw others loitering in the marketplace and he said to them, “You may go into the vineyard too, and I’ll pay you whatever is fair.”  So they went. 

Around noon he went out again and at 3 p.m., and repeated the process.  About 5 p.m., he went out and found others loitering about and said to them, “Why did you stand around here idle the whole day?”

They reply, “Because no one hired us.”

He tells them, “You go into the vineyard as well.”

“When evening came the owner of the vineyard tells his foreman:  “Call the workers and pay them their wages starting with those hired last and ending with those hired first.”

Those hired at 5 p.m. came up and received a silver coin each.  Those hired first approached thinking they would receive more.  But they also got a sliver coin apiece.  They took it and began to grumble against the proprietor:  “These guys hired last worked only an hour but you have made them equal to us who did most of the work during the heat of the day.”

In response he said to one of them, “Look pal, did I wrong you?  You did agree with me for a sliver coin, didn’t you?  Take your wage and get out!  I intend to treat the one hired last the same way I treat you.  Is there some law forbidding me to do with my money as I please?  Or is your eye filled with envy because I am generous?”

The last will be first and the first last.  Matthew 20:1-15, which is only found in Matthew being from Special Matthew as a source, which the other evangelists did not have access to or did not use if they did.  I think the passage is important on a variety of levels.  First, God will grant what you bargain with him for.  Likewise, it is not our place to question how God chooses to reward anyone else.  This theme is carried throughout Jesus’ sayings: ‘Treat others as you would want them to treat you, forgive others their debts and offenses, love your neighbor, judge not or that standard will be applied to you and the whole sliver/timber motif Jesus uses to basically say that we should only be concerned about our own selves, are own souls, not about the salvation of others.  Indeed where in anything Jesus said, gives us authority for determining what sin is or is not, what is allowed by God and is not?  I have not found it if there is.  While we are to keep the Commandments and treat others, as we would want to be treated, God’s standard of morality appears to be akin to doing what is right because to do otherwise is personally shameful to yourself, not because you have trampled over some well-defined rule of law that we find imposed on us by others.  That is why you must be very careful not to impose your views on others.  While I doubt God would find your passion for Christianity to be lacking, he may very well find your view of others to be wanting if you presuppose that you know what is best spiritually for them.  God does not impose one truth for all, but many truths and many paths to his imperial domain.  For instance, reincarnation is not incorporated in Christianity, but to say that it is wrong or misguided is not for you to say.  I personally think the archetype of reincarnation belongs to an explanation of the quantum world.  Perhaps is a mechanism, which allows us to live an infinite number of possible lives, perhaps it is a reward for doing well or a punishment for doing poorly.  To discount the archetype entirely is to miss a message given to humankind by God.

We look for trends over time and in the sayings of Jesus.  He describes the quantum universe and blatantly tells us that the laws of heaven are the same for this world.  God’s imperial rule is manifest both in heaven and on earth.  This unity of reality allows us to follow the rules in this world that will apply to all in the next.  There is no double standard.  God, through Jesus has instructed us on how to act.  If any of you need more instruction than this, then you perhaps miss the point of it all?  God specifies his morality to humankind.  Much of this moral instruction is found in the Beatitudes, but not all.  “Congratulations to those who go hungry, so the stomach of the one in want may be filled.”  Thomas 69:2.  “Love your enemies, do favors for those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for your abusers.”  Luke 6:27-28.  “When someone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other as well.  When someone takes away your coat, don’t prevent that person from taking your shirt along with it.  Give to everyone who begs from you”; Luke 6: 29-30.  But aside from these heroic appeals to humankind’s higher spirit, Jesus is pragmatic in his morality.  He does not make it exclusive to the realm of the sainthood, but brings it close to each person when he tells us that we should act a certain way because it is the right way to act.  “Suppose you have a friend who comes to you in the middle of the night and says to you, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves, for a friend of mine on a trip has just shown up and I have nothing to offer him.  And suppose you reply, ‘Stop bothering me.  The door is already locked and my children and I are in bed.  I can’t get up to give you anything’—I tell you, even though you won’t get up and give the friend anything out of friendship, yet you will get up and give the other whatever is needed because you’d be ashamed not to.”  Luke 11:5-8, there being no parallels in Mark, Q or Thomas, this story must have originated with Special Luke as an original source used by the author.  Once again, shame in this world is a powerful concept, a concept that will be of greater import in the next. 

We may see the nature of God the Father in what the Son of Man says about him.  He will honor any bargain we make with him, but we have no standing to judge the actions of another.  That process, that right, is reserved solely for God.  To those who choose to judge another, risks God applying the same standard you used against another as the standard by which he will judge your own actions.  Keep your words soft for you may one day have to eat them?  There is a reason for sayings such as this.  Therefore, we must honor our word to God as he will honor his word to us.  We are not to apply standards of judgment on others as that task is reserved solely onto God.  Jesus is adamant that God will place the last of this world first in the next and the first in this world last in the next?  Perhaps the reality is somewhere in between, but this concept is sprinkled throughout the sayings of Jesus and introduces yet another concept of God:  who gets in and who does not?  I am inclined to believe that we all pass over into the next world as a process by which our souls revert to the essential harmony of our composite strings.  As gravitons may move from brane to brane without hinder, so too do our souls travel from the “reality” of the Euclidean world, to the “reality” of quantum realms. 

Jesus said:  “Let the children come up to me, don’t try to stop them.  After all, God’s domain is peopled with such as these.  I swear to you, whoever doesn’t accept God’s imperial rule the way a child would, certainly won’t ever set foot in (his domain)!”  Mark 10:14b-15.  Jesus said:  “Let the children alone.  Don’t try to stop them from coming up to me.  After all, Heaven’s domain is for children such as these.”  Matthew 19:14.  “I swear to you, if you don’t do an about-face and become like children, you will never enter Heaven’s domain.”  Matthew 18:3.  “Let the children come up to me, and don’t try to stop them.  After all, God’s domain is peopled with such as these.  I swear to you, whoever doesn’t accept God’s imperial rule the way a child would, certainly won’t ever set foot in (his domain).”  Luke 18: 16-17.  “These nursing babies are like those who enter the (Father’s) domain.”  Thomas 22:2.  We should conclude that Jesus thinks that one must enter Heaven as innocent as a child?  That would seem to fly in the face of free will and a lifetime of choices.  Perhaps Jesus refers to the great mass of humanity who live and die in lands where eking a living from the soil only results in deprivation, disease and death, their lives in this world being nasty brutish and short.  It would follow that God views a life such as that, as a VIP pass to the front of the line.  So be it.  As the door is narrow, you may have to wait your turn, but enter you will if you but follow the rules.  Be forewarned, what Jesus said about entering God’s domain is no trifle.  When you consider God’s impact on Islam through his prophet, Mohammed, do we not see a unique religion which adopts the Judeo-Christian belief system as their own, being a people of the Book and does not Jesus’ admonition about entering God’s realm like a child ring true to Muslims for Islam means “to submit” to the will of Allah.  Is that not how a Father would expect his children to act, to submit to his will, a father to a child youth, submitting to wisdom?  Jesus said:  “And nobody pours young wine into old wineskins, otherwise the young wine will burst the wineskins, it will gush out, and the wineskins will be destroyed.  Instead, young wines must be put into new wineskins.  Besides, nobody wants young wine after drinking aged wine.”  Luke 5:37-39; Mark 9:2:22; Matthew 9:16-17; Thomas 47:3-4.

Be not concerned however that your wait at the door will be inordinately long.  Jesus admits that the Father favors those whose life might be considered miserable to us, but he also rewards the unique, the different, the original.  Jesus said:  “The (Father’s) imperial rule is like a shepherd who had a hundred sheep.  One of them, the largest, went astray.  He left the ninety-nine and looked for the one until he found it.  After he had toiled, he said to the sheep, ‘I love you more than the ninety-nine.”  Thomas 107:1-3.  “What do you think of this?  If someone has a hundred sheep and one of them wanders off, won’t that person leave the ninety-nine in the hills and go look for the one that wandered off?  And if he should find it, you can bet he’ll rejoice over it more than over the ninety-nine that didn’t wander off.”  Matthew 18:12-14.  “Is there any one of you who owns a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, who wouldn’t leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one that got lost until he finds it?  And when he finds it, he lifts it upon his shoulders, happy.  ‘Once he get home, he invites his friends and his neighbors over, and says to them, “Celebrate with me, because I have found my lost sheep.”  Luke 15:4-7.  Jesus does not limit the analysis to sheep, but uses similar stories to express his point:  “Or again, is there any woman with ten silver coins, who if she loses one, wouldn’t light a lamp and sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it?  When she finds it, she invites her friends and neighbor over and says, “Celebrate with me, because I have found the silver coin I had lost.”  Luke 15:8-9.  The Father prizes the individual.  Jesus tells us so.  However, it is more than that.  God looks for the special and unique in all of us to find suitable friends in the next world.  Do not imagine that the quantum world of Heaven is so simple as to reward the poor and wretched, who sing their praises to the Lord for eternity.  As Jesus tells us, God has counted every hair on our heads; he looks forward to our return to see what we have done with the talents he has given us.  Do not squander your talents or you may find your life demanded back of you.  Jesus also said:  “Salt is good (and salty).  But if salt loses its zing, how will it be renewed?  It’s no good for either earth or manure.  It just gets thrown away.”  Luke 14 34-35.  “But if salt loses its zing, how will it be made salty?  It then has no further use than to be thrown out and stomped on.”  Matthew 5:13 “Salt is good (and salty)—if salt becomes bland, with what will you renew it?”  Mark 9:50a.  Do not be surprised to find out that hell is not where evil souls reside, but perhaps they are just thrown away.  Out of context, the saying means little.  But I find it interesting that at least Matthew gives a clue to its context (if we may rely upon close placement of phrases to mean anything in particular), for in the same paragraph he quotes Jesus’ most profound saying about the uniqueness of the individual:  “Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a bushel basket but on a lampstand, where it sheds light for everyone in the house.”  Matthew 5:15.  “Since when is the lamp brought in to be put under the bushel basket or under the bed?  It’s put on the lampstand, isn’t it?  After all, there is nothing hidden except to be brought to light, nor anything secreted away that won’t be exposed.”  Mark 4:21-22.  “No one lights a lamp and covers it with a pot or puts it under a bed; rather, one puts it on a lampstand, so that those who come in can see the light.  After all, there is nothing hidden that won’t be brought to light, nor secreted away that won’t be made known and exposed.”  Luke 8:16-17 “No one lights a lamp and then puts it in a cellar or under a bushel basket, but rather on a lampstand so that those who come in can see the light.”  Luke 11:33.  “After all, no one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket, nor does one put it in a hidden place.  Rather, one puts it on a lampstand so that all who come and go will see its light.”  Thomas 33:2-3.  I don’t think Jesus is talking about himself, or his message.  I think Jesus is talking about us.  I think he wants to see how we shine.  Think about it.  In the vast expanse of human history, how many souls have lived their lives?  The vast majority of them enter Heaven as children, innocent, poor, alone.  The suffering their lives granted them special dispensation by the Father as he favors those that suffered so.  To those the Father gives great wealth and prestige, Jesus said:  “I swear to you, it is very difficult for the rich to enter into Heaven’s domain.  And again I tell you, its easier for a camel to squeeze through a needle’s eye than for a wealthy person to get into God’s domain.”  Matthew 19:23-24.  “How difficult it is for those who have money to enter God’s domain!”  Mark 10:23b; Luke 18:24-25.  Ok so the poor get a pass to the front of the line and the rich may not even get in.  What about the rest of us?  God watches for each of us to join him in his domain.  This world is our infancy into the quantum world.  The lessons of Euclidian space are lessons well learned for they shall guide us through eternity.  God looks for the treasures that wash upon the shores of the quantum world from the souls of those who have passed from this world.  He searches for those that truly love him.  Yes, there will be a hierarchy in the next world, set by God himself and those he chooses as his personal friends.  Jesus said:  “The Father’s imperial rule is like a merchant who had a supply of merchandise and then found a pearl.  That merchant was prudent; he sold the merchandise and bought the single pearl for himself.”  Thomas 76:1-2.  “Again, Heaven’s imperial rule is like some trader looking for beautiful pearls.  When that merchant finds one priceless pearl, he sells everything he owns and buys it.”  Matthew 13:45-46.  This image of selling everything to buy the pearl is found only in Thomas and Special Matthew.  This would indicate that from whatever source this saying originated, it was not available to Luke or Mark and likely did not come from Q.  This affirms that there may have been few written sources and many oral sources for the sayings of Jesus.  The shadowy world of oral tradition, guided the faithful for about 20 years after Jesus died.  I think Judas Thomas wrote the first sayings gospel, followed by other apostles who may have written the sayings they remembered.  Few writings survive from the oral tradition period.  However a cross analysis of source sayings indicates that the three synoptics and Thomas reveal the existence of Q, Thomas, Mark, Special Matthew and Special Luke.  There perhaps were more, but perhaps that was all.  Only as those evangelists began to write what they had heard about their Lord some 40 years after his death, was oral tradition written.  That is why you really cannot take the New Testament as a whole and preach your religion from it.  Few of the thoughts in the New Testament are those of Jesus; Paul, Peter, James, Jude, perhaps, but not Jesus.  You must limit the discussion about what Christianity is to the 91 sayings of Jesus.  Gospel may be nothing else.

Luke memorializes an eschatological discourse from Q in Luke 17:22-37:  “There’ll come a time when you will yearn to see one of the days of the son of Adam, and you won’t see it.  And they’ll be telling you, ‘Look, there it is!’ or ‘Look, here it is!’  Don’t rush off; don’t pursue it.  For just as lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one end to the other, that’s what the son of Adam will be like in his day.”  Luke 17:22-24.  This is an interesting statement.  It rated only grey amongst the scholars, but its intriguing none the less.  This is not the only passage in the synoptics that refer to yearning for the actual days of Jesus.  Such sentiment is sprinkled throughout the synoptics indicating that Jesus likely discussed his vision of his place in time with his apostles.  See also Luke 10-23-24:  “How privileged are the eyes that see what your see!  I tell you, many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see, and didn’t see it, and to hear what you hear, and didn’t see it.”  “  Fortunate are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear.  I swear to you, many prophets and righteous ones have longed to see what you see and didn’t see it, and hear what you hear and didn’t hear it.”  Matthew 13:16-17.  C.f., Thomas 38:1.  He compares himself to a bolt of lighting?  Quick, brilliant, hotter than the surface of the sun, a bolt of lighting is over in the flash of an eye.  Indeed, different men can hear different messages from the same words.  Matthew states the saying slightly differently: “For just as lightning comes out of the east and is visible all the way to the west, that’s what the coming of the son of Adam will be like.  For wherever there is a corpse, that’s where the vultures will gather.”  Matthew 24:27-28, with the parallel vulture comment in Luke,  “The vultures will collect wherever there is a carcass.”  Luke 17:37.  Luke is the only source so its likely from Special Luke.  Luke also writes that Jesus said: “I was watching Satan fall like lightning from heaven.”  (Luke 10:18b).  Perhaps its how angels travel?  Why does the allusion to lightening link both Satan and the Son of Man?  Its an odd comparison, but we must accept that Jesus said both, another passage worthy of further thought and study.  Compare two other strands of thought, the Fire on Earth passages and Leave the Dead passages.  In Luke 12:49 Jesus says, albeit in gray:  “I came to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already ablaze.”  Which is quite different from Thomas 10:  “I have cast fire upon the world, and look, I’m guarding it until it blazes.”  Which the fellows of the Jesus Seminar awarded a pink color to, meaning over 50% of the fellows believed this to have been something Jesus actually said.

The passages of Jesus referring to Leave the Dead consist of Matthew 8:22:  “Follow me, and leave it to the dead to bury their own dead.”  Compare this to Luke 9:59, “Follow me,” and Luke 9:60:  “Leave it to the dead to bury their own dead; but you, go out an announce God’s imperial rule.”  I do not profess to fully understand what Jesus meant by these sayings but, I do ponder them often.  Jesus compares his life, his moments on this earth to lightening, which strikes at the speed of light.  Is this a comment by Jesus on how we should perceive time?  Are we to measure time in such length and duration to represent the life of a single man as the strike of lightening?  Truly, we are in for a lengthy universe.  The citations about leaving the dead to the dead and following Jesus or even the earlier mentioned vultures gathering around corpses?  What could he have meant?  At first read, I thought of what follows the death of Jesus, specifically, the death of James in 62 c.e. and the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 c.e.  At both Gamala and Masada, as reported by Josephus (son of Matthias/Matthew as he dedicates his volume to?), the Jewish committed suicide rather than become slaves of Rome.  Was Jesus foreshadowing what was coming?  It deserves debate.  However, what I want you to understand is the free flow of words used by the evangelists to re-tell the live and times of Jesus.  The Gospels are perhaps the inspired word of God, but make no mistake, the fact they are filtered through the writings of men, even spiritually inspired men, allows corruption of meaning.  Oh to have had a digital recorder to allow Jesus to speak his wisdom directly to me!  Oh how I wish I did not have to rely upon the oral history of others.  Jesus knew future generations would desire to be alive during his time when he said:  “There’ll come a time when you will yearn to see one of the days of the son of Adam, and you won’t see it.”  Luke 17:22.  Therefore, be wary of the leader who advocates the literal meaning of each Biblical reference.  Contradiction and dissent fill the Gospels.  The battle between James, the brother of Jesus and Paul for the leadership of the Jerusalem Assembly, or even for the future of the Christian faith, exists within the unambiguous context of the orthodox Bible through both the Gospel of James and Paul’s letters to the Galatians.  Oh preacher of literal meaning how do you rationalize that?  Do not tell me your faith justifies your bitterness and hate!  No, you chose the narrow door and you will wait; the kingdom of God is not for those like you.  You shall wait and wait and wait until the Son of Adam takes time to judge you using the same standard you have judged others. 

My Jesus said nothing about abortion or gay sex.  He neither condemns nor judges others.  He comes to tell us of how we should treat our fellow humans and of God’s imperial rule.  He is generous to the poor, helps the sick and eats with sinners (which likely aghast his family causing much of the commentary by Jesus about honoring Mosaic Law).  He tells us that if we ask God for understanding he will give it; if we ask God to reveal what is hidden, veiled or a secret, he will.  How many of us live our lives fearing that when we die, we are going to hell?  The way I read Jesus’ view of God’s imperial rule and God’s domain is that its here, its now, its with us, both inside and outside.  That would lead one to believe that the laws which govern the physical world, must certainly also govern the spiritual world.  Therefore, the Euclidean world gives way to the Quantum world at the moment of our death.  This realm is truly the dimension of God’s imperial domain.  While I believe that we may predict the structure of the other seven dimensions of God’s imperial rule, I cannot know what I will perceive as reality in the next life.  One thing I am sure of is that this life is our childhood, our training ground, the imprinting of a personality on our soul.  I think the soul is a piece of God.  Judgment in the next world is a comment on how you lived your life.  Some will be ashamed of their lives and perhaps be shunned, as wretched to live in the fires of Hell, to be ostracized in God’s kingdom.  What I perceive from the sayings of Jesus that we can read in this life, is that the next life will be about community and how we treat and treated our fellow humans.  Its about personal respect and identity and indeed, currying God’s favor.  Jesus tells us that God rewards us with wealth in Heaven when we give to others here on earth.  God has counted each hair on our heads.  He has written each of our names in his doomsday book.  Avoid sin, but what is sin?  Jesus speaks only of following the Commandments and treating others justly.  His moral code seems to be set entirely within those boundaries.  We are to love God with all our hearts all our mind and all our soul.  Mark 12:28-34; Matthew 22:34-40; Luke 10:25-29.  Beyond that, Jesus does not comment.  Jesus said:  “(God) causes the sun to rise on both the bad and the good, and sends rain on both the just and the unjust.  Tell me, if you love those who love you, why should you be commended for that?  Even the toll collectors do as much don’t they?”  Matthew 5:45b-46.  Compared to Luke 6:32:  “If you love those who love you, what merit is there in that?  After all, even sinners love those who love them.”  Think of the ramifications of that saying.  God treats both the just and unjust the same in this world.  However, the Father rewards those who are just, those who forgive, those who help the poor and those who turn the other cheek.  This is the moral code of Heaven.  This is the moral code on earth.  Beyond this is foreign ground.  This is where Jesus drew the line, so this is where I shall draw the line as well.  Listening to Jesus and acting in a moral way to others expedites entrance through the narrow door to God’s domain.  This conduct above all other will guarantee you a place in Heaven, for this is conduct the Father rewards. 

I focus only on the sayings of Jesus because I believe that to stray from the sayings that a majority of scholars think to be the actual thoughts if not words of Jesus, is to invite error.  To pronounce moral judgment on others, to advocate what is a sin and what is not a sin, is done at one’s peril.  Jesus says:  “When you are about to appear with your opponent before the magistrate, do your best to settle with him on the way, or else he might drag you up before the judge, and the judge turn you over to the jailer, and the jailer throw you in prison.  I tell you, you’ll never get out of there until you’ve paid every last red cent.”  Luke 12:58-59.  Then compare Luke to Matthew 5:25-26, both from Q.  Now consider from Q the red-letter passage from Matthew 5:39-42:  “Don’t react violently against the one who is evil: (c.f., Columbine, Virginia Tech?)  when someone slaps you on the right cheek, turn the other as well.  When someone wants to sue you for your shirt, let that person have your coat along with it.  Further, when anyone conscripts you for one mile, go an extra mile.  Give to the one who begs from you; and don’t turn away the one who tried to borrow from you.”

The purpose of religion is not to limit the road to God’s domain, but to expand it and invite many to stay in the many rooms of our Father’s house.  A Christian is wrong to say that failure to believe in Jesus Christ results in damnation and eternal penance in Hell.  You must study all religions to  sense the message that God is revealing to humankind.  Science tells us that we are hard-wired to relate to religion and spirituality.  The MVAT2 gene proves this.  The fact that God speaks to other peoples in different languages is nothing but the reflection of the facets of God.  God is a jewel and all each of our religions may do is illuminate but one facet of that gem.  What you believe is truth is but a representation of a partial truth.  What you believe is your “Gospel” is much less, than you read at church each Sunday.  There are many truths.  What you believe and how you worship God is largely a matter of esthetics.  Now you can argue that this book or that book, this passage or that passage should be included in the New Testament, or not.  You may accept or not accept that Mary was not ever-virgin or that Jesus had brothers and sisters, you may even reject the idea that Judas Thomas was both the doubting Thomas of synoptic fame and the Judas Iscariot that turned Jesus over to the Temple guards.  Jesus said:  “You will exceed all of them.  For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me,” Gospel of Judas [red lettering being the author’s addition].  You may not accept that the Pauline church rewrote history and tried to delete, if not obscure the role that the family of Jesus played in nurturing the early church long enough for it to attract Paul and turn it into an Hellenistic philosophy for a gentile audience.  You may even believe that the Dead Sea Scrolls do not represent the literature of the Jerusalem Assembly preserved through time and space by a caring God and mercifully arid dessert.  None of what you believe specifically is important to your salvation.  What is important is how we listen to the sayings that Jesus, Mohammed, Brahma, Buddha, and others have provided us and how we love God. 

I must acknowledge that I am all too cognizant that both John Paul II and now, Benedict XVI firmly believe in the concept of absolute good and absolute evil.  I think they miss the point.  The issue is not absolute good or absolute evil but our personal understanding of the difference between each.  It the measure of free will.  At the moment of conception a living soul, a piece of God, gives life to a biological creature.  Life is the process by which a personality imprints a soul.  How we relate to choices between good and evil measures the mettle of our free will.  This is what was lost through original sin.  Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge, which showed them the difference between good and evil.  Before that, they were in a state of Grace, as innocent as children.  That is why Jesus told us that one must be like a child to enter the kingdom of God.  We should enter God’s domain free from the knowledge of Good and Evil.  We must surrender our knowledge and return to the innocence of a child, not knowing between absolute good or absolute evil.  God will surely judge us according to the standards that he has set, but by my reading of those standards, I think God has set the bar fairly low.  After reading the words of Jesus, I would say that for the most part God does not want us to be saints, he merely wants us to be nice to one another. 

The morality of God focuses on the weak and the poor.  We should loan our neighbor loaves of bread, even if inconvenient, because we should be ashamed not to.  (Luke 11:5-8).  We should not hoard wealth but give it freely to others lending without return (Thomas 95:1-2; Matthew 5:42b; Luke 6:34; Luke 6:35c).  We should seek to know ourselves and to be better people.  We should feel remorse for the sins we do commit, and grace for the sins we do not commit.  In the end, we must enter the quantum state with the innocence of a child, with our personalities firmly attached.  God tells us he is looking for that one pearl, that he can sell all to acquire.  (Thomas 76:1-2; Matthew 13:45-46).  God seeks companions, God seeks lovers, God seeks friends.  That is what was a pleasant surprise to him.  That we should have developed after fifteen billion years of planning and waiting, without knowing what was growing out there to be pleased when it bears fruit, to give a barren tree another season, a second chance to bear fruit, (Luke 13:6-9) allow the weeds to grow with the wheat and to call for a sickle to cut the wheat.  “God’s imperial rule is like this:  Suppose someone sows seed on the ground, and sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and matures, although the sower is unaware of it.  The earth produces fruit on its own, first a shoot, then a head, then mature grain on the head.  But when the grain ripens, all of a sudden (that farmer) sends for the sickle, because it’s harvest time.”  Mark 4:26-29, see also Thomas 21:9.  Jesus says:  “The Father’s imperial rule is like a person who had [good] seed.  His enemy came during the night and sowed weeds among the good seed.  The person did not let the workers pull up the weeds, but said to them, “No, otherwise you might go to pull up the weeds and pull up the wheat along with them.  For on the day of the harvest the weeds will be conspicuous, and will be pulled up and burned.”  (Thomas 57:1-4; Matthew 13:24-30 and compare these images and sayings with the following group:  Mark 4:26-29; Thomas 21:9)  I scarcely think a God with such patience will end all his patient plans in an apocalyptic explosion.  God uses explosions to create life, not to end it. 

I do not make light of the nature of sin.  To God it must surely be abhorrent.  However, I feel that God is not as harsh and judgmental as you yourselves are.  Jesus warns us not to judge others (Luke 6:38c; Matthew 7:2b; Mark 4:24) and gives us much to consider of God’s standards of morality.  What message to you read from the story of the clever servant?  His master accuses him of embezzling and tells him he is to be put out, but the servant knows nothing else than running his masters books.  Therefore, the servant called his master’s debtors and asked them each what they owed his master.  One who owed bushels of grain; he cut his debt in half and signed the invoice proving it.  To another and another, he granted leniency to his master’s debtors.  When the master found out about the cleverness of the servant in preparing for his future, he rewarded him.  What message is Jesus telling us about God?  The above story also illustrates how Jesus’ stories were told during the oral period and the specific words of Jesus not captured but the meaning of the message remains.  The first story is my paraphrase of a passage I had read before but did not memorize.  This is how Luke tells the story and mind you the scholars of the Jesus Seminar marked this in red: 

“There was this rich man whose manager had been accused of squandering his master’s property.  He called him in and said, “What’s this I hear about you?  Let’s have an audit of your management, because your job is being terminated.” 

Then the manager said to himself, “What am I going to do?  My master is firing me.  I’m not strong enough to dig ditches and I’m ashamed to beg.  I’ve got it!  I know what I’ll do so doors will open for me when I’m removed from management.” 

So he called in each of his master’s debtors.  He said to the first, “How much do you owe my master?” 

He said, “Five hundred gallons of olive oil.” 

And he said to him, “Here is your invoice; sit down right now and make it two hundred and fifty.” 

Then he said to another, “And how much do you owe?” 

He said “A thousand bushels s of wheat.” 

He says to him, “Here is your invoice; make it eight hundred.” 

The master praised the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly.”  (Luke 16:1-8a) 

Now let us consider this passage.  Is Jesus telling us that God respects a dishonest manager?  Is Jesus commending bad behavior?  I think not, but the story does have the poignant sound of Jesus’ natural voice, which often twists a story in its ending.  Jesus is telling us that God respects and appreciates the clever one.  I don’t think Jesus intended that this story be interpreted as an excuse for cheating God out of his due.  I do not believe this story focuses on God’s morality at all.  What I do think the story represents is God’s attitude towards clever, innovative and shrewd people everywhere.  While I have no canonical proof of it, I truly believe that God does not seek saintly worshipers singing his praises in a heavenly realm eternally humming the glory of God.  While I do think that this is an aspect of the Heavenly realm of God, hence the reason strings have harmony, for it is the essence of individual identity, one’s personal harmonic vibration, I also believe that God is looking for companions and friends, interesting people it you will, that are nice and kind to others.  Is that so hard to be in this world?  If that was the true essence of our earthly existence, to be nice to one another, how many of you feel that you will pass through that narrow door?  If God is truly searching for that one lost lamb, that one lost coin, that one special pearl of a person to delight him, to talk to him, to love him, to be his companion in eternity?  Would you not want interesting people around you to interact?  Think about it.  Jesus tells us that the poor and disenfranchised will be first in his imperial rule, while the rich will have a tough time even getting in.  Clearly the morality of God extends to giving people who had a poor, miserable life, one that Thomas Hobbes would call “nasty, brutish and short,” an edge in the next, as a reward for the little happiness they endured in this Euclidean Universe. 

The Gospels are rife with examples of Jesus warning the rich, the powerful, the religious, to be wary of their conduct here, for it will put them to the back of the line in God’s imperial domain.  They will have to wait at the narrow door.  St. Peter is less the grandfatherly gentleman sitting at his desk crossing names off his list as we enter the pearly gates, than God’s bouncer, standing at the narrow door in the back alley to let us all into God’s nightclub we call Heaven.  Good clothing, a nice wristwatch, plenty of bling-bling and the coolest looking cats, will be standing on the poor widow and her orphaned children as they trot pass in a position of honor and dignity.  If you have ever wanted to thumb your nose at that schoolyard bully that made your life in the seventh grade miserable, passing through the narrow door will be your chance to do so.  Be sure to waive as you go by, for it may be quite some time before their kind gets through.  Remember Jesus is saying things to his contemporaries that he hopes they will remember and passed on to future ages, but he is also speaking to us.  He is speaking to me in the twenty-first century, telling me that he anticipated the need to talk in pastoral terms to his contemporaries, but also in ambiguous terms that would have meaning for a modern culture, one that little notes the pastoral and only knows what a lamb looks like tied and cooked and served with an apple jelly.

Consider Jesus’ story about the shrewd manager and compare it to Jesus’ story about the man who had a bumper crop and put his wealth up, ensuring his prosperous future, that very night he dropped dead?  Jesus said:  “There was a rich person who had a great deal of money.  He said, “I shall invest my money so that I may sow, reap, plant and fill my storehouses with produce, that I may lack nothing,”  These were the things he was thinking in his heart, but that very night he died.”  (Thomas 63:1-3).  Alternatively, Luke’s version:   “There was a rich man whose fields produced a bumper crop.  “What do I do now?”  he asked himself, “since I don’t have any place to store my crops.  I know!” he said, “I’ll tear down my barns and build larger ones so I can store all my grain and my goods.  Then I’ll say to myself, ‘You have plenty put away for years to come.  Take it easy, eat, drink, enjoy yourself.’”  But God said to him, “You fool!  This very night your life will be demanded back from you.  All this stuff you’ve collected—whose will it be now?”  (Luke 12:16-21).  What message is Jesus providing us about the nature of God that he should reward the clever cheat and punish the careful planner?  My father always told me to plan my work and work my plan.  Was that good or bad advice, given Jesus’ statements?  How is the careful planner sinned in any way?  You tell me?  I see nothing he did or thought to be wrong, except that he was rich?  But what does Jesus mean?  And what is up with the shrewd manager?  Its ok for us to cheat our employers if we think we are to be fired?  That’s why most employers have security guards escort fired employees out of the office.  So now we should be promoting the shrewd thief and the careful, but rich, planner is damned?  I ponder these two often because I am trying to understand the meaning that Jesus attributes to God’s moral instruction.  The trouble I have most with the passage regarding the careful, but rich, planner is that Jesus does not portray him as evil, simply rich.  Does that mean God does not think I should contribute to my 401k?  Or is he telling us that financial disparity is such a great sin that God thinks one a fool should one focus solely on accumulation of wealth.  Nevertheless, is that not what the essential basis of Capitalism is?  The concentration and therefore the accumulation of wealth allows one to have capital to invest.  In investing one earns reward for choosing in the right investment as that enterprise makes money and distributes that money to its owners.  The United States is built on Capitalism.  Does anyone see the dichotomy in our nation portraying itself as a Christian nation at the same time advocating her way of life, Capitalism, throughout the world; Especially the conservative Arab/Muslim world?  Do you think that may seem incongruous to other people?  America and all of Western civilization is dwarfed by the populations of China and India, Muslims account for one fifth of the world’s population.  Even if you consider all Christian nations to be about a third of the world’s population, you are still outnumbered by two thirds of the rest of the world.  How can Americans expect others to accept our way of life?  Should we be so sure that our way of life is best?  What does Jesus say about it?  The working middle-class of American is by no means rich, but compared to the peasants of China or India, we sit like pashas on our thrones.  Might we be so deluded into thinking that it does not matter that we consume the vast majority of the planets resources to support what I think Jesus to believe a way of life that is abhorrent to God?  Can you suppose that Muslims might be hostile to our way of life when we listen so poorly to our own God?  Do you think they listen any less closely to Allah?  I think not.  I think the West might be wise to examine the sliver in its eye before America tries to take the log out of her Muslim neighbors.  Someone needs to say it.  If this war is a cultural war, then are we so very sure we should win it? 

I think God is more concerned how we treat our neighbors, than he is about our failures.  He cuts the poor and weak a lot more slack than the wealthy and well to do and whether you believe it or not, or like it or not, the vast majority of those poor and helpless fall within the precincts of China, India Africa and the Muslim nations.  So you say, who cares they are all damned for not believing in Jesus anyway?  Well you can take that sentiment to the bank.  Remember, Jesus said:  “No servant can be a slave to two masters.  No doubt that slave will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and disdain the other.  You can’t be enslaved to both God and a bank account.”  (Luke 16:13; Matthew 6:24; Thomas 47:1-2).  Really who do you think you are fooling standing on your moral high ground claiming salvation because of your feeble belief?  Don‘t rely too much on Paul for your salvation.  While Jesus may have called Paul, he was still the brother of James and if James cautioned you really should listen to what he is saying: 

“No one, when tempted, should say, "I am being tempted by God"; for God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself tempts no one.  But one is tempted by one's own desire, being lured and enticed by it; then, when that desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and that sin, when it is fully grown, gives birth to death.  Do not be deceived, my beloved.  Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.  In fulfillment of his own purpose he gave us birth by the word of truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures.  You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God's righteousness.  Therefore rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness, and welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls.  But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves.  For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like.  But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act--they will be blessed in their doing.  If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless.  Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”  James 1:13-27.  If you think Jesus was so different from his brother James, you do so at your eternal peril.  Jesus said:  “Become passerby.”  Thomas 42.  While you may believe that your very faith will ensure your entrance into God’s imperial domain, you would be mistaken grievously.  Jesus tells you who will enter.  It is those very poor souls which you disdain for not believing in Jesus that will pass you to the front of the line.  Look at the focus of what Jesus is telling us, and James for that matter.  We should work to earn heavenly treasure, not treasure in this world.  If we listen and build heavenly treasure, by helping widows and orphans and staying out of trouble, Jesus said:  “In fact, to those who have, more will be given, and from those who don’t have, even what they do have will be taken away.”  (Mark 4:25; Thomas 41:1-2; Matthew 13:12, Luke 8:18; Matthew 25:29; Luke 19:26).  Jesus tells us to “be unstinting your generosity in the way your heavenly Father’s generosity is unstinting.”  Matthew 5:48.  Luke has a chain of sayings, which reveal Jesus’ thought of giving:  “When someone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other as well, When someone takes away your coat, don’t prevent that person from taking your shirt along with it.”  Luke 6:29 or Luke 6:30:  “Give to everyone who begs from you; and when someone takes your things, don’t ask for them back.”  Luke 6:31:  “Treat people the way you want then to treat you.”  Luke 6:32-33:  “If you love those who love you, what merit is there in that?  After all, even sinners love those who love them.  And if you do good to those who do good to you, what merit is there in that?  After all, even sinners do as much.”  Finally Luke 6:34-36 sums up the same thought albeit slightly differently:  “If you lend to those from whom you hope to gain, what merit is there in that?  Even sinners lend to sinners, in order to get as much in return.  But love you enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you’ll be children of the Most High.  As you know, he is generous to the ungrateful and the wicked.  Be compassionate in the way your Father is compassionate.”  These sayings just don’t seem that ambiguous to me.  I think Jesus’ words come through clear enough for two thousand years of chatter.  

Jesus warns us to know ourselves well before we attain entrance to God’s domain.  After all, Jesus tells us God does not care for factious people, (Luke 11:44:  “Damn you!  You are like unmarked graves which people walk on without realizing it.”) brass, showy scoundrels who pray to God because it’s expected (Luke 18:9-14a) or give alms as a token gesture, then prey on widows.  “Everything they do, they do for show.  So they widen their phylacteries and enlarge their tassels.  They love the best couches at banquets and prominent seats in synagogues and respectful greetings in market places, and they like to be called ‘Rabbi’ by everyone.”  Matthew 23:5-7; Luke 11:43; Mark 12:38-39; Luke 20:45-46.  Jesus warns us not to put on airs. 

So do not be surprise if God tests you sorely however.  God tortured Job to test his love.  We pray every Sunday to our God, not to lead us into temptation.  Lot’s wife turned to salt.  Moses never set foot in the Promised Land.  Why do you think Noah had to build the ark in the first place?  Are these signs that of a loving God?  Are these signs of a caring God?  Are these signs of a nurturing God?  Absolutely!  They are also signs of process.  They are evidence of God’s presence over time.  That evidence demonstrates that God is not in stasis.  He never has been at least not since he took his first breath.  A God in process is not an imperfect God.  A God that changes is not evidence of weakness.  Nuns taught me that God is omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient, all-powerful, all present and all knowing.  To be such is to be in stasis.  I do not disagree with the eternal presence of God but God in this Universe as predicted by the Second Law of Theodynamics, allows us in our time to witness the process by which God passes through this world.  In that process, we see change towards the better of humanity.  I cannot conceive of the God that sent Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, and Brahmin to this world would ever destroy it in a pique of anger.  The God that Jesus reveals to me would not torture Job, at least not now; not after he was crucified on a Roman cross.  The salvation that Jesus brings to humanity is the human understanding Jesus brings to the Father.  That is why Thomas tells us that God’s imperial rule is like a woman who carries a jar, not knowing that the grain falls out of it; (Thomas 97:1-4) that is why Jesus tells us that the creation of the Universe is like a pleasant surprise to the Father, the sower, whose seed sprouts life without his knowing it. (Mark 4:26-29, see also Thomas 21:9), or the woman who puts leaven in the bread to make it rise, Luke 13:20-21, Matt 13:33; Thom 96:1-2).  Its a simple, humble act, making bread for dinner, adding leaven to the dough to make it rise.  Stephen Hawking tells us that the singularity that started the Big Bang, could not have been a strong singularity, because the laws of physics break down.  Hawking theorizes that a weak singularity created the Big Bang, introduced quietly at a simple point in time, creating the beginning of all creation.  How like the simple act of making bread.  God creates the Universe much like a farmer would sow a seed to grow crops, but Jesus tells us that the Father does not know what he has produced until it sprouts new life and matures, then he calls for a sickle and harvests his plants.  That is why God creates the Universe at the end of time.  The first time round God is along for the ride.  He really does not know where its all leading, but when its all over, as predicted by the Second Law of Theodynamics, and the Tzimtzum of the Kabalists, God hidden from his creation, God outside this Universe, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, in that moment, after he knows where its all destined to go, he creates the Universe by inserting leaven into the dough of space. 

“Why do you wash the outside of the cup?  Don’t you understand that the one who made the inside is also the one who made the outside?”  Thomas 89:1-2, see also Matthew 23:25-26:  “You scholars and Pharisees, you impostors!  Damn you!  You wash the outside of cups and plates, but inside they are full of greed and dissipation.  You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and then the outside will be clean too.” and Luke 11:39-41 with a meaning closer to the verse of Thomas:  “You Pharisees clean the outside of cups and dishes, but inside you are full of greed and evil.  You fools!  Did not the one who made the outside also make the inside?”  I ask you then how God views good and evil?  We know what the pope thinks, but what does Jesus tell us about God’s perspective?  If we accept the above chain of passages and posit the cup contains the duality of good and evil, Jesus tells us that God made both.  He did so as a measure of our love, as a measure of our free will and as a measure of our souls. 

The undifferentiated soul has no identity.  This life seals a personality to our souls.  This is the personality you will greet your Father with when you go quantum.  That unique vibration of life, a sliver of life known as a string, will forever contain the personality of the man that lived my life.  I bring this gift to my Father.  I pray he finds pleasure in my friendship and in the friendship of all my family and friends.  When we go quantum, according to the Third Law of Theodynamics, all possibilities are probable.  Jesus tells us that God will reward us, give us riches in Heaven if we but live honorably in this life, and help the poor and disenfranchised.  Oh how I yearn to submit to God’s will in this world, so that I may enter God’s paradise in the next.  What you must understand is that all religions are right.  It is not the differences in religion that we should focus on, but the similarities.  Jesus tells us of his Father’s love and generosity of spirit, if we but only submit to his will.  Mohammed tells us of Allah’s love and generosity of spirit, if we but only submit to his will.  I see the face of Jesus more in the pleas to end poverty and starvation in Africa, than I see in the neighborhoods of Baghdad.  Our faiths are not inapposite to one another, but integrated expressions for worship of God.  Accept that reality, and end sectarian differences.  We all go quantum when we die. 

Perhaps it’s a coincidence, but the concept of eleven seems to permeate Quantum Theodynamics.  Eleven dimensions to the physical world, eleven Sefirot, and eleven parables from Jesus that discuss God’s imperial rule as a present time and not as a future event.  If not coincidence then certainly Synchronicity, since the number eleven repeats amidst the archetypes of Quantum Theodynamics.  There is the Good Samaritan, vineyard laborers, the shrewd manager, the Prodigal Son, the perfect pearl, the hidden treasure, the leaven in bread, the unforgiving servant, the mustard seed, corrupt judge and the dinner party.  Now we should compare these stories to the Sefirot to see if there is any pattern that may be discerned.

Sefirot                                              Parables

The Sefirot of Keter is the infinite the seed or potential of all, perhaps Jesus’ story of the Mustard Seed correlates to this Sefirot and a parallel dimension of Godspace.  Vineyard Laborers give us understanding of God’s concept of fairness even perhaps divine judgment?  Good Samaritan for wisdom, for it is wiser to help a neighbor in distress than to let him suffer.  Gevurah or Severity represents the aspect of God’s imperial rule, which relates to intent of purpose and free will.  It represents our decisions both good and bad, like selling the property without knowing where the treasure is hidden, our decisions to let go of something of unknown value.  Dat is Judgment and the story of the unforgiving slave is well understood to represent God’s sense of judgment, which should be coupled with his sense of fairness as well, represented by the story of the vineyard laborers.  God’s fairness and judgment reflected in the stories of the vineyard laborers and unforgiving slave together show us God’s judgment and understanding.  What you may think is divine justice, may not be what you would consider fair.  Is it fair for the Master to pay one set of workers who worked the whole day, the same amount of pay as another set of workers who worked only a quarter day?  If we do not forgive others as God forgives us, why would we expect God to forgive us?  Is it fair that we be forgiven, if we cannot forgive our neighbors?  Do not assume that God’s justice will satiate your needs, only those of the Father.

After Judgment comes Mercy and the story of the prodigal son, our Father rejoicing in our return to his table, to his home, to his protection and love.  Tiferet is Adornment or rather, Beauty, which tells us that our Father’s imperial rule is like finding a perfect pearl in a lot of goods and selling all the goods just to purchase the pearl.  It follows that our Father’s imperial rule will respect beauty and he will honor perfection as an esthetic, truly, those who show their love of the Father will be honored in the next, for the beauty, that was their life on earth.  God appreciates the favored son.  Do not doubt for a second that God values Mohammed any less than his own son, for the Father loves all equally.  That is why his justice may not be to your liking.  Be careful what you bargain for with God, for he shall hold you to your word.  Be careful of what you hold others to, for he shall hold you to your own standard.  The equanimity of God ensures each of us a level of salvation, for each of us is made of the same matter, a gift of the Father, however what personality we present to God when we go quantum, is our gift to God.  I do not know if Hell exists as a place.  I know that Heaven exists, for that is where God lives, albeit omnipresent as previously discussed.  I believe we all go quantum, we all cross over into those additional 7 dimensions, however whether some of us are blocked at the narrow door, would imply that one must wait one’s turn according to the priority of the Father, who will make the first last and the last first.  I can see a practical use for a Heavenly prison, where those souls who cannot be redeemed, are held, contained, to keep them away from the community of eternal life.  Dante popularized Hell as an inferno, Jesus never really commented on it at all.  You decide for yourself, but I will trust as much in what Jesus did not say, as in what he said.  Frankly, I am not sure we should read too much into any sacred word.  At best its poetry and praise for the Father, which must be viewed as a good thing, however when people choose to hate and kill over those words, then that path veers from the path to the narrow door of our Father’s house.  

Hod is next, which is God’s Majesty.  Submission is implied and so it is from this Sefirot that Islam springs.  Submission is what the Father wants from us, but have you ever considered what that means?  Jesus does not refer to God as Master, but as Father.  If we are to submit to the will of our Father, what relationship is implied?  Parent to child, must be understood here, as this concept is central to Jesus’ ideation of God’s imperial rule.  Jesus told us that we must be as a child to enter our Father’s imperial domain.  I truly believe the attribute of childhood that God most wants to see in us is innocence.  Original sin started at the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  Humankind had to sin in order to exercise free will.  If free will is never exercised, then humankind can never achieve the integration of a human personality with an eternal soul.  The passage of our eternal soul, a part of God the Father, from the quantum world into the Euclidean world is begun at conception, born of woman, even for God’s only begotten son, and physically passes into this Universe for the brief time we walk this earth to become the humans we spend our lives becoming, to pass from this world back to the quantum world, where we shall live in eternity with our Father in Heaven.  Simple, is it not?  Much like the process of nature with our souls like water, evaporating from the oceans, carried on the clouds by cold fronts smashing into warm fronts, the rain falling to the earth, soaking through the soul, picking up a personality and evaporating back into the clouds.  Those that get it right the first time round, stay in the clouds, those who screw it up are rained back into the soil, repeatedly, perhaps for eternity, until they get it right.  It’s possible, after all Jesus said:  “Become passerby.”  Thomas 42. 

I have always struggled with Jesus’ intent in telling the story of the corrupt judge.  Luke 18:2-5:  “Once there was a judge in this town who neither feared God nor cared about people.  In that same town was a widow who kept coming to him and demanding:  “Give me a ruling against the person I’m suing.”  For a while he refused; but eventually he said to himself, “I’m not afraid of God and I don’t care about people, but this widow keeps pestering me.  So I am going to give her a favorable ruling or else she will keep coming back until she wears me down.”  This sounds to me like the squeaky wheel that gets the grease, which must be a related archetype or connected through Synchronicity, or perhaps its just a very ancient saying.  But why would Jesus tell this story?  The focus is clearly the judge in my mind, but Luke makes the focus the woman whose demand for justice is likened to praying to get what you want.  So then, is Luke telling us that God is arbitrary and capricious in his judgments?  Or did Luke simply not understand a word of what Jesus was trying to say in many of these parables?  I think the latter is likely more plausible.  Luke’s wording around the parable and in the passages before indicate that this parable is a reference to God’s imperial rule (see Luke 17:20-21).  Luke goes on at 17:22, to discus Jesus’ eschatological sayings recorded from Q.  Matthew does not choose to cite that saying from Q and Mark elects a different eschatological saying from Q altogether, (Mark 13:1-37, Luke 21:5-36); however, the Lucian quote is puzzling.  Jesus tells us the judge cares not for people, so he does not seek community, and the judge does not fear God and we know this is done at one’s peril.  It seems wholly implausible that the focus would be the woman who represents the need to pray to the Father, because the second parallel to Luke’s “pleas equal prayer” is that the corrupt judge who decides her case out of fear of public censure, would then represent the Father and I don’t think that is the meaning of the parable cited by Luke.  Why would the Father care what the public thought of him, but moreover, why would he decide someone’s fate just to be free from “being pestered?”  This is the power and riddle of the sayings of Jesus.  Again I recommend that you junk everything written in the New Testament, but for the 91 sayings of Jesus.  Those sayings represent Jesus’ intent.  If you can come to terms with your understanding of Jesus’ intent, then everything else falls into place. 

I suppose the parable could be an analogy between divine justice and human justice with the corrupt judge representing human judgment and the widow representing humanity?  After all Luke records that the judge does not fear God which is an attribute of human judgment, but also records that he does not care for people.  By analogy, at least to modern thinking, the judiciary does care about public opinion because if the vast majority of the public in any culture thought the criminal justice system of humans was corrupt, few will be long contented, such is the source of revolutions.  So perhaps the focus is not on the judge?  The judge does not seem to correlate to God’s justice and does not really seem to fit with human judgment, so what again is the purpose of the story?  I do not mean to be rhetorical, the matter is open to debate.  There is no right or wrong answer, the test is in the thought process by which we come to an understanding in our own minds as to what Jesus meant by his sayings.  It is only through working with the material, that a person comes to understand the trends of God, which help in the interpretation of Jesus’ sayings.

Before we move on from this subject, we should go over the seemingly perplexing habit of Jesus in twisting the end of a story from conventional norms.  Jesus really goes against the grain in so many ways.  If Jesus tells Paul not to kick against the goad, but accept his call, what is Jesus telling me?  In my own mind I have come to an understanding, right or wrong, of the good Samaritan, the prodigal son, the perfect pearl, the leaven in bread, the mustard seed and the dinner party, but I have yet to fully understand what Jesus means by the telling of the vineyard laborers, the shrewd manager, the hidden treasure, the unforgiving servant and corrupt judge.  The story of the corrupt judge ends with the judge giving the widow a ruling so she does not harass him, the shrewd manager ends with the master rewarding the corrupt servant for thinking ahead about his future work options.  The hidden treasure deals with both the owner’s son who sells the land, not knowing what is there and the purchaser who buys a windfall, and starts to lend at interest.  This is the Thomas version of the story (Thomas 109:1-3), but the version is Matthew, which is only in Matthew and verified by Thomas is different in emphasis.  Matthew makes the story of the hidden treasure like the story of the perfect pearl and indeed places them next to each other in his book.  The story of the hidden treasure and perfect pearl are unique to Matthew and Thomas, not Matthew and Luke as is the norm where the source is Q.  Matthew and Thomas’s report of the story would indicate that either Matthew got the story from Special M, which was not available to Luke or Mark, or from the Gospel of Thomas.  Since the variations are so different, I am inclined to believe the story comes from Special M and not from Thomas or even Q and overlooked by Luke. 

Matthew’s, story of the hidden treasure and the perfect pearl is simpler than Thomas and I would likely have voted it red over Thomas’ pink designation, but I was unfortunately not invited to the Seminar.  Such is the way with history.  The hidden treasure (c.f., God’s imperial rule) in Matthew is found by someone and that treasure hunter (hence Jesus’ admonitions to ask, seek knock etc., etc.,) then goes out and sells “every last possession” (c.f., Mark 10:17-22; Matthew 19:16-22; Luke 18:18-23 or even the similar sayings of Jesus as to the difficulty of the rich getting into heaven, Mark 10:24;Matthew 19:23; Luke 18:24) to acquire God’s imperial rule.  It would seem to fit with the standard model of Jesus’ sayings and emphasis.  In the simplest of terms, Jesus tells us that God’s imperial rule is here and now, there and then, the rule of the Father extends to Heaven and the Universe all governed by the same law of the physical world.  There is no difference between the concept of Heaven and the Universe, since they are an integrated whole, without boundary.  When you look for it, you will find it and if you want to get there you should sacrifice all you have to achieve it. 

Yesod or Foundation is the next Sefirot and correlates to the story of the vineyard laborers.  Here we see the Foundation of the Godhead, the Sefirot that connects to the Kingdom or Malkut, which forms the base of the Tree of Life.  Jesus’ story of the vineyard laborers explains the Father’s thinking about our relationship to him and his relationship to us.  It truly is the foundation of understanding God.  When the vintner hires the morning laborers a price is agreed.  At the end of the day when our reward for our life’s work is paid by the Father, but how much pay he gives to someone else or how many hours of labor he will pay them for work is up to him, not us.  The vintner’s response is the Father’s response as Jesus said:  “Look, pal, did I wrong you?  You did agree with me for a silver coin, didn’t you?  Take your wage and get out!  I intend to treat the one hired last the same way as I treat you.  Is there some law forbidding me to do with my money as I please?  Or is your eye filled with envy because I am generous?”  Matthew 20:13-15.  This story, which Jesus tells, lets us know the character of the Father better than any other story, which he tells.  The Father would view your censure of his judgment as envy, should you disagree with his judgment of any other soul.  I would take literally Jesus admonition that the Father will hold you to the same standard you hold others.  Expect that the Father will treat those whose life was nasty, poor, brutish and short, far greater than those whose life was pleasant, abundant, esthetic and long.  Jesus is clear in his meaning when he tells us the story of the vineyard laborers.  You should be clear in your understanding.  If you do not agree with my interpretation fine, but come to an understanding of Jesus’ meaning you should, whatever your interpretation.

The final Sefirot Malkut, the Kingdom relates to the story of the dinner party.  One version (Matthew 22:1-14) portrays the dinner party as a wedding party, however the Scholars of the Jesus Seminar voted that passage grey as modified by early Christian church allegory to the Father’s wedding party for his son, Jesus, who no one comes to when invited, so the Father sends for the poor and wretched to come to his table.  The scholars voted Luke 14:16-24 and Thomas 64:1-12 are voted pink, their versions closer to what Jesus actually said.  Without the early church overtones, the Lucian and Thomas versions of a dinner party, diminish not the message that the Father is truly inviting us to his table.  It is up to us to go to the party.  That is our free will.  That is the essence of the Kingdom of God.  We enter our Father’s imperial rule day by day, choice by choice, until we no longer have such choices to make.  Think about it, we live and then we die, however religion holds the hope that our death is our real birth into eternal life.  What I shall miss most from this world is the concept of decay or is it really renewal?  Its a process none the less which one would think does not exist in an eternal dimension.  When Adam made the choice to learn good from evil, he was caste into a physical world, which involves process such as decay.  The process of this world and this universe are but models for a biological existence in a four dimensional Euclidean space-time.  That process is but a part of a greater whole, which includes the realms of other dimensions, which could be referred to as Heaven.  I am less convinced that there is a Hell, than that the process of aging and dying is nothing more than a soul’s childhood.  Think of it.  Everything we know about “God” is characterized by a) a male personality; b) a Father figure; c)unity if not exclusivity (c.f., the Christian concept of trinity to the Muslim concept of Allah, which both include the basic notion of oneness in the Godhead) and d) submission to his will.  This would be true for all of the peoples of the Book, Jews, Christians and Muslims.  The religions and philosophies of the East are valid expressions of religious belief; however, I tend to think those peoples see the expression of God’s philosophy (and how Zen must the Father be) rather than a worship of his being, which is not to imply that they are wrong in any way.  I think they focus on a different aspect of the Godhead than the people of the Book do.  This would hold true for the Hindu faith as well.  While I believe in the single unity of God, I cannot help but think that from another people’s perspective of the Godhead, which they have experienced, they would express their view of God in a multitude of manifestations, which both allude to the complexity of the Godhead and the process of eternal renewal.  Whether that renewal take the form of reincarnation or not is irrelevant, since what we are meant to believe is not any specific truth as to the accuracy of the peoples description of God, but faith in the worship of the Godhead, from whatever perspective we see him.  Remember religion is a model for the study of God.  If you want absolutes, wait till God answers all of your questions on your day of atonement, for while you may desire God’s judgment on you, if we all pass onto the next set of dimensions in the greater scheme of Godstime and Godspace, then what you perceive to be judgment, may merely be a sharing with our Father of the experiences we compiles and the choices we made in this world.  While I doubt that God is living vicariously through his creation, if indeed we were a pleasant surprise for him, then I readily understand why we see God through his interaction with his creation as a process, which even God is going through. 

That is not to say that God is changing, he is not, only our perception of God changes.  From our perspective, it appears as if God is interacting and indeed modifying his conduct based on the development of his creation.  From the Book of Job where our loving Father is willing to allow Satan (the name is Hebrew for ‘to accuse’, thus explaining Satan’s role in God’s plan) to test us severely, to the life and death of Jesus and Mohammed, to the visions of Mary, we see the interaction of God with man and perceive a change in God’s relationship to his creation.  All we see however is God’s patience is waiting for his tree to bear fruit.  Humanity is perhaps 1 to 2 million years old with modern man arriving on the scene approximately one hundred thousand years ago.  We know this from forensic archaeology, which found that modern man lost most of his body hair and developed the habit of clothing themselves, approximately the same time the humble lice bug mutated from head lice (really tiny lice) to larger lice that hides itself in clothing instead of hair.  The bug changed because we changed, and that was about one hundred thousand years ago.  Perhaps five thousand to seven thousand with an outside date of perhaps ten thousand years ago, God communicated with one man, of one tribe of humans.  Abraham, the father of all peoples of the Book mind you, began modern man’s belief in the Godhead by hearing the voice of God and listening to his word.  Abraham submitted to the will of the Father, just like Jesus submitted to the Father’s will that he should endure the Passion and die on the cross as Mohammed listened to the divine verses of Allah and created a religion of submission to God.  People, you are arguing over nothing in your religious differences.  Do you think that any creator that was willing to wait 15 billion years for the universe to unfold, to emerge into Euclidean space-time (and how many billions of years or their equivalent in Godstime and Godspace did he wait for the design and planning of his creation to finally see the fruits of his labor) would engineer a situation where only one religion is right and everyone else be damned?  I think not.  The VMAT2 gene demonstrates that our brains are wired to respond to religion and spirituality.  Modern studies of brain activity, especially in the charismatic religions that practice demonstrative religion, such as those who speak in tongues, show that are brain lights up during contemplative prayer as readily as demonstrative belief.  We are hard wired to react to religion, not any specific version of faith.  If that were the case, would not the Father have created a situation where our brains only reacted to the true faith and not the untruths that lead to damnation?  Would not a Tibetan Buddhist monk’s brain react only to Christianity if that were true?  Nevertheless, we know through science that it does not, in fact brain MRI’s show conclusively, that Franciscan nuns in contemplative prayer trigger the same brain activity as Tibetan monks in contemplative prayer.  If there were absolute truths and absolute falsehoods in religion, would not the brain activities of each group react differently?  It is because all religions serve the same purpose to humans, to bring us to an understanding of God and hopefully teach enough morality to at least give our neighbor a loaf of bread when he asks, if not for friendship then because we would be ashamed not to (c.f., Luke 11:5-8).  Humankind must give up the misconception that their religion, their culture is the only religion or culture that matters and that their people are the only people that will be saved.  God never wanted you to believe that and he never will.  You have missed the point to all of it.  That is perhaps why he is such a forgiving God.  So many poor, humble, people exist.  They know neither education nor books, they have only heard the religion taught to them by their ancestors and they believe in God.  That is why the poor will inherit the earth.  That is why the poor will be first.  In their impoverished, brutal lives all they have is hope in a better existence and God rewards that faith, not because they were Buddhists or Brahmins, Christians or Muslims, Asians of any type or kind, God rewards the meek and humble, the poor and oppressed with the one thing that they most hope for in this life and that is an eternal live overflowing with any opportunity or life they wish to lead.  Remember the science of it all.  In the quantum world, all possibilities are probable.  This is the key to God’s imperial rule, all possibilities are probabilities in God’s domain. 

Abraham listened to God anytime from 10,000 b.c.e., to about 7,000 b.c.e., (I am well aware others may differ in the specific dates, but don’t get bogged down in too much detail, the issue is the identification of the process of God and not as an academic exercise) Moses listened to the burning bush around 5,000 b.c.e., to 2500 b.c.e., and recorded that God referred to himself as “I am that I am” which is all that YHWH means anyway, it is the Tetragrammaton, the first letter of each word in the Hebrew translation of the phrase I am that I am, yod he vav he), the book of Job was written somewhere between 650 b.c.e., and 470 b.c.e., six hundred years later God seeds Mary and allows his son to be born and six hundred years after that, Mohammed emerges to lead his people and his faith across an empire that makes Alexander’s seem small.  We may see the process of God in time through his interrelation with humankind.  In that process, we may glean our understanding of the Father, male in identity, unified in identity and uniform in his desire that we submit to his rules and accept his plan for the universe.  If you understand that, then you understand the essential nature of God.  What those rules are?  Simple as both Jesus and his brother James tells us, do no wrong and be kind to those who are less fortunate than yourself.  Much beyond that, I really do not think God cares what we do.  If anything the admonition of Jesus not to be anxious about such things would seem to be good advice.  You do not have to hate your life to enter into God’s domain, you must merely follow his rules as lenient and as simple as they may be.  We identify the process of life and death but do we really understand why we go through this life to get to the next?  I make no representation of knowing the answer, but my feeling is that this world is but a process for imprinting feelings and emotions, our personality, on a soul, tabula rasa.  In the final analysis, is not reality that which we can touch and feel and reason to be in front of us?  If we pass into a quantum realm where God allows all probabilities to be possible, then will not eternity be as real for us as our lives appear to be now?  From the moment we are born, our lives are inexorably set on a course of growth and decay.  A flower is beautiful for the moment that it is in bloom, if its nature is not to decay then what of its beauty?  Only change challenges humans, without change, humans do not grow.  Good and evil are the measures of free will.  God judges us on those free choices that we make.  I think however, you should not worry about anyone but yourself, when you wonder about your place in the next life.  In this world, God wants us to care for our neighbors, but in the next we should worry about ourselves alone.  In the next world our sins will shame us, our comity will guide us, but we shall all reach that place where our Father lives.  Think of this world as our childhood for the next and our Father wants us to listen and learn the lessons of this life, freely chosen by our individual will.  We present our lives to God at the beginning of the next and hope that we please him.  When you approach your creator, be he on a heavenly throne or not, remember to present your life to him with the same pride and eagerness that your child exhibits when he or she brings home their latest drawing from art class that will likely find its way to the icebox door.  If you are proud of it, I am sure God will put it on his heavenly icebox, regardless of whether or not its the greatest work of art, like your parents, he will be proud to display that which you have done for him of your own free will.  Its not the art, its the work you put into it to make him happy.  Focus on that when you see your Father and you will please him greatly.  What comes thereafter is for God to know.  This time around however, I think God is taking it one day at a time.